Blogrolls & Bookstores

In honor of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I've finally added a blogroll to my sidebar. These aren't all the book blogs that I read regularly--I often follow links from LibraryThing and from people who comment on my blog. Also, there are some blogs which blogger couldn't find today, including Maw Books and The Hidden Side of a Leaf, which hosts Weekly Geeks.

In book review news, I finished Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World It was a relief to be done, but I'm also glad I stuck it out. Lots to think about. Since I already posted once about this book I'm not going to do a full review of it here, but I put a short one up on LibraryThing.

I've also been wanting to take a moment to talk about Indiebound , and their support of independent booksellers. If you follow the link I provide for the title of a book, it usually leads to an Indiebound page where, if you enter your zipcode, you pull up several local-to-you booksellers so you can see if they have the book onhand and either go get it or order it online. If your favorite bookstore isn't listed, perhaps you could do them the favor of suggesting to them that it might be useful to them to join.

Why bother ordering books from your local bookstore when you could just as easily (more easily, even) click it through on Amazon and it will show up at your door? Here are a few reasons, courtesy of the Indiebound website:

The Economy
Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.
Local businesses create higher-paying jobs for our neighbors.
More of your taxes are reinvested in your community--where they belong.
The Environment
Buying local means less packaging, less transportation, and a smaller carbon footprint.
Shopping in a local business district means less infrastructure, less maintenance, and more money to beautify your community.
The Community
Local retailers are your friends and neighbors—support them and they’ll support you.
Local businesses donate to charities at more than twice the rate of national chains.
More independents means more choice, more diversity, and a truly unique community.

If you're a blogger, Indiebound has an affiliate program that offers a kickback when people order via the link on your site, as does Powells.com, the online version of Powell's City of Books, a monster of an independent bookseller based in Portland, Oregon.

Weekly Geeks, Gone-Away world Q & A

Lenore interviewed me about Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World as part of this week's Weekly Geeks thing.

First, the blurb: From rural childhood in Cricklewood Cove to military service in a bewildering foreign war; from Jarndice University to the sawdust of the Nameless Bar; their story is the story of the Gone-Away World. It is the history of a friendship stretched beyond its limits; a tale of love and loss; of ninjas, pirates, politics; of curious heroism in strange and dangerous places. Equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey, geek nirvana, and cool epic, this is The Gone-Away World.

Lenore: The Gone-away World is a 500 pager - how long did it take you to read it?

Ali: I'm still reading it!

It's been a much slower read than I expected, actually. I've been reading it exclusively (meaning, no other books--I do stop to eat, sleep, and homeschool my children) for 10 days, which would normally be enough time for me to finish a book of that length ... and I'm on page 315. Why is it taking so long? Well, there's a pretty high ratio of exposition to dialogue, and the style is more dense than it first appears, partly because of the English style of humor. There's a lot that's funny if you read it right, but it might take a second look to get it. Also, it seems to be a pretty easy book to put down. I'm not staying up too late at night reading it, like I often do.

Lenore: Do you have any insight on why the author might have chosen the title?

Yes, it's a perfect title for the storyline, in which scientists invent a weapon that can make the enemy disappear completely. The bulk of the book takes place during and after an apocolyptic war, nicknamed "The Go Away War," during which this weapon is used and misused by many countries, with catastrophic consequences. Entire sections of the world disappear, and some living things become sort of half-real, before scientists invent the technology to stop the distruction. The main character and his team are striving to contain the stuff before the entire world disappears.

The jacket copy touts the novel's "stunning futuristic vision a la A Clockwork Orange and 1984". Have you read these novels and if so, how does this novel compare?

There's definitely a similarity, in the sense that the theme is, "Where are we headed?" The authors of each of the three titles used fiction to extrapolate an undesirable future and thus asked the reader to evaluate the present. Actually, though, I would liken The Gone-Away World more to the movie Brazil.

What is one scene that really stands out in your mind when thinking back on the whole?

In the middle of this horrendous war, the narrator is on the verge of falling in love with a nurse he's been unable to spend any time with outside the military hospital where he's been a patient. At her request, he asks her out on a date. But in the middle of a war zone, there's no place suitable for any kind of date.His best friend, a young man of considerable influence, arranges a reconnaissance mission to an old abandoned castle-like building, and the team manages to turn one room into a "restaurant," with food ("a wild blend of Asia and Southern European), wine (made from mangos) and music to dance to (a paper-and-comb "harmonica," percussion, and jazz vocals). It's a fun scene and very indicative of the friendship between these two guys, and the fact that life and love must go on even in the face of war.

This is Nick Harkaway's first novel - would you want to read more from him?

I would, but probably not another 500-pager. One reviewer raved about this book as "a sprawling epic." Sprawling: not an adjective that I, as a writer, would consider complimentary. A little tightening (say, 100 pages worth) would have made it a better novel. The first chapter takes place chronologically in the middle of the story. Then Harkaway devotes 270 pages to the background, starting when the narrator was a young boy. Much of it was crucial to the plot, much of it was funny or interesting. But plenty of it could have been cut to keep the momentum of the story moving back to the middle more quickly.

Update: The book took a definitely turn for the weird, in a good way, on page 323. At the moment, it's riveting. I'll give a final assessment when I'm finished.