The Right Thing To Do: On Blogger Ethics

I want to revisit something from my “blogger development” Armchair BEA post:

THERE’S NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO DO THIS.

My best blogging advice is “Read a lot of other blogs.” You’ll see what you like and what you don’t, and as you learn what inspires you, you’ll figure out how those inspirations can shape your own blogging.

I really have come to believe, after more than six years and 1900 posts, that there isn’t one “right” way to blog. However, I also firmly believe that there are “right things TO DO” as a blogger. This blog has worn a Blog With Integrity badge for nearly four years, and shortly after I added it, I posted some of my thoughts about what that means to me:

“On a different scale and at a more specialized level, the book-blogging community has been debating some of (these) issues--disclosure, transparency, compensation, recognition, responsibility--for quite a while. (Edited to add: And we still are. Appropriately. It’s an evolving environment, and that requires this to be an ongoing conversation.) 

"...While we may not all blog about the same topics, we are facing some of the same issues and challenges no matter where we focus. Blog with Integrity is one response to that. It's a response to the marketers and PR people who ask us to post their press releases and plug their products (Edited to add: Books are products too!) as if they're doing us a favor. It's a response to those who send out one-size-fits-all pitches that don't reflect any acquaintance with the blog and its writer. It's a response to the bloggers who cheerily accept those pitches and products and do those favors, without necessarily acknowledging their source, because they want the products and the compensation and the attention--and who have complicated the game for bloggers who don't want to play it that way.”

I think that if you’re going to review books on your blog, having a posted, clearly expressed review policy is essential...even if your policy is that you don’t accept books from publishers or authors. and only review books you buy or borrow from the library. And if you do accept books for review, you need to be aware of the (also-evolving) FTC disclosure guidelines...and follow them. These practices address some of the more concrete concerns of book blogging, but things get fuzzier when it comes to the more creative side of things.

I believe what I said earlier about being inspired by what we see other bloggers are doing. That said, inspiration and plagiarism and very different things.

My general stance is that if you tweak an idea you’ve seen elsewhere and make it your own, it’s courteous to give credit--via a link, at the very least--to the blog and/or post that started you on that path. If you substantially quote or copy someone else’s work, setting off the quotes and attributing to the original in both link and text are critical. My own policy is to make every effort to link and credit when I post something inspired by, or expanding on, something I encountered on another blog. In some cases, the blog linked may not be the primary source of the material, but I do try to make sure I give credit to the place I found it. (If you ever find that I have quoted you without proper link or attribution, please e-mail me at 3.rsblog AT Gmail DOT com with your link and any necessary correction. I would appreciate not being called out publicly, in comments, for honest errors of that sort, but I will edit the post and acknowledge the revision.)

When it comes to most matters of ethics, I feel that even the most complex codes of policies and procedures are underpinned by a pretty fundamental idea: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You. Be fair, be honest, be reliable...and hope that those you deal with do the same.

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Many Paths, But No One Right One: On Blogger Development

Because yesterday was my Wordless Wednesday Link-up, I didn’t talk about Armchair BEA’s Day 2 discussion topic, “Development,” then. But since I won’t be talking about the Day 3 topic, “Giveaways,” at all, I’m taking the opportunity to backtrack:

“Day 2 we talk about how we develop ourselves as bloggers.  Have you branched out into your community? Do you partner with other bloggers?  Have you gone "pro" or begun supplementing your income through your blog?  Are you a long-term blogger, and how has your online personality developed over the years?”

I’ve been doing this since 2007. If I never changed up the way I do it, I doubt I’d have stuck with it this long! Granted, some things have changed more than others. The basic format of my Book Talk review posts has stayed pretty constant for quite awhile, and I haven’t made any major changes in the look of the blog for nearly four years. (That said, I did make a change a week or two ago; after almost five years, I left the BlogHer Publishing Network to join the Riot Ad Network.)  However, my posting frequency has varied from daily to “almost daily” to “three times a week if I can manage it” and back again; I’ve introduced, and dropped, recurring features; and at times the content has skewed so much more toward the “randomness” than the “reading” and “‘riting” that I’ve had mixed feelings about even identifying as a book blogger.

The biggest thing that helps me keep hold of that identity is the community of book bloggers, and the opportunities I’ve had as part of that community. I’ve teamed up with other bloggers on several projects over the years (including organizing Armchair BEA), and I’ve had the great luck to meet quite a few bloggers in person, both locally in Southern California and in New York City at BEA 2011 and 2011. (And in some cases there’s been overlap.) Face-to-face connection has cemented some friendships born online, and helped to sustain a connection even when the common bond of blogging has faded. The composition of the community changes as bloggers come and go, but the concept of it endures.  

I’ve always hoped that blogging would help me grow in new directions--and I believe it has--but sometimes it seems that growth as a blogger and growth of the blog don’t line up perfectly. In my first few years, I tried to follow much of the popular advice for growing a blog--recommendations about content, posting, promotion, and all that. I think I learned a lot of value from that, but it took me much too long to understand that advice aimed mostly at “professional” bloggers might not always fit the approach of “hobbyist” bloggers--and I’ve had to accept that my life’s not in a place right now where this really can be anything other than a hobby (although it has led to a little side job). That understanding leads to another one, which may the most important lesson of all:

THERE’S NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO DO THIS.

My best blogging advice is “Read a lot of other blogs.” You’ll see what you like and what you don’t, and as you learn what inspires you, you’ll figure out how those inspirations can shape your own blogging. And sometimes, stepping back for a bit ends up being the best way to move forward.

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Wordless Wednesday: New York City Blue

These photos were taken in and around New York City during my visit for Book Expo America 2012. Our Linked-Up Wordless Wednesday prompt this week is "Blue/Purple"--I'm a bit blue because I'm not back there this week at BEA 2013. #NextYearInNYC

Top: Lower Manhattan, seen from New York Harbor. Botton left: Times Square. Botton right: the Chrysler Building.

My photos, edited with Snapseed and collaged with PicFrame

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Armchair BEA Is Underway!

Armchair BEA 2013 is officially underway! It's the fourth time around for this popular annual event, and the first time I'll be able to go (mostly) all in on the festivities since 2010. We're starting off by going around the virtual table and introducing ourselves today, as we choose five of the official Introduction Questions to answer.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

I answered some of these very same questions for a profile at Book Bloggers International last month. I've been blogging in this very space since March 2007, and I started because I'd never developed the habit of keeping a reading journal; doing so online seemed like it might be easier than writing things down by hand in notebooks. As it happens, I discovered pretty quickly that I wanted to "journal" about many other things besides books--but they're still the primary reason I keep doing this, and am closing in on 2000 posts here.

Have you previously participated in Armchair BEA? What brought you back for another year? If you have not previously participated, what drew you to the event?

I am pleased to have been present for the "birth" of Armchair BEA during a Twitter conversation in the early spring of 2010, and am part of the original founding team for this event. I was less of an active participant in 2011 and 2012 because I attended the real BEA, but I've continued to help with the preparations and behind-the-scenes coordination each year, and I'm glad I'll be able to join in this year's activities more fully!

What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013?

I have about three or four books in various states of completion right now: one audio, one ARC, one paperback, and a couple of ebooks. The only good news is that none of them has a review deadline (the ARC did, but I got my dates mixed up and missed it, so now I'm just working on finishing it for myself). My reading year started out well, but the last couple of months have been...well, let's say challenging (and not in the "reading challenge" sense). I've dialed back my "required" reading--a freelance review gig, an online book club, and blog tours--till after vacation next month, and then I really hope I can get back on track!

What is your favorite part about the book blogging community?

I have gotten to know people whom I feel have become real friends. My only real regret about not being in New York City this week is that I'm missing the only opportunity I get to see some of them in the "real world." But online or off-, I love the support, the camaraderie, and the knowledge that you can almost always find someone to join you in a project, no matter how nutty it might be!

Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?

I'm seeing an interesting change lately, particularly among bloggers who've been around for close to as long as I have; there seems to be much more selective, considered approach to being part of the publishing-industry marketing apparatus. Much of the "FREE BOOKS!" review-copy excitement appears to have faded, and some bloggers have taken--or taken back--an "I'm doing this for myself" attitude. Personally, I'm trying to find a mix that works for me; I suspect I'm not the only one who's working on that, and I'm curious to see where it all goes.

If you're stopping by today for Armchair BEA, I'm glad you did--please say hello!

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Right Here, Right Now: Sunday Status

Time: Saturday evening, for posting Sunday morning


Place: Home, which has been emptied of much surplus stuff this weekend: dozens of DVDs and CDs which have been rendered superfluous by digital media, plus about seven bags of clothing. I'm working up my strength to tackle the bookshelves...

Eating: Nothing at the moment, as we just came home from one of our favorite Italian restaurants a little while ago.

Drinking: Lots of water. Dinner made me thirsty!

Reading: Not enough to mention. It's not been a good week for hitting the books, but with an extra day of weekend, I'm hoping to make some time for that tomorrow. (Unless I'm cleaning out bookshelves.) At the very least, I want to do some reading up on things to see and do around Boston, Lincoln, New Hampshire, and Portland, Maine--we'll be visiting New England in less than three weeks!

Watching: On and off over the course of the weekend, the 15 new episodes of Arrested Development on Netflix. Who's with me?

Listening: The TV is on while I'm writing, and Chris Hardwick is talking to Guillermo del Toro and Katee Sackhoff on this week's installment of The Nerdist on BBC America.

Blogging: I actually managed to post two book reviews this past week! (Apparently, it was the week of Christinas around here.) However, most of the blogging agenda for the week ahead will be brought to you by Armchair BEA.


Pondering: I officially reached the "Now I'm sorry I'm not going to BEA this year" threshold a few days ago, mostly because of the people I won't be seeing this week. #NYC2014?

Enjoying: A small sense of accomplishment, thanks to being nearly done with the annual audit AND clearing all that stuff out of the house!

Avoiding: I mentioned that my bookshelves were next on the "cleaning out" project list, didn't I?

Anticipating: Getting ALL done with the annual audit--and hoping it means more time for reading and blogging!

Gratuitous Photo of The Week, via an email from my uncle with the subject line "Abbott and Costello predicted it!"

How's your weekend going?

 

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(Book Club) Book Talk: ORPHAN TRAIN, by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train: A Novel (book trailer)
Christina Baker Kline (Facebook) (Twitter) (Goodreads)
William Morrow Paperbacks (April 2013), paperback original (ISBN 0061950726 / 9780061950728)
Fiction (historical), 304 pages
Source: Publisher, for review consideration
Reason for Reading: SheReads Book Club selection, May 2013

Opening lines (Prologue): “I believe in ghosts. They’re the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind. Many times in my life I have felt them around me, observing, witnessing, when no one in the living world knew or cared what happened.

“I am ninety-one years old, and almost everyone who was once in my life is now a ghost.

“Sometimes these spirits have been more real to me than people, more real than God. They fill silence with their weight, like bread dough, dense and rising under cloth. My gram, with her kind eyes and talcum-dusted skin. My da, sober, laughing. My mam, singing a tune. The bitterness and alcohol and depression are stripped away from these phantom incarnations, and they console and protect me in death as they never did in life.”

Book description, from the publisher’s website:

Bird's eye panorama of Manhattan & New York City, 1873 (via Wikipedia)

Between 1854 and 1929, so-called “orphan” trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude?

As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.

Comments: I first became aware of the “orphan trains” when I read Laura Moriarty’s historical novel The Chaperone last year. The trains ran between the East Coast and the Midwest between 1854 and 1929, with the mission of finding hope and homes in small-town America for children who’d been orphaned or otherwise left to fend for themselves in the overcrowded, impoverished streets of the city. Organized by the Children’s Aid Society, the trains--a well-intentioned, if controversial, program with a mixed success record--were one the United States’ earliest foster-care initiatives.

In Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline looks to this history to inform the story of two girls’ experience with foster care, eighty years apart. in 1928, Niamh Power, the only surviving daughter of an Irish immigrant family lost in a New York City tenement fire, is delivered to Children’s Aid by neighbors and placed on a train headed west. The train makes several stops along the way, and the children--a diminishing number at each stop--are presented to the locals; some will leave with new families, while others may end up as farm or domestic labor. Niamh is taken in by the Byrnes, a Minnesota couple who give her work in their small clothing business, a mattress on the floor in the hallway, and a new name, Dorothy; the placement ends when the Great Depression starts, and the girl’s luck goes from bad to worse until she ends up with the kindly Nielsens, where her name is changed one more time--to Vivian, after their own lost child.

Niamh/Vivian’s story is set in parallel with that of Molly, a modern-day seventeen-year-old who’s close to aging out of the Maine foster-care system. When Molly’s future is jeopardized by a reckless act--she steals a copy of Jane Eyre from the public library--a deal is struck; she can avoid the juvenile-justice system by doing fifty hours of community service. Thanks to her boyfriend, she finds an assignment helping an elderly woman sort through decades of belongings. The woman is Vivian, and despite the many years that separate them, their common frame of reference in foster care leads to the development of a real connection between her and Molly.

While Molly’s story is secondary to Vivian’s, Kline succeeds in making both of them distinct and intriguing characters, and although the last few chapters of the novel feel a bit rushed, the relationship that grows between them feels genuine. Although the behavior of some of the supporting characters can come across as clichéd at times, they don’t feel flat or overly stereotypical; Kline seems to write even the villains of her piece with some degree of sympathy. Orphan Train is engrossing and engaging, blending little-known history into a novel with contemporary resonance.

Rating: 3.75/5

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Wordless Wednesday: Washing Dishes

This week's Linked-up Wordless Wednesday prompt is "Washing Dishes." Y'know, sometimes I'd just as soon not...

Guess where we went to get it to go?

My iPhone photos, edited with Snapseed and collaged with PicFrame

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Book Talk: THE EDGE OF THE EARTH, by Christina Schwarz

The Edge of the Earth: A Novel
Christina Schwarz
Atria Books (April 2013), hardcover (ISBN 1451683677 / 9781451683677)
Fiction (historical), 288 pages
Source: ARC from publisher
Reason for reading: Intended for review in Shelf Awareness for Readers, but didn't finish reading the book in time to meet my deadline

Opening Lines, from the Prologue: "I'm not going to let on I was born here. People always ask what it was like to grow up in a lighthouse, and then they're disappointed by the answer. I'm not much of a storyteller. Anyway, growing up in a lighthouse isn't all that remarkable when you don't know anything different, and I didn't know anything different until I left Point Lucia at nineteen."

Book Description, from the publisher's website
In 1898, a woman forsakes the comfort of home and family for a love that takes her to a remote lighthouse on the wild coast of California. What she finds at the edge of the earth, hidden between the sea and the fog, will change her life irrevocably. 

Trudy, who can argue Kant over dinner and play a respectable portion of Mozart’s Serenade in G major, has been raised to marry her childhood friend and assume a life of bourgeois comfort in Milwaukee. She knows she should be pleased, but she’s restless instead, yearning for something she lacks even the vocabulary to articulate. When she falls in love with enigmatic and ambitious Oskar, she believes she’s found her escape from the banality of her preordained life.

But escape turns out to be more fraught than Trudy had imagined. Alienated from family and friends, the couple moves across the country to take a job at a lighthouse at Point Lucia, California—an unnervingly isolated outcropping, trapped between the ocean and hundreds of miles of inaccessible wilderness. There they meet the light station’s only inhabitants—the formidable and guarded Crawleys. In this unfamiliar place, Trudy will find that nothing is as she might have predicted, especially after she discovers what hides among the rocks.

Big Sur, California
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comments: There's something romantic about the image of a lighthouse high on a cliff, casting its beam to guide sailors and protect ships from rough shorelines. However, the reality of keeping that light on was probably far more a matter of hard physical labor than romance, particularly before that lighthouse ran on electricity. Christina Schwarz's historical novel, The Edge of the Earth, explores that reality along the Big Sur coast of California in the early years of the 20th century, building up the drama between the two families who keep the Point Lucia lighthouse without downplaying the work involved in what they do.

The life and work of a lighthouse keeper wasn't one that Trudy envisioned for herself as the educated only daughter of a prosperous Milwaukee family, but falling in love with Oskar Swann--the cousin of the man she's expected to marry--is just the first step toward that unexpected life. Adjusting to the isolation of the Point Lucia lighthouse--the Swanns and the other lighthouse family, the Crawleys, may see no one but each other for months on end--is a challenge for the socially-inclined Trudy. However, the scientific bent of her mind is engaged by her new natural surroundings. Other aspects of her curiosity are stirred by the sense that the Crawleys have secrets, but the physical and emotional energies involved in starting a marriage and a demanding job at the same time and in a strange place at times keep her from exploring either of those interests.

Like her protagonist, Schwarz's interests as a novelist also seem pretty diverse here: history, natural science, relationship and emotional drama, anthropology, and more than a little seasoning of Gothic mystery. With all of these elements packed into under 300 pages and a plot that seemed to change direction several times, The Edge of the Earth felt both overstuffed and underdeveloped to me--and sometimes, both at once--but it thoroughly held my attention. Trudy's appeal as a protagonist and narrator was a big factor in that, and so were the well-chosen details that Schwarz chose to depict her world, establishing a distinctive sense of time and place that anchors the novel.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with The Edge of the Earth  because I'm not sure exactly what it's trying to do, as a novel. It's too brief and too meandering to be epic, but at times it feels like it wants to be. It's an intriguing look at an unfamiliar piece of California history through the eyes of a woman a little ahead of her time, and I'd have liked more of that--with a little less of the family-secrets melodrama.

Rating: 3.75 / 5

Other reviews: BookPage

   

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Sunday Salon: right here, right now (May 19, 2013)

Time: Saturday evening, for posting Sunday morning

Place: Home

Eating: There are certain foods I associate with my childhood, and some of them are foods I've rarely found since. There was a certain type of bread we used to get at the bakery called a "tea biscuit"--a little crumbly, a little sweet, something like a scone, but plain. I discovered these Shortcake Biscuits at Trader Joe's this weekend--I don't think they're the exact thing, but taste memory is telling me that they're closer than anything else I've come across. Yum!

Drinking: Plain ol' water right now...

Reading: I just started an ARC for Shelf Awareness that will probably be my only review there till late summer/early fall--I think I mentioned that I was on hiatus and not getting any galleys from them until after our vacation next month. By the time I ask to be put back on the rotation, they'll probably be sending out titles for September.

I finished Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline a couple of nights ago, and will be posting my thoughts on this She Reads Book Club selection later this week.

She Reads is taking the month of June off, and since I won't have SA deadlines either, I'm feeling a little at loose ends, with several weeks of only reading what I feel like reading ahead of me! It's helping me get into vacation-reading mode already, though...I'm thinking about bringing mostly YA print books, plus plenty of e-books on the iPad.

Listening: We finished the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy this week, and I'm trying to decide on a next audio for my drives with Spencer. I have a couple of the Harry Potter audiobooks, but if you have any suggestions for good books to read by ear with a thirteen-year-old boy, please share! When he's not in the car with me, I'm still listening to the Roger Ebert memoir and my various podcasts.

Blogging: I may start having time for it again! I've chipped away at some of my feed-reader backlog over the last few days, and I wrote two reviews this weekend. I think I'm still a few weeks away from what I consider my "normal" blogging activity level, but this feels pretty good!

Promoting: Armchair BEA is NEXT WEEK, y'all! Are you signed up yet? Have you seen the daily topics?

Enjoying: Gorgeous spring-weekend weather here in Southern California!

Avoiding: Housecleaning. I think it will catch up with me next weekend...but thanks to Memorial Day and a Monday off, at least I'll have more time for it then!

Anticipating: Star Trek Into Darkness this afternoon at the ArcLight in Sherman Oaks!

How's your weekend going?

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Book Talk: TELEGRAPH AVENUE, by Michael Chabon

Telegraph Avenue: A Novel
Michael Chabon
Harper (September 2012), Hardcover (ISBN 0061493341 / 9780061493348)
Fiction, 480 pages
Source: ARC received at Book Expo America 2013
Reason for reading: #readchabon group read

Opening lines: "A white boy rode flatfoot on a skateboard, towed along, hand to shoulder, by a black boy pedaling a brakeless fixed-gear bike. Dark August morning, deep in the Flatlands. Hiss of tires. Granular unraveling of skateboard wheels against asphalt. Summertime Berkeley giving off her old-lady smell, nine different styles of jasmine and a squirt of he-cat.

"The black boy raised up, let go of the handlebars. The white boy uncoupled the cars of their little train. Crossing his arms, the black boy gripped his T-shirt at the hem and scissored it over his head. He lingered inside the shirt, in no kind of hurry, as they rolled toward the next pool of ebbing streetlight."

Book description, via the publisher's website:
As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there—longtime friends, bandmates, and co-regents of Brokeland Records, a kingdom of used vinyl located in the borderlands of Berkeley and Oakland. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, two semi-legendary midwives who have welcomed more than a thousand newly minted citizens into the dented utopia at whose heart—half tavern, half temple—stands Brokeland.

When ex–NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth-richest black man in America, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise. Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence, one that tests the limits of their friendship. Adding another layer of complication to the couples' already tangled lives is the surprise appearance of Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged and the love of fifteen-year-old Julius Jaffe's life.

Comments: You might think that since I posted weekly check-ins about my progress with this book for the #readchabon read-along I did with Kim, it would be easy to tie together bits and pieces from those posts and call it a review of Telegraph Avenue. I might have thought so, too, but I’ve been noodling around with this for about a week. I don’t know that I have much to say about the novel that I didn’t say already, but for posterity’s sake, I do want to get my thoughts collected into one place.

Oakland's Diesel Bookstore transformed into "Brokeland Records" for the September 2012 release of Telegraph Avenue.

The setup of Telegraph Avenue introduces Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe, co-owners of Brokeland Records, a struggling used-records shop on the titular avenue, a main artery connecting Oakland and Berkeley, California. The store's struggles may be about to get tougher, as an entertainment superstore is poised to move into the neighborhood. Archy's and Nat's wives, Gwen and Aviva, also work together, as midwives in Berkeley Birth Partners, and Nat's son Julius has a new friend with an unexpected connection to Archy. The plot follows these two families and several other characters who orbit Brokeland through a summer of unanticipated events and rash decisions--and almost all of it engaged me, although plot is usually not my primary interest in reading Michael Chabon’s fiction, and I acknowledge that he’s not above contrivance and convolutions in that aspect of his stories.

Sentence composition is one of the reasons I've loved reading Chabon since his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh; saying he has "a way with words" is completely inadequate. But since I'm so besotted with the way he writes--and if I haven't gone on record before that he is my #1 Author Crush, consider it done now--sometimes it's hard for me to look past the structure to consider the substance of what he's writing.

That said, Chabon seems to be making more (or at least more obvious) attempts at “substance” here than he has previously. It intrigued me that Chabon spent more time with the black characters in Telegraph Avenue than the white ones; it also made me a bit uncomfortable, given that Chabon is white, Jewish, and much more personally familiar with the “Berkeley” side of this story than the “Oakland” side. And when I thought about that reaction, I got a little uncomfortable with my own discomfort.

Getting back to the writing, I can’t go without mentioning the eleven-page-long third section of the novel--a single sentence, mostly written from the viewpoint of a parrot. Yes, it’s undeniably virtuosic writerly trickery, but I was seven pages into it before I even realized that it was all one sentence, and to me, that means it worked. When I finished the section, I commented to my husband:

Me: "This guy just wrote a sentence that was eleven pages long."
Tall Paul: "Is that even legal?"
Me: "It is if you do have a license to do literary tricks like that, and this guy most definitely does."

Aside from the parrot’s-eye-view piece, I appreciated the way that Chabon's explorations into genre during the last decade or so colored this return to more literary fiction. I loved the smart pop-culture references, which cover such a wide range--assorted musical genres, comics, classic science fiction, film theory, television--that even if you don't get them all, your own particular form of nerdery will probably be represented. Granted, I have an abiding weakness for smart pop-cultural references in most of my entertainment anyway, but I particularly like sensing that they're not just tossed in; for the most part, I found them to be well-chosen, functional details that help flesh out scenes and characters.

I’m not sure that Telegraph Avenue is as ambitious a novel as Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winner The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I don’t think it fully achieves the ambitions it does have. That said, I generally applaud that kind of ambition, and feel a little let down when it doesn't quite stick the landing. But when someone writes the way Chabon does, the letdown isn't quite as rough. At the same time, I think this may be his most down-to-earth novel since the admittedly less ambitious (and my personal favorite) Wonder Boys, and I applaud that as well. There were times I totally loved Telegraph Avenue  times it frustrated me, and a very few times when it bored me...and so I offer one more round of applause to Michael Chabon for thoroughly engaging me in this little Northern California world.

Rating: 4.25 / 5

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Wordless Wednesday: Smile!

There's nothing that makes a kid (of any age) smile like Christmas does.

Christmas 2012

Photos edited with Snapseed, collaged with PicFrame

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Sunday Salon: Right Here, Right Now--Mother's Day!

Time: Early morning (it's still "early" till 9 AM, right?)

Place: Still in bed, writing on the iPad

Eating: Nothing yet. Staying in this morning--on a kid-free Mother's Day--and thinking about whether I want to do something different for breakfast.

Gratuitous Christmas photos of our kids for Mother's Day!

Drinking: Water that got a little too warm overnight.


Reading: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, this month's She Reads Book Club selection. Also, parts of several other books, but not getting very far with anything. This is the saddest stretch of reading time I've had in ages.

Listening: Spencer and have about an hour left of Life, the Universe, and Everything, so we'll finish it this week. On my own, I've started Roger Ebert's memoir, Life Itself, read by Edward Herrmann, aka Grandpa Gilmore to my fellow fans of those ...Girls. On a related note, I've bought the audio of Lauren Graham's first novel, Someday, Someday, Maybe, and I'm looking forward to having Lorelai herself read it to me soon.

Making: Stacks and piles and bags...we're getting started on a big "clean out the closets (and drawers, and shelves)" project around the house this weekend.

Blogging: Heh. Blogging, what's that? I'm kind of embarrassed to call myself a blogger right now--this is just about as sad a stretch for blogging as it is for reading, although I do plan to get my "official" review of Telegraph Avenue written up today. It'll get better by the end of this month, though, I think, since the audit's winding down...and then I'll go on vacation for ten days during June. I haven't yet decided what I'm doing around here then.

Promoting: Voting in Armchair BEA's first annual Bloggers Choice Book Awards--you have till tomorrow to have your say!

Anticipating: It's just over a month away, so I can start getting excited for our vacation now! We will begin and end with two weekends in Boston, bracketing three days in the White Mountains in New Hampshire and two on the Maine coast. I grew up in Connecticut, and Maine is the only New England state I've never been to. I'm hoping mid-June will be a good time to introduce it all to my family of California natives.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms--and for those who aren't moms, to your moms, too!

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Wordless Wednesday: "Only a mother could love..."

...raising the kids to be cosplayers. (Although from what I've seen, there's usually a good chance that dads are pretty involved with this, too.)

Original photos by Paul Vasquez and Florinda Vasquez, edited with Snapseed; collaged with PicFrame; text by Phonto

Top left: Eleventh Doctor, WonderCon 2013

Bottom left: Tenth Doctor with Eleventh Doctor companion Amy Pond, Gallifrey One, 2013

Right: Renaissance Pleasure Faire, 2013

->

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#readchabon, check-in the last: In Summary (spoiler warning!)

Kim and I have been reading Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue together for the past month, along with anyone else who's chosen to read it with us. We've been checking in here at The 3 R's Blog--

April 15: Section I (through page 124) 

April 22: Sections I and III (through page 250)

April 29: Section IV (through page 381)

May 7: Section V (through page 465)

and tweeting our thoughts with the #readchabon hashtag.

We decided to talk about the last section of the novel and our reactions to the whole over e-mail this past weekend. Excerpts follow--and we did discuss some very specific plot points, so if you have not finished Telegraph Avenue yet, beware of spoilers!

 Oakland's Diesel Bookstore transformed into "Brokeland Records" for the September 2012 release of Telegraph Avenue.

Florinda: I finished the book this morning, and was mostly satisfied with the ending (and I didn't really expect to be, so that was a nice surprise).

Kim: I liked it too, although I didn't see the real estate sales thing coming? Did they hint or set that up earlier? I may have missed it.

I'm still not sure I get the point of the plot with Luther and Chan, aside from some intrigue, a way to stop Dogpile, and to give Archy daddy issues. Although now that I type it, maybe that's enough? I guess it just seemed disconnected to me. I'd have rather spent more time with the foursome of Gwen and Archy and Nat and Aviva.

What did you like/not like about the ending?

F: I think you answered your own question :-). I really don't know either, because in some ways it's a plot contrivance, and as much as I adore Chabon, he's not above plot contrivances (which usually seem to involve characters he's more interested in than I am).

I don't remember any hint of the real-estate thing earlier either. I hope it works out.

My favorite thing about the last section? Gwen deciding to go to med school. I hope that works out too--maybe she and Aviva could have an innovative OB practice a few years down the road.

I was really worried we were going to get an unwarranted tragedy of some kind at the end, although I couldn't guess what--I had this weird sense of foreboding going into the last section. I'm glad I was wrong.

K: That's the word I wanted. The Luther/Chan storyline felt contrived which somehow seems lazy for a writer as good as Chabon. In some ways, the real estate deal and Gwen going to medical school are also a little contrived. I didn't see either of them coming, so they seem a little convenient. I do love the idea of Gwen in med school though, and I hope she and Aviva are ok eventually.

I thought there was going to be some tragedy too. I mean, the section is called "Brokeland," so it seemed likely something would fall apart. But it really was pretty positive, all things considered. No one died, and all of the characters that I think we're supposed to like seem headed off in positive directions.

You've mentioned a couple times that Chabon is often more interested in some characters than you are -- can you explain what you mean? Is something he's done in other books? This is only my second of his (my first was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), so I'm not sure if I've seen that as much.

F: I don't recall any characters that Chabon was more interested in than I was in ...Kavalier and Clay, but there was definitely one in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (where most of the last chapter seems to come from somewhere else) and a couple in Wonder Boys (who don't show up in the movie, so maybe I wasn't the only one who felt that way about them!). In Telegraph Avenue,  it was mostly the kids (Titus more than Julie)--I understand why they're in the story, but I'm just not into them.

I'm sorting out how to approach my review--it feels different when you've already been talking about a book for a month. There were times I totally loved it, times it frustrated me, very few times when it bored me...but I don't think it's dislodged Wonder Boys as my favorite of his novels.

K: Yeah, I didn't find Titus and Julie that interesting either. But I felt similarly about Luther and Valetta, like they were expanding out a story that I would have liked to stay more contained. But that may also be asking something different from the book than what Chabon was trying to do.

... I think my overall impression of this one is that it felt more ambitious than it needed to be. I loved parts and was frustrated by parts, but I always had a little nagging feeling like it was sprawling too much and that it would have been able to say more if Chabon had tried to do a little less.

That said, the writing was just gorgeous -- visceral and raw and evocative and all those good adjectives. He's a pleasure to read, even when the story isn't going where you want or expect it to go. 

F: I may just have to quote you on this: "I think my overall impression of this one is that it felt more ambitious than it needed to be. I loved parts and was frustrated by parts, but I always had a little nagging feeling like it was sprawling too much and that it would have been able to say more if Chabon had tried to do a little less" because I think you nailed it. I really enjoyed reading it--it seemed to move quickly, and I never felt bogged down--but its reach was a little too long. I generally applaud that kind of ambition, and feel a little let down when it doesn't stick the landing. But when someone writes the way Chabon does, the letdown isn't quite as rough.

I still need a little time to work out what to say in my "for the record" review of Telegraph Avenue (which probably will include some things I've said already), but I really need to thank Kim right now for suggesting we tackle it as a "buddy read"--months after we both brought galleys of the novel back from BEA 2012!

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Sunday Salon: Right Here, Right Now (May 5, 2013)

 Time: 7 AM (more or less)

Place: The family room, in the recliner, with my laptop literally on my lap (well, on a lap desk, but still living up to its name)

Eating: Nothing yet--thinking about what I'd like for breakfast this morning

Drinking: Just water right now, but either coffee or tea will soon follow

Reading: I finished Telegraph Avenue yesterday, and Kim and I are talking about it via e-mail today as we get ready to wrap up our readalong on Tuesday. My actual review of the book will probably be separate from that post. Today I'm reading Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline for my book club, and I'm hoping to finish up that Louisa May Alcott biography this month (yes, that would be the one I started in March…).

Listening: We have about two hours left of Life, the Universe, and Everything and I'm pretty current on my podcasts, so I'll be ready for a new audiobook in another week or so–I just haven't made up my mind what it'll be yet.

Making: Preliminary decisions about what books to bring on vacation next month. I'm considering bringing only e-books and audios, but I'll probably end up with at least a couple of print books in my suitcase too–although they won't be books with review deadlines! (I'm pretty sure I'll stick with that particular decision.)

Blogging: Truthfully, it'll probably continue at its present plodding pace until after we get back from our New England trip (that's the aforementioned vacation–two weekends in Boston, separated by a few days each in New Hampshire, where my stepdaughter Kate will be attending college next fall, and Maine), except maybe during Armchair BEA week. And that reminds me…

Promoting: Nominations are open this weekend only–and voting begins tomorrow–for the first Armchair BEA Bloggers Choice Book Awards, so if you have a few minutes, please submit your favorites from last year for consideration (these awards will honor books released in 2012):

“We realize that with so many bloggers joining our ranks and participating in our humble event each year, we have a truly golden chance to crowd source the best books of the year before each year! 

"The best part!? There will be an onsite live-streamed event. A real awards ceremony with trophies and cool stuff! We'll try to see what authors will be at BEA and able to come accept their awards. 

"We need you to help spread the word and fill in these handy dandy nomination forms….You have the entire weekend to nominate. The top three books with the most unique votes will go to the voting round. Monday we'll begin voting!”

Enjoying: Making a big dent in the ol' feed-reader backlog…the old-fashioned way. (I'm not commenting much, but I am reading!)

Avoiding: Spending too much time outside until the smoke from the Springs wildfire dissipates. We're not far from where most of it's been burning–in fact, Tall Paul and I were driving through the area just last weekend.

The Springs fire as seen from Thousand Oaks, 5/3/2013; photo by Paul Vasquez

Anticipating: Seeing Iron Man 3 this afternoon (although not quite as eagerly as I'm anticipating Star Trek Into Darkness two weeks from today).

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! How's your weekend going?

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Book Talk: THE CAT, by Edeet Ravel (via Shelf Awareness)

The Cat 
Edeet Ravel
Pintail (March 2013), trade paper original (ISBN 0143186450 / 9780143186458)
Fiction, 240 pages

A version of this post was previously published as a starred review in Shelf Awareness for Readers (April 12, 2013). Shelf Awareness provided a galley of the book (via the publisher) and compensation for the review.

Opening lines: “Her cage was in the upper corner of the room. There were three rows of cages, and many of the cats, when they saw us coming, jumped out of their tubs, stretched their paws through the diamonds formed by the criss-crossed wires, and meowed at us.

“I remember how drawn my son was to those cats, the ones who wailed for our love.”

Book description, from the publisher’s website
Single mother Elise is completely devoted to her eleven-year-old son; he is her whole world. But that world is destroyed in one terrifying moment when her son is killed in a car accident just outside their home. Suddenly alone, surrounded by memories, Elise faces a future that feels unspeakably bleak—and pointless. 

Lost, angry, and desolate, Elise rejects everyone who tries to reach out to her. But as despair threatens to engulf her, she realizes, to her horror, that she cannot join her son: She must take care of his beloved cat. At first she attempts to carry out this task entirely by herself, shut away from a frightening new reality that seems surreal and incomprehensible. But isolation proves to be impossible, and before long others insinuate themselves into her life—friends, enemies, colleagues, neighbors, a former lover—bringing with them the fragile beginnings of survival.

Comments: The relative brevity of The Cat, Edeet Ravel's fictional exploration of a mother's grief, by no means blunts its emotional impact.

Elise's son has been the most important thing in her life since the day he was born. When she suddenly loses him in a tragic accident just outside the home they share, she struggles to find any reason to go on living without him. But one waits, literally, at her feet: the boy's beloved cat, Pursie. The fact that there's still someone on earth whose life depends on her pushes Elise forward, however reluctantly, through the days and weeks after her son's death.

However, don't let the title mislead you into thinking that this is yet another a human/animal bonding story; in fact, the relationship between woman and feline is less central to the novel then its title would suggest. As Elise documents her journey through the aftermath of losing her son, it's apparent that she's at least as resentful of Pursie's need for her as she is grateful for it; like most of her relationships with anyone other than her son, this one is difficult and not entirely satisfying. I found Elise's habit of not referring to her deceased child other than as "he" or "my son" was also less than satisfying, but I came to appreciate it as a telling detail; distancing, and yet perhaps indicative of the depth of a mother's pain in that she cannot bring herself to use her dead son's name.

Ravel has crafted a wrenching portrait of the complexities of grief. Elise's swings between guilt, anger, and crushing sadness; withdrawal and connection; and regression and ultimate progress toward recovery are affecting and emotionally true.

Rating: 3.75 / 5

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Wordless Wednesday: Home

This is the place I've come home to since November 2008.

My photos, edited with Snapseed and collaged with PicFrame

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