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#49. Loneliness is Lonely

December 24, 2007 in book reviews, books, entertainment, short fiction | Permalink

#49. The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner. Alan Sillitoe. Short Fiction Collection. 3.0 Stars

First of all, can I just say, best freaking title ever. The cover is pretty awesome as well (the one above is pretty great, but not near as great as the version I was reading, I think it was the verison printed in 1987, which I cannot seem to find online). The two (cover and title) together was deadly for me in my “system for picking books” and then this first sentence: “As soon as I got to Borstal they made me a long-distance cross-country runner.” totally put me over the edge.

I love that sentence, I suppose it doesn’t look like much, but the simplicity and matter of factness of it, I just love it. So considering all of these things, and the fact that I already have romantic ideas about long-distance running anyway, I had my expectations up pretty high. I think that is one of the reasons I was ultimately let down. Additionally this book was loaned to me by Adam and I for some reason assumed it was a novel, but it is actually a collection of short fiction, which initially upset me, however this turned out to be for the best, because I really liked some of Sillitoe’s pieces, but fundamentally I found the title piece (Loneliness) to be pretty repetative and frustrating, and I was excited when it was time to move on to the next story.

I found Uncle Ernest, Mr. Raynor The School Teacher, and On Saturday Afternoon to all be quite good, and The Fishing Boat Picture to be heartbreakingly good. The Decline and Fall of Frankie Buller and The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale were good and had great titles (Sillitoe has a way with titles I must say), but left me a little wanting. The Match, Noah’s Ark, and Loneliness I found pretty greatly wanting, but I suppose only Loneliness really let me down because I had just wanted so much to love it.

I often dream I’m a runner. Not that I am running, but that I AM A RUNNER. Like a great one. Like it is what I was born to do. They are incredibly freeing and wonderful dreams. However, the universe definitely put me in the wrong body for that…so either the universe likes a joke…or it’s just mean (probably the latter), because I will never be a runner, not in this body…even at a drastically different weight, I’m just not built for it. I suppose it’s not Sillitoe’s fault that I wanted his Loneliness And The Long-Distance Runner to fulfill some deep seeded running void that I will never be able to fulfill, but I’m damned if I could keep it from affecting how I ended up feeling about the title piece and in the end the collection overall.

However, even with my lost hopes and dreamlike runner expectations being shattered, the writing was still creative and interesting, and for its time it was particularly beautiful and probably aggressively new I guess, which is pretty impressive. The theme throughout the book was a very obvious Loneliness – more obvious in some stories than in others – and it was a haunting and sad read. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time to be trying to read this book…while the world around me is trying extra hard to be happy and joyous and filled with anything other than loneliness, but I had thought maybe that would make it the perfect time…

3 Stars.

#48. Paving The Way Of The Beautiful Writers That Also Know How To Be Marketable and Accessible…(longest title ever!)

December 22, 2007 in book reviews, books, giraffes, writing | Permalink

#48. Water For Elephants. Sara Gruen. Fiction Novel. 4 stars.

I really liked this book, though I’ll be honest here, I can’t quite pinpoint why. It’s not really my “type” of book, if I have a “type” of book. I generally stay more off the beaten path, and rarely (never?) pick up a book that is a legitimate bestseller and have anything other than a frustrating and desperate reaction. But this was good. There was something beautiful and very much off the beaten path about it, but it was just accessible enough I think that it managed to mainstream itself, and good for Gruen. Good for us all. I wish we could do this with more great books, Water For Elephants is a great example of how to bridge the gap between really great books and what most everyone else is reading (i.e. NOT great books).

I had a few problems with the book, primarily I suppose was the issue that while Gruen told a beautiful and engaging story, I didn’t really feel I learned anything. The characters changed in the course of her book, it’s almost impossible for them not to I would guess, but I don’t know that I felt they “grew”, I didn’t feel the process, it was more just the exposition I suppose of what happened to the people in her story. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think I would have liked the book even more if there had been another layer to it. Although, there was some mention in the author’s interviews/notes in the back of the book of a parallel with the story of Jacob (also the name of Gruen’s main character) from the book of Genesis in the bible. It’s been an age since I read Genesis so I’ll have to go back and re-read and see what I see. Ironically enough considering it is almost Christmas, no bibles have been lying around conveniently enough to pick up, that’s not too surprising though I guess considering I’m an athiest. When I get home I’ll crack my bible open and see if this is the layer I am perhaps missing in Gruen’s book, and if necessary add an update to this review.

I highly recommend this book for people who read a lot of mainstream literary fiction and I also recommend this book to people who generally avoid mainstream fiction literature like the plague. The story was fresh, well researched, interesting, and engaging. Overall a great and enjoyable read. Suitable for a beach read, but not inane in the way that beach reads often can be.

Hats off to you Ms. Gruen…perhaps you have paved the way for the rest of us.

4 stars (out of a possible 5).

#44 – #47 A Pike Fest!*

November 26, 2007 in book reviews, books, christopher pike, writing | 4 comments

#44. Weekend. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 2.5 Stars

#45. Whisper of Death. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 3.5 Stars

#46. Chain Letter. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 2.5 Stars

#47. Chain Letter 2. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 1.5 Stars

*Again, if you want to know what is compelling a 31 year old to have a Christopher Pike fest, read more here.

Okay, first and foremost, let us discuss Christopher Pike’s obsession with class valedictorians.

I read seven of his books in the last five days and every single solitary book featured as one of the main characters the high school valedictorian (or the “likely class valedictorian”). Also of note, is that these were always men. Shame on you Mr. Pike…not one female class valedictorian? And even when there was someone else competing for valedictorian that might take it from one of our main characters…as in the Final Friends Trilogy (Michael Olson vs. Dale Jensen) even that wasn’t ever a woman. I guess all the women were too busy being pretty to be class valedictorian. Oh, I’m sorry, are my claws showing? It must be the bitterness rubbing off after reading 1,467 pages of Young Adult Fiction. My brain is melting…mostly from having to read about too many girls in tight white shorts or tight white pants with a brightly colored blouse. *Sigh*.

Sidenote: He also seems to have an unhealthy obsession with the name Michael, at least three characters in his books have been named Michael – including hero Michael Olson in the Final Friends Trilogy, hero Flynn aka Michael Ryan Richardson in Weekend, and Mike from Bury Me Deep (which I did not read recently, but remember now in all my Pike-like memory recoveries). Perhaps Pike’s real name is Michael? Hmmm…food for thought. Is it really that simple? Pike’s name is Mike and he was or wished he was class valedictorian? Have we really pierced into the very soul of this 1980’s and 90’s prolific tween writer? It cannot be so simple…onto the reviews…!

I still hold that these books hold up surprisingly well over time plot wise, and the writing isn’t horrendous or anything, I certainly couldn’t have gotten through 1,467 pages of it if it was really that bad, but I did notice some of it really beginning to affect me in a negative way as I read along.

It’s also interesting to note that while Pike’s plots were pretty complicated and well hidden, I can’t imagine as a kid first reading these to not feeling a bit ripped off, was I really so dense that I did not catch on to his tedious formula? For Pike’s 1986 – 1990 work he was pretty much just dealing with teenagers and some “mysterious death or accident”, usually this “event” is perceived as an innocent accident, and by the end of the book (or trilogy in the case of Final Friends) you are basically left with a character in a room figuring it out and forcing everyone involved to come clean…in fact Law & Order’s Criminal Intent Character Detective Goren might have stolen his technique from carefully researching Pike books since that is the end of basically every Criminal Intent episode…do I smell a lawsuit? Anyway, by 1990 it seems Pike was running out of interesting ways to get teens to confess at the end of his novels, or perhaps he suspected that people were catching on to his formula and so he turned to the supernatural.

Whisper of Death, despite the horrible title (and even worse cover) was not bad, and I believe was one of his first “supernatural” focused books, published in 1991. It’s actually a pretty creative plot in which five teenagers, end up alone in the world. Handsome Pepper, attractive pretty legged Roxanne, chubby potential valedictorian Stan, big scary and apparently acne-faced Helter, and knockout future model/ porn star Leslie are the only ones left in their town and apparently in the world. It is the wrongs they have committed against a red-headed teenage witch they know that committed suicide a month ago named Betty Sue that has brought them into this purgatory in which they are killed off one by one in the same manner as Betty Sue wrote they would be in short stories that the doomed characters find in the dead town. Whisper gets major props for being WAY off the map from Pike’s other works in taking risks. By page 22 Roxanne and Pepper are aborting their love child, although Roxanne thinks she has stopped the procedure in time (has she???). Pike also kills off all his characters in this book in horrible ways, it is a decidedly risky move and one that pays off in some ways. This is by far the darkest of his early works that I read and one I remember sticking with me as a kid, I think this was a smart book for him to do, however he botches it by not giving you a chance to care about any of the characters…the very thing that make Final Friends work so well, even without the creative plot twists present here. It is the books downfall that you don’t really care when any of these characters bite the dust, even Roxanne the main character. In fact, the only truly good character was Stan…and you can’t figure out why he’s getting thrown into purgatory with the rest of the jerks, so it’s a bit unfulfilling.

Chain Letter 2: The Ancient Evil (ugh, can you believe that title? only the cover is worse than the title) was the only other book I read in the past week that would fit in with Pike’s “supernatural works”, I don’t remember liking many of his supernatural books when I was a kid, which is odd, cause I like me some good supernatural stuff. Anyway, I remember disliking Chain Letter 2 intensely as a kid, and I only purchased it along with the rest because I knew I intended to read Chain Letter and would instantly be curious about how the hell he made a supernatural sequel to a pretty good first book some six years later (boy do I know myself, I’d finished Chain Letter for all of 20 seconds when I went digging for part two).

Chain Letter held up pretty damn well, despite the hokey-ness of the idea of a chain letter driving a book forward and it was pretty interesting to follow super thin neurotic but attractive Fran, gorgeous lithe blonde actress Brenda, gorgeous raven haired actress Alison, badass superhot female amazon Joan, burning hunk of man-meat athlete Tony, big nosed future valedictorian Kipp, and slight sweet innocent Neil as they receive a horrible chain letter threatening them to do as requested or they will be punished (or their crime of the previous summer – hitting a possibly already dead man with their car – shades of I Know What You Did Last Summer – will be revealed). The pace moves well and the characters are interesting enough, there is also a traditional killer chases girl scene towards the end set in an abandoned housing track that had my heart moving pretty fast and must have had my little 12 year old head under the covers for a week the first time I read it. Like most his books, the ending is a bit disappointing…all is resolved largely as a huge misunderstanding that is solved with “love and…understanding, of course” but at least it made sense.

Chain Letter 2…ugh. I don’t know what he was thinking. It had none of the drama of the first book, largely because he tries to squeeze in explanations of how the first book really was supernatural with all this exposition about all the stuff they didn’t reveal in the first book. It is not well done in the least and it is a perfect example of how show don’t tell should be used in books. Rather than having the characters do anything or discover anything, they just sit there while other new characters explain old plot developments to them. Pike proves he’s not afraid to kill his cast, but as a reader you already know that if you’ve read his newer work, and so the power of it is less intense. It was really quite bad.

Weekend held up pretty well and I believe is one of his first books, published in 1986. This was also before he went over to the supernatural side, although I should mention that there are always elements of that in his books, even the early ones…but in the early books they are usually red herrings. In Weekend we have, as tradition dictates, an “accident” to a beautiful young teen full of promise (Robin)…in this case she’s not dead, but slowly dying and the teens/friends that were with her at the time of said accident – her beautiful buxom fiery red-headed slutty though likable adopted sister Lena, cute but annoying and weak Kerry, gorgeous slightly ditzy blonde Angie, gorgeous intelligent sweet perfect dark haired Shani, beautiful mysterious foreign Flynn, good natured athlete Bert, ruggedly handsome bad boy Sol, and strangely attractive future valedictorian Park as they are trapped at a beach house in Mexico as one of them (or two??) try to find out who is responsible for Robin’s accident. The ending, as always, is a bit convenient, but unlike Chain Letter 2, Pike does a pretty great job of letting the story unfold rather than just dictating it to us and taking away all the suspense. The characters are about as likable and unlikable as always and as always, the women are gorgeous in their tight white shorts and colored blouses, although I found the protagonist Shani to be a bit weak and poorly developed compared to some of Pike’s other female protagonists.

Okay, that’s it for the YA books and review (thank the heavens I’m sure some of you are saying). It was enjoyable, but I have to say, I’m pretty off the idea of YA books. When the idea struck me to read these I thought “hey…I could do this…maybe I’ll just bang a couple crap teen books out be able to quit my job and still work on my great American novel on the side…” but it’s hard enough to write a book you love and feel proud of and to get someone else to love it and publish it, that it’s a waste of time writing something you think is crap from go…so I’ll be passing on that…for now.

Update: A brief bio I found on Pike reveals his real name to be…Kevin…not Mike. So disappointing…

#41-#43: Final Friends Trilogy*

November 23, 2007 in book reviews, books, christopher pike | 7 comments

#41. Final Friends: The Party. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 3 Stars

#42. Final Friends: The Dance. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 3 Stars

#43. Final Friends: The Graduation. Christopher Pike. Young Adult Fiction. 3.5 Stars

*If you’re just joining in and wondering why a 31 year old is reading a tween trilogy from the late 1980’s then feel free to catch up here.

These held up surprisingly well over time, which is both disappointing (it would have been fun to write a funny Dairi Burger-esque post about these books ridiculing and recapping them) and inspiring (it’s nice to know that not EVERYTHING I read as a tween was complete crap – see: SVH).

In fact, while the material is obviously geared towards younger minds than mine, the mystery that binds the trilogy together is not a “oh I know who did it on the third page” sham…in fact had memories of reading the books not flooded back I don’t know that I would have accurately put the puzzle together much before Michael Olson (dashing crush-worthy protaganist – yes, even now) which is saying something since I can usually put together the “twist” or “shocking ending” on most movies and certainly on every single Law & Order episode well before the characters.

Also, with the exception of the word “neat” as in “wow, that’s neat.” being used too often and the occasionally ridiculous “far-out” as in “Michael is a far-out guy” the books stood up pretty well across the board, with few truly embarrassing lines. I remember having a super crush on Michael Olson and I don’t know whether I’m proud or ashamed to say that I guess I haven’t changed that much, because I still find him super appealing. I suppose he is written pretty much as the “perfect guy” so maybe there is no real mystery and it has nothing to do with me, except for the fact that I’m a predictable girl just like all the other girls. Hmm. *sigh*.

Anyway, overall the plot remains strong enough and the writing is not too bad and the third book, The Graduation is the most interesting, largely due to the fact that the most actually happens in that book and all is slowly revealed, but also because the characters mature a bit and it’s nice to see that Pike, even when writing for tweens was able to delicately age the teen characters as the books progressed. You really do leave with the feeling that they have changed and aged, but it’s not so dramatic and annoying as you would expect for a tween book. Well done Mr. Pike.

I picked up Weekend immediately after finishing The Graduation, to see if Pike’s other books (the FF Trilogy was by far my favorite of Pike’s as a tween) could stand up as well as these did. I remember also liking Weekend very much back then, but so far it’s not holding up as well. Not bad, but not as strong as the FF Trilogy…but more on Weekend and the rest of my Pike Fest in book review #44 – …!

#40 Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls

November 19, 2007 in book reviews, books, short fiction | Permalink

#40. Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales For Girls. By Danielle Wood. Short Fiction. 3.5 Stars

I enjoyed this collection. It’s a beautiful little book, the shape and feeling of some of the awesome McSweeney’s imprints, although not quite with the same detail as McSweeney’s. I liked the idea behind this book, some stories are told first person, from the perspective of Rosie Little and others are told third person and are mostly women somehow connected to Rosie (although that is not always directly indicated, but rather just subtley implied). Each story is separated by word chapters such as Virginity, Love, Trust, Beauty, etc. I found most of the stories to be well written and at least somewhat powerful and I admit to crying a bit on the Love chapter, which tells me it was at least very powerful for me.

Like I find in all collections, this collection a bit uneven with some truly powerful stuff and some ho-hum stuff. Regardless I enjoyed every cautionary tale and liked that I felt transported to a slightly different/fantastical world than ours, though not too far that I felt lost. My one real complaint, other than the previously mentioned uneven-ness is that each short piece has an excerpt wedged into the middle called “Notes From Rosie” and that basically acts as a little aside to something going on in the story. These were sometimes lovely, but overall I found them distracting. And when they weren’t brilliant, but just so-so inserts I found myself a bit annoyed. I appreciate what Wood was going for and it was a unique and interesting idea, but for me it just wasn’t quite successful.

#39 I Am Legend

November 19, 2007 in book reviews, books, hollywood | 3 comments

#39. I Am Legend. Richard Matheson. 3.5 Stars

This was a great piece. I read it less because of the upcoming film and more because of what Adam told me it was about, which is awesome.

For the uninitiated, I Am Legend is a pretty remarkable story about a man that is the last survivor in a world plagued by “vampires”. I’m hesitant to give away much more so as not to spoil the story plot(s), as that is the best part of the book, it’s a pretty interesting idea, and certainly for its time (written in 1954) it must have been mind blowing in its revolutionary thinking. From reading Legend it is no surprise that Matheson was one of the primary brilliant minds behind many of the Twilight Zone stories. Overall the story idea was what won me over, and what is the strength of Matheson’s piece. I found some of the writing to be a bit weak, and the ending to be rushed, when it should have been milked for all its brilliant revelations, but overall it was a fast and interesting read.

After reading I Am Legend, Adam and I watched The Omega Man, a 1970’s film starring Charleton Heston, which is loosely based on Legend. And when I say loosely based, I mean they took some of the awesome ideas and then went off on their own with terrible terrible ideas (including but not limited to: monk’s robes, sunglasses, “badass one liners”, a stereotypically black power “hot mama” character, young white kids with innocent little faces, and bad white make up) and made a truly horrific movie. It was cringe-inducingly bad. We plan to also watch The Last Man On Earth this week, also based on I Am Legend, which I doubt, but hope, will be better. As for I Am Legend, the upcoming Will Smith vehicle, based on previews, I am cautiously optimistic, from what I have seen there are far more similarities to the original story, and thus a more interesting film.

At the risk of going into a full blown rant, I must say Hollywood pisses me off to no end with their assumption that they can somehow better an author’s original vision. Of course some changes must be made to a novel as film is a different medium and therefore there need to be adjustments to make a story effective in a new medium, but most of the things I see Hollywood doing to films has nothing to do with adjusting for the medium and more with pouring ideas into the “hollywood machine” and mushing things together until they get something nice and bland prepared for the idiotic masses and then cranking them out one after the other like barbie dolls. It’s so very arrogant. I don’t understand why they bother in acquiring an author’s original vision and then not trusting that vision to lead them through. Ahh…it makes me tired just thinking about it.

I Am Legend…3.5 stars, and recommended to anyone who likes Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian stories.

#38. One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box

November 16, 2007 in book reviews, books, dave eggers, mcsweeney's | 2 comments

#38. One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box. Three Collections by Dave Eggers, Sarah Manguso, and Deb Olin Unferth. 4 Stars.

Let’s just talk about packaging. BEA-UTIFUL! It could not be more gorgeous. Three tiny, perfect little volumes, packaged in a small box, and a gorgeous one at that. Now let’s talk about concept, what a great idea this is. Some great authors, given pretty free reign to be as creative and “out of the box” (excuse the pun) as they want. Just wonderful. Okay, now onto execution, there is some minor stumbling here in that the quality of the three tiny volumes, for me, was just not equal.

Sarah Manguso’s Hard To Admit and Harder To Escape shocked me, I mean SHOCKED me with its brilliance. She has 81 blissfully tiny stories that are edited (and perhaps written) with the finest of tuning…they are only the absolutely necessary words and the result is incredibly powerful little tales. Manguso’s book was by far the strongest for me overall (and I’m pretty sure she creeped inside my head at night and stole tale #81, about zombies, directly from dreams – shame on you Ms. Manguso!). It is a pretty powerful piece that can (slightly) show up a collection by Dave Eggers. Hats off to you Ms. Manguso.

Dave Eggers collection How The Water Feels To The Fishes is also very powerful, and my absolute favorite pieces overall were probably his, but his collection was not as consistently brilliant as Manguso’s. Still, a powerful exciting read. I was so into Eggers collection that I almost missed my stop at 86th street on the subway, and then proceeded to almost knock over a blind man. I know, I know, horrible. I’ve felt guilty about it for days now.

Last, and sadly least (though I read it in the middle) was Deb Olin Unferth’s collection Minor Robberies. This was still a great collection and had I read it on my own, separate from the other two collections, perhaps it would have held up better, but in comparison to Eggers and Manguso’s pieces, it just didn’t have the same power for me. The stories were much longer than Eggers and Manguso’s pieces generally were, yet there was actually less punch to the stories. I was disappointed, but again, I think only because read in combination with the other two volumes, the three just did not seem to mesh well together overall and Olin Unferth’s seemed to be the weakest link.

I would recommend this collection to anyone that loves short fiction, as it is a beautiful collection (great gift) and the storytelling within is really quite original and cutting edge. Very few authors out there can handle the short short story, and these three are absolutely at the top of the crop. 4 Stars.

#37…Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings

October 29, 2007 in adrian tomine, book reviews, books, drawn & quarterly, graphic novels | Permalink

#37. Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine. Graphic Novel/Collected Works. 4.5 Stars.

Adrian Tomine is, depending on the day, my second or third favorite artist, and regardless of the day probably my second favorite storyteller in the comics format (Jeffrey Brown remains number one…he may never be surpassed…we’ll see). Tomine (i finally learned, pronounced “To-mean”, after years of Adam and I arguing about the pronunciation) is an insanely talented artist. He also has a very natural way with writing conversation, and he paces a story more beautifully than almost anyone out there in the field.

I read Shortcomings, published by Drawn & Quarterly yesterday after buying it at Jim Hanley’s this weekend. I have read much of it before, and it’s a bit of a cheat to count it as a book considering it doesn’t take long to read, but I felt compelled to include it because it is so deserving considering it’s quality of being included. I am also desperate as I should be at about book number 41 or 42…and I’m obviously not there, so forgive me a bit. Shortcomings follows the story of Ben and Miko (and also Ben’s friend the delightful Alice) as Ben and Miko’s relationship follows a harrowing course. My favorite thing about Shortcomings, other than Tomine’s absolutely stunning artwork and panel layouts (his inking is insane!) is the realistic feeling of this story. It’s not all happy and it doesn’t tie up nicely, it’s messy, as relationships are. And there is hurt and drama, but without any real over the top drama, which is more how life usually is I think. This book is the kind of quality across the board (writing, art, pacing, production values, etc.) that I wish all comics/graphic novels could be, and rarely are these days. If you like comics, or are interested in trying some out, I highly recommend Tomine’s Shortcomings.

You may also want to check out Tomine’s Summer Blonde, 32 Stories, and Sleepwalk are all brilliant, and any one of them is a worthwhile purchase and read.

4.5 Stars

Look at this panel…I mean are you kidding me? GORGEOUS.

Such amazing work and detail, yet it remains fluid and natural, not tight.

I tried to post an image of the cover…but it’s not working.

#36. Tell Me Why

October 12, 2007 in book reviews, books, graphic design, savannah college of art and design | 2 comments

#36. karlssonwilker inc.’s Tell Me Why: The First 24 Months of a New York Design Company. By Clare Jacobson. 4 Stars.

This book was a huge departure for me content wise, and was also a huge surprise. I read it for work, as our business model is changing slightly and may begin soon to include graphic design.

I have been doing some of the graphic design for our company for the last two years, but barely had time to touch it, but we hired someone new for the office and so for the last six months I have been doing a lot more of it. I’ve been loving it, but it has also been scaring me silly as I actually dropped out of my University of Arizona graphic design classes so that I could transfer to The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) that offered degrees in sequential art, comic books to the layman. I know, stupid. But what’s done is done.

So, to suddenly be doing something that I kind of gave up on more than 10 years ago (wow…I’m getting so old) is weird. It’s also incredibly exciting, especially since it is the first time in my life that I’m doing work that is something I like and something I’m good at (other than being “organized” and “responsible” and all the other things that you either are good at or get good at when you work in administration for so long). I’m also working with a boss that is completely nurturing and encouraging and supportive…and a good man. I know. I got really really lucky. But luck scares me sometimes, so I’m having trouble sleeping these days as my imagination concocts bizarre (but realistic) ways for me to screw this up. That’s what brought me to Tell Me Why. I was buying a bunch of graphic design books for our office online, everything from stuff about printing and contracts to basic logo design books. Nothing is more inspiring and helpful than books. I love them, and so does my boss. Which makes it easy to say “let’s start building a graphics library.”

While shopping, when I read the full title of Tell Me Why…”the first twenty four months of a new york design firm”…I thought that it sounded right up my and my firm’s alley. Although we have great experience in design, we don’t have this kind of design experience, just some raw talent, so who better to learn from then some people who started out a similar way. And the book is SO good. I read it in 4 or 5 hours in one sitting and I was just completely transfixed. I feel I learned a lot that will benefit my firm in a practical way, but more importantly there was some kind of zen knowledge of reading about the travails of Karlsson and Wilker that calmed me (and will hopefully help me sleep). They have a beautiful way of looking at things and it shows in their design and in the people they are.

I suppose that is what is most impressive, you get the distinct feeling that both Karlsson and Wilker, though they went through much in those first two years (and I assume went through much more since then) they never seemed to lose their selves…they remained incredibly true to who they were. I suspect in the end that is/will be what makes them so much better than so many other firms and designers out there. And what will keep their clients coming back.

Additionally, what makes this book so much better than other “vanity projects” that design firms tend to produce…and “retrospective looks at their ‘best’ work” is that this book is incredibly honest. They tell it how it really happened, mistakes and all. All the designs are there so you can see what worked and what didn’t and the commentary about all the projects in unflinchingly honest without ever being cruel. They sometimes learned why something didn’t work and were able to avoid that the next time and sometimes they didn’t figure it out and admit they are still scratching their heads. This kind of honesty is unheard of…well almost anywhere these days, but certainly in business, and I for one appreciate the hell out it.

I can’t recommend this book enough to graphic designers, especially those just starting out. I’d also recommend it to any creative person that runs or wants to run their own business. It’s a great honest look at how it happened for these two guys and I think a lot can be learned from just reading and absorbing it fully. I don’t know if I’d recommend it to business majors/graduates as they would probably be very frustrated with how backwards Karlsson and Wilker often behave (sometimes it doesn’t seem like a way to run a business) but you can’t argue with their success and if you’ve got any creativity in you at all you might love it, and learn something.

4 stars.

I couldn’t find a picture of the book online, but here is a link to their website where they talk about their book:

http://www.karlssonwilker.com/tellmewhy.html

#35 Lady Into Fox by David Garnett

October 9, 2007 in book reviews, books, mcsweeney's | 4 comments

#35. Lady Into Fox. David Garnett. Fiction. 4.0 stars

This is a fascinating little reprint from an original 1922 book by McSweeney’s – The Collins Library Division. I wasn’t sure what to expect when reading this book and picked it up largely based on my devotion to McSweeney’s, the intriguing title and the gorgeous nature of the reprint, which includes the original woodcut illustrations.

I was happily surprised when I finally sat down with this little gem. It is shocking how much you end up feeling for the main character Mr. Tebrick, husband of Mrs Silvia Tebrick who does quite quickly in the story literally turn into a fox. By page 5 Silvia is a fox and I found myself wondering how on earth Garnett was going to keep this interesting.

Boy was a I wrong. The real story is the mental breakdown of the heartbroken Mr. Tebrick as he tries at all costs to keep his wife, now a fox, in his life. Initially it is easy for him (really for them both) and he dotes on her and she on him and their love remains chastely alive, but the longer she remains a fox the more wild she becomes and the more of her humanity her husbands sees (and feels) slip away, until it is like she is caged unwillingly and he her captor.

It is quite a heartbreaking story and leaving the “fable aspect” of her actually being a fox aside, it speaks volumes about relationships and what happens when a partner moves on and grows in a way that the other cannot follow. How the bonds of love are often not enough to keep two people, changing in different directions and at different rates, together. I was immersed in this world and shockingly found myself near tears on occasion. A great story. 4 stars.

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