40 Rules of Love Review

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Paige Vetter

The Forty Rules of Love
By: Elif Shafak

Paige’s Rating: (5) of 5
Recommended for: Love and Spirituality

Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives- one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz-that together incarnate the poet’s timeless message of love.
         
FABULOUS WONDERFUL SUPERB! I haven’t been this excited about a book in a long time, so let me share with you why this one has me momentarily typing in caps and adding random exclamation points!

First, the author weaves two stories together: one of a modern day housewife, getting back into the routine of work and finding that routine is the only thing that has kept her safe and… lonely. Then, the backdrop of that story is about Shams of Tabriz, a mystic who changes the world of a spiritual leader named Rumi. The story Shafak tells of Rumi and Shams is delightful and beautiful, creating a plot based on history, spirituality and love. It was absolutely fantastic, and done from the point-of-view of the different characters involved, each one telling his or her perspective in a diary-esque way. The story of the housewife and her secret lover is less interesting, in my opinion, and done in a third-person point-of-view.

The characters are well developed, although the two characters I enjoyed reading about the most were Rumi and Shams. Both characters are dynamic and appear to be complete opposites. Yet, each are on the same path and each desperately love and respect each other in a way that never comes off as sexual, but rather spiritual: and that was the point. The character of Shams dispenses forty different rules about love, each one deep in a way that causes the reader to stop and meditate.  For example,  ”Do not fret about what your place in the universe should, could or might be. You contribute to the music of the universe by your very being. Your destiny is the level where you will play your tune. How well you play is entirely in your hands.”

Some people who have also written reviews about this book (yes, I checked), stated that the writing wasn’t very strong. I agree that the story between the housewife and her secret lover was rather dull and lacking that strong passion I have been looking for in books. The author is Turkish but I believe the book was written in English and so that could also explain a lack of desire between the two characters. However; the sub story is written beautifully and so I can’t discount that.

If you are looking for a light read, than I wouldn’t recommend this book. Rather, I would tell you that this is a book for those looking to look at themselves deeper, spiritually, and those who want to be reminded of just how lovely… well… love can be.

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NaNoWriMo 2011 Kickoff

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Jakob Barnard

Another October ends, another month of crazy writing starts.  Yep – it is time for NaNoWriMo!  Shane (the overachiever this week) already has a post up on this via Novelnaut, but wanted to get a post up myself.  As of starting this post – there is 7 hours till midnight!  My tradition is I stay up and write for a solid hour till 1am… and then since it is usually a work night, head to bed knowing I at least accomplished something for the first day.

This will be my fourth nano.  My first was 2008 and a spectacular fail… think I dropped after the first week.  2009 – now that was the year of my first nano victory and where I really found I loved this whole writing thing.  2010 was also a win, though less satisfied with the product of the month.  I think that novel is going to be perminantly relegated to truck status.  It was a good experience, but not worth investing further effort in at this point.  Perhaps I might canabalize charters or minor plot points from in the future.

This year, for NaNoWriMo 2011, I am going to take a different approach.  With work and life events, I view it as the most “high risk” nano since I started doing this annual adventure.  I have been wanting to work more on my short story form, so have decided to combine that with nano this year.  Still go for the 50k goal, but in the form of ten 5,000 word short stories.  This is technically not true nano form, but I go more by the spirit than the letter of the law here.  The whole purpose of NaNoWriMo is to inspire one to write, write regularly (and in volume) so that at the end of those 30 days you have a solid platform to work from.

In a way, this is achieving two things for me.  First, it makes it a bit more challenging as I am forcing myself to build 10 different plots, casts, and whatnot, all within the same month.  True, plotting out a 5,000 word short story is a bit different than a 50,000 novel – but still.  I am going for a few different genres, a couple of which I haven’t tried writing in before.  The second thing it achieves for me is – success in the event of failure.  With my serious doubts on my time availability this year, more so than any other year, by doing short stories instead of the single novel, if I say only end up with 30,000 words… that still gives me six short stories to revise and edit.

If you haven’t ever attempted NaNoWriMo or tried to write that sort of volume (or greater!) in a single 30 day period, and wish to give it a shot, by all means do so!  Go with the usual rules and hit that 50k mark.  You will learn a lot of things during your first nano or two.  (Well every time you try pushing yourself really.)  That is one of the reasons I am breaking the rules this year.  I KNOW I can write 50,000 in a month.  I have done it – twice now for nano alone.  Heck I know I can write well over 5,000 words in a single day… so I am giving myself a different challenge this year with the multiple short stories in multiple genre’s.

I am going to have a follow up post on this, but I use Scrivener to keep nano writing going and organized.  There is both a Mac and a Windows version – the windows version has just gone up for sale.  I highly recommend the software, so keep an eye out for my article soon on why.

If interested, you can follow my NaNo progress here, or Shane’s can be found here.

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Seven Houses Review

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Paige Vetter

Seven Houses
By: Alev Lytle Croutier

Paige’s Rating: (4) of 5
Recommended for: Historic Fiction- Family Love

Seven Houses chronicles the lives of four generations of remarkable women, sweeping readers from the last days of the Ottoman monarchy to Turkey’s transformation into a republic and the present-day backlash.

After reading and rather enjoying Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul, I thought I would try another Turkish author, Alev Croutier. Comparing both women as author’s I would have to say that Elif’s writing is more captivating but nevertheless, Alev puts up a good fight.

This book documents the lives of four generations of women through the last four ever-changing generations of Turkish history. The story is told by the point-of-view of the houses in which these women lived in and the behind-the-scenes events that unfolded within the walls. I think this works beautifully as this allows the women’s family history to be woven together. The setting is also rather perfect: the beginning of WWI and therefore, the end of the Ottoman Empire. As the women grow and one generation replaces another, the setting transitions to different cities in Turkey while still accurately detailing the history of the time.

The characters are also beautifully done as the women draw their personality and characteristics from the changing society around them. While all women are related to each other, the reader sees just how different these women are from each other due to very different situations which were presented to them in their lives. I think Alev does a fine job of making multi-dimensional characters.

The elements of omniscient narrators, dramatic history and strong, dynamic characters make Seven Houses a strong book and good read. However, I had to give it only 4 stars because some stories seemed unfinished or at least underdeveloped. There were a few instances where I had wished that the houses had said more of their inhabitants. On the other hand, there were also some stories that appeared to drag out more than necessary. Reading them, I wondered how the information was relevant to the rest of the story and in the end; I found out that some of it simply was not. Finally, some of the stories appeared more depressing than needed, but I guess that is also how life generally rolls.

Overall, this was a good book to read for the summer. It sort of reminded me of The Joy Luck Club, only a Turkish version. So if you like strong women characters and history, you can’t be disappointed.

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The Student Reader

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Joseph

In a month of big tech news, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made the biggest tech news on September 28th. Speculation about Amazon’s “iPad killer” tablet had been floating around for months, but what Bezos revealed was even bigger: a family of new Kindles with almost shockingly low prices. Leading the pack is the brand new Kindle Fire, and it’s like an e-reader on steroids: not only can Amazon customers read e-books in color, but they can buy and rent movies and TV shows, browse the web with a lightning-fast custom made browser, play games, communicate with friends via IM and e-mail, and much more.

Still, the “iPad killer” moniker doesn’t mean much when you look at each tablet’s specs, because the iPad 2 wins in almost every category. And when it comes to its uses in education, the iPad2 is the fastest, most comprehensive machine for the job. But the Kindle Fire and the iPad2 have two completely different roles: while the iPad2 is a tool, the Kindle Fire is a content delivery device. And that difference could at least cripple the iPad2 in the educational sector.

 

Form follows function

The iPad2’s success as an educational device has remained uncontested in part because of Apple’s history of catering to the educational market—from its inception, Apple has made an effort to offer quality hardware to teachers and students. iPad2’s are also popular in the classroom because they lend themselves to collaboration: with front- and rear-facing cameras, teachers and students enrolled in online education can communicate without a computer.

But for many consumers, including students, the cameras and other features are rarely used. A clear, bright screen, a wide-ranging selection of applications, and a size custom-made for portability are important factors for an educational device. The Kindle Fire’s screen is smaller, but its size makes it perfect for purses and small totes. If an electronic device is easier to hold and handle, it’s easier to use.

The price is right

The Fire is certainly impressive, but it’s simply not in the same category as the iPad2. And that’s why its price will give it an edge: even with a discount, schools are paying almost twice as much for iPad2’s as they will for Amazon Kindle Fires. For less than $200 per device, teachers and students will have access to thousands of free books, hundreds of thousands of reasonably-priced books and learning materials, and a whole collection of movies and videos that can be used for educational purposes.

Amazon’s Prime program is free for a month with new Fire purchases—an agreement Amazon is sure to modify for devices used in schools. But Amazon’s focus on content—not hardware—allows them to deliver a device that makes choosing and using content quick, easy and affordable. Until Apple makes content a top priority, they’ll be behind Amazon.

Teaching and learning in the cloud

Cloud computing has gotten mixed reviews, but as it improves and becomes more reliable, more people are using it for storage and easy access to data. Amazon’s Cloud Drive allows consumers to buy media and store it in the cloud—making a large hard drive superfluous. And since the Fire has a relatively small 8GB drive, users are encouraged to use the Amazon Cloud Drive for storage of large pieces of data. For teachers and students, storing assignments and projects in the cloud can make it easier to access them no matter where they are—a real benefit for students enrolled in online education. Apple’s iCloud purports to store data and push it to every Apple device—but it’s not up and running just yet. Amazon’s cloud drive isn’t as ambitious as Apple’s, but for regular consumers, teachers and students who use their tablets for basic schoolwork, it’s good enough.

Amazon’s new Kindle Fire is sure to be a blockbuster with consumers and schools. It won’t kill the iPad2, but that’s not the point; the Fire will serve as a basic, easy-to-use alternative to the iPad2. And until the Fire, an alternative like that didn’t exist. The Kindle Fire fills the void of an affordable tablet—and for millions of consumers, that’s the perfect alternative to an iPad2.

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Book Smarts

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Joseph

E-books still have a hard fight ahead of them before they overtake print books, but it’s a fight they might eventually win. With Internet retailer Amazon selling more e-books than print this year, there’s a clear sign that the demand for e-books is on the rise. But for college textbooks, the fight to switch to digital is a little more complicated. The textbook industry put up major numbers with their arguably inflated prices, and a change to the paradigm could revolutionize the business, for better or worse.

Still, there’s no way to ignore the benefits of e-books in college classrooms. From possible price drops to easy access and mobility, the time will come when colleges and universities must accept—and adapt to—the electronic books in the classroom. And as the Internet makes online school and distance learning  viable alternatives to attending a traditional “brick-and-mortar” program, e-books fit perfectly into the lives of college students on the go.

The almighty dollar

Every college student has experienced that sinking feeling after receiving a class textbook list: students spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars each semester for books they’ll use for just a few months. And the sell-back prices are often just a fraction of the new or used prices charged by bookstores. Electronic textbooks could be produced for much less than their print versions—but a quick click through Amazon’s relatively small Kindle selection of textbooks reveals that prices haven’t been affected all that much. Publishers have every incentive to keep prices high, and unless instructors, school administrators and students find a way to put pressure on textbook makers, the chances of cheap e-textbooks being reality are still slim.

The new classroom?

Despite prices still being high, e-textbooks have the potential to reshape the way teachers and students interact with their texts. The versatility of a text that can be shared on computers, e-readers and tablets could allow a level of interaction that’s impossible with traditional texts.

Still, the adoption of e-texts requires that every student have a device on which to read those texts, which could put already struggling schools and students at a financial disadvantage. Further, with the frequency that new editions of texts are published, keeping a current copy of a text could cost even more money—which would benefit only the publishers.

A textbook revolution might be in the future for higher education, but there’s a host of variables that need to change before e-books become the standard on college campuses. As the world moves away from print, education will have to adjust to a new kind of text. It’s a transition that appears to be inevitable, but academia must make that transition smooth for both teachers and students.

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Girl With Pearl Earring Review

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Paige Vetter

Girl With a Pearl Earring
By: Tracy Chevalier

Paige’s Rating: (3) of 5
Recommended for: Historic Fiction

Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer’s prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel’s quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant–and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter’s jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law.

This book was a completely in-the-middle-of-the-road read. I can’t say that I didn’t like it, because I did. But I can’t say that I liked it a lot, because I didn’t. Rather, it entertained.

The plot idea is creative in the fact that Chevalier attempts to build a story around the famous painting “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” by Vermeer, a painter and painting that historians really know very little about. Therefore, I do give her credit for taking a real piece of history and attempting to fashion a story to it. The author also does a fine job of describing the setting of the Netherlands in the 17th century.

However, the plot in and of itself is a bit bland. The story is told by a first person narrator called Griet, a young seventeen year old girl who becomes a maid for Vermeer’s wife. There is clearly conflict with Griet and Vermeer’s wife, a woman who wants to control her household, yet the real conflict to me seems to be the author’s ability to generate a believable romantic connection between Griet and Vermeer. I would have liked a little bit more scandal and a little bit more emotion and desire.

Which brings me to the next point: the characters were rather linear and undeveloped. Griet is young and naïve girl who falls in love with a quiet, brooding Vermeer. Yet, there is nothing about Griet’s character that helps me differentiate love for Vermeer or respect. Vermeer’s character is also really dry, and this may be caused by the lack of historical information on him. Overall, the characters felt really chilly throughout the book and their interactions were about as sexy as… slugs mating. Sorry, I had to say it again.

Like Vermeer, Chavalier can really paint a picture. Her images are wonderful but her storyline and characters lack raw human emotion. I wonder if maybe her audience is more of the young adult scene, not so much the almost-thirty-and-single-and-needing-to-read-about-love-because-its-dead-in-my-personal-life scene. Hmmm. If that’s the case, I say try it out. However, if you are looking for something that speaks a bit more to the adult side, dare I say passionate and raunchy side, definitely pass it.

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Super Sad Love Story Review

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Paige Vetter

Super Sad True Love Story
By: Gary Shteyngart

Paige’s Rating: (4) of 5
Recommended for: Fiction- Futuristic Dystopian Demise Style


Super Sad True Love Story belies almost every word of its title, but it still plunges us into a satirical realm that we can recognize if we open our eyes widely. Restless, middle-aged, maladjusted Lenny Abramov and young Eunice Park, his somewhat reluctant old-fashioned love interest alternate as narrators, each of them projecting a slightly twisted view of an even more twisted reality.

This book was given to me by a friend who was a little hesitant to have me read it. “I know you hated ‘The Road’ and so I don’t know how much you will like this book.” Being that it was one of those dystopian themed books, I understood and shared in his skepticism. However, unlike ‘The Road’ which was merely a plot less pointless waste of time, this book had a lot of redeeming aspects that made me actually give it 4 of 5 stars.

The setting of this book is somewhere in the (hopefully not) near future, where America has been completely destroyed by its greedy corporations and China is bailing us out but ready to foreclose. In this America, everything is dominated by the Media and Retail, as these are the highly sought after jobs for people. The Media people spend time video blogging everything, checking their Global Teens account and my favorite, assessing their fuckability, personality and credit scores. The Retail people are sure to wear the latest fashion of see-though pants and nipple-less bras. Even though the future is designed around not so far-fetched ideas, I still give Shteyngart props for drawing in today’s social networking hype and exploiting it realistically.

The characters were, well, a different story. Lenny is a 40 year old man who is single and quite lonely. He is desperate to give love and be in love about as much as he is desperate to obtain high fuckability scores in the local bars. He is a fish out of water: a man who is financially responsible but socially childish. There could be a lot of redeeming qualities about him, but I just read about a very weak and pathetic man. And maybe that was Shteyngart’s goal. The female protagonist, Eunice, is 24 years old and is actually unconcerned about her fuckability. Rather, she seems to try to live her life according to the strict traditions of her family. She seems, ironically, more emotionally mature than Lenny but a financial train wreck. Thus, they both need each other for balance. Their personalities are interesting; however, I find them a bit difficult to relate to as they don’t seem like anyone I remotely know.

The plot is good. It starts out describing the relationship between Lenny and Eunice, but through this you see the state of America, crumbling. In this way, the book is hard to read because you know the climax is going to contain doom and gloom for America. Yet, you aren’t sure if Lenny and Eunice’s relationship will meet the same end. So you keep turning the pages.

I also liked how the book was written by the point-of-view of the two characters through their Global Teens account. This, I thought was a good way to present the book.

Overall, I would suggest “Super Sad True Love Story” if you are indeed, ready for just that.

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The Borders Question

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Joseph

Contributed by: Joseph Baker

Borders filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in February, and they recently announced that they are closing down their remaining 399 store locations. With the death of Borders book stores, many book lovers are wondering about the future of the medium. When Borders closes their stores, what will move in to fill that vacuum—other big box book stores like Barnes and Noble? Small independently-owned book stores? Nothing? Does Borders’ death represent a move away from book reading in general, or just a move away from stores like Borders?

The face of book sales in the US has been changing. Of course, with the economic troubles, book sales, like all luxury products, have been low in general. But how people are buying books has also changed significantly. For one thing, ereader sales have been increasing—an estimated 6.7 million ereaders were sold last year. Yet the ebook market is still just a fraction of the market for paper books. The more-profound change is how people have been buying paper books. Increasingly consumers are getting their books online rather than in brick-and-mortar stores.

Meanwhile Amazon has been doing fantastically well, watching their net sales grow by 51% since last year, despite the lagging economy. This is indicative of a general shift away from big box retail and towards online retail. Borders’ closing is not an isolated incident. Best Buy is also in dire straits, losing much of their business to Amazon as well. All across the board it seems that online retail is replacing the large brick-and-mortar stores.

While Barnes and Noble has not succumbed to this trend yet, if they do not reduce store sizes and increase their web presence, it seems like only a matter of time before they may have to.

Though death seems immanent for the largest book stores, there is no indication that the smaller book stores are on their way out yet. Small independent stores seem to be doing just fine. Though the profit margins for such businesses are small, savvy bookstore owners are keeping afloat.

What all this means is that people still want books (mostly physical), and people still want places to hang out. Borders’ closure doesn’t indicate that people have stopped buying books entirely; it just reflects a shift in the way people are getting their books.

Book stores need to compete with online retailers, which means having their own good online stores and/or having locations that are small and cherished enough that they can afford to keep the lights on. One way businesses are doing the former is using order fulfillment to help manage their online stores, while a way that business are doing the latter is by using social media to reach out to the community and put themselves on the map as a cultural haven.

With the coming changes in the way book stores do business, authors and publishers should take note as to how this will shift sales in the literary world. As online sales increase, sales of books that people usually look for directly via a search will likely increase, while sales of books that people usually pick up incidentally at a book store will likely decrease.

Accordingly, authors need to focus on writing books that people will seek out rather than expecting books to be able to promote themselves off of a shelf. Expect to see more in-depth specialty books pick up sales, while the lowest-common denominator, impulse buy books drop in sales. As consumers take an increasingly active role in their acquisition of media, producers of media should stop trying to reach such broad audiences and instead compete more ferociously for the attention of people in smaller sub-markets.

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Water for Elephants Review

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Paige Vetter

Water for Elephants
By: Sara Gruen

Paige’s Rating: (3) of 5 Stars
Recommended for: Fiction/Romance Readers

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski’s ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.

I was at the local bookstore, looking through the very sparse English section. While on my way out, disappointed, I noticed this book on display. I didn’t think twice about reaching out and grabbing it. The title was English, the back cover was in English, and when I snapped the book open, I saw English. Hot damn! I bought the book immediately as it was one that was on my “to read” list. Talk about disappointment and again, this may be my own fault because I tend to get too excited about some books.

The plot had great potential, as it is set in the 1930s era of the Depression and Prohibition. In the beginning chapters as we are introduced to a young man, Jacob. Through a twist of fate, Jacob ends up being a part of a circus and recounts his memories of this lifestyle as an elderly man of now 90 or 93 (he can’t remember). But as the story continues, the author tries to introduce a romance, which I think fails miserably. The romance seems to be based on nothing as the characters that fall in love have no real connection at any time in the book. I felt that the romance was therefore forced and completely unbelievable.

The characters were also interesting in the beginning, but they never fully developed and remained flat throughout the book. The main character, Jacob, seems shy, awkward and yet incredible kind. You expect him to sort of rise up and act like a man but he never really does. Oh sure, he starts fights and stands up for the woman he supposedly loves, but at the end of the book he just seems like this holier-than-thou angel. His soul is so innocent and pure that as a reader, I find it hard to connect with him. The woman he falls in love with, is as well, flat. She seems to be demure and yet overly emotional. Throughout most of the book, she is either crying or crying on the inside. The only character that is believable is August, the schizophrenic. Apparently the author can nail a character like that, but can’t quite draw up believable lovers.

The book was a quick and easy read, so it is one that I would suggest for the upcoming summer holidays if you want something light to read. In fact, it’s much like the circuses of today: slightly entertaining but mostly disenchanting.

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Atlas Shrugged Review

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Paige Vetter

Atlas Shrugged
By: Ayn Rand

Paige’s Rating: (1) of 5 Stars
Recommended for: Masochists

Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world–and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder–and rebirth–of man’s spirit.

This book reminds me of my last marriage:

1) The main characters are flat and linear in their thinking.
As much as Ayn Rand seems to be the champion voice for individualism, her characters over the span of 1000+ pages never seem to grow outside of their very cookie-cutter existence. The heroes are so flawless and the villains so inherently stupid, that I found them bland and waited for them to take on more complex human qualities. Yet, I found that they only remained motivated to continue on a one-track train-of-thought. How appropriate. And speaking of flat characters…

2) Even the sex is cold and completely devoid of passion.
When two of the characters have sex, one would think the book would become interesting. Yet the sex scenes were about as sensual as watching slugs mate on the Discovery Channel.

So this brings me to the plot, which one would assume must have many highs and lows in order to keep a reader’s attention during the 1000+ page journey. Yet, the entire plot is like a vicious cycle…

3) It’s repetitive as in: didn’t we have this argument before?
The main dialogues throughout the book continually regurgitate the same ideas and often use the same phrases and words but in a different scenarios. The heroes being flawless are always articulate in a common but clever Matlock way, and the villains are always about as bright as the brown crayon. I found myself seriously flipping through some dialogues that existed merely because Ayn Rand must hate trees as much as communism and socialism.

Within the plot, I also felt like Ayn Rand used her flat and flawless characters to spew her message. There isn’t much tact here and so…
4) I felt as if I was getting preached to by someone who didn’t necessarily have the credentials to preach. Ugh. Bitch please, you can probably see me giving the book “the hand” or in the case of my ex, “the finger.”

So overall…
5) Nothing is gained by “sticking it out.” You can’t really brag about finishing this book, because much smarter people (unlike me) quit dealing with this crap around page 450. You can try to justify your commitment, you can try to remember why you wanted to make such a commitment to an awful book in the first place, but at the end of the day, there must be a time when it finishes. And thank God I finally had the energy to finish it! And while I agree with the theme, Ms. Rand would have been a lot more effective in her sermon had she cut back about 500 pages.

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