Do You Love the Smell of Old Books?
What you smell may be a marker for their slow death. After noticing that professional conservators smelled paper while doing their assessments, researchers from University College London’s Centre for Sustainable Heritage used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify and quantify the substances released by old books.
Their report in the journal Analytical Chemistry identified acetic acid, furfural, and lipid peroxidation products in various proportions depending on the types of paper, binding and inks used, and they suggest that a “sniff test” may be useful to identify books in need of the attention of a conservator.
And how does one describe the smell of old books to a non-chemist? The next time you attend a wine tasting, deftly switch the conversation to books and tell your friends that what you love is…
“…a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.”
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2009's Best in Children's Book Illustrations
Illustration by Shaun Tan
The Book Review has an annual roundup of the best in children’s books from an illustrative point. Books for kids are crucial for learning the language, and if you can lure them in with outstanding visuals, all the better. NYT has the ten best, including this one from Shaun Tan’s “Tales From Outer Suburbia.” Tan also won a slot in 2007 for the phenomenal, wordless “The Arrival.”
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Sort By Magic
SwissMiss discovers that Google Reader offers several sorting options, including this one:
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A "Holzbibliothek" is a "wooden library." A library of wooden books. Literally.
In the late 18th century, Carl Schildbach was manager of a German estate famous for its ornamental park. He had no formal academic or scientific training, but at the request of his employer began compiling a reference collection of the natural history of each type of tree and shrub in the estate, eventually totalling 546 items…
“The format… was that of a box or casket, the raw materials for which were provided by the specimen itself, made up in the form of a book – varying in size from folio to duodecimo – with the ‘front cover’ forming a sliding lid…
For the left side of the ‘volume’ mature wood was selected and for the right side sapwood, while the fore-edge was made from heartwood; the top surface incorporated cross-sections from branches of various ages while the bottom surface showed a section through the trunk…
While the box itself served to illustrate the characteristics of the timber, the interior was reserved for an exposition of the whole natural history of the plant… a complete seedling is included to one side, with its roots, seminal capsule and first pair of leaves. In the centre of the box the tip of a branch displays buds and leaves in various stages of development…blossoms are shown varying from full blooms to faded flowers, while fruits are similarly represented at every stage in their development… Examples of associated parasites and lichens are included…”
The empress Catherine tried to purchase Schildbach’s collection, but he deeded it to his master, Landgrave Wilhelm IX; it now resides in the Naturalienkabinett in Kassel, where it is still used as reference material. Schildbach inspired several imitators, including Candid Huber, a Benedictine monk, whose collection survives in the Bavarian Burgmuseum. Peter the Great eventually acquired a collection for his Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, and another resides in the Musee National des Techniques of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris.
The cited text above is excerpted from Chapter IV (“Museums and the Natural World”) in Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, by Arthur MacGregor (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 2007) – a comprehensive history of cabinets of curiosities, museums, and specialized collections.
Small-format photos of Schildbach’s collection are available at the webpage of the Naturkundemuseum in the Ottoneum at Kassel. The embedded photo is from a similar Holzbuch in a collection at the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. Other examples may be seen here and here. The creation of such “wooden books” seems to have been primarily a European endeavor; a related project by Romeyn B. Hough collecting North American woods in book form (using thin sections of wood attached to cardboard within a conventional book binding) was produced at the turn of the last century.
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Your Neatorama Guide To The Hitchhiker's Guide
Technically, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy should probably be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, as the book most certainly explores multiple galaxies, regardless of semantics though, the story is undoubtedly a worldwide phenomenon. As a book, it has been translated into 30 languages and was voted the fourth most loved book in all of Britain.
In honor of the book’s 30th anniversary, which took place earlier this month, Neatorama is presenting you a collection of facts related to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Whether you’ve read the book, heard the radio broadcasts, seen the movie or seen the TV show, there’s certainly something here you don’t know yet.
What’s In A Name?
Fans often abbreviate The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy as HHGTTG, but Adams uses the abbreviation of H2G2, which is also used on the official BBC online guide. Other nicknames can include “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” “The Guide” or “Hitchhiker’s.” To make matters more confusing, when people use the full name, they are sometimes referring to the series and sometimes referring to the fictional book the series was named after. Just to ensure you’re entirely confused I plan to use all of the names in this article.
Image Via Nicholas “Lord Gordon” [Flickr]
It’s As Multimedia As You Can Get
Fans of the series might know that the Guide started as a radio series (which technically makes H2G2 31 years old, since the first broadcast was 1978), which quickly spawned a series of 5 books, a TV show and a movie, but you may not know there were also a number of stage shows, a comic book adaptation and a computer game based on Hitchhiker’s. There was even a series of towels released with towel part of the first novel, which some fans consider to be the “official version” of the book (if you aren’t familiar with the works, then you may not know how important towels can be).
In other works, these adaptations would end up being watered-down, mediocre versions of the original that don’t reflect the artist’s actual vision. Fortunately, most of the adaptations involved with the HHGTTG were done by Douglas Adams himself.
Time To Celebrate
The H2G2 has even spawned its own holiday. May 25 in Towel Day. Towels are, after all, one of the most important things an interstellar traveler can have with them at any time. If you’re wondering how to celebrate Towel Day – why, just bring a towel with you all day, of course! There are even two sites dedicated to Towel Day, the countdown site, IsItTowelDay.com, and the informational site, TowelDay.org. Here at Neatorama, we’ve even covered towel day twice before.
Image Via JenT [Flickr]
In The Beginning, There Was Destruction
As mentioned above, the first incarnations of the Guide were in radio form. The first series actually was originally going to be called “The Ends of the Earth,” which was to be a six-part radio series. In each of the episodes, the story would end when the world ended – each time in a different way.
When Adams started writing the first episode, he realized he needed an alien there to provide context and the alien needed a reason to be on Earth. In coming up with this reason, he finally decided to have the alien be a researcher for a “wholly remarkable book,” which would be known as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Eventually, the story ended up focusing on the book, which started up the whole crazy phenomenon.
Later on, Adams claimed that he had already came up with the idea of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” while hitchhiking through Europe in his youth.
Image Via Adam Foster Codefor [Flickr]
Sounds Good To Me
The series is notable for being the first BBC radio program to be produced in stereo and later in Dolby surround sound. Adams claimed he wanted the program’s production to be comparable to that of a rock album, and as a result, a lot of the program’s budget went towards sound effects.
Speaking of rock music, the tune used on the radio, television, LP and film versions was “Journey of the Sorcerer,” an instrumental Eagles’ song from the album One of These Nights.
The World’s Most Inaccurate Trilogy Series
The novels were originally released as a trilogy, but then Adams came out with So Long, And Thanks for All The Fish, making the books “a trilogy in four parts.” Then he released Mostly Harmless and the series became “a trilogy in five parts,” the cover of which advertised itself as “The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.” The blurb on the book went on to say, “the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘trilogy.’”
At this point, fans continued to be hopeful that the series would eventually become “a trilogy in six parts,” but Adams died of a heart attack in 2001 before a sixth book was finished. Before he passed though, he had hinted that the newest novel he was working on, The Salmon of Doubt, may have been this sixth book. He said in an interview that Mostly Harmless was “very bleak” and that he would love to finish the “trilogy” on a “slightly more upbeat note.”
Image Via Jenbooks [Flickr]
Inspired Inspirations
It’s only natural that any phenomenon as big as the Guide would have inspired some other works – of course, these works are particularly off-the-wall, just like the work that inspired them. Monty Python member Terry Jones actually wrote a novel, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic, based on Adam’s computer game, “Starship Titanic,” which was based on an idea in Life, the Universe and Everything.
In 2005, Michael Hanlon published The Science of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, which covered important topics such as the Babel fish, parallel universes and space tourism.
Remember Your Memorabilia
There was tons of merchandise made for Hitchhiker’s over the years. Some of the favorite memorabilia items, as mentioned above, were towels with the Guide’s entry for towels. Then there were the singles released by Stephen Moore sung in the character of Marvin, the Paranoid Android, “Marvin,” Metal Man,” Reasons To Be Miserable,” and “Marvin I Love You.” My favorite though, was the “Beeblebear,” a teddy bear with an extra arm and head like Zaphod Beeblebox.
Image Via ZoeARP [Flickr]
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From Blogs to Books - A History of the Web in Print
Most people I encounter in my offline life do not surf the internet, and I think about all the rich content they are missing. The people I encounter on the internet work hard to spread interesting content, and are rarely rewarded for their efforts. But in the last few years, quite a few interesting ideas that broke on the web are now breaking through to “meatspace” through book publishing, which is where the real money is -for the lucky ones. This has led to blogs that are started for the express purpose of landing an eventual book deal. Urlesque has compiled a list of blogs that have turned into books, which may be useful in Christmas shopping for your relatives who would enjoy such things but won’t spend time online. Link -via the Presurfer
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The 10 Greatest Books Adapted Into Movies
Here’s a list sure to spark debate. Which is better, the movie or the book? Usually one is much better than the other. With the ten books and movies listed here, it’s all a matter of opinion because both the book and the movie are classics. Still, I will always recommend reading the book before seeing the movie. Link [possible malware alert @ link - go there at your own risk]
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An Interactive Map of Banned and Challenged Books
The last week in September is Banned Books Week. To mark the event, an interactive map has been created that shows requests for removal of books from public libraries and school libraries for the period 2007-2009. The map is created from cases reported to and documented by the American Library Association.
The image above is a screencap. The interactive map itself can be accessed at this link.
The ALA also has a listing of the top ten most frequently challenged books for 2008.
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Library Necklace
Bibliophiles, you can now wear books around your neck! Etsy seller TheBlackSpotBooks offers this necklace with eleven tiny books made from a mix of antique and scrap leather. Each is hand-made and no two are alike. Custom books designs are available by request. Link -via Bioephemera
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Where The Wild Things Are Cupcakes
Fans of the book will love these delicious cupcakes. They’d be great for any kids party, but that doesn’t mean adults won’t enjoy them too.
These are texas-sized snickerdoodle cupcakes. For frosting and decorations I used chocolate ganache (Moishe), canned vanilla frosting (Max), sprinkles, store-bought gumpaste eyes, and fondant colored tinted by hand.
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Lit Slits II
The first Lit Slits quiz turned out to be quite popular. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss is volume two. In this quiz, you’ll be shown a vertical stripe xeroxed from one page of a book, and you figure out what the book is. I scored 40%, which is better than I expected to. Link
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Awful Library Books
This blog collects instances of books on the shelves of libraries that should be culled (or should have been culled years ago). The page shown is from a book called Moving Through Pregnancy from 1975.
The items featured here are so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information.
This blog contains actual library holdings. No specific libraries or librarians are named to protect the guilty. Check your shelves, it could be you.
Link -via J-Walk Blog
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The Dettmer Book Autopsies
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ADD OCD DIY? Obsessively Organized-by-Color Bookshelves
Call it art, call it obsession, but the results are a rainbow of awesome to be sure. Some of these were done as personal pet projects but one in particular involved the reorganization of an entire store to fit into one big color spectrum of books. Practical? Perhaps not. Appealing? On an aesthetic level: absolutely.
Some of us are more particular about the appearance of our interiors than others – perhaps to a fault. Sick of seeing your books sloppily organized by type, or, worse yet, having them randomly disorganized across a series of bookcases? Sorting your favorite volumes by color may just satisfy that too-organized part of yourself.
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7 Banned Classics
Many people are aware that Harry Potter, The Anarchist Cookbook and Stephen King books have been banned from schools around the country, but as many civilizations have figured out, censorship is a slippery slope. It is pretty strange to consider Shakespeare has not only been banned from public schools over sexual themes, but that censored editions have been out since the 1700s.
Photo Via florian.b [Flickr]
Of the Radcliffe Publishing list of the top 100 books of the past century, almost half have been challenged by schools, many are banned in whole countries. Here’s a few banned titles that just may surprise you:
*Note: Plot summaries may include spoilers. I know all you Neatorama readers are pretty intelligent, so I wouldn’t doubt if many of you have read these books. I’ve included the summaries to give an idea as to why the books may have been banned.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Plot: A soldier, Henry, on the Italian front meets and seduces a young woman, Catherine. Their relationship continues as he heals a knee that was injured in battle. By the time his knee is fully healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. Unfortunately, Henry has to return to the war and the Germans break through the Italian lines. The Italians charge the soldiers for treachery for letting the Germans defeat them. Henry escapes during another officer’s execution and runs away to Switzerland with Catherine. They live happily until Catherine gives birth to a stillborn and then dies in labor.
Where it’s been banned: Published in 1929, this novel caused trouble immediately. Boston banned the magazine it was originally published in, claiming the story was too sexual. Italy banned the book because of its portrayal of the army’s retreat from Caporatto. The Nazis burned the book in 1933. In 1939, Ireland banned the novel. In modern America, plenty of school districts have banned the publication for sexual content.
Source | A Farewell to Arms
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Plot: The book’s plot uses the same story line as Tarzan. A couple of civilized people, Bernard and Lenina, enter a primitive society and bring a “savage” back into their modern society. The difference here is that these “civilized people” live in a futuristic world filled with castes, happy drugs, sex without reproduction and euthanasia. Love, sadness and families have become obsolete, as well as self-expression and exploration.
The Tarzan in this piece is the son, John, of an ex-civilized woman who now lives with the “savages.” John was raised with family, love and Shakespeare. When they return to the city, John becomes a spectacle for society types and even Lenina starts finding him interesting. John begins falling in love with Lenina even as he is disgusted with the modern world and her role in it. John finds he cannot escape this world and eventually kills himself to discontinue playing his role as a tourist spectacle.
Where it’s been banned: This text is one of the most frequently banned books in literary history. It was banned in Ireland the year it was published, 1932. Multiple school districts have restricted access to this book because the atheistic people in the futuristic society it depicts take drugs and have promiscuous sex to avoid emotional connections. There are a lot of people who try to compare this book to our modern society, but if that was accurate, would we still be banning it from school?
Source | Brave New World
Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Plot: A teenage boy, Holden Caulfield, runs away to New York after being expelled from reform school. The book is a first person narrative and over the course of the story, you learn about his brother’s passing and how that has affected his present state of mind. Throughout his adventure, he drinks, smokes, hits on adult women, gets beaten up by a pimp, is hit on by a past teacher and deals with many other activities that a teen shouldn’t be going through. He constantly complains about other people his age, calling them “phony” or stupid. The novel explores Holden’s psychological need to grow up after his brother’s death. It also does an excellent job depicting his desire to protect young children from becoming adults.
Where it’s been banned: In 1960, a teacher was fired from her job for requiring her eleventh grade class to read the book. Between 1961 and 1962, it was the most censored book in high schools and colleges. This novel has been banned in schools throughout America for being anti-white, blasphemous, profane, racist and overtly sexual. How anything can be racist and anti-white, I don’t know.
Update: I meant this statement as how the book can be racist against both blacks and whites at the same time, which is what the people condemning the book seemed to imply. Personally, I don’t think you can be racist against your self and persons of other races at the same time, I think it makes you more of a person hater than a racist. Although I’m sure many readers would still like to disagree with this.
Completely unrelated but interesting: many murderers read Catcher In The Rye shortly before committing their crimes.
Source | The Catcher in the Rye
Fanny Hill or Memoirs of A Woman of Pleasure, John Cleland
Plot: Considered to be the first modern erotic novel, there are quite a few naughty bits in this book, if you want to read a bit, there’s an excerpt on the Wikipedia page. The story revolves around a young country girl who must leave her village due to poverty. She is forced to work at a brothel, but escapes with her true love before she loses her virginity. When her love is forced to leave the country, she has to take on a variety of male “acquaintances” in order to survive.
Where it’s been banned: This book was monumental to both English and American obscenity standards. A year after the book was released, John Cleland and the publisher were both arrested and charged with “corrupting the king’s subjects.” They subsequently stopped publishing the novel, but it still managed to become popular thanks to pirated editions circulating the country. Cleland attempted to clean up the book and republished it in 1750, but he was arrested again, although this time the charges were dropped. The book continued to be published underground and in 1963 there was an obscenity trial against a book seller carrying the novel. Although the defense lost, it helped to shift public opinion about obscenity laws in Britain. In 1970, the unabridged book was legally published for the first time.
Over in the states, the book was banned for obscenity in 1821. In 1963, a publisher tried to re-release the book under the title John Cleland’s Memoirs of A Woman of Pleasure. The book was also banned under this title, but the publisher, G.B. Putnam, challenged the ban. The Supreme Court ruled the novel did not meet the standards for obscenity. This was the last book to be banned by the US federal government.
Source | Fanny Hill – Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Plot: Set in 1930, it tells the tale of a Tom Joad, a recently paroled murderer, and his family of farmers. The group is forced to leave their home in Oklahoma that has fallen victim to the dust bowl storms. They hope to find better luck in California, though on their way out West, they constantly run into other families hoping for the same luck.
When they get to California, they find the farmers have bound together to exploit the massive amount of laborers offering their services. When workers begin to unionize, the Joads work as strike breakers and end up involved with a bloody strike, forcing Tom Joad to kill again. In the end, practically all of the family’s actions prove to be pointless as they are starving and homeless in California.
Where it’s been banned: Published in 1939, this Steinbeck story caused an uproar as soon as it was released. These days, the book seems to be fairly mild, with a few references to sex and some minor curse words, but the book was quite racy for its day. Kern county was one of the first places to ban the novel as they were insulted by how Steinbeck depicted their citizens. It was immediately burned by the East St. Louis library, banned from Buffalo, New York and Kansas City. Since then, it’s been banned in many high schools -mostly for bad language. A parent in Burlington, North Carolina said, “book is full of filth. My son is being raised in a Christian home and this book takes the Lord’s name in vain and has all kinds of profanity in it.”
Internationally, the book has had trouble too. In 1953, Ireland deemed the book obscene and banned it. In 1973, eleven publishers in Turkey were charged for “spreading propaganda unfavorable to the state.” Why Grapes of Wrath would be seen as unfavorable to Turkey, I have no idea. If you do, please tell me in the comments.
Source #1, Source #2 | The Grapes of Wrath
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Plot: Lady Chatterley’s husband has become paralyzed and impotent. She struggles to remain faithful to him, but ends up having an affair with the gamekeeper. The novel covers her struggle to live only mentally, although she proves to need physical stimulation as well.
Where it’s been banned: The Penguin Books 1960 British publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was one of the first novels tried under England’s 1959 obscenity law. This law gave publishers the right to release racy books, as long as the work was of literary merit. Penguin was found not guilty and the novel was legally available in England for the first time. The trial was later turned into a BBC show known as “The Chatterley Affair.”
Conversely, Australia not only found the book to be legally obscene, but also banned publication of a book depicting the British trial called The Trial of Lady Chatterley. A copy of the book was smuggled into the country anyway and published underground. Many people read the book and it eventually led to lesser censorship of books in the country.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Plot: Humbert Humbert, is invited to move in with a woman who wants to sleep with him. He is about to say no, when he sees her 12 year old daughter, Lolita, playing in the yard. The woman discovers his ulterior motive and plans to send Lolita to boarding school but she is hit and killed by a car. Humbert tries to drug the Lolita to have his way with her, but she instead seduces him.
Humbert becomes Lolita’s guardian and falls in love with her although she has very little interest in him. She escapes his guardianship by making plans with another pedophile. Humbert tries to find Lolita and her abductor, but gets nowhere. Two years later, a married and pregnant Lolita contacts him requesting money. He brings her money and tries to get her to leave with him. She refuses. She does, however, give him information on her abductor and Humbert tracks down the man and kills him. Humbert goes to jail, where he writes a novel called Lolita.
Where it’s been banned: The book was released in 1955 and received little attention until author Graham Greene sang its praises in an interview with The London Times. After reading the statement, the editor of the Sunday Express replied that the book was “sheer, unrestrained pornography.” That’s when the book was banned in Britain and all imported copies were ordered to be seized by the customs department. By December 1956, France followed suit, although both countries repealed the ban in 1959. Argentina and New Zealand both banned the book in the following years.
Surprisingly, the book wasn’t criticized as much in America, in fact, in its first three weeks available it sold over 100,000 copies.
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Free Online Books Every Student of Humanity Should Read
Here’s a site that links to public domain literature available on the web! You can read such classics as The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Art of War, Ivanhoe, Madame Bovary, The Lady of the Lake, Dracula , Walden, On the Origin of Species, and more -in fact there are 100 links to 100 books.
The beauty of the public domain is that after an author’s death, his or her works eventually become freely available to the public. This allows websites like Project Guttenberg to index countless classic texts for people to read online or download.
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What to Do with Books if You Don't Like Reading
As much as it pains me to see books damaged, this is pretty cool.
The link contains lots of other interesting things artists have done with literature… other than read it, of course.
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10 Sci-Fi Books That Even Non-Geeks Would Love
The following is reprinted from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe. The question of which science fiction books are the best ever is a pointless one for most people, since many of the "greatest science fiction novels" are books that no one but science fiction fans will read. A better question to ask might be: What are the best science fiction books that you don't have to be a hard-core science fiction fan to enjoy? We scanned our library and came up with these 10 (well, 12) books that not only provide great SF fun, but also are approachable enough for the casual reader. Some old, some new - but all good reads. Dune by Frank Herbert
But (ironically) thanks to shows like The X-Files and even The West Wing, in which several things are happening all at once, people got used to following intersecting story lines. The result is that Herbert's magnum opus now comes across more like an epic historical novel that happens to be set in the future, not the past. Herbert wrote several Dune sequels of varying quality. More recently, Herbert's son Brian teamed up with SF author Kevin J. Anderson to write a trio of prequels that Uncle John doesn't think are on par with the rest. Stick with the original. Links: Dune Earth by David Brin
This plot line is the skeleton on which author and real-life physicist Brin hangs some fascinating episodic story lines that involve problems the world faces today (global warming, privacy, energy crunches), carried out to their possible outcomes 50 years from now. Originally published in 1991, Earth has already pegged a couple of items correctly (such as a version of the World Wide Web and the idea of futzing with old movies using new computer graphics). Plus, scientists have begun trying to generate tiny little black holes in labs. So imagine what else Brin might (eventually) be right about. Links: Earth Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card
Card sets up a lot of questions about morality, war, and man's purpose in Ender's Game; in the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, these questions get a payoff as the grown-up Ender finds himself in a position to save a new sentient species or allow it to be destroyed. Proof that interesting philosophical questions can be asked (and even answered) in the form of a purely entertaining story. Links: Ender's
Game Grass by Sheri Tepper
Marjorie Westriding is dispatched with her family to a far-off planet to find a cure for a plague, but she ends up confronting questions of original sin among aliens. Lots of philosophy, and even some sex (well, sort of), but also lots of action, plus a group of purely malevolent creatures who love nothing better than to toy with humans. Hand this to someone who enjoys those massive romantic epics for a change of pace. Links: Grass Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Geeks love this one, but for the right reasons - namely because it'll make you laugh so hard that you may vomit involuntarily. Note that this is humor of the distinctly British, Monty Python-like variety, so if you're not into that, you may wonder what the fuss is about. But if you ever laughed at Monty Python and the Holy Grail (or even A Fish Called Wanda), you'll be laughing at this one, too. Hitchhiker has several sequels, each progressively less funny than the one before (but still worth a chuckle or two). Links: The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Over the course of these two novels, Simmons creates a galaxy-wide human civilization that's pitted against a mysterious enemy. Hyperion uses the overlapping stories of a clutch of pilgrims to paint the picture of this future civilization; Fall of Hyperion describes its downfall, as seen through the eye of a clone of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Great storytelling, great action, great plotting; not just a couple of the best science fiction novels ever, but two of the best adventure novels in a long time, period. Links: Hyperion The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The stories include encounters with real live Martians (who may or may not be happy to see humans), the stories of the humans who leave Earth to come to Mars, and, in the end, the stories of the humans who are left behind, each short enough to be read in a single sitting. It's Bradbury at the top of his form, which means these are some of the better short stories you'll find almost anywhere. Links: The
Martian Chronicles Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
It's difficult to describe the novel, except to say that it involves mad scientists, interspecies romance, vampiric moth creatures, Tammany Hall-like urban politics, the value systems of alien species, interdimensional spiders, and a rip-roaring final action scene that takes place on the rooftops of a city you really can't imagine. All written by someone who uses the English language like Yo-Yo Ma uses a cello. Fabulous writing, regardless of genre. Links: Perdido
Street Station Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The novel's plot involves a computer virus that (get this) dates back to Sumeria, but it doesn't really hang together, so instead, enjoy the book for its portrayal of both an insanely Balkanized America and a huge cyberworld so vividly imagined that a whole bunch of Internet companies bankrupted themselves in the 1990s trying to create a world just like it. Also, any book that features a large Aleutian with a nuclear bomb in a motorcycle sidecar and the words "Poor Impulse Control" tattooed on his forehead is one you know you're going to have fun with. Links: Snow
Crash Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
One, Robert Heinlein wrote damn fine dialogue, which makes him more fun to read than most other writers today (and how sad is that, since Heinlein's been dead coming up on 15 years now). Two, Heinlein thought seriously about the nature of God and the interrelationship between God and His followers, which is interesting to contemplate even if you're not interested in the polysexual hijinks. Also, Jubal Harshaw, the cranky old man who counsels the "Stranger" is like a dyspeptic Yoda advising an extraordinarily horny Luke Skywalker, is one of the great curmudgeons of the 20th century writing, and you don't want to miss out on a character like that. Links: Stranger
in a Strange Land |
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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
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David
Lynch made this book into a 1984 film that was so incomprehensible that
the actual novel - 600 pages on the future of religion, politics, desert
ecology, and drug trafficking - look positively streamlined in comparison.
When the book came out in the mid 1960s its multiple story threads were
daunting. (Photo: Robert E. Nylund, via 
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Scientists
in the near future create a tiny black hole and - oops - allow it to sink
into the earth's core; in the process of digging it out, they discover
there's another black hole down there, and that one's origin
is a mystery - and a problem. (Photo: David Brin)
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Supersmart
child-warriors are used by the military to battle an invasion of buglike
aliens. That's the setup of Ender's Game; the meat of the story
comes from the struggle of one of these extraordinary children (named
Ender) to keep a grip on his humanity even as he's being turned into the
perfect killing machine. (Photo: nihonjoe via 
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Like
Dune, this is a large tale involving nobility, religion, politics,
and the fate of the human race - but for a change, the hero is a heroine.
(Photo: Charles N. Brown, via 
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Earth
is destroyed to make an intergalactic bypass, launching the interstellar
travels of one completely ordinary and befuddled human being named Arthur
Dent. (Photo Jill Furmanovsky, via 
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It
takes guts to snatch the format of The Canterbury Tales and use
it to crank out epic science fiction, but the extraordinarily talented
Dan Simmons (who also writes bang-up horror and action novels) is just
the guy to do it. (Photo: 
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This
one shows up on a lot of high school reading lists, and for good reason.
It's a fine combination of science fiction and fantasy and an increasingly
neglected literary form - a series of short stories, hung together with
a single thread: they all take place on Mars. (Photo: Alan Light, via
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The
perfect book for anyone who thinks that science fiction can't be literary
and/or adventurous in form. Miéville's genre-buster of a novel
is not unlike what you would get if you spliced together the genes of
Charles Dickens and horror master H.P. Lovecraft and raised the resulting
creature on the writings of Orwell, Huxley, and Philip K. Dick (the fellow
who wrote the story that was the basis of the movie Blade Runner).
(Photo: Andrew M Butler, via 
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William
Gibson's Neuromancer may be considered the first "cyberpunk"
novel, but the fact is, it's kind of a deadly bore. Snow Crash,
on the other hand, is a real hoot right from its first scene, which involves
a madcap pizza delivery and is written with the same sort of delirious
cinematic urgency that you'll find in the best novels of William Goldman
(Marathon Man). (Photo: Bob Lee via 
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The
expiration date for this novel and its ideas regarding love and sex and
human transcendence has sort of passed (people used the novel for years
as a foundation for their own desire for hippie polygamy, and now they
don't so much), but it still make for a good read for two reasons. (Photo:
Dd-b, via 
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Papercraft Animation
This video is truly amazing to watch. City made of books, sounds like my idea of a good hometown.
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Relationships Between 10 Classic Authors
Lots of people know about the relationship between fantasy writers C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, but who know Bram Stoker stole Oscar Wilde’s true love out from under his nose? I didn’t, at least, so I think these relationships between classic authors are terribly interesting. I included Lewis and Tolkien for those who didn’t know about their friendship. There are a lot more where this came from – I might make this a two-parter. And if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait for my second part, check out the book Secret Lives of Great Authors by Robert Schnakenberg. Very interesting read.
1. Bram Stoker was a frequent guest at Oscar Wilde’s parents’ house. Oscar’s mom, Lady Jane, was a poet who liked to keep literary company. Bram found himself in Lady Jane’s circle, and eventually met Florence Balcombe, who had previously been Lady Jane’s daughter-in-law to be. Yep, Florence was once engaged to Oscar Wilde. At least, by some accounts. Other accounts say they dated seriously and Oscar merely wanted to marry her. At any rate, Florence ended up marrying Bram Stoker instead. When Oscar heard she was engaged, he wrote her a letter and said that he was leaving Ireland and would never come back. He mostly stayed true to his word – he only came back twice for a brief visits.
2. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were good friends since they first met at Oxford and belonged to the Inklings group together. But they hated one another’s books. When Tolkien was writing a new character for Lord of the Rings and tried to describe the character to Lewis, Lewis famously responded, “Not another frigging dwarf!” Except, you know, he actually swore. But this is a family blog.
3. Louisa May Alcott loved Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Really loved them. Like Alcott, they were residents of Concord, Massachusetts, so she had friendships with both. She and Thoreau used to exchange ideas and he would play his flute for her. The Emerson infatuation may have started when Ralph Waldo gave her the book Goethe’s Correspondence with a Child, which involves a young girl in love with a horny old poet. You can see why Louisa may have been flattered and sort of started stalking him – she would leave flowers on his doorstep, write him love letters but never send them, and sit outside of his window and sing him songs in German. He was married and had a daughter just six years younger than Louisa and never returned her affections.
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were just three years apart in age. They met at the Dingo Bar in Paris in 1925, when Hemingway was 25 and Fitzgerald was 28. The Great Gatsby had just been published and looked to be a big hit; Hemingway, on the other hand, was a relatively unknown author. They were close friends for a while – Fitzgerald was notoriously insecure about himself in almost every aspect, and when his wife once insulted the size of his manhood, Fitz actually dropped trou and asked Hemingway if everything looked normal to him. Hemingway assured his friend that things appeared to be up to par. But the friendship quickly deteriorated. As Fitzgerald’s career fell and he descended further into alcoholism, Hemingway’s work started picking up. Hemingway started making fun of Fitzgerald to newspapers and magazines, to the point that Fitzgerald actually pleaded with his old friend to stop. The reason for the sudden cold shoulder? Hemingway was said to have been disgusted by Fitzgerald’s alcoholism, because he would make huge public scenes and embarrass himself and everyone around him when he was drunk.
5. And, speaking of Hemingway, he was also once very good friends with Gertrude Stein. He met her in Paris as well, at the introduction of their mutual friend, writer Sherwood Anderson (Anderson also introduced Hemingway to Ezra Pound). She reminded him of his mother both physically and otherwise. He even openly used Gertrude to try to work out some of his issues with his mother. She ended up introducing him to bullfighting, Spain, and prose. He used her as his sounding board and would completely rewrite something at her suggestion. He even made her the Godmother of his first son, Jack.
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Coolest Book Covers of 2008
Readerville Journal has been picking the coolest and most clever book covers since 2000; here’s this year’s installment. Did your favorite book make the list? I haven’t actually read any of the books on the list, but I’m really partial to the Ravens in the Storm cover (it’s the first one on the list).
Link via BoingBoing
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How to Make a Literary Clock
A perfect last-minute gift, I think. Take someone’s favorite childhood book, convert to a clock, and voila! And thanks to this Instructable, you even have step-by-step instructions on how to do it. The creator has a cute blog with lots of other crafty ideas, too.
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What Should You Read Next?
So you’ve just read a really good book, and you’re in the mood to read something similar. How do you know what you should check out?
Try “What Should I Read Next”! At the very least, it’s interesting. I typed in When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris, and here’s what I got:
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100 Notable Books of 2007
The New York Times has published the list of the 100 Notable Books of 2007 on their website.
What’s your favorite book from this year?
Link – via kottke.org
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Harry Potter First Edition Sold for Nearly $41,000
A copy of J.K. Rowling’s first book about Harry Potter, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, was sold yesterday to an anonymous private bidder for $40,326 at Christie’s auction house.
It was published in 1997 and is signed by Joanne Rowling on the back of the title page.
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