Freddy Goes To The North Pole (Walter R. Brooks)

Sometimes a humorous children's book is exactly what I need. Children's books, especially the Freddy books, are light, laughter invoking and a little naive. In Freddy Goes To The North Pole, a title I ordered used online, Freddy the pig and some of his farm animal friends are bored with life on Mr.Bean's farm in the north-eastern United States. One day with much planning and fanfare, they set out for the North Pole. Not long after their departure, news comes back to the farm that they've been taken hostage on a whaling ship. 

A second groups of animals, led by a crow, set out as a rescue party. This party, an odd assortment of cows, mice, roosters and more, make their way into Canada. Finding themselves without food or warm clothing, they give lectures on "the world" in exchange for the necessities of survival. When they reach the North Pole, they face a new set of challenges, but they also enjoy the pleasures of perpetual Christmas. 

Neither the author nor the general reader care to question why eagles are flying so far north, why no-one suffers from frostbite, or how feasible it would be for a group of lone animals to overpower customs officials and cross the border, but as in many fantastical children's books none of this seems to matter. I can easily suspend my disbelief and laugh uncontrollably while 4000 ants attack a pack of wolves who have taken a rooster and a dog hostage. 

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Stephen King)

My high school writer's craft teacher hyped this book. She said we, every aspiring writer at my little rural high school, should read On Writing. Perhaps she really loved Stephen King, or perhaps she hoped we would all get the same, or similar lessons she had from it. 

To make a confession, I have never successfully finished a Stephen King novel; it's not because I dislike his writing, or think he isn't good. I just have never felt motivated to read my way through one his massive books. It's a matter of genre taste. When there are so many other books I could be reading and so little time to read them, I must pick and choose carefully. Thriller and horror novels have rarely been my first choice. 

But, when I saw this crisp copy of On Writing displayed at a local independent bookstore, I couldn't help but pick it up. The pages are so smooth and creamy. The black and white of the binding appealed to me in the same way a faded black and white photograph falling out of an old album does. At only $18, I thought it was time to give this book a try. 

Writing in a style half memoir and part instructual, King recounts his early writing attempts--a paper printed in the family basement and a peg skewering rejection slips from literary magazines on his bedroom wall. He describes the hard years before the publication of his first novel, Carrie (I've seen the original movie, but never ventured to pick up the book) and the difficult years he spent as an alcoholic. He offers advice on the use (or overuse) of adverbs, on editing a first draft and on other aspects of the writing process, while telling the tale of his personal writing and life experience until until 1999, when On Writing, which was first published in 2000, was completed.  

I love this book, not just because I dabble in an occasional bit of creative writing, but because Stephen King can tell a good story. His writing in this book is as entertaining as it is thought provoking. 

Bound In Venice: The Serene Republic And the Dawn of the Book (Alessandro Marzo Magno)

A translation from the Italian, Bound in Venice is a history of book printing and publishing in the city of Venice from the early days of the movable type printing press to the close of the city's publishing hey-day when censorship increased and choked out the industry.

I think I've gained an appreciation for independent bookstores. As a long-time Chapters and used-bookstore shopper, I only entered my first new, independent bookstore a little less than two weeks ago when one of my professors sent me there to purchase a piece of required reading. It was a small, cozy little shop, lacking any antique atmosphere, but full of freshness and newness. I was able to survey the shop's contents in a few short minutes. I found the book for my class and then browsed a nearby shelf which contained a few books about books, as well as writing. I came away with Bound in Venice and Stephen King's On Writing. It was the kind of shop that leaves me with a warm feeling and brings me back.

On to the contents of Bound in Venice. Alessandro Marzo Magno fits a lot into one small book; her work amounts to a sweeping history with bits and pieces seemingly presented as they come to her, rather than a specific continuous story. Aside from the slightly awkward use of present tense, rather than past tense, throughout the book, it is a smooth, easy and enjoyable read.

It was certainly interesting. I found myself relaying to a friend how the first printed Koran was published in Venice, and how italics and the bestseller emerged with the city as their birthplace. Magno writes about cookbooks, and Arabic books, medical and beauty books, Greek books and music books, pornographic books, and the invention of periodicals.

She contributes Venice's publishing success partly to the lenient censorship environment, which allowed books to be published which could not be easily published elsewhere. Venice's trade culture and status as a welcoming city for immigrants played a role in the wide variety of texts printed. According to Magno, the Venice printing industry only began to decline when the Roman Inquisition extended its reach and book burning began in the city. By 1562, Venice had established a rule that every manuscript, before it was printed, had to be examined by one religious and two laymen. This delayed the printing process and increased costs. The type of books printed shifted to mostly religious texts. In the proceeding centuries, the Venice printing industry dwindled and lost its prestige.

Bound in Venice is well worth the read for any bibliophile, lover of books, or reader interested in unusual facts and history.

A Childhood Favourite: "Freddy Goes to Florida" & The Freddy Books

When I was about eight or nine, I pulled a battered hardcover off the shelf at the library and added it to the (most likely) giant stack of books I planned to check out. Over the next three years I read it, Freddy Goes to Florida, originally published in 1927 as To and Again, by Walter R. Brooks, over and over again, only stopping when I made my move from the children's section to the young adult and then upstairs to the adult department. About three years ago, I found an old library copy at a used book sale, re-read it and it has sat on my shelf ever since, tucked in between Anne of Green Gables and If I Just Had Two Wings. 

My copy of Freddy Goes to Florida is from 1966. The copyright page says it's the thirteenth re-printing. 1960's children's hardcovers were made to last. The cover boards are thick and the spine is strong, like an old Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys. Like all older books, my copy has adopted that faint musty-paper smell. It's wonderful to hold. I'm reminded of many evenings and afternoons spent curled up in bed or on the couch in my parent's living room, reading and re-reading the story of how farm animals ran away and journeyed to spend the winter in Florida.

(an image taken of an illustration in Freddy Goes to Florida)

Freddy, is case you've never heard of the book, or the 26 others written about Freddy and his friends, is a pig. Other characters include Charles the rooster, Alice and Emma, the ducks, cows, spiders and a cat named Jinx.

A few days ago, reading a book about book collecting, I was reminded of Freddy Goes to Florida and the 25 other books which, sadly, I never read. I recall five or six more Freddy books lined up the library shelf next to Freddy Goes to Florida but somehow I never got into them. I remember trying, but at the time, none of them seemed as good.

So here I am, twenty years old, and I recently placed an online order for a very cheap used copy of Freddy Goes to the North Pole and Freddy and the Dragon. What I missed out on as a child, surely, I can make up for now? I have an image in my mind of 26 weathered, well-loved hardcovers lined up in a row on my bookshelf, perhaps with a shelf all to themselves. With a little bit of hunting, I'm sure I can make that image a reality. I like what I see.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much (Alison Hoover Barlett)

After visiting an antiquarian book fair in 2005, author and journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett was drawn into the world of rare books and book thefts. The result was this book, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, a piece of investigative journalism relaying the criminal career of book thief John Gorky, who stole, not for profit, but for pleasure. Gorky, a bibliomaniac, used stolen credit card numbers and bad checks to scam rare booksellers out of thousands of dollars of books, many of them first editions. Bartlett tells the story of Gorky's exploits, from how he got started collecting books to his arrests, as well as the efforts of Ken Sanders, a rare book dealer, to organize efforts to catch Gorky. 

Bartlett's book is an entertaining, light read. It leaves me with the desire to browse book shops, run my fingers over spines and pages, and to expand my already large book collection. Sadly, the kind of rare books mentioned by Bartlett are--most likely--permanently out my price range. Luckily for me, I don't care about first editions. There are plenty of cheaper, finely bound books to buy. 

Captial: In the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty (Part One)

When my local library acquired Thomas Piketty's Capital: in the Twenty-First Century I was the first one to sign it. That was about three weeks ago. Today, I'm only about 250 pages in, with hundred yet to read. Unfortunately, with the due-date in two days and holds lining up behind me, I won't have time to complete the book. So, I've placed an order on Amazon (it's very reasonably priced) and I shall finish Capital at my leisure.

For now, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on Capital so far. As far as content goes, there is nothing "life-altering" in the first two-hundred and fifty pages, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting.

Piketty examines short run and (when possible) long run trends in income distribution and the share of income which goes towards labour vs. capital (Piketty uses capital in a very broad sense). He also tackles and discounts a number of theories regarding the eventual, natural evening out of income distribution. Unfortunately for readers who are not strong in economics or mathematics, he does use some technical language from within these disciplines, as well as formulas involved in his own research. However, he makes an attempt to at accessibility for the less educated reader by using the writings of Jane Austen and Balzac as complementary supports.

I look forward to reading more of this book when my own copy arrives. I would definitely recommend it for any reader with an interest in the trends of Capitalism or income inequality and distribution.

Time Was Soft There (Jeremy Mercer)

Time Was Soft There is a memoir about Jeremy Mercer's time spent in Paris. Mercer, a former crime reporter fearing for his safety, left Canada and took a flight, landing in Paris on New Years Eve with a student visa. He soon found a home in the upper levels of a legendary bookstore, Shakespeare and Co.,owned and run by George, an aging socialist who had been providing free shelter to writers for decades. 

Mercer recounts the months he spent at the bookstore, living in close quarters with other writers, learning to live cheaply on very little money, experiencing romantic disappointment, and choosing a new direction for his own life. Time Was Soft There is an enjoyable documentation of Mercer's life, but also of the life within Shakespeare and Co. Although it is a memoir, it reads like fiction. 

The Winter of Our Discontent (John Steinbeck)

The Winter of Our Discontent is my first real experience with Steinbeck. Yes, at fifteen I did try to read The Grapes of Wrath, but I hardly made it past the first chapter. At that point in my life, Steinbeck moved much too slowly for my taste. I preferred the westerns of Louis L'amour or the thrillers of Alistair Maclean, but time changes taste. I enjoyed the gentle pace and realism of this book in a way I would not have five years ago.

I understand why The Winter of Our Discontent has become a go-to text for many English courses. Although I've never had to read it in class myself, some of my fellow English-majors have. It is much more than a simple story about a shop clerk named Ethan Hawley who fondly remembers the days when his family--a founder of the town he lives in--had wealth. It is a novel about the corruptness of America (or any country if you will), about those who bend the law and compromise morals for their own benefit, using the excuse that everybody does it. In Ethan's world, being good and virtuous gets him nowhere. It is only through betraying friends and sending them towards ruin that Ethan has a chance to regain some his family's lost status and wealth. As a quote from the book says, "Strength and success--they are above morality, above criticism." Ethan is persuaded to believe  that the ends (wealth) justify the means.

One of my favourite features of the book is the way Steinbeck connects the past to the present. Ethan recalls his family's past glories and actions, many of which bordered on moral ambiguity. Even his own acts of murder during war are justified only in his mind because of circumstances. He uses the moral ambiguities and justifications of the past to help justify his actions in the present.

In the end, this book was well worth the quarter I paid for it at a library book sale. Yes, my copy is battered, but the more worn a book, the less guilty I feel about writing in the margins and attaching the occasional underline, which I am prone to do when a quote catches my eye. I found a number of eye-catching quotes in this Steinbeck.

Balzac (Stefan Zweig)

Honeré de Balzac remains one of the most iconic French writers of all time. Although he is not as well known these days as Jules Verne or Alexander Dumas, he contributed more to literature than a great deal of his contemporaries, or writers today ever did or will. Balzac spent a good portion of his life living and writing in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century.As a young man, he convinced his bourgeois parents to allow him to abandon their chosen career and let him try his hand at writing.  Constantly in debt because of poor spending habits and disastrous financial ventures, Balzac wrote constantly, for most of his adult life, to stay one step ahead of his creditors. Despite writing over 91 novels, plays and essays, as well as newspaper articles and novels under pseudonyms (in the early days of his writing career), Balzac dug himself deeper into debt year by year and constantly changed addresses to outrun creditors. More than once he was saved from debtors prison through loans from his mother, rich friends and mistresses. 

Balzac`s chief project was a collection of novels which he titled La Comédie humaine. The complete collection was to include 150 volumes, but when Balzac died he left 46 unwritten. The novels were meant to portray his time and French life as it was in all classes and all walks of life. He wrote of the military, of politics, of rural life, city life and high society. 

I first read some of Balzac`s work in August, when I picked up A Distinguished Provincial At Paris, a novel from La Comédie humaine and used it as beach reading. Two weeks ago an a trip down across the border in New York State I came across this biography of Balzac, by Stefan Zweig, from 1946. I paid only $3.95 American for it, as it is a library discard and the dust jacket is missing. 

Having read this biography, I`ve come to the conclusion that although I love his work and will continue to love his work, I cannot love Balzac the man. I can feel sorry for him, as he spent much of his childhood at boarding schools and away from his parents. I can pity him for his inability to find a life-partner (who was not already married and who truly loved him for more than his fame). I can pity his poor looks and poor sense of fashion. However, I cannot pity his constant reckless spending, or his self-imposed loneliness. I cannot like him for the way he constantly sought out rich women with titles to seduce in hopes that they would take care of his debt problems and give him a carefree life. I cannot condone the affairs he began with married women. No, I do not like Balzac the man. I hope, however, over the course of my lifetime, to read all the completed works of La Comédie humaine because whatever else Balzac was, he was a magnificent and dedicated writer. 

A Moveable Feast (Ernest Hemingway)

The last time I tried to read a novel by Hemingway I was in high school. I hated it and never made it past the hundred page mark. I suppose at sixteen I was rather shocked, when trying to read, For Whom the Bell Tolls, that when entering a war zone one of the first things the protagonist did was have sex with girl he'd just met. In my first year of University I was even more confused by a short story which I had difficulty, because of Hemingway's minimalist style, understanding. I suppose it didn't help, in another class, when my Introduction to Rhetoric professor tore another of Hemingway's stories apart using a gender-studies critique. To the point now. This morning I finished reading A Moveable Feast and I loved it. I no longer hate Hemingway. Perhaps a re-read of his works that I've sampled in the past would leave me with a different flavour as well.  

In the Preface to A Moveable Feast Hemingway writes that the book is part fact and part fiction. It is generally viewed as a memoir of Hemingway's time in spent in Paris in the 1920's and is considered one of his best and most loved works. The chapters are fairly short, each relaying a separate story about his days spent conversing with other well-known writers, writing in cafés, wandering art galleries, going to races, skiing, or drinking with friends. Each chapter could almost stand on its own as a separate story in itself. 

There is no fast paced problem driving the plot, or final point to be reached (unless you consider the long-lasting impact that Paris had on Hemingway as the final point). It is a gentle, rich read which, despite it being far from fast paced,  kept my attention from the time I opened the first page to the time I closed the back cover. Perhaps that sounds corny or cliche, but that's really the way it was. 

Hemingway surely had a way with words. One of my favourite lines in this book reads, " Work could cure almost anything, I believed it then, and I believe in now." Perhaps to many readers this brings to mind the image of a workaholic, unable to confront life because he or she is too busy burying all their problems in work. That's not what I see. Instead I see something relatable and truthful. Life is so much more fulfilling and easier to handle when one does not waste time in idleness. A good task or goal can help a person move forward and keep them moving forward. As Hemingway says, Work can cure almost anything. 

Lord of Flies (William Golding)

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to have reached the age of twenty without having read Lord of  the Flies. Certainly, I knew the plot and  had heard various philosophical interpretations, but until today I had never taken the time to sit down and read this infamous book. 

For anyone unfamiliar with Lord of the Flies--I'd like to know which rock you crawled out from under--the plot of the novel is very basic. A group of British boys between the ages of about six and twelve are stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. Finding themselves without adults, they set out to govern themselves. Ralph, one of the first characters the reader meets, takes charge and persuades the other boys to vote and appoint him chief. "Piggy," who protests against the nickname given to him by the other boys, is along with Ralph, the voice of reason on the island. While Ralph and Piggy focus on rescue, the other boys quickly go "savage" (I use this word only because it is what Golding uses to describe the boys), abandon the idea of rescue and spend their days hunting. As everyone knows, as the book progresses, the violence grows. 

I won't say I enjoyed this book. If anything, it left me with a sour flavor. It's a pessimistic representation of human nature. The book is dark from start to finish. I could debate its contents further, but for any reader interested in studying Lord of the Flies, there are many English classes and academic papers waiting to be explored; I myself will avoid these to the best of my ability. I can now say I've read the book. I think I'll leave it at that.