Is All Well?

The two sources I trust the most have finally weighed in on the Harry Potter phenomenon.

On the front page of the Book Review, The New York Time printed a review that revealed no major spoilers (although if you're not aware of the ending by now, it's time to sublet that granite subterranean flat you've been living in). Reviewer Christopher Hitchens takes a few high brow swipes at the series as a whole and the final volume in particular, but I expected nothing less.

The most anticipated analysis came from my Uncle Stevie over at the Bible of Popular Culture, commonly known as Entertainment Weekly. Stephen King has been the most loyal reader and defender of Harry Potter , J.K. Rowling and their combined exploits. He is also one of the most astute commentators on the state of today's popular culture.

I'm still mulling over Hitchens' piece and his perceptive parallels drawn between Orwell, Dickens, Kipling, Conan Doyle, and Rowling. Your thoughts?

The Big Read @ Kansas City Public Library

Kansas City Public Library, Park University and Liberty Memorial will be celebrating Ernest Hemingway's classic novel, A Farewell to Arms during October and November.The Big Read aims to encourage Kansas Citians to read, enjoy, contemplate, and discuss Hemingway's landmark novel of love and war on the Italian Front during the First World War.

The program period coincides with the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Caporetto, a devastating Italian defeat that served as a climactic moment in A Farewell to Arms.

More than 500 free paperback copies of A Farewell to Arms will be distributed to interested participants. In addition, there will be special events, panel discussions, book groups and movie screenings revolving around Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, and Hemingway's influential ties to Kansas City. Register for an event, book group or free copy of the book here.

Contribute comments and insights at the Kansas City Public Library's The Big Read blog.

Beisball's been berry good to SOMEONE!

To the tune of $2.8 million, the above non-descript cardboard image of an old tyme baseball player who is NOT a household name, has been sold anonymously. Read the greedy story here.

Read the story behind the story in The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card. Authors Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson trace the history and ownership of one of baseball's most famous, and hard-to-find, cards of a player unfamiliar to most fans except for his face on a collectible.

Now, I expect some sunburnt bleacher bums will cry foul. "The Flying Dutchman" was one of the foremost players of his day. Honus Wagner was an all-star quality player, a contemporay of Ty Cobb and one of the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. If his quotes are accurate, it sounds as if Mr. Wagner was one of the most forthright and honorable players of his time, too. There's a lesson to be learned here (I'm talkin' to YOU, MLB All-Stars). It's "How to Be a Gentleman and a Ballplayer instead of a Billionaire Athlete".

Wagner's fame is now tied to a little piece of cardboard he didn't endorse enclosed with a product he didn't condone.

O'Keeffe and Thompson eyeball the hobby of card collecting and aren't sure how to call it. A harmless American hobby that started with little boys and bubblegum (or bigger boys and tobacco) has morphed into a booming and conniving business involving authentication experts, auction house and Wall Street bankers.

Although the history and backstories are fascinating, the writing is a little dry. Some of O'Keeffe's sparkling sports prose would be welcome in this book. Fans and collectors will be entertained and informed and likely a little disenchanted with the moneyfication of the Great American pasttime. But there's no crying in baseball or baseball card collecting, either.

Stop what you're doing and read this book

At holiday gatherings, Friends of the Ballet cocktail parties and roller derbies, I am often asked what it is like to work in a library. "Huh huh, you must read all day" is the typical inane comment I hear. To which I reply, "Why no, I don't. I answer reference questions and suggest reading material to interested patrons." What I really want to say is, "Yep, right in one, psychic. But it beats chewing tobaccy, changing oil and yanking it to the Miss Quaker State calendar all day."

If you want to know what it's like to work in a library, then read Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the Public Library. Don Bochert has captured all the most delightful elements of working a public service desk. From reaching into the bookdrop and retrieving a fecal-encrusted dildo to reissuing a library card to a patron who swears the triple 666s will cause him pain to chasing off the drunk wearing a tutu to the patron who tried to mail a letter in the dictionary stand.

Bochert spills the beans about contemporary libraries with generous doses of love, candor and good natured humor. At the end of the checkout period, he still believes in the power of libraries and that patrons truly mean to return their materials on time.

A Good Day's Work

What got done:

1. One column written and submitted.

2. Two assigned blog posts written and posted.

3. One play review written and uploaded.

4. One book review written and submitted.

5. Three books, read and annotated.

6. One good run

7. In-laws visited

8. Awards notebook updated with new annotations.

What DID NOT get done:

1. Sweeping

2. Grocery shopping

3. Phone call to parents

4. Plants watered

I'd call it even.

Heart and Reading Rates

I don't have a lot of patience for those crepe-hangers who like to bemoan the fate of the book. Faced with the looming onslaught of technical devices with which to read, they wring their hands and clutch their beloved copies of Great Expectations to their heaving bosoms, vowing never to let ear buds invade their ear drums. They are annoyingly certain that only their imagination is the perfect conduit for an author's words, not some narrator and they don't want any gadgetry getting in the way of their printed pleasure.

Today I'm here to tell those folks to keep their dust jackets on, the printed book isn't going anywhere. My experience this morning while out for a run is proof.

Armed with a bottle of water and my CD player, I slipped the latest disc of the audio book I'm reviewing (and enjoying) into the player, set the volume, adjusted the ear pieces and kicked up my heels on a dusty track.

Halfway through the thrilling and perfectly narrated disc, it started to hiccup like an annoying drunk imparting much needed driving directions. I ignored it. I wasn't missing much of the story. It blipped, skipped, and hicc'd for the next half hour. So much so that my heart rate is unmeasurable at the end of the run, it's skipping and blipping along to the CD.

I cooled down (hardly) by walking and trying to hold the player to keep it from skittering. I was at a good part and I really wanted to hear what happened next. I held the player down by my side, over my head, stuffed it in my pocket. Nothing helped. I gave up and fumed the last quarter mile. "If I had a real book this wouldn't happen. I could hold the book up in front of my face and turn pages. Of course, I'd have to stop at crosswalks. And it might be difficult to follow the words if I'm bouncing while I'm running. But at least I'd be able to read all the damn words!"

This isn't the first time this player has sputtered its way through a workout. But I'd had it with technology by the time I got home. I left the CD player on the porch after I removed the disc and batteries. I got a cup of coffee and a hammer and went onto the porch for the upper body portion of the exercise hour.

You can't imagine how great it is to beat the hell out of a worn out CD player. There are little pieces of plastic and metal artfully scattered on my porch. I'll clean it up later.

Right now, I just had to share my firm belief that the printed book isn't on its way out, so ya'll eye-readers can just settle. And I need to order an iPod and sign up for Audible.

Reality TV for writers

I was looking over all the reality television offerings and realized that aside from C-SPAN's BookTV (a televised book report), there are no "real" shows that appeal to the bards and scribblers among us. Every other art form has secured its own small screen showcase, how about one for writers? Here are my pitches for this fall's TV slate.

Writing with the Stars: Ghost writers will partner with barely literate celebrities and construct a chapter from a forthcoming tell-all memoir. In the judging round, writers will read from each chapter. Winning entries will have the most outrageous content couched in the most literate prose. Only the celebrity will get credit for the win.

Top Scribe: Every week an unnamed publisher will provide a setting, two characters, a catch phrase, and a genre. Each writer-contestant will construct a proposal for a bankable bestseller that employs all elements. The winning proposal gets film rights. This week's challenge: In 24 hours, write a Hugo Award-winning book that includes the Korean War, one actuary, one librarian, and the phrase, "This one time, at band camp…?" Use of a thesaurus or Redbull will result in disqualification.

The Amazing Travelogue: Travel around the world to the secret destination provided in the itinerary that arrives at 12:01 in your email. You must use the method of travel specified (sedan chair, log raft, camel, coach-and-four). Once you have arrived at your destination you have $20 less than the going rate to secure accommodations at a clean and safe motel within walking distance of hot spots. You will have $10 less than the average meal with which to dine like a gourmet. You must find five no-cost/low-cost AND romantic activities to do. Frequent flyer points if one of the activities is family-friendly. Write up your experiences in 25 words or less and email back to editor by 5 pm the next day.

Flip this Manuscript: Submit your Great American Novel to 50 publishers. Collect all 50 rejection slips. Paper your bathroom walls with rejection slips. Bonus points for mosaics. Sell house.

Real World Author: Set alarm for 7 am. Punch until 8:30 am. Get up, pour coffee, turn on computer screen. Reread yesterday's efforts. Wonder why you didn't take mom's advice and become a history teacher. Drink more coffee. Reevaluate yesterday's efforts. Smugly realize that you are glad you didn't take mom's advice. Bang out three sparkling sentences that do not need editing. Get stuck. Stare at computer screen for 45 minutes. Clean bathroom. Stare at computer screen. Do laundry. Stare at computer screen. Mow lawn. Stare at computer screen. Kids come home from school. Find inspiration and write frantically until 2 am. Write. Read. Repeat. Get dropped from publisher next season for low Nielsen ratings.

I am so going to Hollywood.

A New Life With Old Demons

Gail Giles is known for taking on serious, almost controversial subjects, in her popular young adult novels. A loathsome student becomes the most popular kid before he is killed by classmates. When a daughter, thought to be dead, returns to her shattered family, her sister is skeptical. A Goth girl takes an inordinate interest in a quiet student with drastic results. The most popular girl in school is buried alive as revenge for the death of another student.

Giles has perfected the art of young adult heart-stopping page-turners. She does it again in her newest title, Right Behind You. Kip has just committed a horrible act. He flung gasoline and a lit match on seven-year-old Bobby Clarke. Bobby has died from his burns and Kip has been sequestered in a hospital. Kip is nine years old.

Flash forward almost five years. Wade has just moved to Indiana. He is trying to fit in at his new high school but his anger gets in the way. When Wade is angry he forgets he has a secret that he is longing to reveal. But to tell it means life is over for Wade and his family. So Wade fights to hide--from his friends, his family and himself. Wade is about to lose the fight.

Readers who have enjoyed this character-oriented story told in realistic dialogue and vivid action should turn next to Chris Crutcher.

This book was discussed on The Walt Bodine Show 's Book Doctors program August 13, 2007. KCUR 89.3

The Bodacious Bodine

I was graciously invited back to KCUR's Walt Bodine Show for the Book Doctors segment today. Listen here or click on Book Doctors and see which books I talked about today. And sorry the webcam wasn't working.

I was the eggiest head in the room for mentioning the new Poet Laureate, Charles Simic, and admitting to reading a collection of his poems, and then I was the most controversial as I promoted a book about a boy who murders another child. That's me, all over your reading spectrum like Fantastik on the kitchen counter.

Is all well?

The two sources I trust the most have finally weighed in on the Harry Potter phenomenon.

On the front page of the Book Review, The New York Times printed a review that revealed no major spoilers (although if you're not aware of the ending by now, it's time to sublet that granite subterranean flat you've been living in). Reviewer Christopher Hitchens takes a few high brow swipes at the series as a whole and the final volume in particular, but I expected nothing less.

The most anticipated analysis came from my Uncle Stevie over at the Bible of Popular Culture, commonly known as Entertainment Weekly. Stephen King has been the most loyal reader and defender of Harry Potter , J.K. Rowling and their combined exploits. He is also one of the most astute commentators on the state of today's popular culture.

I'm still mulling over Hitchens' piece and his perceptive parallels drawn between Orwell, Dickens, Kipling and Conan Doyle and Rowling. Your thoughts?