More here.

Now that I finished the greatest book ever (aka “David Copperfield), I thought I’d add 5 more things that were great about this book and might encourage you to read it, if you were so inclined:

1. IT’S MODERN: You wouldn’t think that a book written over 150 years ago (or at least, I didn’t think) would be so “modern” and deal with what I had considered contemporary sociological and literary issues.  These include things like suicidal thoughts, “meta” narratives (the text commenting on itself), and man’s place in an industrialized society.  But DC does, and very movingly (of course, nothing in the book is addressed as boringly and college-textbook-papery as I’ve just layed this out, but hopefully you get the drift…)
2. SENSE OF HISTORY:  DC really gives you a sense of what life was life 150 years ago.  People are always warming themselves by the fire (because there was no central heat), getting dirty from carriage rides or walking, getting special clothes and shirt collars.  They are always unfailingly polite, even when they are very, very angry, and with good reason.  It’s a miniature history lesson in living life back then, and really interesting.
3. MORALITY:  This book really has a sense of what is right, and what is wrong, and the gray areas in between, and makes no bones about it.  There are “heroes” and “villains” and everyone makes mistakes, but there is no doubt a right way to life your life and a wrong way, and Dickens makes no secret which side he is on.  This is actually pretty refreshing (it also helps that I agree with him about 2000%).
4. WISDOM:  DC is plotted as an older man looking back on the events of his younger life, with all the wisdom he has gained in the meantime.  It is just amazing how he is able to capture his youthful feelings in all their vainglory, both good and bad, wise and capricious, and give them all their due.  It will also make you look back on your own life and the decisions you have made and the life events that have happened to you and give you a chance to do the same, for better or worse.
5. LOVE: This is a book about love, about falling in love, about staying in love, about love of family and obligation, about keeping your commitment and responsibilities in love whether it makes sense or not.  It is filled to the brim with romance and it can easily bring you to tears.  And as to the real Dicken’s feelings for his true love as they are unumerated again and again this book –  all I  can say is, after she read this book, he must have gotten so laid …

So what are you waiting for? Go read the book!

For the last month or so, I have been spending every weekday morning and afternoon on the drive to and from work listening to an excellent unabridged reading of Charles Dicken’s DAVID COPPERFIELD.  Though I am not quite done with it yet, I can safely say it’s one the best books I’ve ever read, and even better than GREAT EXPECTATIONS.  Here is a short list of reasons why it’s so good:

1. CHARACTERS – This is said to be true of every Dickens book, but there are so many indelible characters in DAVID COPPERFIELD they could — well–they could fill a book!  There is David’s Aunt, who hates donkeys on her property, and Mr. Macawber, who is always in debt, and, worst of all, the agonizingly insincere, toadying, plotting, treacherous Uriah Heap.  There is a woman dwarf who makes an appearance that seems like a walk on, only to re-appear with an awesome, heart-rending speech about her position in life.  Every character is memorable and fully realized, and seem familiar to me today in 2008 as they were when the book was written in 1850.
2. PLOT  - Unlike GREAT EXPECTATIONS, which had a good plot and was full of observations on the past, COPPERFIELD has tons of plot twists and turns, challenges for our hero, surprises, and sad moments.  It really keeps you on your toes.  And it all feels “real” and not just heaped on there for the sake of keeping you reading.  No wonder it’s been made into a movie several times.
3. HUMOR – This is a very funny book, a laugh out loud funny book, with great funny stories, and clever bits of business, and it never detracts from the story.  Dickens was a funny guy!
4. HEART - DAVID COPPERFIELD is a story about love, and family, and committment, and mistakes, and serious lessons about life.  Parts of this book will bring you to tears.  The speeches are excellent and very natural and very true.

I recommend this book to everyone, and can’t wait until my daughter starts reading it in Middle School so we can can read it together.  It is really something special.  Let’s face–I’m hooked.

Yesterday I finished a three week experience listening to the unabridged audiobook of Charles Dicken’s GREAT EXPECTATIONS in my car. You’d think being an English major I would have read this in Great Books or something, but I either slept in that day or kept my eyes down during the lecture so I wouldn’t be called on, so up to this point I had never in my life read any Dickens.  Oh sure, I’d read and heard about Dickens – long stories, memorable characters, plot twists, sentimental, etc., I’d read books by authors who are considered Dickensian (John Irving comes to mind), seen TV shows like LOST where a character’s favorite writer was Dickens, but the actual books I kind of avoided, binning them to an “eat your vegetables” group of Great Books authors like Proust, Joyce, James, etc.

Well my friends, I am here to tell you that this was one excellent book!  It was totally readable, totally accessible, totally interesting and so engrossing I sometimes wished for traffic jams so I could listen some more.  Besides being a great story (about Pipp, a country boy who “comes into property” from a mysterious benefactor), it was so full of life and humor and sadness and the whole gamut of human experience, one hardly knows how to begin to talk about it!  Suffice to say it’s now on my list of one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I am looking forward to reading my next Dickens novel quite soon, preferably less than 20 years after school.   So please, don’t be like I was, don’t put off an awesome reading experience because it reminds you of boring High school English classes with someone blowing spitballs at your back.  Read this book today!

As a middle-aged Dad worried about his job, the economy, the dwindling value of his 401K, and paying for his kid’s college tuition, there’s nothing that concerns to me more than the upcoming Zombie Plague that threatens to destroy all mankind.  Which is why WORLD WAR Z, An Oral History of the Zombie War, is such a valuable resource.  You get to hear testimonies from everyone involved, in the U.S., Tel Aviv, China, India, Khazikstan.  You learn about the initial denial that anyone was infected,  and Israel’s controversial decision to wall the city in to protect its inhabitants.  This is basically a book about denial, about not wanting to face facts, about summoning the personal and political will to do what has to be done.  There is heroism, there is abundant stupidity, there is best of human nature and the worst.  Is it actually quite an intresting and thought-provoking book, especially given that we lost 3/4 of the world’s population during the 15-year zombie war.

Also, I did not know that zombies could walk the ocean floor.

4 Stars.  I would especially recommend the audio version of this book.

When I was a wee lad majoring in English, we had three “Great Books” classes we were required to take.  These were books chosen by scholars as being the most representative, over time, of literature during that particular time period.  We read Beowulf (without Angelina Jolie), we read Jane Austen, we read William Blake’s SONGS OF INNOCENCE OF EXPERIENCE, we read Charles Dickens (which, I am ashamed to say, I kind of skimmed), and stuff like that.  And while a lot of these books were interesting, and worthy of discussion and writing papers about, I would be hard pressed to call them “great books”.

Meaning, while I enjoyed them, and would probably point them out to others as representative of the “great” literature, I didn’t they were great books in the way I just finished BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett and cried and cried and told my wife “This was a great book.  It’s one of the top 10 books I’ve ever read” is great. (Note: other Top 10 Brad books:  DUANE’S DEPRESSED by Larry McMurtry, A SON OF THE CIRCUS by John Irving,  A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez).  Because while “great” books are usually great for a reason (they crystalize the thoughts of an era, they deal with classic themes, etc.), I will say almost none of those kinds of “great” books really connected with me emotionally.

Not that every book has to make you sob little a little girly man.  I love foreign detective novels, and Haruku Murakami novels, David Foster Wallace intellectual-thons, and they are full of interesting insights into life and the human condition and the nature of the Universe, and they make you think, and that’s “great.”  But these other books I think are so great, to me, do something for me that is a rare and beautiful thing:  they give you profound insight into the mysteries of the human condition.

I also just finished Dennis Lehane’s SHUTTER ISLAND, which is about a Federal Marshall trying to find an escaped mental patient on an island prison for the criminally insane.  That was great, too.  I guess it all depends on the issues that are important to you.  After all, some people think those Oprah books are “great”.  Which is, I guess, why we have classically “great” books – something everyone can agree on, though perhaps not as moving and personally meaningful to you as something that hits your personal buttons.

Anyway, Brad recommends these two “great”-ish books.  As Dr. Steve Brule says:  “Check it out!”

For reasons as yet unknown even to myself, I have been making a habit out of listening to Stephen King novels as audiobooks.  I can count the number of actual “book” books of SK I have read on one hand - CARRIE, when I was a teenager, and a recent short story in ESQUIRE.  So far I’ve “read” CELL, which was terrific, DUMA KEY, which had some terrific parts mixed in with some not so terrific parts, and I am almost finished listening to DESPERATION.

Now as much as I am sympathetic to SK’s claims of his books being “literature”, I’d have to say that I may have some issues with this.  If you interpret “literature” as being “writing that gives you a deeper understanding of the human condition and moves you to understand your greater place in the Universe”, then I’d have to say “No.”  However, if you were to define literature as “making you wonder how you would survive in a world full of zombies, demons and psychopaths and how you would protect your family from the undead as you shudder with disgust”, well, then, “Yes”, of course.

I prefer to think of SK as more like a three-chord rock and roll song.  Yes, you know the chords.  Yes, you know what is coming.  Yes, you’ve heard bit all before, many, many times.  On the other hand, you LIKE those chords, you LIKE what’s coming, and when it DOES come you kind of wish it would never end.  And what you listen for (because what else is there to listen for, since you’ve experienced in a gazillion-something times?) are the subtle touches that make it interesting and new again.

In the case of DESPERATION, the interesting parts are:

• A Norman Mailer-esque tough-guy writer who gets all the best lines and the most interesting backstory
• A lot of information about drug addiction and alcoholism, of which I recently learned SK himself has quite a lot of experience
• A young kid that talks to God and believes that the fight against the demon is a fight for God, stuff I don’t necessarily believe in but that makes the book very compelling  and emotional
• A totally creeped-out super-tall super cruel super clever bad guy inhabiting a tall town Sheriff, and
• Creepy spiders that work together to spell out words for the bad guy

Is it as good as CELL, my favorite so far?  Nope.  Is it scary?  It sure is!  Does it make me cry?  At one point, it certainly did.  Does it contain the meaning of life?  No, but it certainly is a page-turner!

Next up – THE STAND.  After some rock and roll.

Well, 2007 is almost over.  As far as I’m concerned, it was a pretty swell year.  (A kind of a long year at times, but a pretty swell year…)  As if anyone cares, here are my highlights:

• Media Highlights:
  • TV:  MAD MEN proved that if if you wanted to see a show as intense and psychologically complex as the SOPRANOS (and with cooler clothes), you only had to wait about 3 months; FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS was the funniest and driest show on TV; those gazillion sketch comedy shows made popular on the Internets produced HUMAN GIANT and WHITEST KIDS YOU KNOW; FIVE DAYS on HBO was one of the best police procedurals I’ve ever seen, from the victims to the police press liason.  And let us not forget the one thousand million kajillion kids programs I have become an expert in, especially BOB THE BUILDER, DIEGO, and anything by Pixar.  And thanks to the finale episodes than LOST and EXTRAS–What would I talk about about at the virtual water cooler?
  • MOVIES:  If there was one major theme in movies this year (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD, etc., etc.) it’s the saimple trusim “Crime is best left to the professionals.”  I could make a decent argument that Anton Churgh in OLD MEN didn’t even exist, but was just a cloud of evil.  Special ponts to Judd Apatow school of filmmaking, which is to teen sex comedies as the Sopranos is to crime shows — proof that weird, fat and strange people can be excellent, moving actors if just given the chance.  And as to the fawning (and mostly deserved) critical reaction..  I’m reminded of David Lee Roth’s comment:  “Most rock critics like Elvis Costello because they look like Elvis Costello…”
  • BOOKS:  This is the year I read my first Stephen King book (scary!), my first Cormac McCarthy books (deep!), and my one hundredth police procedural translated from a foreign language.  And the first year I really got into the whole books on tape phenomenen.  Now why can’t I find REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST online?  And thank heavens for the Ricky Gervais podcasts.
  • MUSIC:  What is that, exactly? 
• PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS:
  • I got to keep my automotive job while many people did not.  And not one day goes by when I do not think of that.
  • My wife and I remodeled our kitchen from scratch (with invaluable help from my neighbor, tips from my brother in law, and waaay to make trips to the Ikea Fans website).  Next year:  A backyard gazebo (God help me…and my poor wife…and my neighbor…)
  • Our son got a clean bill of health after from his coarctation operation and does not have to go back to the Doctor for two whole years!  (This, combined with his becoming a maniac, was the best news all year).
  • My daughter got Student of the Year at her elementary school, is learning cello (using the new method, called “avoiding practicing”), is still doing her ballet, and is driving me near-homicidally crazy just about every day.
  • My wife and I are still happily married after 17 years and spending quality time together.  And not one day goes by when  do not think of that.
  • My network of friends and family remained relatively healthy and happy.  Some people have passed on this year, which as I get older makes every day and every relationship that much more important and valuable, even if sometimes people bug the crap out of you.
  • I am President of the PTA for the second year in a row, and all that that involves.  (I’m not sure this belongs on the highight list…)
• PERSONAL LOWLIGHTS:
  • I am not ignorant of the fact that I have a certain worldview and a certain sense of humour that is not always to everyone’s taste, and that there are times that I can inadvertantly (or, at times, totally advertantly) offend or hurt the feelings of people I actually honestly care about in my own self-centered way.  Because of this, I’ve been taken off the Christmas Card list of someone I have known for years, and probably bugged many other people without knowing it.  This is something, as Dr. Phil would say, I need to work on.

Anyway, here’s to 2008!

If you’re my age you grew up with Steve Martin, watch him on SNL, had all his comedy records which you can quote verbatim, read and enjoyed SHOPGIRL, and are actually pleasantly surprised to see he’s kept a career playing in kid’s movies like CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN.  So it’s really nice to see he has an autobiography out, called BORN STANDING UP, that goes into extensive detail about just how Steve Martin became Steve Martin.

There are two great things about this book.  The first is that, unlike, say, Elvis Costello, his does not come across full of mock humility (“I made this little album you may have heard called IMPERIAL BEDROOM..”), nor is he as temperamental and self-involved as say, Rip Torn, who once dismissed an interviewer who had not seen his bit part in TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT by saying “Aaah, you’re not familiar with my work…” Instead, he’s very, very straightforward.  I tried this, it didn’t work.  I tried this.  It still didn’t work.  I was clueless…  I was lucky…

The other best thing is that you really get an excellent sense of just how much hard work it took for him to find his comic groove and become successful.  Twelve to fifteen years of really hard, very soul-searching work.  I think this would be an excellent book for a young actors/musician/comic to read so they understand just what is involved in to become suddenly “famous”.

Plus, it’s got some very funny lines, like this one from Johnny Carson:   ”I announced to the press that I’m working on my autobiography.  Already four publishers have run off to copyright the title “Cold and Aloof.”  Ba-bump!

I’ve been so busy lately I’ve barely had time to read anything but the Times and Penthouse Forum letters.  But finally I got a spare moment when the kids weren’t screaming and the wife was busy doing wife stuff, so I picked up THE MAN ON THE BALCONY by the Swedish husband/wife crime writers Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.  They have written a series of police procedurals, one of which (THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN) was even made into an American crime movie in the 70’s with Walter Mathhau and Bruce Dern.

What do I like the most about Swedish detective novels?  I’m glad you asked!   

1. They are very straightforward.  A crime is committed, and the investigators attempt to solve this crime given the information they have and what they can extrapolate from that.  Period.  There is no “History of Sweden” or “love affairs among the police” etc.
2. By not being “about” something besides solving crimes, they are actually about quite a lot.  They are about the state of society.  By not being a “big” book about the meaning of life, they really are, to my mind, about the meaning of life.  About coping with the world, and understanding that world, and trying to make sense of it all.  Only they don’t have Sean Penn being held back by hundreds of people going “my daughter!”…
3. The are, above all, about one of my favorite topics, and something I happen to believe very strongly in, which is the value of perseverance vs. the existential despair of life.  These policeman follow every lead, all the time, even when they don’t feel like, een when they don’t like or respect one another, even when it’s a waste of time, even when 95% of the leads are a complete washout.  Why?  Because one of the leads might be the clue that solves the crime.  You have to try, and try, and try again.  Why?  Because that’s what life is, isn’t it?

I’ll leave you with a cheerful passage from the book that sums up everything I like about these books.  The detectives are trying to solve some murders of children.  There are very few leads, and the press and the public all want answers, and, very often, there are no answers–at least not now.  And even if they find answers, it won’t stop these terrible things from happening again.  But that doesn’t stop you from trying, now does it?

The knowledge that all this had happened before and was certain to happen again, was a crushing burden.  Since the last time they had gotten computers and more men and more cars.  Since the last time the lighting in the parks had been improved and most of the bushes had been cleared away.  Next time, there would be still more cars and computers and even less shrubbery.  Kollberg wiped his brow at the thought and the handkerchief was wet through.