Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

It is 1914. The Archduke Ferdinand and his wife are assassinated. Europe is splitting apart. The world is on the brink of war. Soaring in the sky above is a flying whale. Huh?

That’s right, a flying whale. Is there a problem with that? Don’t tell me you missed the flying whale part in eighth grade social studies? (Actually, given the dreadful state of social studies in our schools, chances are you missed everything.) Welcome to Scott Westerfeld’s wonderful “alternative history” of World War I, Leviathan. Rather than simply Great Britain vs. Germany, it is the Clankers vs. the Darwinists. The British are the Darwinists whose technology and weapons are based on creating hybrid animals, hence the flying whale. Or how about a flying jellyfish or squadrons of bats to bring down enemy planes? The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians are the Clankers, whose technology and weapons of war are machines. This is not just a war of politics; it is a war of technological ideology. Welcome to steampunk, the genre that is a hybrid itself, with an enthralling mix of past and future and fantasy, where machines – made of iron or made of flesh -- are as important as the people.

For much of this book (the first in a trilogy), there are two stories, slowly moving (literally) toward each other. The more interesting story is about Deryn Sharp, a girl who dreams of being an airman for Great Britain. The problem, of course, is that England did not take too kindly to the notion of airwomen. So Deryn pretends to be a boy, takes to the sky, and her adventure begins. Meanwhile, Alek , the son of the just-assassinated Archduke, is on the run. The heir to the throne, some in his own country have turned against him because his father did the dishonor of marrying a commoner. (As Westerfeld points out in an important Afterward, this is true to history.) Alek, along with some of his father’s trusted aids – and being a Clanker -- is stomping through the countryside in a giant armed Stormwalker. Give an army tank legs and you get the idea.

This is all tremendous fun. In many ways, Leviathan is an amazing work of imagination. I loved the science of the fabricated animals and the steampunk combination of history and fantasy. The idea of making Darwinian science a vital element of the story makes for an exciting and current read. The illustrations throughout the book by Keith Thompson (and the fabulous image on the endpapers) are an extra bonus.

As much as I enjoyed this book and look forward to the next one, there is something missing. It took me most of the book to realize what it is. Clearly, Westerfeld wrote this as a young adult novel. Yet, there is really nothing “young adult“ about it. Sure, World War I is a topic usually more suited for older readers, but while some of that history is wonderfully interwoven throughout Leviathan, it is done so in a way that will stop no one from turning the pages. Given this, there is absolutely nothing that should keep this book off the shelves (or out of the hands) of many younger readers. While that is certainly a good thing for them, the older readers pay the price. For a young adult novel, the book reads easy – too easy – and the characters lack depth. For a story about war, it is amazingly bloodless, to the point of being downright harmless.

Still, Leviathan is a great success of the imagination and an absolutely wonderful way to weave a bit of history into the lives of kids (and adults). It’s a fascinating combination of history and science and a great introduction (or addition) to steampunk. While it may be a weakness for older readers, the book makes all of this accessible to younger readers, hungry to stomp and fly their way through Europe, immersed in wars of politics and economic class and technology.

Review copy received from the publisher.

The Funeral Director's Son by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

Kip Campbell doesn't see dead people -- he just hears them. They share their final wishes with him, and he then helps them (sometimes reluctantly) complete unfinished business. Kip's story begins in The Funeral Director's Son and continues in Kip Campbell's Gift, both of which are suitable for upper elementary and middle school readers.

Being the son of a funeral director has given Kip plenty of grief - no pun intended. When the series begins, he has yet to share his gift with his family members or his friends, preferring to help the dead in his own quiet way. While listening to the requests of the dead and the concerns of their loved ones, Kip learns that there's more to people than meets the eye. More than once, his opinion of a person changes for the better after he reaches out to them. In the first book, he befriends an eccentric elderly woman while helping an angry old fisherman move on; in the second, he attempts to appease a recently deceased mother by passing along messages to her son - who just so happens to be the classmate that bullies Kip on a regular basis.

The living characters in the series are quite lively. Kip's house is filled with activity, thanks to the many relatives who live there. Campbell and Sons Funeral Home is truly a family business. Kip's father is the sixth in a line of Campbells to run the business, but Kip isn't sure if he wants to be the seventh. Kip's older sister, Elizabeth, annoys him; he prefers to call her Lizbreath. Kip's younger sister, Chick, spreads infectious giggles and smiley face stickers. Kip's mother is the office manager. Uncle Marty is the embalmer, and when he's done, Aunt Sally does makeup and hair. Living up at the top of the house are Great Aunt Aggie, the resident musician, even though she herself has taken ill lately, and Nanbull, Kip's grandmother and close confidante, who writes the obituaries and creates the funeral programs. Kip makes sure the outside of the house is suitable for viewings, raking the leaves (which Chick loves jumping in) and handling other exterior tasks. Lizbreath arranges the flowers, and Kip's mom provides those left behind a beautiful plant. Kip's circle of support extends well beyond his front door: He has three best buds, all male, who share meatball subs and meet after school in their clubhouse, aka Guts, an abandoned groundskeeper's cottage in a cemetery. Meanwhile, Kip develops a crush on the new girl in town, Drew, the daughter of the new harbormaster.

Stories about assisting the dead can go any number of routes, any number of ways, to varying degrees of success. Some are in the horror vein, while others are lighter and comedic. Coleen Murtagh Paratore has made The Funeral Director's Son line more thoughtful, without any horror movie elements, without any disrespect for the dead. The second book was a little more spiritual than expected, but, then again, perhaps that is to be expected when one contemplates death or existence.

Fans of Paratore's series From The Life of Willa Havisham, aka The Wedding Planner's Daughter, will appreciate the little tie-ins between the two series. Perhaps there will be a future crossover...? (Though that would bring something slightly supernatural into Willa's otherwise wholly realistic world, and I don't think I want that.) Though the plots and themes of the two series differ, Paratore begins each chapter of the Kip novels and the Willa novels with a quote, typically a wise proverb or a poetic line or stanza, providing even more food for thought.

If you prefer Ghost Whisperer to The Sixth Sense and you're looking for a series with a male protagonist in middle school, then give The Funeral Director's Son a try.

Artemis Fowl, graphically depicted

I am not the biggest fan of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl. It's not that I don't think the world he created is awesome - actually I love the idea of Haven and Recon and Holly in particular. She's such a kick butt fairy that she really appealed to me. I also liked that even though Artemis is supposed to be Mr. Evil Genius she wasn't impressed and still found a way around him. Of course Artemis found another way around her but of course he had to for the sequel! ha!

I do get though that it was a fine story and I could see the appeal and although I really thought Artemis was too insufferable to live, as a summer time read, yeah, I could see it. I didn't read the sequels though and didn't think much about Fowl's continuing adventures. Then I received Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel in the mail and gave it a quick look, then a long look, and realized what was missing from the novel. Artemis needs illustrations and now he has them and this version of the story really really rocks.

Colfer has assistance adapting to the new form from Andrew Donkin and the art is by Giovanni Rigano. The story is still basically the same but don't you want to see what Artemis looks like? And Holly and Captain Short and Butler? Don't you want to see Haven and even better, don't you want to see Fowl Manor? All in glorious and glossy color, the whole story is here. The drawing is crisp, the facial expressions are fantastic, (Mrs. Fowl in particular is rendered well) and while I certainly enjoy getting inside a character's mind, Artemis is the kind of guy that is just flat fun to watch.

The troll is pretty cool too.

Artemis fans who are waiting the sequels should go for the graphic novels to supplement their reading. (The second one is out as well.) You get the high quality action plot you expect and you get to see it all unfold. First class all the way and in my mind a stroke of pure genius from Colfer and co.

A Story for the Fool in All of Us - Cugel's Saga

Okay, an admission: Jack Vance shares a birthday with me. I'd like to think he wrote Cugel's Saga as a sort of present for me back in 1983.

Cugel's Saga is really more a mosaic novel than a traditional epic fantasy. The hero may refer to himself as Cugel the Clever but he is really anything but. As he tries to return home and avenge the wrongs he believes committed against him by Iucounu, the Laughing Magician, Cugel finds himself forced to work a variety of menial and demeaning jobs. One of which, wormhandler, is far worse than anything the 21st century fast food industry could force on a guy--well, except if that urban legend about McDonald's using ground-up worms in their shake recipes is true... no, no, Cugel hanging off the side of ship to clean the gills of massive marine worms is pretty awful.

My fondness for Cugel is reminiscent of my love for Daffy Duck. Both are greedy bastards, and both never get to keep their winnings, being constantly outsmarted by luckier thieves and trickster figures. But Cugel, like Daffy, never tires in his pursuit of fortune and fame (and the occasional female). And we can never ever stop cheering for them.

The Dying Earth fantasy world that Vance has created is one bizarre realm. Magic is complicated and messy and usually results in the downfall of anyone who tries to master it. Spells have long, convoluted names. Weird creatures exist. Vance adores language and reading any of the books in this series (The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, and Rhialto the Marvellous - but don't worry, there's no real need to read them in order) will do more for your vocabulary than a pesky English teacher could demand. This is Tolkein 36 hrs after dropping acid and nursing a weird hangover.

Cugel's Saga may be hard to find... unless you happen to know about this thing called the Internet. Then you could search and find any number of editions. I happen to own a hardcover book club edition--and if Jack Vance happens to read this blog entry, would you mind signing my present?

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Go.

Just go and read this book now. It's amazing, awesome, inspiring, and I can go on with the adjectives if you want me to, but I'll stop for now.

Then give it to socially conscious teens. Give it to teens who like to build things or take them apart. Give it to any teen you can. And give it to adults too, because we can be cynical and pessimistic and weary.

For those of you who need to know more about the book first, it’s about a young man in Africa who

1. survives a famine;
2. is forced to drop out of school because his family can't afford the fees;
3. finds some science textbooks in a library;
4. decides to build a windmill to provide electricity for his family, with a dream of a putting together a water pump for their well, to irrigate their garden and maize crop;
5. succeeds, using, among other things, bicycle parts and a drill made from a nail and a maize cob; and
6. receives worldwide attention as word about his windmills spreads.

This is the kind of story that, in a novel, would seem implausible. Too good to be true. Except William Kamkwamba actually did all of this.



Part of what makes The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity & Hope so good (other than the basics outlined above, which would be incredible enough on its own) is that, other than the two page long prologue, more than half the book goes by before we get to the windmills. So don't expect to be thrust into the windmill quest right away. Instead, William, with co-writer Bryan Mealer, utilizes a conversational, personable style to tell us about his life, with the windmills treated as just one part of it. William says that his father is "a born storyteller, largely because his own life had been like one fantastic tale" (p. 23). He must have inherited his father's talent (well, this and Mealer did a really good job), because the book hums with the rhythms of oral storytelling and reads as if William were sitting with you, telling you about himself.

And so we learn about his family, his childhood, and the horrific famine that struck Malawi in 2000. How, despite having to drop out of school, William began borrowing books from the library to try to keep up with with what his former classmates were learning and then found the book that would change his life. But as in any quest worth reading about, there were challenges to overcome, and knowing that William ultimately succeeded does not make reading about them any less satisfying.

Book source: public library.

Cross-posted at The YA YA YAs.

Bond, Young James Bond: Silverfin, by Charlie Higson

Origin stories just seem to capture our imaginations, don't they? Who doesn't want to see the very moment when someone starts on the road to awesomeness, when Peter Parker is bitten by that radioactive spider, when Indiana Jones gets that famous hat, when Luke Skywalker decides he'll be a Jedi Knight like his father? We love to see those moments when someone takes that first step on the path to greatness.

The trouble with origin stories is that there are many more steps after that, boring ones while we learn our gifts, find our path, take false turns, and blunder into who we are. Nobody struck Abraham Lincoln with lightning to give him his great moral sense, and Mozart's father all but abused him to cultivate that "inborn" talent for music. George Patton didn't crawl from the womb with his pearl-handled revolvers, and Stephen King's first story sure wasn't "The Body." Real people grow slowly, and--though it isn't as quick--that growth can be just as fun to watch as a sudden transformation.

And so it is with the Young James Bond series by Charlie Higson, starting with the novel Silverfin.

In this novel, we're introduced to a teenaged James Bond starting school at Eton. There, we see the beginnings of his life of adventure: a boyish curiosity, a strength of moral character, an interest in other cultures, a cleverness for escaping trouble he can't fight, a determination to win. In this book, he drives his first Aston Martin (and not immediately well, I might add). He learns about his uncle's brief career as a spy and wonders if that might be something he might try one day. He foils his first conspiracy to change the politics of the world, too--sneaking into a fortified castle and swimming through a loch infested with man-eating eels.

Oh, and he introduces himself to a schoolmaster as, "Bond. James Bond."

It's worth saying that there has always been a large gap between the written James Bond and the one we've seen on the screen: Ian Fleming's excellent novels and stories are far more intelligent than the corny, heavy-handed movies made from the Sixties to the Nineties about his character. These books continue the written tradition of a thoughtful James Bond, someone more likely to outplay an enemy at cards than punch him in the face.

Higson, too, resists the temptation to clobber us over the head with James's future. Here, he's showing Bond's first steps. This is James Bond without his guns, without his fists, without his gadgets, without his women, without his shaken martinis...and he's all the more awesome with just his brains and determination. James Bond has to solve the mystery of SilverFin without the British government at his back, without any real legal authority. He makes new friends to help him, and he keeps his wits when the rest of us might well run slinking away.

This is the book when James Bond starts--ever slowly, ever subtly--becoming James Bond. It's fun to watch; it helps us all to remember during our worst days that James Bond was a kid once, too. He became great slowly, just like we can.

Books to look forward to (and one I didn't like)

Wow. It feels like it's been forever since I posted on GLW. I mean, I did miss December, but that was because the book I planned to review ended up being completely *meh*.


The book, Blood Ninja by Nick Lake, just didn't live up to expectations. I mean, ninjas and vampires, what could be bad about that, right? Only, in the book, the ninjas are vampires, see. That's what makes them, um, ninja-awesome, I suppose. Again, meh. That seems to me to be a perfect formula for making ninja boring. Like Batman, they are cool because they are normal people, without special powers, except training, training, awesomeness, gadgets, and training.

Let me say this-- it may not have been the book's fault. Nick Drake does a great job with the research and he brings to life the era of Samurai and Ninja almost as good as Stan Sakai (more on him later). But I was expecting Ninja vs. Vampire. That's cool.

I mean, come on, folks, aren't we over vampires yet? Can't we find our way back to some kind of unexpected cool that doesn't involve sensing the blood pulse in the neck of a best mate/potential girlfriend?

I'm so glad, then, for 2010, when we look to the future, and a slew of great looking books chock-full of the offbeat, the new, and even some old school stories brought back to life. After the break, great books to look forward to...


So, what to look forward to? These are books I've seen bits and pieces of, or advanced copies of, or have just gotten enough of a lick to really, really want more:

I mentioned Stan Sakai earlier. He's a master cartoonist, often overlooked because he does two things that have fallen by the wayside here in the states: historical adventure and funny animal. Usagi Yojimbo is a ronin rabbit, wandering Japan, falling into one adventure after another, some big, some small. Sakai has written and drawn over twenty volumes of this noble warrior, and every time a new one comes out, I rush to pick it up (it also comes out as a comic pamphlet, but I "wait for the trades," as they say in the comic book biz). If you've never read any Usagi, there's two great ways to dive in. The first is a $14.95 hardcover, stand-alone story from Dark Horse Comics called Yokai, in which Usagi fights all kinds of demons and goblins of Japanese folklore. That came out last month. If you're more ambitious, save up your dough, because for $85, Fantagraphics, publisher of the first seven volumes of the comic, is issuing a deluxe, two-volume complete edition of everything Usagi that they ever published, including long out of print stories, interviews, and more.

Speaking of historical adventure, Crogan's March, Chris Schweizer's next book in his swashbuckling adventure series of graphic novels, comes out later this year. It's about a Legionnaire from the annals of the legendary Crogan family, and Schweizer one-ups his earlier Pirate adventure (Crogan's Vengeance) with a combination of pulpy military adventure, The Dirty Dozen, and The Odyssey.

I'm also looking forward to books without pictures as well. One of my absolute, knock-out recent reads is an advanced copy I got of Adam Rex's next book. If you know Adam Rex, from his picture books, or his chapter book The True Meaning of Smekday, then you know how hysterical he is. And that's why I picked up Fat Vampire without hesitation. Yes, I know I began this essay by bemoaning vampires. But when it's about a kid who realizes that he's going to be fifteen, fat, and unpopular for the rest of eternity? And the book opens with a scene at San Diego Comic-Con? How can you not love it?

Finally, I think what I'm looking forward to the most this coming year is David Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. It's the transcripts of interviews, two hundred pages worth, Lipsky did with author David Foster Wallace back when he was on tour fifteen years ago for his book Infinite Jest. As tragic as his death was (Wallace committed suicide a year and a half ago after losing a battle with depression), Wallace's mind was absolutely fierce. And as brilliant a fiction writer as he was, I think his non-fiction work will stand the test of time. This, his thoughts unfiltered? I'm hoping to dive again into the mind of someone I admired and loved so much.

What books are you looking forward to this year?

Understanding Comics and Making Comics by Scott McCloud

This past year, I re-discovered comic books. I've written before how comics didn't just teach me to read, they taught me to read well. But I drifted away from comics in the late nineties. Pandering to an overblown speculation bubble (3 glow-in-the-dark variant covers for every issue!) and the urge to make every title grim and gritty and X-TREME!! had bankrupted companies--first creatively, then financially.

When I returned a decade later, I found an industry and fan base that had grown smaller but also more eager and open to discovery. Once-fringe writers like Garth Ennis and Grant Morrison had taken over flagship titles. Quieter, indie stuff like Craig Thompson's wonderful Blankets was finding its place among the caped heroes.

Excited by this new comics landscape and wanting to learn more about it, I picked up cartoonist Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.

Drawing from both literary theory and aesthetics, McCloud explores the psychology at work underneath the comics page, what he calls the "invisible art." He shows how the crispness of a line or the use of color changes a reader's perception of an image. And how the space between two panels forces us to mentally "fill in the gap," imagining how one scene transitions into the next, creating a kind of audience participation that film doesn't. Explaining the way people identify more with simplified figures (because we tend to project our own self-image onto them) than highly detailed ones (which we see clear as an "other"), he shows how this has been used to great effect in comics. Art Spigelman's Holocaust story Maus wasn't emotionally-wrenching despite the characters being Disney-esque mice and cats but because of it. In manga, often in the same story, some characters will are drawn simply and others with more detail, depending on whether the reader is meant to identify with that character or not. (Several times, McCloud points to Japanese manga as the future of comics. Considering he published Understanding Comics in 1993, when manga was just edging into the American consciousness, this seems incredibly prescient.)

All these heavy ideas should be as dry as burnt toast. Maybe even more impressive than the theories, though, is the breezy way Understanding Comics presents them. Drawn completely in comics format and narrated by McCloud's smiling alter-ego, this is literary theory meant for everyone.

Also, for people wanting to create their own comics, I recommend McCloud's follow up, Making Comics. This isn't the normal "how to draw" guide with lessons on figure drawing and crosshatching. Instead, this is more about the mechanics of telling stories through images: How to make panels flow easily across the page, how a character's posture communicates his personality or internal mood. Like Understanding Comics, the brilliance in Making Comics is the way McCloud reduces complex ideas into a few simple principles and clever illustrations.

Despite the industry's problems back in the nineties, the stories stuck with me. I couldn't shake them, no matter how many "real" books I read, and I finally found my way back. In a similar way, the industry survived its own excesses because there are some stories you can only tell through comics. In his accessible style, McCloud reveals this "invisible art" and makes me appreciate it even more.

(Cross-posted on my blog.)

Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar

If you saw the Sherlock Holmes movie, you may have wanted to try reading the original stories. Be my guest. You rarely run into one who regrets having read a Sherlock Holmes story (except perhaps, The Red-Headed League).

But if you'd like to read something a little edgier but still Holmesish, try Arsene Lupin.

The Lupin stories, begun in 1905, were France's answer to England's great detective. Lupin's also smart, clever, one-step-ahead and ready for anything ... but he's working the other side of the game. He's a master criminal.

How good is he? Well, he picks Sherlock Holmes' pocket in his first (apparently unauthorized)encounter with the detective.

The author, Maurice Leblanc, wrote many stories about Lupin. Start with "The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar."

I'm currently reading*, "The Blonde Lady," which is billed as the big title fight between Lupin and Holmes. (Although, Leblanc sometimes had to change Holmes' name, because of Arthur Conan Doyle's very understandable disapproval.)

Lupin's a fascinating character, as interested in getting his name in the papers as in grabbing the dough. And he's clever. He's way ahead of the police -- and the reader.
Some of the stories are better than others, but believe me when Lupin's game is afoot you're going to get blind-sided by some amazing plot twists.

*Actually, I'm listening to a free audiobook version from Librivox.org

Of Road Trips, Kick Offs, and Thoughts on the Trail

Greetings, Lit-wirians! Mark London Williams here, joining the fray at Guys Lit Wire. I'll be here every third Tuesday over the next so many moons, and beyond.

I'm using my full moniker as my posting name, too, just to eliminate any confusion Lit-wise, or Wired-wise, since it's the same me who wrote the Danger Boy books (a series that straddled mid-grade and YA, as the characters grew older), and currently writes other columns and fulminations on and offline, concerning books, comics, politics, movie-making, and more.

So no sense pretending it's not also the same me in my own little corner (why am I suddenly referencing the musical version of "Cinderella!?") here on GLW, where I join a crew that is sharp, smart, far more caught up on their reading than I am (writing, it seems, slows that whole process down), and can doubtless teach me Many Things.

I'll be writing about books old and new here, including some of the ones that prompted my own journey to "authorship." Some of the "discussees" will be graphic novels, since I've been lucky enough to write the sporadic comic, and am currently a fairly regular reviewer of same, too.

So, let's have the fun begin, shall we?

We start, though, not with a straight out review but a dispatch from the road. (Not that we want to fill our GLW perch with such things -- this should be different from a regular "author's blog," yes?) Nonetheless, there I was, at the recent YAllapalooza gathering, a kind of in-store gathering/hoedown/happening pitting L.A.-based writers against their Arizona counterparts, all overseen by the wonderful Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix (well, yes, Tempe, on the outskirts of Phoenix, but in the West, cities tend to sprawl all over the place).

Four of us drove down from L.A. together -- me, keeping an eye out for available date shakes along the desert stretches of the I-10, with Carol Snow (YA tomes Switch and Snap), Cecil Castellucci (Beige, Boy Proof, and the terrific graphic novel The Plain Janes), and Blake Nelson, whose own Destroy All Cars received well-earned praise on this very blog.

We got there a day ahead of the event, and divvied up into a girls room and a boys room at our motel-- Cecil and Carol in one, Blake and me down the hall.

Would the "boy book" room be different than the "girl book" room, I wondered? I mean, in obvious ways? (Would it, in fact, be messier?) After all, we were all just writers-on-a-field-trip. But is there a sensibility that makes a guy-friendly story different from a gal-friendly one?

I mean, Hunger Games (mentioned in the post below) has a female lead, and that's a terrific read for anyone, so that's not the answer.

But I kept mulling the question as Blake and I wound up --stereotypically? -- discussing whether we'd be able to watch any of the NFL playoffs on room TV (our schedule didn't really allow it). I don't actually watch a ton of sports (I listen to baseball often, though, while writing), because it's so relentlessly commercialized, but often interesting "stories" develop as seasons wind down and post-seasons unfold, and the Jets/Bengals game, in particular, looked interesting.

But why was it interesting? Well, I thought, it's because at this point in the season, you don't really know what's going to happen next. The ending is unwritten (see the recent Jets/Chargers game) and somewhat unpredictable, and maybe, for boys, for men -- whose lives often do become predictable (in school, at jobs) -- these encounters with unscripted sporting events provided a tiny bit -- just a smidgen-- of adventure.

We all need adventures, of course -- the exhilaration (and sometimes fear)of the unknown, along with the comforts of the familiar.

So maybe the appeal of sports is that you can't say, with certainty, what's going to happen next.

Of course, we're living in a world like that, but maybe that's too overwhelming. But: do guys seem to respond to types of "uncertainty" -- manifested in thrillers and fast-paced stories , on the book side-- any more than gals do? If so, are they conditioned to, or wired to?

And why does it seem harder to get guys to stop whatever they're doing and sit down and read a book? (Hence the good works here).

There are no "set" answers to these questions, of course. Which is good -- that becomes another thing to explore.

And on the road, away from my own usual routines, I had a little more time to bask in them.

As for the explorations, I look forward to doing much more of that here, with you, in the months ahead.