Where Fiction meets Fact

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I am currently reading The Dark Design, third in the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer. (The First two were logged here and here)

In my log of the first book, I mentioned this:

I see from the bio that Philip Jose’ Farmer was born in 1918 in Terre Haute, IN, which is 5 years after and 20 miles from the time and place when my grandfather, Floyd Lucas, was born. I wonder if they met at a barn dance.

In these novels, there is a character named Peter J. Frigate, which is based upon the author.

I have just read a chapter where Peter J. Frigate recounts his past a bit (in Terre Haute), with great detail about his father (where he went to school, etc) and other family members. A little more than necessary in the context of the book, which leads me to believe he was spewing facts about his real history.

And then he mentioned his grandmother, Wilhelmina Kaiser. And I remembered that my grandmother, born in 1917 near Terre Haute, was a Kaiser.

So, now I’m wondering not so much whether my grandfather met Farmer at a barn dance, but rather whether my grandmother knew him from a family get together. Something to be put on a list of To Be Researched.

Book Log – Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt

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Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby

This is the sequel to The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby’s previous compilation of his Believer columns about books. I’ve extolled his columns before in a previous book log, but I’ll state it again: I love, love, love his columns about reading.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered I had forgotten I wasn’t done with this book. I was crawling around on the floor with Scout the other night and noticed it on the table beside the couch, with the built-in cover bookmark at the halfway point. “How odd,” I said to myself, “that I should have put the book away with the bookmark still in the book instead of folded back into the cover!” I opened it at the mark and read a bit and realized I’d put the book down, gotten distracted by a shiny object, and forgot that there was still some left to go.

Really, it’s like finding $20 in the pocket of a little-used jacket.

The preface is a witty diatribe against book snobbery:

But what’s proper? Whose books will make us more intelligent? Not mine, that’s for sure.

Hornby and I have two books-read in common this time, Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation and Levitt’sFreakanomics. He’s purchased The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup by Susan Orlean, but it languishes on the shelf. I kind of don’t blame him, her essays are a little bit… I dunno. Opaque? I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.

Sarah Vowell is mentioned numerous times, largely because they are friends (“I should own up here and say that Sarah Vowell used to be a friend, back in the days when she still spoke to people who weren’t sufficiently famous to warrant animation”). Several book recommendations come from her, and when mentioned in the later half of the book, he refers to her exclusively as Violet Incredible.

Assassination Vacation is the first of the inevitable Incredibles cash-ins– Sarah Vowell, as some of you may know, provided the voice of Violet Parr in The Incredibles, and has chosen to exploit the new part of her fame by writing a book about the murders of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. See, I don’t know how good an idea this is, from the cash-in angle. Obviously I’m over here in London, and I can’t really judge the appetite for fascinating facts about the Garfield presidency among America’s preteens, but I reckon Vowell might have done better with something more contemporary– a book about the Fair Deal, say, or an analysis of what actually happened at Yalta.

He also reveals that he was the English Nick mentioned in one of her essays in Assassination. Incestuous!

High-larious. I eagerly await the next one.

From Zero to Solar

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Solar Power makes tiny village beam

I was intrigued when I saw this article, but then I read it and got confused.

Basically, it talks about how solar powered lamps were brought to this small, rural Indian town. It lists all sorts of things people could now do after dark, because of this innovative artificial light. Villagers could play music after dark, children could study will past sundown.

The article talked about how there was no electricity available and little water.

But it didn’t talk about why they didn’t have candles or other non-electric lamps. Perhaps the raw materials aren’t available, plentiful and/or affordable?

I guess I really need to get back to reading Guns, Germs and Steel.

Book Log – The Education of Gregory McDonald

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The Education of Gregory McDonald – Writings about America 1966-1973 by Gregory McDonald

Originally, it was my desire to read everything Gregory McDonald has written. He was written a lot of fun books, such as the Fletch series, the Flynn series and his attempt at being Charles Dickens, Safekeeping1. But I’ve been burned a few times by his stuff. The Skylar and Son of Fletch books are sort of bland. I couldn’t even tell you why. I picked up the completely unreadable Merely Players, which as far as I can tell was intended to be “literature”, but read more like a soap opera that takes itself seriously.

I’m not particularly interested in the era that McDonald writes in this book. Apparently, he was a reporter covering this and that during the time… interviewing Warhol, Baez, Kerouac and other famous people, along with the less famous.

While it was somewhat interesting, he often went into Opaque Mode, where I simply didn’t understand what the heck he was saying. I made a mental note of one particular paragraph to include here, but like most mental notes I make, I lost it somewhere between my mother’s birthday and instructions to take out the garbage.

Flynn’s World has been out for four years. I should get a copy.

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1 While he failed to be Dickens, he wrote a fine book nonetheless.

Book Log – Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things

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Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren’t as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn’t Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out. Stories by Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, and more.

I didn’t realize this was a children’s book when I ordered it from McSweeney’s, but that’s quite all right. I’m glad to have read it. It may or may not be a children’s book, but I think it should be.

There was a more simply titled book that my grandmother gave me when I was growing up, Wonders: Writings & Drawings for the Child in Us All that was a larger collection, though with similarly eccentric storytelling by an impressive roster of writers. Noisy Outlaws appears to be a shorter, smaller, modern version of Wonders.

I love the now out-of-print Wonders to this day. I still have my copy, sitting waiting on my son’s bookcase, on a shelf somewhat higher than he can reach yet. In the days before Amazon’s used book service, I searched far and wide and with much effort and some expense procured a copy for my niece and nephew, who may or may not have lost it, since I’ve never seen it on their bookshelves since. After the advent of half.com, I bought a copy for $0.50 plus shipping for my wife’s best friend’s kids, who reportedly loved it.

So, I guess I know who’s getting a copy of Noisy Outlaws at next available opportunity.

Book Log – Finding Serenity

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Finding Serenity: Anti-heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly Edited by Jane Espenson

The second fan book I read in a row. A series of essays by random people (including one by the Kaylee actress), written before the movie came out.

There was a funny parody of how Fox decided to cancel the series, told through a fictional series of memos sent to Joss.

There was a somewhat interesting history of westerns and sci-fi, and how Gene Roddenberry, while doing great things, also ruined it for everyone else.

Jewel Staite just wrote a piece about her favorite bits from the episodes. Bleh.

A little bit about the story behind Firefly creation and production.

All in all, I’m just going to stop reading books about TV series. I’m not a hardcore fanboy at heart.

Book Log – What Will Happen In Harry Potter 7?

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Mugglenet.com’s What Will Happen In Harry Potter 7? by Ben Schoen, Emerson Spartz, Andy Gordon, Gretchen Stull & Jamie Lawrence

Emerson Spartz was a bored 12 year old homeschooler in 1999 when he started MuggleNet.Com, which apparently exploded along with the popularity of the books. One assumes he’s not one of the Ultra Religious Homeschooler crowd like we have here in Georgia who were trying to get Harry Potter banned from school libraries.

The web popularity even enabled him to do a personal interview with J.K. Rowling. So, huzzah for him.

The book, which I borrowed from my brother’s girlfriend, is a somewhat tedious read. It is highly repetitive and written without elegance. But, then again, I am reading a fan book, so none of this is surprising.

What I was really hoping for was a cliff notes to the series, with all the likely important plot points listed. If they were trying to fill space by repetitiveness, I think they might have considered doing a plot and key info breakdown of each book. That would’ve padded the tome out nicely.

Regardless, there were some interesting theories suggested, with supporting data from the books and interviews with J.K. Rowling.

Not spoilers, since it’s just rehashing known information, but…