Writer, not

Who doesn’t love libraries?

Unfortunately, there are those who think a public library is a waste of resources. After all, when Google brings the world to your laptop, why publicly fund a library (no joke, some actually pose the question)?

Remarkably obvious statement:  I have a thing for libraries.

I grew up in a town where the public library was housed in a home originally constructed in 1797.  The library card I had there was one of my most prized possessions—after my Legos—and I recall being fascinated and horrified by the “facts of life” book I read while hiding in the stacks.

As a teenager I often rode my bike up the hills into a neighboring town (population roughly 800), where the library was one a few small municipal buildings clustered on a wind-swept hillside.

Most recently I visited the beautifully-renovated public library in Portland, Maine, which is a model for community engagement, in my opinion.

Yes, I’ve been to big-city libraries, too:  Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles.  Let’s not forget university libraries.  And yes, I keep a list of the libraries I’ve visited.

Which leads me to the following, offered without proof:  the health of a library is a leading indicator of the health of (if not existence of) a community.  Where the public library is not a prized possession, where the library is not vibrant and engaged with the population, then the community as a whole suffers, regardless of how many of its citizens are using Google.

Libraries in tiny towns, though tiny themselves, can none the less provide a place to meet, a warm spot to read the paper, a quiet place to study, an opportunity to go online and look for jobs—oh, and books.   I’ve been in very small libraries that were absolutely vital and essential to their communities.  I’ve been to cities where the library is taking the lead on community outreach, engagement, and adult education.

I’ve also been in bedroom communities where the residents were scarcely aware they even had a downtown, never mind a library.

And believe me, I don’t want to live in such places.

I finished 37 books this year, falling short of my goal of 45. Better luck, and perhaps more realistic goals, for 2012.

Here is my selection of favorite fiction reads from 2011. Note that these are my picks for best 2011 reads, not the best of 2011′s books. Most of these were published in prior years.

My choices for fiction, in no particular order (and yes, the links give me credit on my Amazon account).

	The Typist (Michael Knight) A typist soldier in the post war occupation of Japan, with the occasional babysitting job with MacArthur’s eight-year-old son. Lovely, crisp writing and dialogue.
	In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) Yes, I finally read it. So should you. See how it all began.
	Shutter Island (Dennis Lehane) Lehane’s taut psychological thriller of a man chasing a lost soul through an off-shore insane asylum. It kept me guessing, and intrigued.
	The Spies of Warsaw (Alan Furst) I’m a huge fan of Alan Furst, and I think this is one of his best. Espionage in the early days of WWII. Excellent characters and storytelling, as usual from Furst.
	Stettin Station (David Downing) A winner from another growing favorite of mine, David Downing. British/American expat John Russell navigates his escape from pre-war Germany, but is forced to leave his love and young son behind.

I had the good fortune recently to enjoy a three-week stay in Europe, traveling through Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, and France.  Of the hundreds of pictures I took during that trip—some of them actually in focus—I choose to begin with these.

In central Berlin, along the Unter den Linden, there is a public square named Bebelplatz.  Located adjacent to what was then the state opera house, the site was previously named Opernplatz.  On May 10, 1933, Opernplatz was the site of an enormous book burning, orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels.  Some 20,000 books, deemed to be decadent, or of un-German spirit, were burned that night.  Included were works by Albert Einstein, Erich Maria Remarque, Thomas Mann, and many others.

The photo below shows the memorial commemorating the book burning. Beneath a transparent plate set into the cobblestones, there is a brightly lit chamber containing empty bookshelves. Utterly brilliant, in my opinion.

Accompanying the memorial is a plaque set into the stones, quoting German author Heinrich Heine (1820).  It reads (roughly):

“It was only a prelude, where they burn books, they also burn people at the end.”

NPR recently posted a listing of top 100 science fiction and fantasy books, as determined by a readers’ poll. I usually fare poorly on these types of things (e.g, I score about a 5 or 6 on the ubiquitous lists of 100 things you should have read to prove you have a brain and appreciation for literature), but I’ve actually read fourteen on the NPR list, including:

Ok, so maybe fourteen is nothing to brag about, but I’ll take it anyway. How many have you read?

This happens to me about once a week.  I couldn’t embed it, so click to see the video.

The American Library Association, among many other groups, is sponsoring Banned Books Week again this year, September 24 through October 1.  Did you know that many books now consider among the classics of western literature have been challenged, if not outright banned, by various groups, communities, and governments?

Ulysses.  1984.  To Kill a Mockingbird.  Catcher in the Rye.  The Great Gatsby.  The Grapes of Wrath.  Animal Farm.  Fahrenheit 451 (umm, irony, anyone?).

Here is just a small collection of banned book lists:

A list of classics frequently banned or challenged (ALA).

A list of authors and works banned by the Catholic Church (wikipedia).

The ten most challenged books of 2010 (ALA).  The Hunger Games?  Really?

A list of books banned by various governments (wikipedia).

A list of books commonly challenged or banned in the US (wikipedia).

And here is my own experience with banned books, which I posted last year.  I also have a Six Sentence version of that experience, here.

You know what to do.  Go read.

Also:  The ALA has a dedicated channel on YouTube where readers discuss their experiences with “subversive” books.  Pretty cool.

No need to elaborate.  But I will.  Because these are strange times.

And while you’re at it, follow @AtYourLibrary on Twitter.  It’s good for you, and will help prevent (brain) cavities!

I saw the concluding movie of the Harry Potter series this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so much better that the nearly-unnecessary Deathly Hallows Part I. And though I’ve not read the books, I must give credit to J.K. Rowling for having created one of the more delicious characters in fiction, Severus Snape.

I have only one objection to how the story closed, [warning, a not-really-a-spoiler alert] and that was through the use of the Pensieve.  It seemed to me to be too much of a trick to use the Pensieve to unveil the entire story arc to Harry (and to us), and it cheapened the story for me, much like having an unnamed character show up in the final scene to explain the hidden details to the audience.

But no matter.  It was still great fun.  Do go see it.

“I’m the type of person who…”

Fill in the unfinished sentence in any way that you wish, but it strikes me as being one of the oddest statements one could make about oneself. I am particularly puzzled when someone feels compelled to tell me, in just that way, type of person they are. Did I ask? Then why? Is my demeanor telegraphing a need to know your Myers-Briggs score?

Yet I hear it frequently, in exactly that delivery: I’m the type of person who.

Speaking as a (pretend) writer, that one statement violates a cardinal rule of writing: show me, don’t tell me. Speaking as a manifestly introverted anti-socialite (and yes, I too am telling you what type of person am I), it comes across as both false, and needlessly self-aggrandizing. For consider, no one ever says: I’m the type of person who shies away from confrontation; or, I’m the type of person who cheated his way through school; or, I’m the type of person who likes to poke kittens with a pointed stick.

Instead, it’s more commonly along the lines of, I’m the type of person that you want to respect and admire.

In other words, make that sort of statement to me, and both you and your motives are thenceforth suspect.

Having (obsessively) thought about why that presentation bothers me so, it became much more clear to me why it is important to show, rather than tell, when writing fiction. Yes, telling is easy. It gets the point across quickly. And perhaps it’s even sometimes necessary.

But it’s also a presentation, a fiction of an already fictional world that you are trying to create. It is a further removal of the reader from first-hand experience.

As a person, I have my own brain, and I don’t want to be told what to think. I want the right to form my own opinions and judgments.

As a writer, I owe you at least that much freedom in return.

Note to self: make good on that debt.

My current WIP, like my previous novel, is based in the not too distant past. While I like creating an environment for my story, I try wrap it in an actual, true to life setting, both in place and time. To me it’s very important to have all the details, as well as the overall feeling, ring true, because even though I wasn’t in Boston in 1940, surely some (potential) readers were.

I want the reader to not only find the setting detailed and plausible, but perhaps even achingly familiar. An overlooked detail, such as the brand of a Sears-bought bicycle, or the fact that August 23, 1940 was a Friday and not a Tuesday, could make a scene, or setting, or entire novel land with a thud.

The internet, of course, makes many of the tedious tasks of research easy. Almost too easy. At the other end of the spectrum, there is no better source than someone who was actually there, in that time and place. But of course, memories are notoriously inaccurate.

And I generally don’t like to talk to people. Probably a bad thing.

But I do like newspapers.

Old newspapers are one of the best resources available, in my opinion. Local libraries often have an archive of local papers, sometimes in the original paper, or more commonly on film or microfiche. Some of the great newspapers, like the Times, also have online resources for full-page renditions of the original pages. A wonderful tool.

More generally, though, online databases–also wonderful tools, I use them all the time–are limited to just the news.

It’s one thing to read the headlines and news stories of a particular day; it’s another all together to see that actual page from that time, to read the advertisements adjacent to the stories, to browse the classified ads, the comics, the movie listings, the obituaries.

All very mundane stuff.

But it’s the mundane stuff, the dress and lingerie ads run adjacent to the war casualty lists, that really help define a place and time.