KIRBC Notes: Dec. 7, 2011

‘Twas the book club before Christmas and we all gathered at Nic’s for the usual heady mix of recommending, heckling, and overconsumption. We kicked things off with the Present Game Bonanza (basically the book nerd equivalent of Storage Wars) and mulled wine in hand and treats within arm’s reach we got down to the business of recommending books.

Sarah & Erin (with support from JK): The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach

• Its not about baseball –  its’ about life and Moby-Dick!
• (But it’s a bit about baseball — a young prodigy losing his gift.)
• The “universal recommendation”
• About life not turning out the way you expect it to
• Nostalgia for academic life
• Grips you totally, immersing you in the world Harbach creates
• (Erin and I talked about it here.)

Jordan: Life: A Natural History of the First 4 Billion Years of Life on Earth, Richard Fortay

• Head curator of paleontology at the London natural history museum, one of Jord’s personal heroes
• Erin and Jord almost come to fisticuffs over whether trilobites are interesting
• Narrative of geological periods
• Very proper prose
• “It has pictures, which I like, but also poetry & classic lit that he relates to geology”
• Relevance ring true within human lifetime

Nic: The Dylan Dog Casefiles, Tizlano Sclavi

• It’s huge! (Kelvin: “Nic’s presenting the phone book.”)
• Italian comic
• Turning into a movie: “It’s probably going to be terrible”
• Full of zombies but pre-zombie mania, and they’re all Italian zombies (“So they ride Vespas?”)
• Dylan Dog is a monster hunter, gets mad ladies
• Wacky sidekick who actually provides laugh-worthy banter
• One of the worldwide best selling comics
• Read the whole thing on a plane from Halifax to Toronto
• Rasputin as “timeless wizard.” What would you call him? “Awesome.” “A Commie.” [Naturally a Ra-Ra Rasputin singalong follows]

Kelvin: Binky Under Pressure, Ashely Spires

• Nic gets a real kitten to overshadow Kelvin’s presentation (mean trick)
• 3^rd Binky book
• Binky is a rocket scientist (since the 2^nd book) but now he’s become complacent and lazy (like most rocket scientists)
• But Binky now has a friend
• Binky gets jealous
• It’s his boss! She’s like a mystery shopper. Retrains him to be an astronaut again.
• ALIEN ATTACK!
• [Sorry for these shoddy plot points -- too much mulled wine?]
• Some adult humor, and a lot of cat asshole being drawn
• What kind of world would you rather have, one where people have guns or one where people have butter? (Debate ensues)

Shannon: Writing Gordon Lightfoot, by Dave Bidini

• An exception to Shannon not reading non-fiction
• Started out as a biography of Gordon Lightfoot, but Lightfoot wouldn’t grant the interview, so instead it’s a book about trying to write about Lightfoot
• Great design: Gord heads opening each chapter!
• Three-pronged story: what was going on in 1972, Mariposa folk festival that year, hockey storyline the Summit series, Can con rules
• Stories of people swimming across the lake to get to Mariposa (dedication!)
• Erin Balser: “this book brings together everything that’s awesome” (she should cover blurb)
• Millhaven breakout (wasn’t this in 1973?, ask the Hip fans)
• Picture of what was happening in Canada, developing its own musical identity, great portrait of Toronto in the early ‘70s

Mark: The City & The City, China Mieville

• Confusing name, confusing book
• Author famous for sci-fi writing, but it’s not that — more noir, a murder mystery
• About an eastern European city where there are 2 cultures that share the city, with unclear divisions
• Reeder: “Its like Springfield and Shelbyville” Nic: “Toronto and Scarborough”
• Can’t acknowledge people in the other city: you have to “unsee them”
• A book that a lesser writer would not be able to carry it off
• Cultural allegory, Berlin, but “the wall is your mind”
• Perdito Street Station as an intro
• A real puzzle of a book
• Mixes cold war literature and Brazil
• Breaking news: Nic just bought the book on Kobo!

Tan: Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child

• More or less attractive than China?
• An audio book worth it just to hear how the narrator (Dick Hill) does female voices
• Being turned into a movie, and protag played by Tom Cruise,who is at least a foot too short to play the character
• Jack Reacher: “Hangs out at libraries and gets books on the top shelf!
• Opening: on subway at 2 a.m. Realizes that the woman at the end of the subway card is a terrorist – he confronts her and she pulls out a gun and shoots herself in the head (and that’s just a beginning)
• A dude who lives out of his back pocket: travels with a passport and a toothbrush
• Huge plot . . . with Afghanis!

Reeder: The Virgin Cure, Ami McKay

• Lower Manhattan, 1871,
• Gypsy mom sells Moth (protagonist)
• Story of a little girl trying to make it on her own ends up in a brothel
• Scrapbooky design (Kelly Hill returns as designer)
• Better than The Birth House
• Cries – 2x
• “Where did you cry?”  “In the Porter airport.” [the importance of clear question phrasing]
• [Conversation digresses to how the Porter lounge is better than our houses]

Bronwyn: Travels in Siberia, Ian Frazier

• Took 3 months to read
• Very dense and about Russia
• Paid by the New Yorker to write the book
• Renting a van with Russian crooks to drive across Siberia
• Beautiful, spare line drawings
• Great anecdotes

David: Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

• Best book he’s read all year
• Read it in 6 days
• Why does he cry so much? Bronwyn: “I thought he was evil and has no tears.”
• Balanced book
• Celebrates the man’s genius and his creativity, but highlights how much of a prick he was
• Bill Gates comes off really well
• Fascinating dynamic: the closed system in Apple works well, but against the hacker ethos
• Production guy quibbles: doesn’t need a title on the cover, white offset

Natalie: Natasha and other Stories, David Bezmozgis

• “One of the most stunning collections of short stories I’ve ever read” B: “Didn’t like it.”
• Each sentence is pared down and gorgeous, don’t call attention to themselves individually, but collectively beautiful
• Linked stories about the Berman family, Russian Jewish immigrants
• Funny, but not necessarily haha
• Touched the head, touched the heart
• A writer who’s here to say

JK – Trauma Farm, Brian Brett

• A game-changing book for me. But do you really want me to talk about it again? Just watch the video, read the Advent Book Blog reco, or read the full review.

Thanks to everyone who came out, and to Nic for hosting and letting us (well, mostly Erin) permanently scar his cats.