American history is a quagmire, and the more one knows, the quaggier the mire gets

Remember how not long ago I reviewed David Sedaris's Naked but I couldn't really remember much about it and the review was sort of a waste cos I didn't have too much to say except that ultimately I did like it? Get ready for more of that!

Ever since Alice sent me a copy of The Wordy Shipmates I have been a fan of Sarah Vowell and picked up any of her books I happened to see on sale. The latest acquisition was a collection of essays The Partly Cloudy Patriot. Similar to Take the Cannoli, there's no real theme among the essays. Or maybe moreso than cannoli, since a number of the essays are about politics in one way or another. But not all of them. Some of them are about how Tom Cruise makes her nervous. Consider it something for everyone!

Collections of short stories and/or essays are always difficult to review. When I don't really remember the book, well that makes things even harder, doesn't it? I guess that is something of a review. I finished the book in March so it wasn't that long ago, and yet for the most part the book hasn't stuck with me. I remember liking it. I like Vowell's style, this is her style, what's not to like? Even if politics aren't my thing. I was about to say something about how I don't like them as much as Vowell but a) I don't think it's possible to like anything as much as Vowell likes politics/history b) I don't like politics, full stop. No need to compare to anyone else. I know I should like politics and I should pay more attention to them but I do not. But I like Vowell's enthusiasm so she can talk politics all she wants and I will read on.

Why don't I share some quotes so you can see exactly why she's great?

On discussing Lincoln and the Gettysburg address and how much of a nerd she is/how often she thinks about the Civil War

Fact is, I think about the Civil War all the time, every day. I can't even use a cotton ball to remove my eye makeup without spacing out about slavery's favorite cash crop and that line from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address that "it may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces." Well, that, and why does black eyeliner smudge way more than brown?

In "Democracy and Things Like That" she talks about the way a speech Al Gore gave at a high school has been twisted and distorted, because the media sure is swell. She talks to the students at the school about what was actually said, how it was represented, does it really make a difference? It's an interesting look at the role of media and politics, if not necessarily an original idea.

I'm not saying our candidates should be untested, unquestioned, uncriticized. What I am saying, if that's all we do, and if all we do is make fun of them, then we're losing something too, I think.

"Rosa Parks, C'est Moi" she talks about ALL these people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks and maybe they should stop that cos no, you are not like Rosa Parks. Stop that now.

Analogies give order to the world -- and solidarity. Pointing out how one person is like another is reassuring, less lonely. Maybe those who would compare their personal inconveniences to the epic struggles of history are just looking for company, and who wouldn't want to be in the company of Rosa Parks? On the other hand, perhaps people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks are simply arrogant, pampered nincompoops with delusions of grandeur who couldn't tell the difference between a paper cut and a decapitation.

So yes, I recommend this book and Vowell in general, if you haven't checked her stuff out yet.

Gif rating:

Title quote from page 156, location 1802

Vowell, Sarah. The Partly Cloudy Patriot. Simon & Schuster, 2002. Kindle

How to track progress on an audiobook?

I've been re-listening to World War Z as part of my "listen to audiobooks while watching sports" thing I mentioned earlier. I was thinking I wanted to see how far along I was because I keep track of that with my other books using Goodreads, why not audio. But I realized there isn't an easy way to do that. At least not a way that doesn't require me to do math. So, as is the current custom, I complained to Goodreads on Twitter, not really thinking they'd say anything. But they did. The first response involved math

Which, yes, I realize I COULD do that but it assumes two things: I know how long the audiobook is as a whole and I know how long I've been listening. I do not know these things. I shared this fact with Goodreads who asked if I had any suggestions.

My only suggestion would be entering in the track number though I have no idea how standardized that is.

Of the few audiobooks I've listened to, they've all been CDs. So they have a disc number and track number. I have that information at hand so I would think that would be a good way to keep track. Or at least easy for the user, although it would require Goodreads to keep track of a LOT of data because naturally there are a bunch of variables because nothing is ever easy. It's not only keeping count of the total number of discs and tracks and audiobook has. There's also the fact that each track may not be/is unlikely to be the same length. If you wanted an accurate number, they'd have to keep track of the length of each track on each disc in order to calculate a percentage through the book. AND THEN they would have to keep track of all of that information if there are different versions out there, although I think that might be less of a beast than keeping track of all the various publications of a book.

We're not done yet, though, because there's also a matter of getting audiobooks off sites like Audible. I haven't done this (yet!) so I'm not even sure what those are like. Maybe they already track percentage for you and it's an easy addition. Maybe they have the same track list but no discs, so it's just a matter of repeating the same values that are capture for the discs.

Anyone have any ideas how this could be tracked? Or do you not actually care of much about keep track if your audiobook progress? Or maybe you care, but are way more on top of me about things like how long you've been listening and how long you have to go.

April reading wrap-up

Oh hey look, another month done. And despite the insanity at work (damn you, end of a quarter) I actually got a decent amount of reading done. Not only that, but I think I sort of nailed it with the whole resolution thing. Like, crap, I probably should have saved something for another month. Whoops. 

Anyway, let's see those stats.

Number of books read
4
Stations Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Number of pages read
1,845

Percentage of fiction read
100%

Percentage of female authors
100% -huh whoa. I did not expect that

Percentage of white authors
75% - NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE! (I am far too proud of myself for this)

Percentage of US authors
0% - what the whaaaa? I don't know if that's ever happened before 

(Canadian, English, Nigerian, Australian, if you're curious)

Book formats
ebooks - 50%
paperback - 50%

Percentage of rereads
0%

Percentage of review books
0%

Books written by decade
1850s - 25%

2010s - 75%

Books by genre
Sci-Fi (ish?) - 25%

Classic - 25%

Literary Fiction - 25%

Mystery - 25%

You could easily argue me out of any of these genres. I have no idea what I'm doing with this category

Resolution books
100%!!!
None of the books are from American authors so BOOM. But THAT'S NOT ALL

Americanah author - not white!

Villette - written before the year 2000! KABLAM!

Seriously, I'm going to be screwed next month and end up having no resolution books.  But I'll just remember this feeling of accomplishment.

Lists lists lists

Who doesn't love a good list? They make up roughly 63.4% of the internet. Even when making a list doesn't make that much sense. Oyster put together a list of 100 Best Books of the Decade So Far which seems like a weird designation. Why not say like the last 5 years? Or just make up some random like "Top books that have pink covers" or whatever. ANYWAY

Top books of the decade so far. I actually only heard about this list because The Book Stop, who mentioned that Where'd You Go, Bernadette is NOT on the list, so I'm going into this with a bad frame of mind. But really, HOW COULD THEY LEAVE IT OFF?

I was going to reproduce the list here and highlight which ones I read, except that would require me typing them all out rather than copy and pasting. Or copy and pasting, but with a fair amount of reformatting and no, I'm sorry. I have a Sims family I've been neglecting. Instead I'm going to just list out the ones I read and where they fall on the list. And then probably complain some more about Bernadette being snubbed.

3. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - I dunno if this would have made my list, let alone so high. But to each their own.
7. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - Yes. Good. I approve.
10. People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry - What? Really? I mean, I liked this but top 10 best books of the decade so far? Are you sure?
15. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell - Alright, back on track. Also at this point the list doesn't include numbers, making me count. Rude.
24. 11/22/63 by Stephen King - Not life changing, but I certainly enjoyed.
33. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - I'm just surprised they put it so low. I'll be reviewing this...eventually.
35. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay - I'm glad this wasn't an overlooked book cos I could see that happening.
43. Station Eleven by Emily St. John - Yes, I enjoyed this very very much. No review yet, BUT SOON. Hopefully.
48. Bossypants by Tina Fey - Haha yes this one is a good time.
62. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - Yeah, this isn't surprising. I mean, it was eeeeverywhere.
76. A Fault in Our Stars by John Green - Another not-too-surprising pick. (This isn't a bad thing, btw. The choices don't have to be a surprise. Probably shouldn't.)

Alright, now for the books that SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE LIST, COME ON NOW

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

So there, I fixed their list. I don't really now how I'd order these within what they have cos I've only read those 11 above which leaves 89 that I have no opinion on. But they should still all be on there and fairly high up. Dammit.

What are your thoughts on this list?

What meaning do tears have when the world has lost all meaning

My resolution for the year has been to expand my reading. In the past things have been very white, very US based, and mostly books written since 2000. The only diversity stat I'm regularly able to hit is women authors. Some yay but mostly it needs some work. So when I was at the bookstore and saw a discount copy of Blindness by Jose Saramago I thought, yes, that'll do.

I vaguely remembered a movie based on the book being a thing that made me think "I should see that, that looks interesting" before never thinking about it again. A thing that happens a lot. But that was about all I knew.

In Blindness everyone suddenly, well, goes blind. There doesn't seem to be a cause for it. Just one day, a man driving his car loses his sight. Luckily, he's at a red light. Another man helps him home, and then goes blind. The first man's wife later goes blind. The ophthalmologist the man visited goes blind. This isn't a typical blindness, where everything goes black. This is the opposite in fact, everything is a bright blinding white.

Not sure if this is a contagious disease, though it seems like it, the town decides to quarantine the blind people and those that have recently been exposed to the blind people. By locking them all in an old mental hospital and randomly chucking food at them, because this is a terrible government. All of the aforementioned people are at the hospital along with a girl with dark glasses, a young boy, and a man with an eye-patch, all of whom were at the doctor's office when the first man showed up. There is one other person among the crowd who's not like the others: the doctor's wife. She didn't want to be separated from her husband when the ambulance came for him, so she told them she was blind. She figured it was just a matter of time anyway, but so far she can still see everything.

There doesn't seem to be any effort to find a cure or figure out what's going on, but then again all of the action takes place with these first patients so who knows what's going on outside the hospital walls. The number of blind people tossed in the hospital quickly goes up and conditions rapidly deteriorate. Like, almost instantly. It seems the first thing to happen is no one bothers to make it to the toilet and there is just feces and urine everywhere. And it's described multiple times, so this isn't me focusing on one tiny detail and blowing it out of proportion. The filth is everywhere and you start to think that this story takes place over several months instead of...I'm not sure exactly how long but not several months.

There are cases of people being terrible, hoarding what limited food there is and demanding various forms of payment. There are people being kind and trying to help, making sacrifices to make things marginally better for others.

The writing takes a little while to get used to. It's sort of one long run-on sentences. It's difficult to tell who is talking at times since there are no quotes used. People don't have names. They're just "the doctor's wife" or "the girl with the dark glasses" or "the car thief". But it doesn't take too long to get into the swing of things.

There's a quote from the NYTimes review that makes me laugh: "Absurd to say it, but the blindness in Saramago's novel is an allegory for not being able to see." Because sometimes a spade is a spade. Or because sometimes reviewers at all levels have no idea what else to say.

The book was a very different book than what I normally pick up and overall I enjoyed the book. Despite all of the excrement (seriously, why is that the FIRST thing people do when they can't see anymore??)

Gif rating:

with a little bit of

Title quote from page 248

Saramago, Jose. Blindness. Translated from Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995

Audiobooks & Sports: I am a terrible fan

I believe I have mentioned once or twice on here that Tom is a sports fan. He works in sports, he plays sports (real and fantasy [which does not include nearly enough dragons]), he reads about sports.

I am...less into sports.

I don't think sports are bad or stupid or any of that. I used to play a lot of sports, but I've never been super into watching them. I'm easily distracted and if sporting matches* do not follow a story arc similar to what I have come to expect from sports movies, I am disappointed. That said, I do go to watch sports, many times of my own volition. But even when I want to be there, I usually get bored and/or distracted at some point.

As I said, Tom works in sports, so I have many times gone to watch a number of college sports games, but many times at these I'm on my own. A number of times, I would bring a book and just sort of hang out vaguely aware of sports happening in the vicinity. But I always feel awkward when I do that. Like I should be paying attention and I am being disrespectful by not. Even though if I put down the book I still won't have a clue what's going on. I'll mostly be playing songs in my head.

I have found a solution: audiobooks. As you probably guessed from the title.

I was at a game and there early while things were setting up. At that point, I was fine reading my book because no one cares if I'm not paying attention. But as the game started up, I realized I had recently put World War Z back on my iPhone and headphones sure are less obvious than a book. I listened to WWZ and I watched the game. I probably paid more attention to the game while listening to a book than I did trying to actually just focus on the game. I'm sure I missed the details of the game, but then again I would have missed them anyway.

And thus, I am ready for future sporting events. Now I just need to add to my audiobook collection.

*Also I call them "sporting matches," if it were unclear I am not a sports fan.