Books Archive

Monday, June 16, 2014

Breaking the Law - Stealing 'To Kill a Mockingbird'

I just read* the classic book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and I read it on my Kindle, but technically I had to break the law in order to do so. The author, Harper Lee, has refused to allow the book to be published in electronic format.

Now, I know I have a paperback version of the book stashed away somewhere in my house, but I was having a hard time finding it, and to be honest, I often times prefer reading on the Kindle, anyway. There are some aspects of old dead tree books that I like - the smell of the ink and the paper, the sound the pages make as you turn them, the way you can flip through the pages to re-read a section in light of something new you just read. But most of my reasons for liking print books are really just nostalgia. In general, the Kindle is a nicer form factor - easier to hold in bed, with one hand, or to lay on the table next to my plate while I'm eating.

But Harper Lee doesn't particularly like the idea of ebooks. In a letter to Oprah's magazine she wrote (among other things):

can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up -- some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a masterpiece, so I won't complain too much about an old woman's eccentricities. But the magic of a book is in the content, not the medium. When I read, I get so caught up in the story that I'm no longer consciously aware that I'm reading. The story is in my mind, not on the page or screen in front of me.

Anyway, if you haven't yet read To Kill a Mockingbird, you really must do so. It's one of the best stories I've read. And if you prefer to read on an eReader like the Kindle, it's easy enough to find on Google. I'd recommend searching for a .mobi or .epub version rather than a .pdf so that the text can be resized. (As of right now, this link works and doesn't do anything crazy like install a download manager.) But don't just outright steal it. If I didn't already have the paperback somewhere in the house, I don't think I'd have downloaded the bootleg copy. So see if you can find a legit copy somewhere so that you at least own the content.

*To be honest, I didn't just read To Kill a Mockingbird. I finished it a few months ago and wrote this entry back then, but somehow forgot about it and left it languishing in my drafts folder for a little while. Oh well, it's not like this is breaking news. Better late than never, I guess.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Book Rant - Divergent Series

I just finished reading the Divergent trilogy. This entry isn't so much a review of the series as a rant. This is one of the only series I've ever read where I'm going to actively discourage others from reading it, and I've read Dan Brown and parts of the Left Behind series (LB 1, LB 2, and TF) , so that's saying something. In fact, the only reason I'm including the Amazon link to the right is so that readers here can go see reviews on Amazon, not to encourage anyone to buy the book.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Of course, if you've read the books yourself, or read any articles about the books, you'll probably know that the ending was not very popular with fans. And I'll admit, I wasn't particularly happy with it myself (there's enough sad news in reality, I don't need it in the book equivalent of an action movie). But it's not just the final few chapters that made the series a disappointment. The entire last book seemed out of character with the first two. My daughter had to struggle to get through the final book, and my wife just eventually gave up and let my daughter and me tell her how it ended. The big reveal on why people were living in the faction systems was a bit of a let down, and not very plausible scientifically. Tobias ceased to be the badass he'd been all along. The resolution of the war between the Allegiant and factionless was anticlimatic. And then the controversial ending itself seemed contrived and forced, without really seeming to add much to the story. I could go on with the shortcomings, but instead I'll just recommend a review on Amazon by someone named Penny, Why Allegiant is one of the worst books I've ever read (I just found a link to a longer review by Penny on Blogger, Breaking down the ending to Allegiant).

After doing a little looking around online, I came across an interview with Roth herself, on the site SugarScape, Author Veronica Roth on the Allegiant shock twist: 'It was always part of the plan, but it was hard to do'. Despite the headline of the article, the ending wasn't always part of Roth's plan. Just read this portion of the interview.

Well, I wrote Divergent totally blind without any planning so I didn't plan it from the very first page that it would even be a trilogy because I didn't know what the book would be. But after I wrote the first draft of Divergent and when the book sold I do remember talking to my editor about how I wanted the rest of them to go because the publisher said, 'You know, do you have other books planned?" I said, 'This is how I'm thinking of ending it," and she said 'Don't tell anyone about that!'

That was her reaction. So it was definitely a part of the plan although I wasn't sure if I would stick to it because I try not to stick so closely to my outlines that I have sacrifice the story. But then I was inching closer and closer to the end I was like this is the right option, this is the only option.

And a bit later in the interview, regarding a question on the meaning of 'divergent', she again revealed her lack of planning.

I just fell on it really. I was writing the Outside World and it just kind of appeared out of nowhere. What I really found appealing was throughout the whole series I was trying to figure out what Divergence really is, just like everybody else. By the time I got to the 3rd book I didn't really like that I had elevated Tris as being like this special one so I was like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if Divergence really isn't anything?' Like, if it was just what people believe it is and people put this importance into this thing that doesn't really exist, because I think people would do that.

Two books in, and she still didn't know what one of the central themes of the books was about!

This lack of planning is very apparent in hindsight. So much of the third book just doesn't seem to fit with the first two, but that now makes sense. Roth never knew where she wanted to take the stories, and had to fit an ending into a trilogy format, even if it meant abandoning the earlier plot and instituting a multitude of 'retcons'.

I know different authors have different levels of planning when it comes to writing stories. J.R.R. Tolkien created new languages and an entire mythology. J.K. Rowling had backstories and the entire plot planned out enough to guide moviemakers for Harry Potter. At the very least, you expect authors to have an idea of the overall plot and major themes of their books. To find out that Roth had been winging it the entire time leaves me feeling cheated. It certainly doesn't seem like a very professional way of writing.

Oh well, at least I learned one lesson - don't read any more series written by Veronica Roth.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Books, A Year in Review - 2013, Part II

Old Book Bindings, from Wikimedia Commons It's taken me a little longer than I'd hoped to get this done, but here is the second part of my review of the books I read in the last year, just in time to click a link to pick up a Christmas present for the booklover in your life. (More precisely - these are books I read from October 2012 through October 2013). Part I was an analysis of my reading habits, while this entry will give a brief review for each book.

I've made it a tradition to use this space to list my favorite books from the year. And like many years, it's tough to pick my favorites again this year. As far as fiction, I really liked both The Kronos Chronicles and The Uglies Series. If you're interested in the Bible, I can't recommend the New Oxford Annotated Bible highly enough. The Around Pottstown (Postcard History Series) and Wichita Falls (Images of America) books were both very interesting. I actually have a couple more books from that series on my nightstand that I'm looking forward to reading. I also really liked Feynman and Primates, but I guess I'd rank them just a little behind the rest of my favorites. As far as regular non-fiction, I really liked Night, The Darwin Experience, and Pterosaurs.

But I can't just list every book I read as a favorite, so if I have to narrow down that list, I think I can limit it to The Uglies Series, Around Pottstown, Wichita Falls, and Pterosaurs.

Continue reading "Books, A Year in Review - 2013, Part II" »

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Book Review - Tribulation Force

Tribulation Force is the second book in the hugely successful Christian End Times series, Left Behind, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Many of my impressions of Tribulation Force are the same as my impressions of the first book, Left Behind, so you can read my previous entries on that book, Some Early Thoughts on Left Behind and More Thoughts on Left Behind After Finishing the Book, along with the brief review from my 2011 book wrap-up.

Let me start off this review by saying that I was entertained by this book, enough that I'll probably continue reading the series (though not straight through without breaks for other books). And let me also preface this review by admitting that when I first saw the Left Behind movie while I was still a Christian, it seemed reasonably plausible, if not particularly likely to occur any time soon. It wasn't until I abandoned Christianity, read the actual book, and discovered Slacktivist's Left Behind reviews that I realized just how implausible the story is (thanks for making me feel so gullible, Slacktivist).

Even if you believe in Christianity, and even if it's one of the varieties that believes in the Rapture and subsequent apocalypse, the events as depicted in these books are wildly implausible (note that the Slacktivist himself is an evangelical Christian). The first book, Left Behind, begins with the Rapture - every True Christian being taken to heaven, along with every single child younger than their early teens, no matter who their parents. The opening chapters of the first book described all the chaos that ensued from that event - cars crashing head on into other cars after the drivers miraculously vanished, airports littered with wrecked airliners that brave passengers had tried their best to land after losing the flight crew, expecting parents grieving the loss of their soon to be born children. But all of the mayhem this supposedly caused is practically non-existent in later chapters of the first book and the entirety of the second book. Other than a few passing references to increased crime or missing children, the characters in Tribulation Force are living in a world remarkably similar to the existing world.

And as if the Rapture weren't strange enough, everybody still alive got to witness Israel divinely protected from an all-out Russian attack, and then the fire-breathing prophets in Tribulation Force that can't be killed by thugs or armies. But despite these obviously miraculous events, people by and large continue to dismiss the (apparently new) Christians who believe in the End Times as nothing more than religious fanatics. Unless God were intentionally hardening everyone's hearts, this is not the reaction that would happen in reality. Americans in particular are already prone to religious explanations, and practically everyone knows something about the Rapture and the second coming of Christ. Can you really imagine the events from this series occuring without everyone jumping to the conclusion that people like La Haye and Jenkins had been right all along. I think this is a reflection of how the authors see the world now - that their particular brand of Christianity must be so obvious that there can't be any good reason for non-believers to actually not believe.

In Slacktivist's reviews, he'll occasionally write alternate versions of passages, illustrating how the events could have been depicted in the hands of different authors, and it makes you realize just how much better these books could have been. Two of my favorites of these alternate passages are in his entries, TF: Reaching for the cookie sack and T.F.: A new car.

The first of those pages linked to above dealt with a small scene where Buck and Chloe bought a cookie at the airport, from a stereotypical "bored teenager wait[ing] for their order." Rather than simply go with the stereotype, especially in a post-Rapture world where everyone's lives must have been turned upside down, Slacktivist imagined a back story for the teenager, and it was far more interesting and touching than anything LaHaye and Jenkins have come up with so far.

The second of the pages linked to above criticized the following sentence from the book, "Buck Williams had spent the day buying a car -- something he hadn't needed in Manhattan -- and hunting for an apartment." In the book, that's the extent of the description of Buck buying the car. There was no mention of where he went, how many dealerships he had to go to, how much he spent, how the dealer himself was dealing with the recent Rapture. Heck, there was absolutely no mention of what type of car Buck bought, whether it was a compact import, an exotic sports car, or a gas guzzling all American SUV. And the few times later in the book when Buck mentioned to other characters that he'd bought a car, they didn't respond realistically. Just imagine that one of your friends came up to you and said, "I just bought a new car.' What would your first reaction be? I would guess it would be something along the lines of, "Oh really, what kind?" But none of the characters ever asked Buck what type of new car he just bought, so that by the end of the book, the only thing we know about Buck's car is that it's "a car". Now, that may not be the most pertinent detail in the series, but a car can tell you a lot about a person's personality, especially in books and movies when certain types of cars are stereotypically given to certain characters (e.g Dinner for Schmucks, Porsches For Jerks - I wonder if Buck bought a 911). And this is really just symptomatic of the lack of detail (and unrealistic dialogue) throughout the whole series thus far.

I will post a sort of warning, however, if you intend to read this book and Slacktivist's reviews. Read the book first. While Slacktivist's entries are entertaining and often spot on, the constant negative comments against the book will bias you against it from the get go, and make it harder to suspend your disbelief to enjoy the books. And Slacktivist sometimes goes a bit too far, in my opinion, interpreting the book especially harshly when a more charitable interpretation might be more fitting.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of these books if you want to read them for enjoyment is the fact that the two main characters aren't particular likeable. The books are told from the viewpoints of Buck Williams and Rayford Steele, but even reading the story through their eyes and reading their thoughts, they come off as arrogant, inconsiderate jerks. In the first book, I'd chalked it up to them not having been True Christians, and expecting their personalities to change for the better once they converted. But in Tribulation Force, they're born again Christians for the entire book, and they're still jerks. I know heroes aren't supposed to be Mary Sues/Gary Stus. They need to have some flaws to make them believable, but the author needs to be careful to not make the flaws so numerous that the hero is no longer a 'hero'. Like I wrote previously, you don't so much root for the main characters in this book, as just read to see what's going to happen.

There's really only a handful of symphathetic characters - Chloe Steele (Rayford's college age daughter who becomes the love interest for 30 something Buck), Hattie Durham (the flight attendant that Rayford had been leading on before the Rapture), and Chaim Rosenzweig (a chemist who developed a practically magical formula making the deserts of Israel into fertile farmland). Hattie and Chaim were duped into becoming part of the inner circle of the Anti-Christ, before they had a chance to receive divine protection by becoming born again Christians like the book's 'heroes'. Yet throughout the two books so far, the 'heroes' have done nothing to attempt to save their friends. Chloes started off the series as a college girl, the group's token skeptic. But in Tribulation Force, she's slowly morphing into a stereotypical silly girl. In one of the most painful aspects of the book to read, the authors commit the standard tropes of Not What It Looks Like and the Idiot Ball, when Chloe sees a secretary for Buck's company drop by his apartment to drop off some of his things (again with the arrogant heroes - who still makes secretaries run personal errands?). Chloe talks to the woman, and the woman talks about her fiance in just such a way that Chloe can misunderstand it to think that the woman is talking of Buck. But rather than ask Buck a simple question to clear up what's going on, the author's drag on this misunderstanding for nearly half the book, along with a similarly painful episode involving mysterious flowers from a secret admirer.

While reading the book, I used my iPhone to snap pictures of particularly cringe worthy scenes throughout the book. I'd intended to use those photos to highlight those scenes in a detailed review of the book, but there are so many (I took nearly 60 photos) that it would make this review unnecessarily long. Perhaps one day I'll post the detailed review including critiques of all those passages, but I doubt I'd add much more than what Slacktivist has already done. Instead, I'll just quote one passage, since it actually ties in with the book of the Bible I'm reading right now for my Friday Bible Blogging series, the book of Job. This is from towards the end of the book, after Rayford re-marries (in a character thrown into the plot after an "Eighteen months later" jump).

Despite their concern for Bruce, Rayford felt a little more whole. He had a four-person family again, albeit a new wife and a new son.

Because family members can be so easily replaced. I still feel the loss of my grandparents, and it's been well over a decade since I lost the last of them. And it doesn't matter how many new people I've met since their deaths. They were individual people who cannot be replaced. The above passage is almost dehumanizing, thinking of a wife as just a position to be filled.

Since my impressions of Tribulation Force are so similar to those I had for Left Behind, I'll end this review by adapting what I'd already written in my brief review of Left Behind. Tribulation Force wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible, either. The series so far isn't, as Slacktivist said, "The Worst Books Ever Written." At the very least, it gives you some insight into the mindset of premillenial dispensationalists. If you can get past the corny dialog, unlikeable heroes, and lack of detail, and then suspend your disbelief about the implausible scenarios, you can enjoy the books. Like I wrote above, I liked Tribulation Force well enough that I'll probably try to finish out the series.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Friday Bible Blogging - The Book

This entry is part of a series. For a listing of all entries in the series, go to the Index.

The Skeptic's Perspective, Cover
The Skeptic's Perspective: An Atheist Reads the Bible
by Jeffrey Lewis
$9.99 from Lulu.com
Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.
Have you been following along with this series, and found yourself hoping for a professionally printed and bound copy to put on your bookshelf? (No? Just me?) Well the wait is over. I've collected all of the entries for the Pentateuch and the Historical Books, and compiled them into the first volume of a multiple-part series, The Skeptic's Perspective: An Atheist Reads the Bible.

As with my other book, I'm using the print on demand company, Lulu. I've just this week completed all the work to put the book together on Lulu, and am eagerly awaiting my copy of the book. For this reason, I've made the note on the product page that this is a proof copy version. Now, I was pretty careful to try to make the book correctly, but until I get the review copy in my hand, I can't promise that it's perfect. So, if you'd prefer, you can wait until I look over the hard copy and change the product page to the release version. But, if you're trying to get an early start on your holiday shopping, and you trust that I haven't screwed things up too badly, you can place your order now for everyone on your Christmas list (everyone, that is, who would appreciate a Christmas present written by an atheist).

...

Yeah, yeah. I know that I'm probably going to be the only person to order this book. Unlike my previous book that I really do think has broader appeal, I don't foresee a huge market for this one. And I probably shouldn't write something like that on the page where I'm trying to convince people to buy the book, but it's the truth. Really, I just wanted a nice copy to put on my bookshelf, and with print on demand companies it's just as easy to make it available to the whole world.

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