The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde

I was in the library looking through their audiobooks when a title happened to catch my eye. It was Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. Now this is no prequel of the popular series with a similar name, but it might be just as humorous. A few days ago I finished it and I must say that this was one of the most enjoyable literary experiences I have ever had. The book stands at the crossroads of Douglas Adams and Nineteen Eighty-Four, if such a crossroads exists. Now that I'm done, I'm truly sad because my discovery of the world within is done. The good news is the story is far from finished, however the next book in the series isn't planned to be started until 2014. Ugh...

But this isn't about Shades of Grey, even though I will wildly endorse it. This is about Jasper Fforde and my new desire to dive into his books as fast as possible. Fforde writes these hilarious yet engrossing alternate-history stories that are filled with buckets of absurdity and even more personable characters. I can't say too much as of yet because I've only read one book of his so far. Needless to say that he's a writer that knows how to spin quite a yarn that has a perfect balance of deadpan and heart.

Right after I finished Shades of Grey I went moseying in my favorite used bookstore and happened upon these two books from Fforde's Thursday Next series. What luck, I thought. This must be a sign that I need to become acquainted with Fforde's body of work.

The Thursday Next series starts with The Eyre Affair which is a novel that has a similar dystopic vision as Shades of Grey. Russia and England are locked in conflict and literature is so important to the society that the government has put it under regulation. The book's protagonist, Thursday Next, works as a literary detective that has been commissioned with investigating the theft of a Charles Dickens manuscript.

The premise is too ridiculous to ignore. I can't wait to find a copy of The Eyre Affair and begin my new literary love affair.

Find The Eyre Affair online here or, wait for luck to strike for it to fall into your possession.

Ruined Books

There comes a time in the life of many a collector where something tragic happens to pieces of their collection.  This could be due to the person's negligence or from some other occurrence outside of their control.  Whatever the reason, it always brings mixed feelings of anger, sadness and loss.  These are treasured items that you spend a lot of time seeking and caring for.  You feel pride in your collection and to see it diminished even slightly hurts.

As you can see this just happened to me.  Just the other day I found out that the place that I have been storing a few of my books has not been completely free of water.  I was looking for a particular title when I uncovered the last box and found these books riddled with mold.  I was mad, yes, as well as feeling devastated. There were many titles that were waiting to look splendid on a bigger bookshelf. Titles such as The Divine Comedy, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lord Jim, a very handsome edition of The Warren Commission Report and an old Hemingway hardcover.  These sad books will now have to be trashed which pains me deeply.

The news isn't all bad.  I think I might be able to save a few of the books, I'm still not sure.  I'm planning on finding a nice brush to try to sweep the small amount of mold off.  Also, this box was filled with many books that weren't among my most prized of my collection.  There were titles that I loved but it could have been worse.  I could have lost my Pynchon's, King's, Rand's and others.  I might have been inconsolable if that had happened.

Instead of promoting a book, i will promote these Sterilite 66 quart totes.  Made from a durable plastic, they will protect the contents from many hazards, water included.  They are an investment, but sometimes the money is worth it, especially if you want to protect items in your collection.

The Perks of Being a Wallfower

A couple of years ago I found this book on the summer reading table of Barnes & Noble and thought that it looked really striking.  Lime green cover, interesting placement of the photo and author text, not to mention how the title is the smallest thing on there.  I posted it on my Facebook and several friends said how much they loved the book.  I had never heard of it before that point but made a mental note to someday read it.









Last night I happened to see the film adaptation of said novel and was thoroughly smitten.  It was a pitch perfect coming of age tale about a young High School boy dealing with the struggle to fit into a new environment all the while battling his own brand of personal demons.  It had everything that such a movie should: the power of friendships, the manic nature of first love, the loss of innocence and all the engrossing cinematics that your heart could hope for.  I was truly sucked in.

But I already knew it was going to be great.  During the opening credits I noticed that not only did author Stephen Chbosky write the screenplay but he also directed the feature.  I don't know any other adaptation that can share those characteristics.  This was completely his baby and we were going to see it exactly the way he intended it to be.

Of course, after seeing the movie I now have to read the book.  Today I went to my favorite used book seller and found myself a copy.  I was hoping to find a non movie tie-in edition but this was their only copy and it came in earlier in the day.  They're flying off the shelf it seems.  Although, one can't do much better than to have the ever gorgeous Emma Watson always gaze lovingly in your direction.

You can pick up The Perks of Being a Wallflower here or at local book sellers everywhere.  See the movie today!

The Kobo Mini

Books, books, books, we all love books.  You love books and you should know that I especially love books.  Books are everywhere, or at least they should be.  The thing about books, however, is the more that time passes, the more books I seem to have.  Three out of four walls in my bedroom are lined with books.  I'm not complaining, I want it that way.  But there comes a time in every book lover's life where they must come to terms with their collection.  When that happens, you start to think long and hard about each new addition that is made.  "Do I really need this book?" you might ask yourself, trying to qualify its purchase.  Thank goodness for the advent of the eReader, which has pushed and propagated book hoarding onto virtual realms.

I was an eBook hold out for awhile, prefering the heft of the printed page.  But then I got a Nook last year and fell in love with it.  I could buy and read books that I didn't nessasarily want on my shelf, I could carry 1,000 + page tomes around without throwing out my wrist everytime I wanted to read, but most importantly I could carry multiple books around with me at once.  A book lover's dream.

Generally I have been showcasing physical books that I find in stores or otherwise that strike me as being interesting, but when I saw this new device, I knew I had to talk about it.  The Kobo Mini is one of the newest in the line of Kobo eReaders.  Sporting a 5 inch display, this is not only the smallest Kobo, it's also one of the smallest eReaders in the market.  In the photo, you can see that I have held up a Moleskine notebook next to the Kobo Mini just so you can get an idea of how small this thing really is.

With a device this small, the desire to be a get-up-and-go reader is really strong.  The thing could literally fit in any pocket I have, making excuses to not have a book on me null and void.  There is nowhere that you can't go with this. 

The ability to tailor the look of your Kobo makes having this a very personal experience as well.  You can swap out the trademarked quilted back with 4 other color options.  Kobo has also givin users the freedom to customize the typeface in unprecedented ways.  Not only can users select the font and  font size, but there is weight and sharpness settings letting you have full control over how you want your books to read.

Kobo is also content with letting users have control over where they buy their books.  All of Kobo's eReaders are fully open, meaning you can purchase books from many different sellers while still being able to read them on your Kobo.  With Kobo, local book sellers can now get into the eReader game.  My local bookseller, Malaprops, told me that they are now set up to sell eBooks and the Kobo eReaders help consumers who want to support them as well as other local bookshops.  It's this reason that I might switch to Team Kobo for my eReader of choice.

You have to look at this eReader in person to see how cool it is.  The Kobo Mini would make an absolutly supurb gift this holiday season, and at only $79, it's a gift that won't break the bank.  Whether it'll be someone's primary eReader or a trusty backup, this one will certianly get the job done.  Get your's here, at your local bookseller or where ever Kobo's may be sold.

Quiet, the Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

There has been a great deal of learning regarding introverts recently.  This has led to the changing of opinions and new viewpoints regarding select individuals.  Many people might have made the mistake of thinking that the defining characteristics between the two personality types are that extroverts are outgoing and introverts are shy.  While this generalization isn't false, there is much more going on in the minds and lives of individuals knows as introverts than many people aware of

Introverts are typically quieter than most people therefore it's easy for them to be misunderstood. When you're looking for studies showing the percent of the population that are introverts, you're likely to find numbers ranging from 25 to 50 percent.  If you were to talk to them, most introverts would report feeling maligned by society.  I believe this to be true due to the stereotypes that exist about this group.

The findings illustrate that understanding this personality dynamic shows traits that go well beyond a person's level of shyness.  It's all about how a person gathers energy and the way they process information.  Extroverts feel more energized in social situations while, on the other hand, introverts feel taxed when they're in those same situations.  They need time alone, by themselves to "recharge."  If you've ever know anyone who just didn't like going out very often and wondered what their deal was, it's not necessarily that the person is antisocial, they just don't have the energy for those kinds of things. It's not their fault, it's just the way they are.

I consider myself deeply introverted.  I can live in my thoughts for hours on end and being part of social gatherings can be very exhausting for me.  Again, it's not that I'm antisocial, I just need a lot more alone time than most people and I am very guarded with that time.  It's very important to me.  I also have the tendency to be very quiet.  I prefer listening to talking and if I don't have anything important to add to a conversation, I won't say anything at all.  I would make a terrible debater because I take a long time considering things in my mind and I dislike explaining myself and have difficulty with it.

I saw this book and knew  that I needed to read it.  I needed to understand myself better as an introvert as well to learn how to help change the view that the world has toward us.  Go to your local bookseller or online here to purchase it.  ALSO, Susan Cain has a great TED Conference Talk that is more than worth watching.  Check it out here.

Daniel Day-Lewis: The Fire Within by Garry Jenkins

On this cold Black Friday I've found something very apropos to both the day and the season.  Daniel Day-Lewis: The Fire Within is a book I didn't even know existed until recently.  I was killing time at a local Goodwill, perusing the bookshelf like usual when my subconscious picked up on something that the rest of me had to catch up to realize.  I thought I saw something very familiar and I could have sworn it said Daniel Day-Lewis.  I thought that was impossible because I thought there wasn't any books about him.  I looked all around the spot in the bookshelf of where I was standing and then my eyes landed on this treasure.  I nearly yelled out in the store in joy when I found this.  A true find indeed.

This plain black book, sans dust jacket, is a biography of the legendary method actor that spans from his youth in Ireland all the way up unto his success with In the Name of my Father.  Had it been written later we might have accounts of the man during his truly legendary roles.  Daniel Day-Lewis is a very big inspiration to me ever since I saw the film adaptation of The Crucible in a High School English class.  His brutal realism cut me to the core and one of his final lines, yelling out, "I have given you my soul, leave me my name!" echoes in my mind still. 

Day-Lewis is starring in this year's Lincoln, a movie that I haven't seen yet but I can't wait to see.  His approach to acting is unparalleled in the industry today.  Stories abound of how deeply he immerses himself  in the characters he plays and how intense he becomes.  I'm excited to find the secrets to his character and the facets of his personality.  

If you're interested, get lucky and find it a Goodwill like I did or go online here.

The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Dainelwski

The Fifty Year Sword is the latest novel by author Mark Z. Danielewski.  Danielewski is an author who's books would fit better on a wall in MoMA rather than on the shelf of your local book store.  His debut work, House of Leaves is one of the most original novels I have ever read.  It is enigmatic in approach and chilling in execution.  The book still haunts me to this day and gives me chills whenever I think about it.

Thinking that people understood his work too much, Danieleswski followed up with his second book, Of Revolutions, which is almost a novel in name only.  Composed in a very confusing free verse style, Of Revolutions tells a love story from two different perspectives and from two literal ends of the book. Readers are encouraged to turn the book upside down every seven pages and read from a new side to complete the full story.  Similar to House of Leaves, colored text is an important facet to fleshing out the work, but it's the complicated narrative, filled with symbolic language, that makes this book too difficult for even his most ardent fans.

Now, six years after later, we have Danielewski's third novel, The Fifty Year Sword.  Seeming to be more straightforward than the last book, The Fifty Year Sword is about a seamstress who comes to be the caretaker of five orphans.  Its theme involves sewing and the ability to stitch things together. This is represented in the cover art below the dust jacket and must be seen for yourself.  I will always applaud Danielewki for being an author who brings many visual elements to his stories.  Color, again, plays a role where different speakers have different colored quotations marks making William Faulkner roll in his grave with jealousy. 

This is a very big release and makes me excited to see it in stores.  Find it at your local bookseller or online here.