I LOVE the Open Culture website. The curators round up the most amazing and interesting news, articles and videos on all kinds of freely available educational and cultural information on the web, from math to art to language learning. If you have brain cells that are even the slightest bit curious, check it out. I guarantee there will be something that grabs your interest.
Check out Atlas doing a back flip in the video embedded at the bottom of this post!
But the video from this Open Culture post, of Atlas the Robot executing some gymnastic moves, made my jaw drop. I mean, robots are cool and all, but they're not quite like people, right? This robot looks so human in its motions (down to the shaky legs), it's kind of scary. Like there really might be a sentient being in there somewhere. If you watch any of the videos that follow this one on YouTube, it just gets more and more mind-blowing. I love technology, but refuse to have Internet in my car. You know, in case HAL 9000 or WOPR takes over and wants to drive my Forester somewhere I don't want to go.
All this made me investigate robots, androids and artificial intelligence in our fiction collection. If you're intrigued, check out any of these novels for a look into the possibilities of electronic intelligences in the not-too-distant future.
Robopocalypseby Daniel H. Wilson (ebook also available) -- An oral history of the robot war. The novel has many different kinds of robots and cyborgs (including a highly sentient Japanese android), plus, of course, Archos, a massively powerful Artificial Intelligence gone rogue. There's a just-as-good sequel, Robogenesis.
The amazing and prolific writer Isaac Asimov invented the word "robotics," and Three Laws of Robotics. The Laws were introduced in a short story, "Runaround," included in two different Asimov story collections, The Complete Robot and I, Robot. The Will Smith movie I, Robot, includes elements from both the short stories and from The Caves of Steel, the first of Asimov's three futuristic mystery novels featuring NYC detective Elijah Baley and his robot/android partner R. Daneel Olivaw.
How about Blade Runner's written origins, Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Set in a not-too-distant 2021 (the year my daughter graduates from college), humanishly-intelligent androids are are SO good it's hard to tell them from the biological people. Is there a meaningful difference? What does it mean to be human?
John Scalzi's Lock In is a very different riff on intelligent robotic humanoids. In the aftermath of a world-wide viral epidemic, 1% of recovered victims are awake and aware, but completely unable to move or respond to anything, a condition known as "lock in." Neuro-implants allow "Hadens" (as they're called), trapped in their biological bodies, to interact in society by linking their minds with robotic bodies called Threeps (after C-3PO from Star Wars). Fully human in thought and emotion, a Haden in a Threep still isn't quite human (they can't taste food, or fall asleep), but isn't quite android either. In a recurring comic theme, main character Chris the FBI agent destroys Threeps the way Starsky & Hutch crashed cars -- and always gets a new one for the next outing.
And finally, if you're more of a fantasy than a sci-fi reader, try Marissa Meyers' fairy tale Space Opera series, The Lunar Chronicles. The title character of the first entry, Cinder, is the opposite of a Haden in a Threep -- yep, she's a Cyborg (but a good one). Instead of a human mind in a robotic body, the robotic parts have been incorporated into Cinder's remaining human body. Miraculously saved from a deadly fire as a toddler, 36.28% of Cinder's body (including a leg, a hand, and much of her neural network) is cybernetic. She has a control panel, visual and audio scanners, and access to a data network. The 63.72% human part of Cinder, however, loves one of her stepsisters, dislikes the other one as well as her unloving, cruel and greedy stepmother, and falls for Prince Kai, who stops into her electronics repair stall in the market one day to get his personal assistant robot fixed. That's the fairy tale part. Add a programmer trapped in an orbiting satellite; an evil, beautiful ruler from the moon, Queen Levana, who's scheming to become an Earthen Empress; and impending war between Earth and the Lunars, and you've got your Space Opera. Each Lunar Chronicle entry riffs on a different European fairy tale, placed in an East Asian or Medieval French-inspired setting. See if you can guess which one is which! Scarlet, Cress, Fairest, and Winter.
As I was finishing up this list, I saw this Time Special Edition on my grocery store newsstand. Wow.
If your reader is younger, the elementary library has some wonderful chapter books and graphic novels for the grade school reader. Look for:
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (wonderful for all ages) - when Roz the robot is shipwrecked, she must learn survival skills from the wild animals on the remote island Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot series by Dav Pilkey - a small mouse and his giant flying robot save the world on a regular basis The Robobots by Matt Novak (a picture book) - it takes a while for the neighbors to get used to the new robotic family on Littlewood Lane Little Robot by Ben Hatke (graphic novel) - when a little brown-skinned girl discovers a robot that looks like a trash can, she finds a friend worth protecting.
In a talk at Google headquarters, author John Scalzi explained his latest best-seller with this grounding concept -- that what interests him about technology isn't "how awesome the technology is is," but "what happens when the awesome wears out." As when unimaginably amazing technological advances (a tiny powerful computer in your pants pocket) become so integrated into daily life that we become annoyed when it's not working right (no reception on your smartphone -- crisis!!!).
Last Friday, the high school Book Club met to discuss John Scalzi's most recent best-seller, Lock In. Surprisingly, even though it's a mystery thriller, none of the discussion points were even remote spoilers -- the plot wasn't the most interesting aspect of the story.
We talked about what happens when the awesome wears off, and about what happens when a former minority or "protected class" of people becomes (or appear to becomes) fully integrated and accepted members of society? Should supports be continued to level the playing field, or has the playing field been permanently leveled? What happens when those folks (like the people who were born Hadens and have never known any other kind of existence) choose a completely different field (in the Agora, a virtual universe for Hadens)?
We watched a couple of Scalzi's responses in the Q&A time of his talk at Google. If you've read Lock In, did YOU notice that the main character, Chris Schayne, is nowhere in the book identified by gender? Christopher or Christina? I confess, I didn't notice it at all -- and revealed my dominant paradigm by making Chris male. As the author asks in his response -- how does thinking of Chris as the other gender change your interpretation of the story? Does it change how you see the relationships between characters? The power dynamics? Chris' unfortunate habit of destroying rental threeps? If you ONLY interact with people in a form other than the one you were born in, does gender even have any significance? Given the recent discussions in the junior high and high school of gender identity, expression and fluidity, these are relevant contemporary questions and ones I hadn't anticipated coming from a best-selling sci fi mystery.
The video should start playing at the end of the previous question. If the embed link doesn't work, click here to view on YouTube.
Another question the author answers is about writing, and whether he'd adapted his style knowing the book would be produced simultaneously in print and as an audiobook (two audiobooks, in fact -- one with a male narrator, and one with a female narrator!) Check out his answer at minute 37:00 in the video.
Want more sci fi? Try one of these from the Paideia Library . . .
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. Another sci-fi detective novel featuring humanoid robots. In this one, a technology-averse human cop investigates a murder, which may or may not have been committed by a robot (against all 3 Laws of Robotics). The film I, Robot is an adaptation of this story, blended with other Asimov robot stories.
Circuit of Heaven by Dennis Danvers. His parents have abandoned their bodies (and their son, Nemo) and uploaded their minds to the Bin, a deathless, disease-free cyber-utopia, leaving a dangerous and unpredictable Earth to the crazies and criminals. Nemo vows to live and die in a real body in the real world -- until he meets Justine, a new citizen of the Bin.
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu. Roen Tan, a couch potato IT worker, becomes emergency host body to an alien secret agent working to save humanity. Tao, the alien, has to whip Roen into super secret agent shape before it's too late.
Redshirts, another bestseller by John Scalzi. What happens when the guys in the red shirts (you know, the ones in Star Trek
standing next to Kirk, Spock, Scotty or Bones, who always get eaten,
blown up or otherwise obliterated in some dumbhead move?) start to
compare notes and figure out there's a pattern to their comrades'
demise?
A quick news blurb came into my newsreader yesterday, saying that Ernest Cline's 1980s video-game-saturated dystopian thriller, Ready Player One, has vaulted up Amazon.com's sales rankings in the past 3 days, thanks to a lengthy mention in a Technology article from Tuesday's New York Times. The article is about high-tech virtual reality developers, such as Oculus, maker of a VR headset, using science fiction as inspiration to imagine future uses for their creations.
It just so happens that Paideia's High School book club was way ahead of Oculus -- Ready Player One was our very first club choice, back in March 2013, and is still one of our favorite reads (and a 2012 Alex Award winner). An 11th grade student asked me this week for a cumulative list of all the book club choices, which made me realize 1) I've not posted about book club in far too long, and 2) it's quite a cool list.
Today is great timing for coming full-circle with science fiction, since our upcoming book club selection for March is another virtual reality-based sci fi novel, Lock In, a 2015 Alex Award book by John Scalzi. In about 30 years from now, a deathly epidemic caused by a previously unknown virus has wiped out huge populations worldwide. Many people fully recovered, but many thousands were left
"locked in," their bodies 100% paralyzed but their minds fully aware and functioning. Technology rapidly developed to free "Hadens" (named after the President, whose wife was locked in) from their frozen bodies by allowing their minds to link to and control artificial bodies (ie, humanoid robots).
Last week I had this post all ready to go except for the book cover images, when technology let me down. I accidentally deleted all the HTML, and Blogger helpfully auto-saved the blank page for me. POOF! Permanently vanished! I wanted to cry.
This week the 2015 Alex Awards list was announced, so it's good to be able to say that I finished my personal challenge to read all ten titles on the 2014 list! And a happy report it is, as all ten are winners. Different genres, different styles, but not a dog in the pack.
2014 Alex Awards (given by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of ALA)
~ The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.
Links go to a book's entry in the Paideia Library online catalog.
Lexicon: A Novel
by Max Barry. A thriller and a puzzle about the mysteries of the human mind and power of language, and the dangers of absolute control. Oh, and also about preventing the apocalyptic destruction of the entire human race by a single murderous Word.
Help for the Haunted by John Searles. This novel is as much a study of a dysfunctional family as it is a mystery about who and what killed Sylvie's professional ghost-hunting parents one stormy night.
The Lives of Taoby Wesley Chu. A fun space alien spy romp, with historical input. Tao is thousands of years old, but on Earth his kind can only survive when hosted by a human body. Past hosts have been history makers both good and bad, but his most recent host, an unachieving IT worker named Roen Tan, is one of convenience, not choice. And given that Tao needs to change Roen from a couch-potato to super secret agent in just weeks (the war between pro- and anti- human alien factions is at a crucial stage), it's no wonder he's impatient, snarky and fond of the olden days of competent hosts..
Brewster by Mark Slouka. This is a deeply moving novel about growing up, being a guy and wanting to be loved by parents who can't. I posted a review here on the blog back in May.
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell. Two sisters in hard-luck Glasgow struggle to keep the appearance of normality following the sudden death of their father, and suicide of their grieving mother. With the bodies inexpertly buried in the back yard and each sister secretly convinced the other is guilty of offing their dad, the only caring adult who takes notice is the grieving gay widower next door, who just happens to have a conviction for solicitation of a minor. This gritty novel is about how birthfamily can let you down, how trying to go it alone can be a mistake, and about how real family can be formed from unexpected ingredients.
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin. The opening of this novel includes a graphic assault, and left me thinking about putting the book down for good. I kept on reading, though, and accept that the violence at the beginning is crucial to understanding Max and his torment. 16-year-old Max is practically perfect -- a good student, a loving and beloved son, a great big brother, handsome, athletic. He likes all the regular guy things, including girls. The big family secret is 'in his pants' -- Max has working boy parts and working girl parts too. Betrayal by a long-time friend forces him to the very edge emotionally, and only then does he find the support, true friendship and acceptance he needs to keep on living. This thoughtful and sensitive novel ended up being one of my favorites on the 2014 Alex list.
Mother, Mother
by Koren Zailckas. This was so much better than I'd anticipated (I was kind of afraid to read it after the dark reviews), and one of my top choices for the year. Review from March is in this blog post.
Relish by Lucy Knisley. A winning graphic novel memoir with recipes. I wrote about it here back in April.
The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay. Another favorite from the 2014 list. Nastya has lost her identity, after a violent attack that left her with broken fingers, a broken body and a shattered future as a concert pianist. With a new name, new school, and a new self (goth, sexy, uncaring, brash) she lives only for revenge. Josh has lost his family -- everyone he's ever loved has died, and now he's an emancipated high school senior, taking care of himself and never letting himself care about anyone. This is a romantic, weepy and very emotional novel about learning to rejoin and embrace life when it seems there's nothing left to live for.
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence. The book blurb didn't sound so great to me (teenager nabbed at British customs with an urn of cremains and a bag of pot), but you should read this book anyway! It's a wonderful portrait of the unlikely friendship between an awkward, epileptic British boy with a flaky mom and a non-existent dad, and a misogynistic, cranky American Vietnam-vet widower, and of Alex's growth from strange kid to capable young man, brave enough to face both death and life head on.
The high school Book Club is reading The Universe vs. Alex Woods for April. I hope you will read one or many of the 2014 Alex Books -- if you do, please let me know what you think of it!
The 2015 Alex Awards list is published on the ALA website. No promises from me yet -- a couple I know are going to be great, but the rest, well . . . I'll let you know later.
Lack of review posts notwithstanding, I really have been keeping
up with my personal challenge to read all ten of the 2014 Alex Award books. Today
I'm going to tell you about the one I finished a couple of weeks ago.
Brewster, a
Vietnam-era coming-of-age story by Mark Slouka, is a sad novel.It starts out sad, is filled with sad,
and ends sort of hopefully sad.The sadness isn't anything that Jon Mosher, a lonely runner and child of
Holocaust survivors, or Raymond Cappicciano, an angry bad boy with a violent,
dismissive father, can do anything about.It comes from their parents, and the parents don't, or can't, care.
Jon had a favored older brother, Aaron, who was killed in a freak
accident when he was 5 and Jon was 4, an accident of Aaron's own doing .He found a discarded lamp on the
street, brought it inside and plugged it in, and was electrocuted.Mrs. Mosher's life broke that day,and she blames Jon.His father is a kind man, but withdrawn
in the family. Nothing Jon does -- as an excellent student or a top
long-distance runner -- can win his parents' attention or approval.
Ray's father was a cop, but was let go from the force for
reasons not quite clear.He's had
two wives leave -- Ray's mother years ago, and little Gene's mom recently.Gene is still in diapers, and is Ray's only
reason for caring.Ray is a
self-made bad boy, with long coat and long hair, always ready to fight.Sometimes he misses school for days,
recovering from some pit fight or other in another town.Mr. Cappicciano never has a good word
for his elder son, always badmouthing or criticizing him, while he praises
Jon's successes and says he's the son he wishes he had.Jon kind of likes the attention, since
he gets none from his own parents.It blinds him to the truth.
Jon and Ray are best friends, opposites attracting.A girl comes into the picture, Karen,
whom Jon likes but who immediately goes for Ray.She's good for him, and together the three dream of leaving
Brewster for some bigger, better place.
Things don't work out they way they hope, and the sadness is
that it's not because of anything the teenagers choose to do. The odds are
stacked against them because adults who should love and care, are too wrapped
up in their own pain, loss and anger to make the world a safe place for their
children.
Does this sound like a potential lit book?Oh yeah, and I'd recommend it.The writing is lovely, the issues and
characters are real, and the conflict is relatable, but not too close (I hope,
but really, one never knows).
Have you read Brewster?What do you think?Comments welcome!
Pun pun pun -- the Alex Award book I just finished is Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, a memoir of growing up 'foodie' by cartoonist Lucy Knisley. It's another in the tradition of 'memoir with recipes' (think Under the Tuscan Sun or Tender at the Bone), written in cartoons instead of prose, and this is the perfect style for her story.
The narrative tells Knisley's entire life to date (she's about 30 now) in thematic vignettes, like the trip to Mexico at age 12, with best buddy & their moms, who promptly came down with the flu. While moms spent 4 days sick in the hotel, Lucy and Drew roamed the streets of San Miguel de Allende, discovering the best tamale carts and candy stands in town, as well as Mexican porn mags (for Drew -- no age limits for buying!) and how to handle a first period in a foreign language (for Lucy -- how embarrassing). And all the time they thought their parents had no idea! The recipe at the end of this chapter is, naturally, Heuvos Rancheros.
There's a chapter about her parents splitting up and moving with her mother to rural New York, where mom became a renowned chef and food writer. The divorce seems to have been amicable, but Knisley makes very clear how different her two lives were, between her mom's rural handcrafted slow-food world and her dad's Manhattan fast-paced restaurant-appreciation world. There's a move to Chicago for art school, and a whole new city and food scene to explore; a backpacking summer in Europe (and apricot croissants to die for!); and a recounting of friend Mark's disastrous Lemonade Chicken (takeaway lessons: avoid random recipes from the Internet, and even bad food is better with good company). Through it all, Knisley relishes both her childhood and the food that surrounded it, and (as a refreshing note to the previous Alex Award report) she adores her mother. The title comes from a passage in Ray Bradbury's autobiographical novel of idyllic childhood, Dandelion Wine, which itself sprang from a short story first published in Gourmet magazine.
Relish is definitely recommended, and I'm going to recommend it for Bonnie & Uri's junior high class. I think it might fit in nicely with Uri's "Food Studies" program. It's fitting in nicely already with our graphic novel collection.
~ ~ ~ Awards Reading Update
I've read and enjoyed Lexicon Help for the Haunted The Lives of Tao Mother, Mother Midwinterblood (Printz Award) Relish The Death of Bees
Not yet read Golden Boy The Sea of Tranquility Brewster The Universe vs. Alex Woods
I'm actually at 5 for 11 in my "personal challenge" to read the ten 2014 Alex Award winners and the 2014 Printz Award winner. I've read Lexicon, Help for the Haunted, The Lives of Tao, Mother, Mother, and Midwinterblood. Today I'm going to tell you about the most recent two -- one compelling, one interesting, and it just so happens that both are kind of creepy.
Mother, Mother was a book I really didn't want to read. The description -- a "terrifying and page-turning story of a mother’s love gone too far" -- plus author Koren Zailckas' earlier memoir (Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood), and comparisons to the horror/suspense of Shirley Jackson and Daphne DuMarier made me shy away. I plan to finish out a long life without ever seeing Mommy Dearest, thank you very much.
So it was with some anxiety that I picked it up one Sunday night, needing something to read and pushing myself past stand-by favorites. Turns out, anxiety was warranted, but not the way I'd feared. Mother, Mother is gripping and compelling, and I stayed up way too late that night and the next immersed in and captivated by the Hurst family's disintegration.
The Hursts are an seemingly average family of five. Mom Josephine is strict and runs a tight ship, while Dad seems to be fading from the picture. Being absolutely perfect in every way hasn't precluded college-aged Rose from running away with a mysterious boyfriend - and she's been very good at hiding her trail. Without Rose, the mortar holding the rest of the family together starts to crumble. The novel is told in the alternating viewpoints of middle child Violet, who's now trying to be as imperfect as possible, and the youngest, awkward 12-year-old Will, recently diagnosed with Asperger's (his mother shopped a lot of doctors for the desired opinion). After a drug-induced violent episode, Violet is in the psych ward and the target of her mother's frustrations, and Will falls more and more under his mother's sway, as ally and lackey. Dad ignores all while focused on saving himself.
The suspense and horror in the book are in the actions, not the telling of the actions. I found it surprising and interesting that, for a story with such huge emotional episodes, the tone for both narrators is rather dispassionate and observational, as though they were reporting what they saw but not how it felt. There is no physical abuse, really, so the reader begins to understand the emotional abuse only through its repetition. With the gradual discovery of tricks and lies, and a grim enjoyment of cruelty, we realize there is no saving this mom. Will the other four find a way out? How far will Josephine go -- how far has she already gone? -- to maintain control, and continue to be a perfect wife and mother in her own eyes?
~ ~ ~
US hardback cover
On the other hand, Marcus Sedgwick's Midwinterblood, the 2014 winner of the Michael Printz award, didn't surprise at all. He's a very smart and talented writer, always leaning to the creepy, supernatural and suspenseful. Midwinterblood is a haunting, intricately plotted tale of love, longing and sacrifice, told in reverse order through linked and overlapping stories, all taking place on the mysterious Blessed Island, somewhere North Sea and Viking-ish, and intensely remote. Rumors are that islanders seem to live forever, and in the year 2073, journalist Eric Seven arrives to investigate. From there, the stories slip back through the centuries, telling their own tales yet making sense of the stories coming before and after, until at last we circle back to the final incarnation of an ages-old bond.
US paperback cover
I find myself thinking about the stories, the characters, how it all fits together, the crafting, and so I know this is no shabby piece of work. But it is one of those times when I wonder about the award it's won, 'cause I can tell you right now this book will sit on our shelf. It's marketed as a YA novel, and I think that's the wrong market, at least in the US. However, I challenge you to read it for yourself, and let me know. I'd be happy to be wrong!
ps -- There seem to be a plethora of covers for this book, and in my opinon the hardback US cover (the one I read) is the least appealing of all. Maybe I would have come to the book in a different mindset with a different cover. What do you think??
The junior high reading club is reading a favorite of mine this month: Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork(ebook link here). The coming-of-age tale of an Asberger's-ish teenager, there is a tiny bit of mystery, a dash of romantic interest, and a whole lot of looking at life through atypical eyes. I wrote enthusiastically about it when I first read it in 2010, and I predict the club members will really like it as well.
High school reading club members voted before winter break to read Jennifer Government, a sardonic futuristic thriller by Max Barry. To quote from the blurb:
In Max Barry’s twisted, hilarious vision of the near future, the world
is run by giant American corporations (except for a few deluded holdouts
like the French); taxes are illegal; employees take the last names of
the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly-traded
security firms; the U.S. government may only investigate crimes if they can bill a citizen directly. It’s a free market paradise!
Three guesses for which entity Jennifer G. works (of course the last two don't count). She takes the investigation when hapless Hack Nike discovers his contract requires assassinating teenagers to build gangsta' cred for his employer's new line of luxury sneakers. Another intriguing mystery -- what does the barcode tattoo under Jennifer's eye mean??
So far in 2014, between federal holidays and 'snowtastrophes,' it hardly seems like we've had school at all. The headmaster promises that we'll have a 5-day school week soon, but who knows when?? Not this week (hooray for winter break!!!).
At its mid-winter meeting, the American Library Association announced its latest slew of book awards for children and young adults, so even though I haven't been writing weekly blog posts, I've been hard at work.
The two awards lists most valuable to Paideia junior high and high school readers are the Printz Award (one winner plus honor books) and the Alex Awards (a list of 10 titles). You may recall my chagrin last fall when the National Book Awards announced its long-list of nominees for 2013 and I had barely heard of any of them. Well, fast forward to deja vu all over again. Of the ten Alex books and five Printz books, I'd heard of only two (Lexicon and Eleanor & Park), and only had one in the collection (Eleanor & Park - but at least I had read it and loved it). Oh, the shame. I did feel a bit better upon discovering that neither the Atlanta-Fulton County nor the DeKalb Country public library systems had all 10 titles, and one wasn't in either system at all.
Enter the personal challenge: in 2014, I am going to read all 10 Alex books, and at least the Printz winner, and report back here in the blog. Five years ago this challenge didn't go so well -- I hit #4 and wondered who in the world thought this book needed to be written, and I disliked #5 so much I didn't even skim to the end. And then I gave up. 2014 is off to a better start, with two down and 9 to go, and I'm feeling very optimistic that it's a good crop this year.
2014 Alex Awards (given by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of ALA)
~ The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.
Links go to a book's entry in the Paideia Library online catalog, if we have it.
√Lexicon: A Novel by Max Barry. The latest utterly plausible dystopian thriller from this Australian author, and my first challenge choice. I listened to the audiobook from Atlanta-Fulton public library (an excellent production). I've been a Max Barry fan since 2003's Jennifer Government.
√ Help for the Haunted by John Searles. Sylvie survived the night her ghost-hunting parents were murdered, and figures out who they really were and what really happened. The second challenge choice, finished.
In progressThe Lives of Taoby Wesley Chu. A couch potato becomes host to an ancient alien
who's partnered with world makers and breakers through history. I've got
this on my iPad, and am reading it now.
Brewster by Mark Slouka. Friends Ray and Jon plot an escape from their dead-end town and dysfunctional families.
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell. Two Scottish sisters with dead parents buried in the back yard.
Golden Boy by Abigail Tartellin. The life and struggles of a seemingly successful intersex "golden boy." Novels exploring mismatched physical and emotional identities seem to be in vogue lately -- I know at least a couple of teens who would have been relieved to see themselves in these pages. The 2014 Stonewall young adult winner,√Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, centers on a F-to-M transgender teen.
Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas. A novel about a dysfunctional family and a mom with serious control issues. I'm not super-excited about this one (sounds scary), but we'll see.
Relish by Lucy Knisley. A graphic novel memoir with recipes.
The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay. Traumatized and lonely teens find each other and heal.
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence. An epileptic British misfit science geek befriends an aging American Vietnam War vet.
2014 Printz Award
The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgewick. "Doomed love circles back through the centuries in a series of seven
intricately plotted, interlocking stories set on a mysterious, isolated
island." I have not been able to sell Marcus Sedgewick (we have two or three novels) to Paideia readers. He's definitely not a cookie-cutter writer, on the dark, Gothic-y side of paranormal, and I'm a bit skeptical. But I'll read it, and let you know.
Find out more about all five of the 2014 Printz award and honor books at Omnivoracious.com (Amazon.com's book blog).
My goals for Thursday and Friday's Winter Break? Clear and re-home the redundant dining room table, and READ!
Have you read any of these 15 books yet? Which one sounds best to you? Comment below!
Snippets and ideas for this afternoon's high school reading club meeting.
If you've read Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, this may sound very familiar:
SEATTLE — Maria Semple made an instant, jarring discovery when she moved
with her boyfriend and daughter from Los Angeles to Seattle, a city
whose Patagonia-clad inhabitants like to talk about bicycling, the
environment and the eternally dull question (in her opinion) of whether
it might rain.
“It’s just not a funny place,” said Ms. Semple, a novelist and veteran
comedy writer who worked on the television shows “Arrested Development”
and “Mad About You.” “I was in a miserable mind frame, and I found that I
was driving around and all I was thinking about were funny things about
how awful Seattle was. I would do these riffs in my head and I would
polish them in my head. It was poisonous and self-pitying.” New York Times, 8/15/12
How is the author like Bernadette? How might all the characters reflect different aspects of Maria Semple?
---
"Indeed, Semple's greatest strength is the courage to stock her book with
characters who are, upon first glance, largely unsympathetic and then
gently peel them until they become, if not entirely likable, then at
least recognizably and even endearingly human." L.A.Times, 1/1/2009
Do you like Bernadette, or Elgie, or Soo-Lin or Audrey at first? Do you ever like them?
== Maria Semple pitches her book ("it's about . . .")
The High School reading club met in the library last Friday to discuss Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookshop, the 2013 Alex Award novel from Twitter "media inventor" Robin Sloan, which all attendees really enjoyed. This post originally went up as a way to display info about the book during the meeting -- I've added commentary about the reading club discussion and what the various bits and pieces mean.
>>>
Some background on the author
Author Robin Sloan writes about himself on his website:
I grew up near Detroit and went to school at Michigan State, where I
studied economics and co-founded a literary magazine called Oats. Between 2002 and 2012, I worked at Poynter, Current TV, and Twitter, and at all those places, my job had something to do with figuring out the future of media.
I believe that stories told primarily (but not exclusively) with
words are among the most durable things a person can produce, and I’m
trying my best to write a few that might make it through to the year
2112. If you read one and pass it along to someone else, you’re
participating in that project—so, thank you!
>>>>
We watched part of this talk (embedded below) by Robin Sloan, starting at about 4 mins 24 secs, and going to about 10:05. In this part he talks about how he gathers ideas, his approach to writing, and the philosophies of "lightness:" of inspiration, of motion, of digital, and the lightness of AND.
After the clip, we looked for expressions of these lightnesses in the book --
the initial inspiration for the short story, which later became a novel, sprang from a Tweet -- "thanks to Rachel Leow for a tweet on November 15, 2008: “just misread ‘24hr bookdrop’ as ‘24hr bookshop’. the disappointment is beyond words.”
Sloan's Latin motto, Solvitur Ambulando, "it is solved by walking" connects to the Unbroken Spine's motto Festina Lente, "make haste slowly"
digital is everywhere in the book, from Google to Skype, to FaceTime to digital scanners and on and on. In addition to the online short story, Sloan has also penned a Kindle Single short novella, Ajax Penumbra 1969. This backstory of a seller of ancient books is only available as a digital download, but the cover of the physical book glows in the dark! It's just not the same on an electronic reader . . .
and of course, the whole book is about the "Lightness of And." Digital and paper, the past and the future, people and machines, art and engineering. And . . .
Even though Clay Jannon is the narrator and presumably the central character of the novel, he took up very little of our conversation. Mr. Penumbra is the star of the story, and Mat, Kat, Neel and a few other characters are more vibrant and attention-catching than Clay. Penumbra means "almost a shadow," and we talked about how Mr. Penumbra is a bridge between the old ways and the new. Clay is also a bridge, between Mat's art and Ashley's perfection, between not-exactly-a-feminist Neel and women's art, between Mr. Penumbra and the digital future. Most importantly, he's an ordinary everyday guy who's the catalyst for amazing events and discoveries.
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A couple of renditions of the symbol of the Unbroken Spine.
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There is no pub in New York called the Dolphin and Anchor (though there ought to be), but the real Aldus Manutius used an emblem of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor, and the motto Festina Lente, as his printer's mark. Aha! someone in the group said -- dolphins are speedy and anchors slow you down.
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What's the relationship between a modern day CV (a scholar's Curriculum Vitae) and the codex vitae written by Unbroken Spine scholars? What's a codex?
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The one thing I'm kicking myself for is not realizing soon enough the possibility that Robin Sloan might do a Skype visit with the club. He says right on his website that he loves that opportunity. Drat and double drat! Perhaps we can have a special "encore" meeting with the author???
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Stay tuned for the next reading club selection. We're choosing among Beautiful Ruins, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, World War Z, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The amazing and prolific writer Isaac Asimov invented the word "robotics," and Three Laws of Robotics. The Laws were introduced in a short story, "Runaround," included in two different Asimov story collections, The Complete Robot and I, Robot. The Will Smith movie I, Robot, includes elements from both the short stories and from The Caves of Steel, the first of Asimov's three futuristic mystery novels featuring NYC detective Elijah Baley and his robot/android partner R. Daneel Olivaw.
As I was finishing up this list, I saw this Time Special Edition on my grocery store newsstand. Wow.
