Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami

One of the many advantages of the Sony Reader digital format is that as you download books the Sony Reader Store will learn about the kinds of books that you like and make recommendations.

Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami was one such recommendation.  It was my first introduction to this writer.  Kafka on the Shore is both bizarre and surreal. But, with that being said, is also a compelling story of the interconnectedness of lives.

The storyline alternates between two seemingly unrelated characters. The odd chapters are a first-person narrative of 15 year-old Kafka Tamura, who runs away from his home in Tokyo to escape his sculptor father and to search for his mother and sister.  The even chapters are told in the third person about Nakata, an elderly retarded man who has an uncanny ability to find missing cats.

Throughout the novel the two characters are on a collision course.  Author Haruki Murakami stated when asked about the meaning of the novel, ” the secret to understanding the novel lies in reading it multiple times: “Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren’t any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It’s hard to explain, but that’s the kind of novel I set out to write.”

I am glad to have been introduced to such an enigmatic writer. I plan on reading more of his works.

Planet India by Mira Kamdar

With a population of 1.5 billion people India is the world’s largest democracy.   As such, as India goes so goes the world.  After studying Hindi for some time, I thought it would be interesting to study the demographics and culture of India.

India is the world’s fourth-largest economy.•

By 2034, India will be the most populous country on Earth, with 1.6 billion people.

•India’s middle class is already larger than the entire population of the United States.

•One out of three of the world’s malnourished children live in India.

•India is home to the biggest youth population on earth:

600 million people are under the age of 25.

•109,000,000 cell phones will be sold in India in 2010.

•India just edged past the United States to become the second-most-preferred destination for foreign direct investment after China.

•In 1991, Indians purchased 150,000 automobiles; in 2007, they are expected to purchase 10 million.

•By 2008, India’s total pool of qualified graduates will be more than twice as large as China’s.

•By 2015, an estimated 3.5 million white-collar U.S. jobs will be offshored.

•India is the largest arms importer in the developing world.

•American corporations expect to earn $20 to $40 billion from the civilian nuclear agreement with India.

•In 2007, there are 2.2 million Indian Americans, a number expected to double every decade.

•Twenty-nine percent of India’s population speaks English — that’s 350 million people.

The numbers clearly reflect that India needs to succeed as a democracy and be a close ally of the United States.  As a developing nation India can learn from some of America’s mistakes. While India is a mix of various religions ( Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian) the dominant culture is Hindu.  Hindu culture places a high value on family and non-violence. Much of American corporate culture has to be re-interpreted for the Indian market.

Fascinating stuff and despite all the numbers it is a quick read.

Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is best known as the author of Fight Club, the novel that was made into a blockbuster movie and cult film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.  Chuck Palahniuk writing style is minimalistic and his themes are dark and foreboding.

In Fight Club, Palahniuk takes on the Financial Complex ( the tangled matrix of banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, stock market investors whose job it is to f*ck over the “Little Guy”) .  The central character that actor Edward Norton portrays is never given a name because he represents “The Everyman” that is a mindless pawn caught in the “system” and a bitch to “the man”.

The theme in Pygmy is no less funny and disturbing.  The central character is Pygmy, so-called because of his short stature.  Pygmy is one of a group of terrorists from a totalitarian state who have been trained and indoctrinated since age four to hate everything American and seek America’s downfall. The terrorists come to America as a group of thirteen year-old “exchange students”  to Mid-Western homes.

The story is written from the perspective of Pygmy; including butchered use of the English language.  Pygmy has no sense of humor and takes everything at its literal meaning.  This makes for some hilarious stuff.  It really gives an outsiders look at American culture and how outlandish some of our traditions are.  As a 13 year-old middle school student in an American school, Pygmy is forced to take a Swing Choir class and he cannot fathom the absurdity of this mindless waste of time and energy. ( One of the funniest sections of the book).

Author Chuck Palahuniuk

Along the way, Pygmy develops an attachment for the people who he has been trained to destroy.  This is a fantastic novel, but not for the faint of heart (like all of Palahniuk’s works).  The novel reveals some of the hypocrisies of the Christian establishments and nearly everything American is fair game for Palahniuk’s wit.

Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman

Normally, I try to switch things around a bit with regard to my reading.  I enjoyed Jonathan Kellerman’s  True Detectives so much that I had to read his latest novel Evidence.

In Evidence, Kellerman brings back Dr. Alex Delaware as the principal character, along with side-kick Milo Sturgis. The action starts when the bodies of a man and woman are discovered in an uncompleted mansion.  One of the bodies is that of a womanizing architect with a penchant for having affairs on building sites and the body of the woman remains a mystery.

The site of the murders leads to international intrigue.  Everyone associated with the building is mum about the owners.  As further evidence is uncovered, more and more people  would have reason to murder the architect.  A gripping, fast read. Two thumbs up!

True Detectives by Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman is by far my favorite mystery writer.  Kellerman is not only a New York Times Top Ten novelist, but is a licensed psychologist.  His principal character in many of his novels is Dr. Alex Delaware.  Dr. Delaware mirrors Dr. Kellerman in many ways; both are child psychologists who live in the Beverly Glen area of Los Angeles and have an affection for French bulldogs and koi.

Rather than being pulp fiction to pass the time, Kellerman’s novels become complex psychological dramas that provide an insight into the human mind.

In True Detectives, Dr. Alex Delaware has only a cameo role.  The central characters are brothers Moses Reed ( an L.A. homicide detective)  and  Aaron Fox ( a private investigator)  who have a same mother but different fathers. The pair are polar opposites. Moe Reed is lily white and Aaron Fox is black.  Reed is no-nonsense and Fox is flashy.The brothers first made their appearance in Kellerman’s novel Bones.

Despite years of tension between the brothers, the two are forced to work together to solve the murders of  two seemingly unrelated victims.  The novel gives a glimpse into the privileged world of Hollywood stars and the hangers-on who surround them.  It is fast-paced and exciting.  This is one of my favorite Kellerman novels in quite some time. I give it an unqualified two thumbs up.

Kellerman and French bulldog "Hugo".

Sorry for the lack of recent reading posts.  It’s not that I haven’t been reading, just a plate and a half of stuff trying to be put on one plate.

One of my absolute favorite sessions during the American Library Assoc. Annual Conference recently in Chicago was First Books, First Authors.  The session had six first-time authors who each told the story of how their books got published and how the stories took shape.  Each book and author was very different.  But they each had one thing in common: they had to listen to the word “NO” repeatedly before their book was published.  At the end of the session, each attendee received a special signed copy of the books. Sweet! With all these books to read I have been keeping busy.

Hot House Flower, by Margot Berwin

Hot House Flower is a book I typically would not have read.  The author’s story was so compelling that I had to give the book a read. I was not disappointed.  While Margot Berwin had written a couple of other books before this one was published, this one came to her in a flash of thought.

She told the story of how she was walking along First Avenue in NewYork and came upon this laundromat.  There were plants growing everywhere inside.  The owner explained that the laundry was an ideal environment for so many tropical plants and it created a different experience for his customers, who were mainly from Central and South America.   The storyline took root from that one experience.  She has also sold the movie rights to Sony Pictures and the movie will star Julia Roberts.

The Great Perhaps, by Joe Meno is about the modern American family.  In this first novel the writer alternates characters in this family by chapters and explores their inner thoughts and motivations.  While slow to get going and a trifle short on real action, it does give some insight into the inner workings of being a family and how each family comes to terms with its own problems.

The Great Perhaps, by Joe Meno

Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan

Tinkers, by Paul Harding

Come Back, Como, by Steven Winn

World in Half, by Christina Henriquez

Chicago skyline

I am back from the Chicago ALA Conference and had a great time.  It was also our kids’ 8th birthday and we were able to celebrate it at the Cheesecake Factory and a trip to the Field Museum.

It was enlightening experience as far as library business is concerned.  We in Jackson County are very fortunate to have a library in as good of a financial situation as we are in.  Many library trustees that I spoke with were in dire financial straits with the current economic climate.  Many libraries are in a situation with having to close branches and make lay-offs.

There are also a lot of new technologies on the horizon.  More and more books are being offered in a digital format for easy downloading via the internet.  How will libraries figure in this equation?  This is a technology that we will hope to be able to offer so that all citizens have equal access to information.  I also saw some exciting language-learning technology for both English and non-English speaking patrons.

Libraries are becoming less and less about shelves of books and more about being a community-building resource and the gateway for information.

The Blogger and Seth pose with real-life statue.

American Library Association Annual Convention

I leave tomorrow morning (Friday, July 10) for the Annual American Library Association conference in Chicago and I could not be more excited.  Whenever I mention this to people they give me the strangest looks as if  this would have to be a tortuous event.

People conjure up images of elderly ladies in hairnets shushing people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today, libraries are on the forefront of freedom of information and keeping information able to be freely disseminated. An added plus is that Chicago is one of my favorite cities in the U.S.

Digital Rights Management (DRM), for instance, stands in the way of information ( such as ebooks, e-magazines, etc.) being disseminated through libraries.  It would be impossible for a library to purchase a copy of an ebook for every patron checking out the title. Some entities view libraries as an impediment to enhanced profits.

This is also one of the largest audiences for publishers and a chance to meet some of the greatest living authors of our time.  The conference also showcases emerging technologies in digital information and how this can be integrated into library systems. Every year the library is less about hardbound books, but more about the integration of knowledge into a user-friendly and accessible form.

Jackson County has a wonderful library system and I am proud to be a part of this great resource in our community.  If you have not checked it out lately, I urge you to see what the excitement is about.

Anathem, by Neil Stephenson

Anathem is to literature what the Ironman is to triathlon.  Not only is the novel (published in 2008) 917 pages long, but it is a dense, complex work as well. The novel explores ideas in mathematics, physics, and philosophy.  Heady stuff.

Anathem is set on the planet Arbre. Thousands of years prior to the events in the novel, society was on the verge of collapse. Intellectuals entered concents, much like monastic communities but without the religious elements. Here, the avout—a term for intellectuals, fraa for monk and suur for nun—are given limited access to tools and technology and are watched over by officials answering to the outside world (known as the Sæcular Power). The concents are therefore slow to change, unlike the rest of Arbre, which goes through many cycles of booms and busts.

The narrator and protagonist Erasmas is a fraa at the concent of Saunt Edhar. His primary teacher, Orolo, discovers that alien beings are orbiting Arbre, which the Sæcular Power is attempting to cover up. Orolo secretly observes the aliens with an illegally obtained (according to concent law) camera, and enlists Erasmas to help collect this data. Erasmas is unaware of the content of the research until he deciphers it after Orolo is banished in the rite of “Anathem”.

Several months pass, and Erasmas falls in love with suur Ala, another avout at Saunt Edhar. Immediately after this, the Sæcular Power removes her along with several other avout, requiring their help with a secret project. Erasmas, still upset about Orolo’s banishment, throws himself into his work. The presence of the alien ship soon becomes an open secret among many of the avout. Several weeks later, a laser shines down from the ship and illuminates part of Saunt Edhar. Now that the aliens have shown themselves openly, the Sæcular Power removes many avout from Saunt Edhar, this time including Erasmas.

Erasmas and the rest of the avout are told to travel to Saunt Tredegarh, another concent several thousand miles away. Erasmas instead desires to find Orolo, who had recently travelled to the isolated concent of Orithena, on the other side of Arbre. A mysterious fraa named Jad, who is seemingly hundreds of years old, tells Erasmas to find Orolo, suggesting that he has valuable information about the aliens, which by this time have come to be known as the Geometers because of graphical proof of Pythagoras’ Theorem seen on the side of their ship.

I came about this particular novel when researching William Gibson, whom I have written about before.  Although classified as science fiction, both William Gibson and Neil Stephenson’s works are more aligned with fine literature.

I realize that this is the second William Gibson novel in less than a month that I have reviewed.  I am just a huge fan of his work.  What is ironic is that I am NOT a fan of science fiction.  What differentiates William Gibson’s work from many other science fiction writers is that his focus is on the human characters and their dialogue and not on the Gee-Whiz fascination with technology.  Also, the plots  of his novels are realistic and plausible.

Count Zero, by William Gibson

Count Zero is the second in the Matrix Trilogy ( Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive). What is hard to imagine is that this novel was written is 1986.  William Gibson has done an amazing job at detecting cultural, societal, and technological trends and extrapolating them out many years into the future.

Governments have collapsed and giant multinational corporations compete with each other to run the show.    The novel is divided into three different threads with seperate characters that eventually intertwine.

Thread One: In the southwestern USA, Turner, a corporate mercenary soldier, has been hired out to help Mitchell, a brilliant researcher, make an illegal career move from Maas’ corporate fortress built into a mesa in the Arizona desert to another corporation. The attempt is a disaster, and Turner ends up escaping with the scientist’s young daughter, Angie Mitchell instead. Her father had apparently altered her nervous system to allow her to access the Cyberspace Matrix directly, without a “deck” (a computer), but she is not conscious of this. She also carries the plans, implanted in her brain by her father, of the secrets of construction of the extremely valuable “biosoft” that has made Maas so influential and powerful. This “biosoft” is what multibillionaire Josef Virek (see thread three) desires above all else, so that he can make an evolutionary jump to something resembling omniscience and immortality.

Thread Two: A young New Jersey-suburbs amateur computer hacker, Bobby Newmark, self-named “Count Zero,” is given a piece of black market software by some criminal associates “to test”. When he plugs himself into the matrix and runs the program, it almost kills him. The only thing that saves his life is a sudden image of a girl made of light who interferes and unhooks him from the software just before he flatlines. This event leads to his working with his associates’ backers to investigate similar strange recent occurrences on the Net. It is eventually revealed that Bobby’s mysterious savior is Angie (see Thread One); the two only meet physically at the very end of the book.

Thread Three: Marly Krushkova, a small gallery owner in Paris until she was tricked into trying to sell a hoax, and newly infamous as a result, is recruited by ultra-rich, reclusive (cf. Howard Hughes) industrialist and art patron Josef Virek to find the unknown creator of a series of futuristic Joseph Cornell style boxes. Unbeknownst to her, the reason behind Virek’s interest in these boxes is related to indications of biosoft construction the design of one, which he suspects may be contained in the others.