Tuesday, June 29, 2010

E-Reading Diary, Part 1

I have officially read an e-book! After attending a scholarly publishing conference on the mostly digital future--although print books aren't going anywhere any time soon--I decided I should probably see what all the fuss is about. So, I checked out a company Kindle and downloaded Water for Elephants, a book I've been meaning to read.

The buying experience on the Kindle was a little clunky. Granted, I was using a first generation device, so it has likely improved. You navigate around the menus with a scroll bar on the right--I'm pretty sure newer models don't have that bar. I searched for the book, found it, clicked buy, and in about a minute it was ready to go. Browsing for books is a little difficult. You pretty much have to know what you're looking for or want something off a bestseller list. The preview chapters are also a little awkward--you can sample most books in the Kindle store, but instead of clicking a link to the sample chapters, you have to download them to the device. They seem to be quite generous, though.

I wasn't sure how I'd like reading on a screen, but once I got into the book, I didn't even notice I was reading in a different way. Great writing is great writing, and it really doesn't matter how you read it. Once I got the rhythm of clicking next page about a line early--there's a slight delay in the page turn, but again, this could be because it's an old Kindle--the "device" disappeared and I was just reading.

It's a little disorienting to let go of the idea of pages--there's a progress bar at the bottom of the screen, but no page counts. I usually flip through to see how long a chapter is, and I had to let that go. But otherwise, I was surprised by how much I liked using the reader. It's easier to hold in one hand than a printed book, which makes reading while eating lunch much easier. And it's lighter than most books.

I'm now excited about getting my own e-reader. I think it'd be great for travel--and just in general to always have a book in your bag. The only real drawback is the shopping experience, but having a specific book in mind is not usually a problem for me. I can always pick up a physical book when I find something new and exciting in a bookstore . . . I can't imagine switching over to e-books completely. But, I am more excited about e-readers than I thought I would be. Plus, if I had bought a paperback copy of Water for Elephants, it'd now be sitting in my pile of books to discard, so now I don't have to worry about it taking up room in my very full apartment.

I got to try an iPad recently, too, so I'll review my reading experience on that in my next post. I fully embraced technology this past week!

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Lost Symbol

I picked up a copy of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol at a garage sale earlier this month. I couldn't decide what book on my list I wanted to read on my most recent business trip, so I took this along instead. What a great summer read! Just like the first two Robert Langdon novels, it was full of action and sophisticated intrigue. A thriller at heart, Brown weaves in so much history, symbology, science, and conspiracy theory, one can't help but feel smart reading it. (Especially when I figured out the biggest symbolic mystery close to the beginning!)

Abandoning the Catholic church, Brown centers this novel around the Masons. Theories about the Mason's involvement in the founding of America are not new--I caught a History Channel show about the subject on the same business trip. Many of the founding fathers were confirmed members, several prominent buildings in DC--including the Capitol and Washington Monument--commenced with traditional Masonic cornerstone ceremonies, and if you trace a 6-pointed star over the pyramid seal on the back of a dollar bill, the points will hit letters that spell out Mason.

When the highest Masonic leader in the country calls Robert Langdon to give a talk on symbology at the Capitol building, the action begins. He arrives to find the severed hand of this leader, who is also a close friend, sitting in the middle of the Rotunda room, newly tattooed with symbols of the Ancient Mysteries. And the action is nonstop from there. A madman is desperate to find a mythical portal, supposedly located in DC, that leads to the Ancient Mysteries--a new level of wisdom and knowledge for humankind.

This was a fun read, especially for summer. Of course, when my plane hit terrifying turbulence, reading about a woman running for her life didn't really keep my mind off the bumpy ride. But other than that, it was hard to put down, and I'd highly recommend it for a light read!

Monday, June 14, 2010

The Book of Unholy MIschief

If my copies of The Da Vinci Code and Julia Child's My Life in France had a love child, it would have been The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark. Set in Renaissance Italy, it tries to be a Dan Brown-type thriller. Luciano, a teenage orphan who has been living on the streets, meets the chef to the Doge of Venice and becomes his apprentice. Meanwhile, all Venice is atwitter over a mysterious book said to contain the secrets to eternal youth, love potions, and alchemy. Not surprisingly, the chef knows something about the book, and a network of chefs dedicated to preserving knowledge is uncovered. Like The Da Vinci Code, a juicy secret about Christ is proposed . . . although it is much less juicy than the one in Brown's novel.

While the book strives to be an intriguing thriller, the best-written passages are those describing food. Newmark's father was a chef, and her writing really comes alive when she is describing ripe produce and the melding of flavors in the busy kitchen. I wonder how well researched it is--it seems odd that some of the recipes are still used today, but I suppose it could be accurate. I hope she leaves the historical mysteries to other writers and focuses on food in her next book.

Speaking of Dan Brown, I'm about 50 pages into his latest, The Lost Symbol. It has proved to be very hard to put down--he really is the master of that genre. Don't judge . . . we all need a little brain candy!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Flesh and Blood

Picking up Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood was like a breath of fresh air in this project. A lot of the books that have been sitting around my apartment forever have been sitting around for a reason: I had something better to read. But this book made me realize what my very favorite kind of book is: sweeping novels that follow multiple generations of a family, preferably through most of the twentieth century. Bonus points if the first generation emigrates to America.

Flesh and Blood, which I liked even more than The Hours (which I really really liked!), is all of those things. Constantine Stassos, the patriarch of the novel, moves to New York from Greece around the fifties. We follow his children and his children's children through the sexual revolution of the seventies and the AIDS epidemic of the eighties and nineties, clashing constantly with Constantine's old world ideals. Constantine is a contractor and makes his fortune building track homes. There's an interesting commentary on the cheapening of building standards and the market for cheap houses as more and more people moved to the suburbs and wanted single family homes.

I just couldn't put this book down. Granted, I started on a cross-country flight, so I didn't have a lot of other options, but I breezed through the first 350 pages in two days. I was flying to New York to go to BookExpo, where I was happy to learn Michael Cunningham has a new novel coming out this fall: By Nightfall, which is schedule to release in late September. Here's hoping it's as good as Flesh and Blood!