LIFE: AN EXPLODED DIAGRAM by Mal Peet

We can all name them. Books we never want to end. Books that we hope possess the magical ability to sit on our bedside table each night and grow more chapters for us to read the following morning. Well, here is a Please-Don’t-Ever-End book. Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet is an exhilarating read, intellectually, creatively, aesthetically. It is wild and bold and filled with extraordinary and lovely writing. It is like no other young adult book I have ever read. It is one of the best books I have read in years. It is masterful.

Life is a postmodern novel, with an epic story that deeply challenges typical narrative structures. It sweeps across the world from the British countryside to Cuba to America; it mixes fiction with fact; it changes from third person to first person -- sometimes in the middle of a chapter! It spans great chunks of time, opening with a suicidal Nazi pilot in the final days of World War II and ending with – well, I won’t tell you what it ends with. But how many books have you read cut from a teen romance for a chapter on the history of Cuba? Or zips from imminent teenage sex to John F. Kennedy debating the Cuban Missile Crisis inside the Whitehouse? Sometimes an exploding missile can be metaphorical.

Everyman's McLuhan

Sometimes, reading makes me feel stupid. There are some smart people in the world, linguists and philosophers and political theorists, who can say things that sit in that area just outside the realm of my understanding. I sorta get what they're saying, but not entirely, and the fact that they are taken seriously, debated and proffered as great thinkers, makes me feel like I have a defect.


That said, there are people whose words I came across at a young age, whose ideas stuck with me and made me want to try and understand them. In my teens I came across a pair of paperback designed to appeal to the hipsters of the early 70s, books full of soundbites and quotes richly supported by free-form photo-collage work. One was a book by Buckminster Fuller called I Seem To Be A Verb and the other The Medium Is the Message by Marshall McLuhan. Of the two I was better able to grok, mostly, what Fuller was saying because the message was all about preserving what he called Spaceship Earth. The McLuhan book on the other hand stood just outside the boundaries of my brain's comfort zone. I could tell he was saying something important about the effect of media on society but I couldn't quite find a way to condense his message into talking points for conversation.

Every once in a while I've tried to dip back into McLuhan and thought I found an entry point when I came across Douglas Coupland's biography. Coupland, who popularized the term Generation X and is of my generation, crafted a readable biography but only glanced at McLuhan's theories. Still, I felt like I was getting closer to understanding if nothing else the evolution of how McLuhan came to see the world the way he did. Then, days after I finished Coupland's biography, I came across Everyman's McLuhan and my brain sighed Finally.

Lost States

Growing up in Southern California it is hard not to notice that there is a simmering animosity with neighbors to the north. It isn't so much that Sacramento, the state's northern nowheresville capitol, is out of touch with the urban hipness of Los Angeles, Hollywood, and the wealthy enclaves of Santa Barbara and San Diego counties. Nor was it the hippie-centric enclaves of Santa Cruz and San Francisco who felt that the south was nothing more than water-stealing conservatives. It was the fact that California was, and is, a "destination state" that draws immigrants from all over the country, so much so that fewer than one in seven Californians is a native. Basically, the state is full of people up and down the coast who'll never agree with one another; dividing the state into factions seems like a good idea only until it comes time to discuss how to do it, at which point things fall apart.

Every state in the United States, apparently, has some version of this story. Reading Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It is a fun little romp through the growing pains of a young nation and the people who would mold it to their personal agendas. Some of these lost states were merely boundary squabbles latter settled by politicians, others were publicity stunts designed to attract tourists or business, and still more have been proposed as a matter of political or economic practicality like the annexation of various islands for some strategic advantage. Each of the Lost States receives a brief history of its proposal and why it failed as well as a map outlining (or in most cases approximating) it's location in relation to what state is currently in its place.

A Gay Fish is a Good Fish

What is Fish, drawn well, and features lots of hugs and gay boys looking moon-y over other gay boys?

Cavalcade of Boys by author and cartoonist Tim Fish!

I've been a fan of Tim's artwork ever since he drew for the whimsical series, Young Bottoms in Love. Cavalcade is over 500 pages of gay goodness, more of a graphic anthology than a graphic novel, as it features recurring characters and their romantic adventures and mishaps.

Tim understands the trials-and-tribulations of being gay and in your late teens/early 20s. While the overall goal of the book is certainly comedic, there are some heart-wrenching situations--times you, as reader, will want to cry out "Foul!" or "Don't do it, man!" Your emotions will be scored raw at times--you will want to tear out some pages and pin them to your wall, tear out some pages because the boys you have come to care for have done bad things. Like life.

The art is safe, if you're wondering. Some panels are suggestive rather than demonstrative. Any reader above 14 should read this and grin.

Check out Tim's website, which I wish was less minimalistic. His books can be a bit hard to find, might be more expensive than other gay comics, but the price and the hunt is worth it. Like love.

The Project by Brian Falkner

I have to admit that as titles go, The Project is definitely on the bland side. Despite this, the book itself is quite exciting, even though it is about the most boring book in the world. As Luke, one of the main characters in The Project, puts it, "This is a book about the most boring book in the world, which is a different book altogether."

Luke and Tommy wanted to avoid reading the book they were sure was the most boring, The Last of the Mohicans. And what better way to avoid reading (especially if, like Luke, you can't stand reading) than pulling a prank that demonstrates your feelings about the book? Unfortunately, as awesome as the prank would have been, Luke and Tommy get caught. They will still have to read The Last of the Mohicans...unless they can prove that the James Fenimore Cooper classic really is the most boring book in the world, in which case the vice principal of their school will let them do their English assignment on the book of their choice.

A quick Google search doesn't bring up anything that will help Luke's case. He does, however, find an article about a 19th century book that many historians consider the most boring book in the world. Only one copy of Leonardo's River was published, and it's been missing for over a hundred years. It's worth a fortune, so there's no way Luke has just stumbled upon it in an Iowa library, right?

An interview with Edward Ormondroyd, author of "David & the Phoenix"

Some days, you have just GOTTA love the internet.

A random comment left on the Charlotte's Library blog MONTHS ago garnered me an email from author Marc Tyler Nobleman (BOYS OF STEEL: The Creators of Superman) and a link to his Edward Ormondroyd interview!

Edward Who, you ask?

Edward Ormondroyd (I love that last name) is the author of my favorite 1963 (reissue, Purple House Press, 2003) time travel novel TIME AT THE TOP, which Charlotte so ably reviewed for an August TIMESLIP TUESDAY feature, and to which, I must admit, I wrote a very fanfic-y sequel at about the age of twelve. (Do not ask to see this thing. No: do not.)

Mr. Ormondroyd's first novel, DAVID AND THE PHOENIX, has seen a resurgence of popularity due to The Boy Wizard -- a lot of boys+magic novels are going into reprint for the same reason, which is All To The Good -- and as the Phoenix novel is a favorite of Marc's, he tracked the author down. Discovering that somehow Edward Ormondroyd had never before been interviewed, Marc set to it with forty-one questions. Forty-one!! The interview is - for obvious reasons - in two parts; Part the first, here, followed by its conclusion.

I was happy to see that TIME AT THE TOP is the author's all-time favorite book of those he's written - it's mine too! I hope that eventually someone redoes the 90's Showtime movie version of the book, because they totally ruined it. (Stupid 90's TV.) Ahem.

Thank you Charlotte, for reviewing an old favorite of mine, and thank you, Marc, for going the extra mile to actually finding the author and letting him know how much his works are loved.

It's the internet: for once using its powers for good.

The Why Chromosome: Why Boys Do Love Books

My online acquaintance Alethea told me about the upcoming event called The Why Chromosome: Why Boys Do Love Books. It sounded like something GuysLitWire supporters would like, so I thought I'd spread the word! The details are as follows:

The Why Chromosome is an author event and book signing for readers, writers, bloggers, and educators interested in middle grade and young adult literature. Our special focus will be on boys and encouraging their love of reading.

When: Sunday, October 30, 2011 - 1:00 - 4:00 pm

Where: Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop, 1030 Bonita Avenue, La Verne, CA 91750

Grassroots organization Bridge to Books is following up their successful YA in Bloom summer party with another author extravaganza, The Why Chromosome: Why Boys Do Love Books!

The end-of-October event will feature a panel of seven young adult and middle grade book authors to discuss boys and their reading habits. Authors Jonathan Auxier, Greg van Eekhout, Mark Jeffrey, G. Neri, Andrew Smith, John Stephens and Allen Zadoff will participate in the panel. They will also be available to sign books.

Ticketed attendees will enjoy food, drinks, swag bags and will also have the opportunity to participate in a trivia contest, win raffle prizes, and have their books signed.

Readers of all ages are welcome to attend, as the goal of the event is to bring together young readers, parents, educators, librarians, authors, and publishers, in the organization’s continuing mission to unite book lovers of all kinds. The overall goal is simple: To connect kids to reading.

Tickets are available through Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop at (909) 599-4558.

Visit the event website for blog updates as the event approaches: http://bit.ly/whyboysread

To buy tickets or learn more, visit the Bridge to Books blog. Bookmark that site and check it for details on future events.

Authors, publishers, volunteers, and sponsors who would like to get involved with the Why Chromosome events should email bridgetobooks@gmail.com

Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey

Sometime last year I mentioned the Cain-prize-winning short story "Stickfighting Days" by Olufemi Terry. It's about street boys - orphaned or homeless kids - who roam the worst areas of an unnamed city in Africa (most likely Nairobi) looking to get by and take out their frustrations in a violent, deadly "king of the hill" series of stickfighting contests.

I couldn't help but think of Terry's story as I read the new mystery by Kwei Quartey: Children of the Street. In it, a serial killer is preying on the abandoned and lost street kids of Accra, Ghana, and it paints a pretty bleak picture of street life in the West African city. Quartey's detective, Darko Dawson, has a heart as big and open as any I've ever encountered in mystery fiction, and his dogged pursuit of the killer takes him, and us, on a tour of some the most startling, gutwrenching aspects of the capitol city of one of the world's fastest growing economies.

But that paragraph, the one I just wrote, gets at some of the strongest, and weakest, elements of this ultimately fascinating mystery.

Brian Wood's Northlanders

Q. What happens when a viking gets bit by a radioactive spider?

A. The radioactive spider gets viking powers.

Brian Wood's Northlanders contains very little of the fantastic elements common in most comic series. There's no superpowers or zombies. And while Norse mythology comes into play in some story arcs, it serves to add flavoring and background. For the most part, this is real, raw history. But when it's history of a culture as brutal and beautiful and fascinating as the Norse, all that other stuff just gets in the way.

Also unique for an on-going series, Northlanders doesn't focus on a particular cast of characters. Instead, Wood said in an interview, "From day one it was always my desire to cover as much ground as possible.  Right now, I have stories that span from 760-1100 AD, from Russia to Greenland, from the perspective of men, women, and children, from the Vikings themselves to the people they conquered (or tried to).  That breadth of story is what makes the book what it is."

Since Northlanders is an anthology series, you can jump in at just about any point. However, I do recommend the graphic novels The Plague Widow and Metal and Other Stories as excellent places to start.

Shape-Shifting Fantasy Adventure: THE CLOUD ROADS

I wasn't familiar with SFF author Martha Wells, but I was intrigued by the refreshing premise of her YA fantasy novel The Cloud Roads. You'll find no vampires or werewolves here, but you will find shapeshifters who can morph into flying beings both beautiful and terrible. In a starred review of an earlier novel by Wells, Kirkus Reviews said, "In a field teeming with clones, retreads, and solipsistic doorstoppers, Wells dares--and gloriously succeeds--to be different." And different this one is—but the story rests on a solid foundation of some of my favorite fantasy tropes. Moon, the protagonist, is an orphan with an enigmatic past, who finds out he is not alone in the world but rather a member of a race of shapeshifters, the Raksura. Neither he nor the Raksura know it yet, but they need him in order to save their entire race from another set of shape-shifters: the violent, destructive, and unscrupulous Fell.