I’ve never been the biggest fan of memoirs about writing, but when I read this post on Alex George’s blog about Ann Pratchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (Kindle Single) (affiliate link), and saw that it’s less than $3, I decided to pick it up.

When I read Pratchett’s Bel Canto (P.S.) (affiliate link) …well, I can’t tell you why I loved it so much — only that I did.

And I loved The Getaway Car, too.

Pratchett’s Early Approach

While many new writers daydream about making it big, Pratchett mentions she went into writing thinking that success came only after death — so she was prepared to just get by doing what she loved. She’d wait tables and not have children or want for more because, as long as she lived a simple life, she could write without stress.

Focus!

All she wanted was to be a happy writer — not a rich writer…and it didn’t take much to make her happy.

From the start, she lived a life where writing came before climbing the corporate ladder or other trappings that often pull people away from the dream of making it writing. She worked a job that allowed her to think about stories, and not about work.

Maybe we can’t all live as lean a life as Pratchett did in the beginning, but as one who’s turned down several offers of becoming a manager because I know it would take even more time from what I’d rather be doing, there really is something to living on enough to get by and keeping at the dream of writing, instead of striving for even more material things.

(I freely admit that all the lawyers-turned-writers and doctors-turned-writers destroys this theory, but Pratchett’s point is really about sacrifice, and in reading interviews with those who did balance a career and writing, they usually sacrificed sleep for writing.)

Pratchett’s Honesty

I admire the honesty in The Getaway Car. Pratchett dislikes parties because it’s where people come up to her and say annoying things like, “Everyone has at least one good novel in them,” and then ask her to write that novel for them. She talks about the struggle to remain kind to those who make it seem like all that’s needed to make it writing is to one day sit down for a month or two and write and BOOM! you’ll make it!

To this point, Pratchett says:

“Why is it that we understand that playing the cello will require work, but we relegate writing to the magic of inspiration?” … “If a person of any age picked up the cello for the first time and said, ‘I’ll be playing in Carnegie Hall next month!’ you would pity her delusion…”

Art Does Not Just Happen

Some may find the first part of The Getaway Car a bit harsh. Some people believe writing’s all about inspiration — that by dabbling in being creative, one day they will write a book. Pratchett isn’t scolding those kinds of people; she’s just telling them that writing is hard work.

What she’s really getting at — what the entire memoir is really getting at — is this:

“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.”

Most people who want to write at some point in their lives aren’t willing to put in the time to master the craft. They want the story that’s in their head to magically flow to the pages. (Another thing Pratchett talks about quite a bit, in beautiful detail, in the first part of the memoir — the reason there are butterflies on the cover of the e-book.)

I love this quote because I wanted the third novel I’ve written to be my first, but at the time, I knew I hadn’t mastered the craft of writing. So I wrote my first novel, and then a second that only exists on a hard drive. It took me 20 years to get to the point of feeling confident enough to pull off my last novel, and to tackle what I’m working on, now.

Other Gems from the Memoir

Regarding how what’s often in one’s head is often not what ends up on the page.

“I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.”

On writer’s block:

“I did not, however, get writer’s block, because as far as I’m concerned, writer’s block is a myth.”

(She wraps that section up with a quote from a writing student in a group she once addressed; one of the moments in the book that made me laugh out loud.)

On the effort of writing, assuming that everybody does, in fact, have at least one good novel in them (which Pratchett does not believe, but offers to make this point):

“Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”

On writing daily:

“While I’ve had long periods of time when I’ve written every day, it’s nothing I’m slavish about.” … “I’ve gone for months without writing and never missed it.”

Then there’s this — again dispelling the myth of the magical side of writing:

“No matter what you may have heard, the characters don’t write their own story.”

On rewrites:

“I do a great deal of tinkering, but I never make any structural changes…”

Regarding research:

“I try to conduct my research after I’ve started writing, or sometimes even after I’ve finished.” … “I hate to see a novel in which the author has clearly researched every last detail to death and, to prove it, forces the reader to slog through two pages describing the candlesticks that were made in Salem in 1792.”

Amen!

The Last Three Sentences

The $2.99 e-book is worth it for the last three sentences that sum up writing better than anything I may have ever read. It’s like paying a dollar a sentence for some of the best advice out there. (Or you can go read Alex George’s blog about the memoir — he reveals the last three lines at the end of it.)

If you truly live it and understand the sentiment in those last three lines, you know writing.

Who Should Read This?

The Getaway Car is something I wouldn’t recommend to somebody just starting out…or hell, maybe I would.

The things Pratchett says might be ignored by many new writers, much like the part of the book that made me laugh out loud. At the same time, when I was still very new to writing and I looked to people with experience and heard them say, “It’s not easy, and it’s rare to see the first big thing you write meet with success,” I took it to heart.

I had a blast writing my first novel, and it has some moments I’m proud of in between all the goofiness. But had I written my last novel first — as I originally wanted to do — I’d have made a wreck of a good thing. So if you’re a new writer, and patient, The Getaway Car may be for you.

Pratchett’s memoir seems to work best for people who have written for awhile. While almost blunt, at times, it’s not cruel. Those who have been writing awhile will appreciate her honesty.

It’s a memoir for people who know how hard writing can be, but still choose to do it because they also know writing’s rewards.

I’ll just go ahead and say it: I think Craig Thompson’s Habibi is one of the best — if not the best — examples of graphic novels as a medium.

It blurs the lines of time and place, it uses traditional comic book panels and many design elements to carry the story, and it ends in a way that is everything the book is about.

Graphic Novels vs. Collections

When I say graphic novel, I mean graphic novel. The only comic books I have as bulky as Thompson’s 665-page Habibi are the Daredevil Omnibuses, published by Marvel. Some people call those graphic novels, but they aren’t — they are collections.

The comic book geek in me just has to clarify that.

Habibi was created to be read as one large work — not a collection of shorter releases.

So What’s the Deal?

Habibi is the story of two slaves in the Middle East: Dodola and Zam. Despite some harsh violence and tough times for the two that some people have found unsettling, there’s still a lot of magic in the book: the ways the two characters move through time — in and out of each others lives; the locations in the book, sometimes seeming like a fantasy world based on Middle Eastern design and lore — other times harkening to the construction of modern cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi; the way Thompson slings ink and designs panels and pages.

It’s an awe-inspiring book to hold in one’s hands, and while there are times the scenes and story seem like a bit more of the same violence and trials, good writers often put their characters through hell. I won’t spoil the ending, but I was happy for the characters, and loved the last two-page spread ending the story.

Brought a tear to me eye and a smile to my face.

Is It Really the Best Example of the Medium?

I said Habibi is one of the best — if not the best — examples of a graphic novel. I say this for a variety of reasons.

While there were some sections of dialogue that seemed forced, and even some scenes that seemed just a bit much, that happens (even in some of my favorite novels). As a whole, Habibi combines story, writing, art, and design in ways few graphic novels do.

It’s an ambitious book, and Thompson pulls it off.

There are graphic novels I’ve read that I liked more than Habibi, but none that are the shining example of the medium that Habibi is.

Yesterday, I read The Sense of an Ending (affiliate link), by Julian Barnes.

At 163 pages, it’s short enough that I’m tempted to read it again, to see if my feelings about it change.

The Quick Version

The book is about a group of school mates who go on to college and then onto their lives.

The second part of the book is the narrator looking back after receiving a letter that leads to learning more about things that happened back then.

The Awe of it All

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in awe by how masterfully Barnes handled the pacing in the first part of the book.

In a matter of pages near the end of the first part, he handles a passage of time in ways that left me floored! Just BOOM! “Well, that was about as perfect as it gets without feeling like he just forced the years on readers.”

The book is worth a read just to experience the pacing, language, and that passage of time in the first part.

Part Two

The second part of the book introduces some things that really hooked me. (For the sake of not spoiling it, I won’t go into specifics about those things.) But the past comes back in an interesting way; it made me love the book even more.

Then…there’s a whole lotta thinking!

I don’t mind getting into the narrator’s head. I don’t mind a narrator who thinks and shares their thoughts with readers. But at times, it was a bit, “Okay, we get it — you’re thinking about stuff!”

Not that it’s a book that’s driven by plot, but that first part really moves!

That pacing scatters a bit as we wander the narrator’s thoughts.

The Twist

I don’t know if I’d call what happens at the end of The Sense of an Ending a plot twist, or just a reveal. But since it was all held back like Barnes was holding the winning cards all along, I felt a bit like, “Hey — SURPRISE!!!”

I like surprises. I was okay finding out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. But had that been the final scene of The Empire Strikes Back or the whole trilogy, I would have felt cheated.

There’s a twist in the final moments of The Sense of an Ending that made me feel a bit cheated. It was still good stuff, and perhaps calling it a twist is unfair because in some ways, it’s a logical reveal. But that it came right at the end — it was like somebody jumping out and shouting “BOO!!! See what I did, there?”

So…Should You Read It?

Despite feeling a bit cheated by the ending, with its length, I’d still recommend The Sense of an Ending to readers. The pacing in the first part of the book and glimpse into the lives of a group of people on the verge of adult responsibilities in England in the 60s flows! Even the second part contains some damn good stuff.

And maybe that twist at the end only seemed like a twist because it was late when I finished the book. And that’s a very telling thing: I couldn’t put the book down.

It’s short enough to read again…

And I might just do that.

A big thank you to CMStewart for her review of Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors.

It’s interesting seeing what people like about the story. So far, most people have thanked me for reminding them how much fun they used to have on road trips. CMStewart honed in on a couple other aspects of the story in her review.

CMStewart is also giving away a free copy of the ebook, so swing by to see how to win.

It’s been one of those weeks at work, the kind where time moves back and forth in an odd dance in the mind, making it feel like minutes are hours and hours, minutes.

Deadlines, chaos, and nerves–there’s something big to work on, and when the sun meets the horizon (at this time of the year, a reminder that you’ve been at work far too long–especially when you watched the sun rise above the horizon on the way in), you crave company that won’t talk about work and maybe even something to speed along forcing the tension of the day from your shoulders to fall and gather like dust with others’ tensions on the floor of a bar or quiet living room.

Conversation and a cocktail; it doesn’t get much better than that!

The Power of a Drink

“First we must understand what, functionally, a cocktail is. I will inquire into no man’s reasons for taking a drink at any hour except 6:00 p.m. They are his affair and he has a rich variety of liquors  to choose from according to his whim or need: may they reward him according to his deserts and well beyond. But when evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the cocktail hour. It marks the lifeward turn.”
- Bernard DeVoto, from The Hour.

I love a good cocktail. (Personal preference: the martini.)

It is not that I want to lose myself in spirits, but rather–celebrate all that mankind has wrought in a perfect cocktail glass glistening with condensation and filled with gin, vermouth, and lemon oil swimming on the surface. One can argue that a dash of orange bitters belongs in or fouls the drink; I’m fine with either.

I’m also fine with olives.

Bernard DeVoto was not fine with olives in a martini.

“Who?” you probably ask.

DeVoto was a professor turned writer, known for writing about history and literary criticism (he was not afraid to try cutting through the bone with his opinions).

And yes, he even wrote about cocktails…

The Book

Bernard DeVoto’s The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto (affiliate link)  was the first book I read this year. Of those who prefer olives in their martinis, he said:

“And, I suppose, nothing can be done with people who put olives in martinis, presumably because in some desolate childhood hour someone refused them a dill pickle and so they go through life lusting for the taste of brine.”

Followed by this:

“Something can be done with people who put pickled onions in: strangulation seems best.”

Do not take DeVoto as an authority on the martini; read him and appreciate a time when we put so much effort into everything we wrote. (The book was written in the late 50s.) Whether you agree with him or not, it’s hard not to appreciate the way the curmudgeon put words together. I’m sure the originators of many classic drinks (including the martini) would scoff at DeVoto’s arrogance and call him out on his inaccuracies, but that’s not the point.

He’s really damn funny!

The Evils of Rum…and the Enemy

“We are a pious people but a proud one too, aware of a noble lineage and a great inheritance. Let us candidly admit that there are shameful blemishes on the American past, of which by far the worst is rum.”

DeVoto has a flair for asserting his opinion in ways you can’t help but appreciate, whether you agree with him or not.

I’ll say it right here: I know very little about rum. I can’t recommend an aged rum worthy of pouring into a glass and sipping straight, like scotch or whiskey. In general, the rums I’ve had (even some more expensive rums) have left me flat. They have only been worthy of mixing–not savoring on their own. (If you have a recommendation of a good sipping rum, I’d love to hear it.)

Still, I wouldn’t say rum is the biggest blemish on the American past…and neither is DeVoto. Remember, while he started out an English professor, he moved on to writing about history and knows many of the true blemishes on the country’s past.

Reading The Hour was a reminder that many no longer appreciate–or even recognize–great satire and sarcasm.

Were a writer to say today that rum is the worst thing to happen to the country, instead of readers appreciating the ridiculous humor, many people would be outraged…perhaps even writing to publishers calling for the writer to never be published by them again.

Those people could do well with a fine drink to calm them down.

No drink (save the martini and whiskey) are spared in DeVoto’s The Hour. Cookbooks aren’t even spared:

“I’m talking about cookbooks. Every publishing house has from three to a dozen of them and they are money in the bank. Soon or late, usually not very late, this season’s novel about the bitch with the compassionate heart in rural Georgia or the court of Louis XV stops selling. A cookbook never does. In season or out, fat years or lean, it is the mainstay of the publishing business. The grandchildren of the author, who lived in an era when recipes began “take four pounds of butter and four dozen eggs,” set up trust funds for their grandchildren and the publisher loves them more warmly than the novelist who makes Book-of-the-Month Club every time. I don’t know how many cookbooks are sold, but it must be upwards of a million copies a year. Every copy has enough virus in it to infect a city of fifty thousand; every copy is a recruiting office for the enemy.”

Who (or what) is the enemy?

Pretty much everything except martinis and whiskey; all the drinks created to bulk up the “Beverages” section of cookbooks.

I’ll spare the details, but of these drink recipes, DeVoto says:

“Merely to read the formulas paralyzes the stomach muscles for as much as twenty minutes and a single sip would send the iron dog of the epoch they originated in galloping toward the nearest fire hydrant.”

Some other gems:

“Throw away that bottle of grenadine. Never buy another one.”

“Cheap liquor is grudge liquor.”

“Don’t have much to do with people who drink sherry at any time except with soup; there’s something wrong with them.”

“Orange bitters make a good astringent for the face. Never put them in anything that is to be drunk.”

“Let’s be clear about this: no Manhattans or rum.”

“Remember always that the three abominations are: (1) rum, (2) any other sweet drink, and (3) any mixed drink except one made of gin and dry vermouth in the ration that I have given.”

I don’t dare tell you what DeVoto thinks about punches and those who make and drink them.

The Martini

It’s probably clear by now that DeVoto was a big fan of the martini. I’ll let his words carry his feelings about the drink:

“The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth and one of the shortest-lived. The fragile tie of ecstasy is broken in a few minutes, and thereafter there can be no remarriage.”

And remember, the martini should only be taken during “The Hour.”

The Hour

So why have I devoted so much time to a review about a tiny book that’s really just a curmudgeon’s celebration of the martini?

Because the final chapter of The Hour is one of the most soothing things I’ve read in years.

Imagine that stressful week at work, when all that can go wrong does go wrong. You’ve worked late; the sun has slipped behind the horizon and you rush through the city to find camaraderie and something to take the edge off a rough week.

It’s not that you want to lose yourself in the bottom of a glass; you just want to go from the stress of a busy week at work and lose yourself in a world where everybody knows your name. (Or where you can, at the very least, relax and discuss things that really matter–things beyond the toil of the days–with people who appreciate time away from work as much as you.)

Can you hear your body settling into the over-sized chair and smell the distant whiff of juniper and lemon oil?

The last chapter of DeVoto’s The Hour is like having that second martini after a long week of work. With words, DeVoto does in one small chapter what took distillers hundreds of years to do with their craft.

Gone is the sarcasm. DeVoto talks about drinking in clubs he’s frequented for so long that “my friends’ grandchildren stand up and offer me their chairs.”

He celebrates the hour as a time not be locked away in clubs with stuffy men talking business, but taking drinks in the company of smart women. (I found this attitude interesting given the time the book was written, a time when women were still seen more as cute objects than equals. DeVoto goes as far as saying that if you can’t have a martini in the company of a smart woman whom you adore, a martini isn’t worth having.)

He also writes:

“So it is a good place to reach just ahead of the pursuing feet. Tiptoeing across the almost dark cavern of the lounge (at the hour all lamps should be shaded and only a few of them lit, for if the body is in shadow the soul will the sooner turn toward the sun), I take my drink to a chair so big that one’s head cannot be seen above it’s back, by a window that faces a cross-town street. We are near enough the avenue to hear the traffic diminishing. This is the hour of diminishing, of slowing down, of quieting. Thus islanded in dimness and the murmur of traffic fading toward silence, one is apt for the ministration. Calm against background tumult is an essential of the hour; it is the firelight shining through the cabin window on the snow of the forest, the strong shack beside a lake whose waters a gale is hurling up the shore.”

"Certainly I'll have another one. The water of life was given to us to make us see for awhile that we are more nearly men and women, more nearly kind and gentle and generous, pleasanter and stronger, than without its vision there is any evidence we are. It is the healer, the weaver of forgiveness and reconciliation, the justifier of us to ourselves and one another. One more, and then with a spirit made whole again in a cleansed world, to dinner." - Bernard DeVoto

Podcasts

I’ve mentioned before that I want to do a Juggling Writer Podcast. It’s still something I think about, but first — I wanted to finish the other podcast I was working on.

I finished that podcast last weekend.

If you’re not familiar with that podcast, I decided to podcast my first  novel, a humorous coming-of-age story about a family traveling cross country in a possessed station wagon called Hell Comes With Wood Paneled Doors. (It will remain online, if you want to listen from the beginning.)

I had a blast reading a chapter a week and getting the story out there. It was great hearing from people who loved the story and listened every week. Each week, I see that new people are finding it and making their way through the story. But the whole thing was a bigger project than I expected.

I don’t read out loud very well, so it took 5-10 hours to read, edit, and get a chapter online. It took away from time I could have been writing.

I know a Juggling Writer podcast wouldn’t be as frequent or involve as much editing time, but right now I want to get back to writing — not recording.

SuperNotecard

On Lisa Eckstein’s blog, she mentioned a great little program called SuperNotecard.

SuperNotecard is the notecard plotting software I’d write if I could program.

It’s not bogged down with so many features that it detracts from what it does very well: lets you create electronic notecards and shuffle them around.

I’ve tried the corkboard feature in Scrivener and some other programs, but something about SuperNotecard clicked with the way my mind works.

Check it out.

What Next?

Now that the podcast is done, it’s back to submitting some articles and working on the next big thing. (And getting more of my writing on Amazon and some other places.)

The freelance work I’ve been doing has dried up, so it looks like it will be back to a normal day job soon. Before that happens, I hope to have time to pitch some articles and really get started on the next novel, instead of just tinkering with ideas here and there.

Outside of some short stories and blog entries, I haven’t done any substantial new writing since July, when I finished my last novel.

It will be nice moving on to another bigger project.

I don’t read many crime novels, sci-fi stories, horror shorts, or fantasy epics. It’s not that I have anything against genre fiction (in fact, I think everybody who writes should start out with genre fiction because it’s a great way to learn structure) — it’s just usually not my kind of thing. So it says even more that I really enjoyed Chuck Wendig’s Irregular Creatures.

Chuck Wendig’s TerribleMinds blog is one of the writing blogs I look forward to reading everyday. Wendig’s a cool guy who dispenses great writing advice in a much more direct way than I.

Turns out he’s a damn good writer, too.

Wendig’s Experiment

Irregular Creatures is Wendig’s first leap into e-book publishing. It was something he talked about on his blog, and it didn’t take long for him to stop talking and do it. (I started experimenting with e-books, in part, because I read about Wendig’s experiences with electronic publishing.)

The Irregular Creatures Review

Irregular Creatures is comprised of 9 stories — the first weighing in at approximately 14,000 words.

“Dog-Man and Cat-Bird (A Flying Cat Story)”

This story seems to be a favorite among readers.

Oh, sure, it has a cute, flying cat, but there’s a lot more going on. Beneath everything there’s an underlying theme of creating art we love vs. working a day job we hate.

The story’s about Joe, a sculptor who hasn’t created much of anything, lately, and the stress it puts on his marriage. Joe finds inspiration in a flying cat he finds in his garage one night; he creates a prophetic piece of art that plays a role in saving his son from a very strange attack.

I don’t think there are many readers — regardless of their tastes — who wouldn’t find things about this story that they love. It’s just a damn good story, and at 14,000 words, it’s worth the $2.99 price for the e-book.

But wait — there’s more!

“A Radioactive Monkey”

If you’re in a bar and offered a Radioactive Monkey, best not to drink it.

To find out why, you’ll have to buy the e-book.

“Product Placement”

I warmed up to this story very fast; partially because it reminded me of something one of the guys in my writing group would write. But the more I thought about it, I just loved the way Wendig makes the reader feel like the character in the story.

Without giving too much away, reality begins doing some strange things to Donnie, who has even bigger problems than his little dimensional glitch. His girlfriend is pregnant and doesn’t want the baby.

“Product Placement” is a great example of a story that shares its secret with the reader. We feel like Donnie, wondering if we’re losing it while everybody else is oblivious to strange changes going on around us.

I loved the way this story unfolded; one of my favorites in the collection.

“This Guy”

A short glimpse of a person’s descent into madness.

Over and over…

A macabre slice-of-life!

“Mister Mhu’s Pussy Show”

By now, it’s clear that Wendig can write. He’s funny, old school while still being hip, and he does an excellent job pulling readers into his stories.

“Mister Mhu’s Pussy Show” is a great example of the kind of thing I normally wouldn’t be into that surprised the hell out of me.

Wendig’s descriptions in this one drop the reader into the underbelly of Bangkok. It’s not a pleasant story, but even if it’s not your thing, you have to step back and be impressed by the writing.

Damn fine stuff!

“Lethe and Mnemosyne”

The shortest story in the collection drops fast, and I really liked it. There’s not a big resolution; there doesn’t need to be a big resolution with this story.

What I liked about it: Wendig puts a situation in the reader’s head, makes that situation sooooooooooo ridiculous but vital to the survival of the characters and an entire town, and leaves the reader thinking, “What would I do in that situation?”

Giant chicken — hell yeah!

“The Auction”

From comments on Wendig’s blog and reading other reviews, this seems to be a second favorite story in the collection.

It’s kind of like what would happen if Wendig channeled Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, and Terry Gilliam. It’s a story about a father who takes his son to an auction where some of the strangest things imaginable can be had.

Wanna buy a Sasquatch? Check!

That kind of thing.

Benjamin’s father brings him to a strange auction. Dad tells Benjamin to stay close as he makes a phone call. Dad talks and talks and talks…

Benjamin does what I would have done: he wanders off.

He finds a mermaid for sale.

Tie it all together with a huckster holy man and chaos, and you’ve got yourself a mighty fine read!

“Beware of Owner”

Solicitors beware; some people aren’t content simply slamming the door in your face!

Some rough stuff, and a perfect example of a writer giving the reader just enough to make things even worse in our minds.

“Do-Overs and Take-Backs”

A kid from a rough part of town…a guy who has it all, but still isn’t happy.

A hobo hermaphrodite in a suit of magical rags. (Yep, you read that right!)

Stuff happens in between some mighty fine writing.

Redemption happens for some; not so much for others…

A good end to a great collection!

Who Would Like Irregular Creatures?

Fans of Joe Lansdale should dig the hell out of Irregular Creatures.

That doesn’t mean it’s just for fans of horror, dark fiction, or strange tales; Lansdale does so much more than he gets credit for writing, and Wendig’s that kind of writer, too.

The first story alone is worth $2.99 — and there are 8 stories after that. Not a bad deal at all; I had a great time reading it and will definitely buy more Chuck Wendig stories when they come out.

(Link to Wendig’s “Books for Sale” page where you can purchase Irregular Creatures.)

*          *          *

Oh, and if you’re in the mood, you can listen to an interview with Chuck Wendig about writing here.

He talks quite a bit about outlines, so writers really should check it out!

I’ve been meaning to write a review about Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much for awhile, now.

The book was given to me as a Christmas gift; it was one of my favorite gifts received last December.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is the true story of John Gilkey, a thief of rare books, and Ken Sanders, a rare bookseller turned detective out to stop Gilkey and his obsession. The reporting is honest and thorough; the author presents the facts and leaves the reader to decide just how bad a man John Gilkey is.

For me, this is where the book gets very interesting. I would never steal a rare book, but I think there is a little bit of Gilkey in many book lovers. Put me near first edition Vonneguts, first editions of the books that made me want to write, or first editions of the books read to me as a child and and I’d feel their pull.

John Gilkey is your average guy who believes he was destined for greater things. You know that guy who says life didn’t deal him a fair hand? That’s John Gilkey.

Unable to attain those greater things, he begins stealing books. While Gilkey’s main reason for stealing books stems from a love of reading and obsessive character qualities, he has other reasons for becoming a thief. Gilkey hopes to amass a collection that will brand him as an erudite individual with social standing–because, obviously, to have such a wonderful collection, one must have things going for him!

On his trail is Ken Sanders, a quiet man who sells rare books. While my initial description of the book may have you thinking it’s a cat-and-mouse chase story like Catch Me if You Can, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is never hurried, yet I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

“Some pay for their success with soaring blood pressure or dissolved marriages. He paid with jail time.”
- Allison Hoover Bartlett, from The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

What I loved most: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is a book about what makes obsessive people tick. Allison Hoover Bartlett opens the back of John Gilkey’s pocket watch and shows us the mechanism that keeps him ticking along, seemingly unable to stop himself from stealing books. Even after serving repeated prison time, Gilkey keeps at it.

It’s that focus on obsessive psychology readers will find fascinating while reading this book. I find John Gilkey to be an extremely annoying and odious individual. I would never pretend that he is justified in what he does (Gilkey’s justifications for stealing all fall flat with me). But for as wrong as he is, I feel for him. I believe that Gilkey believes he’s protecting rare books from many of the wealthy collectors who buy them just because they can. He is a quirky, unlikeable person with a likeable trait: a love of books.

I would love to have a first edition of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Few times while reading have I ever felt for a character as much as a scene in the book when a list of resolutions to improve Gatsby’s life is found written in the back of a Hopalong Cassidy book. Like Gatsby, Gilkey struggles with who he is and what he wishes he were. The difference: Gatsby did it, while Gilkey seems destined to repeated failure. Desperation, sadness, and the easy way out replaces drive in Gilkey’s world.

Near the end of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Allison Hoover Bartlett breaks away from the story of Gilkey and Sanders and talks about the future of books. She briefly ponders the fate of physical books when e-books become widely accepted. She mentions her teenage children, and touches on their relationship with reading:

“They will have no objection to reading e-books. At the same time, though, I think that may strengthen their attachment to the physical books they do keep.”
- Allison Hoover Bartlett

I know this is true for me.

Even when e-books become the norm, there will always be people who love physical books too much. In some way, perhaps more than ever.

If you feel a need to defend physical books in a world that’s going electronic, there’s a little bit of John Gilkey inside you.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much examines this trait in many of us who love books, while doing an excellent job giving the reader an inside look at the world of rare books and literary obsession.

My wife and I saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie today.

We loved it!

I haven’t read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels like my wife has, but I’ve read enough to have cringed when the movie was first announced.

Guy Ritchie? I thought.

Oh, sure, the boxing scenes he directed in Snatch are wonderful, but I envisioned Holmes with explosions and plenty of fisticuffs.

And that’s definitely what movie goers get in this movie.

But they also get an analytical Holmes whose brain drives him mad when he’s not on a case…just like in the stories.

Holmes’ addictions aren’t spotlighted, but they don’t need to be; most fans know about his addictions, and they are definitely alluded to.

Granted, Doyle didn’t write Holmes and Watson as back-to-back battlers, but Holmes is a practitioner of martial arts in the stories, so it’s not too much of a stretch to make him a good fighter. (And even during the fights in the movie, his analytic side rules over knuckles and brawn. The Dubliners’ “Rocky Road to Dublin” during the fight didn’t hurt, either!)

Watson isn’t a bumbling idiot like he’s often portrayed in film and TV adaptations of Doyle’s stories; the tension over Watson’s fiancée is there, too.

So many of the quirks and traits in the stories and novels are there.

I enjoyed the movie more than I’ve enjoyed the Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett portrayals of Holmes (although Brett, physically, is Holmes!). I even enjoyed the movie more than I enjoyed PBS’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking.

So far, almost everybody I’ve heard from about the movie — including those on a LiveJournal Holmes group — have enjoyed the movie, too.

This is why I think that’s cool:

Driving home after the movie, my wife and I chatted about how great it would be if the Sherlock Holmes movie gets people reading and rereading the stories.

Even if the movie were horrible, if it gets kids, teens, and adults reading Doyle’s cherished stories, how bad is that?

*          *          *

When a book is made into a TV show or movie, there’s always the fear that it’s not going to live up to the book. When it’s a classic, like the Sherlock Holmes stories, fans become even more worried.

Hollywood has definitely ruined a lot of great books and characters, but Sherlock Holmes holds its own and and pays respect to one of the most loved characters in fiction.