The Prank by Adam Black

I am re-publishing this blog post...for some reason (as yet unknown technical difficulties) this blog post got deleted (?). Too strange. I need to figure out what that's about.

This post was originally published on November 29, 2011.

This was too excellent of a book to let this blog post go. So here it is. I apologize if it's a repeat for you. Thanks for understanding.


Have you heard about this book?

          

The story begins, and the town of Gill Falls, Missouri is flooding. Six-year-old Melissa Nevis is in a boat by herself, being carried by the floodwaters towards the falls. This child is in danger. This story must be told.

And so it is, told in the way that news stories are told these days, through Facebook posts, news articles, breaking news bulletins, fan pages, commentary, open letters, and interviews, etc. Reading this feels like following a real news story online.

We, as news/entertainment consumers, have learned to pay attention to information differently than we used to. We skim and scan, focusing our attention on stories or threads or posts that interest us and skipping the rest.

In addition, the news media is no longer as concerned about making sure that the facts are correct or that they are reporting accurately. “News” is now more a race to see who can reveal the story first and make the most people pay attention to their story the fastest.

Black believes that these phenomena have ramifications for how we think, how we process information, as well as how truth is presented and accepted.

Black briefly presents this in a foreword, and brilliantly illustrates it in THE PRANK. I was drawn in by the author’s premise, and following the story of Melissa Nevis was entertaining (because isn’t that what news is?), penetrating and perceptive.

The author wrote this story as if it were a breaking online news story (A Child is in Danger! What is going to happen? Here is the latest on Melissa Nevis!), and he expects that readers will read it as they would an actual online news story, skimming, sometimes skipping, reading the posts and threads and information that interest us in the moment.

As I read, there was some skimming - not much skipping - I was eager to find out what happened next in the Melissa Nevis saga. At the same time I found myself considering questions raised by his premise and the story itself...

How does reading this way inform how we perceive the world? If we gather information in this way, and if the news media races to produce information without making sure their information is correct, how do we, how can we, know what the truth is? And, of course, what’s happening with Melissa Nevis?!

This book would be a great book for a book group. It raises questions about the news and truth and how we - individually and collectively - perceive and react to what we see online.

Is this perhaps malignant phenomena of this digital age in which we live? Discuss.

I have been telling everybody about this book. I've ordered copies into the bookstore where I work and will have it featured in the store. This is a book worth reading.

Note: I find it at least a little bit ironic that I am telling you about this book in a blog...one of the media highlighted in the book. Not that blogs are intrinsically malignant, it's just another example of how we gather information. How many of you reading this right now cherry-pick your way through blogs? My guess? We all do.

Many thanks to Artless Dodges Press who sent me a copy to read and review. You can order this book by clicking on the book cover, which helps support the blog as well as this new and promising author. Thanks for checking out the blog!

"Long story short..." (?)

I am a Bookcrosser, and have been a part of Bookcrossing since 2002. The Bookcrossing premise is simple...the idea is that most of us have too many books that we're never going to read again. Why not pass those books along to other people who might be interested in them, but do so anonymously, and in a sort of random, serendipitous way.

Here's how it works. Through Bookcrossing, as a (free!) member, you register a book. The book will be given an ID number. That number needs to be in the book (usually on the inside front cover). Then you can "release" the book, leaving it - strategically or randomly - out in the world somewhere, at a coffee shop, on a park bench, or, as I have done (as you'll see), in a mall. Someone else will (hopefully!) pick it up, journal it, read it, and pass it along to further the book on its Bookcrossing journey. The great thing about it is that when the book gets journalled, you get the notification and can follow it on its journey.

Anyway. I released a book at Pioneer Place mall over two years ago (Simon Winchester's, THE MAN WHO LOVED CHINA, in case you were wondering), and it never got journalled. This does sometimes happen. But then sometimes, we get lucky. I got this journal entry the other day about that very same Simon Winchester book...


19 November, 2011
Ok well, long story short- My friend found this book at Pioneer Place mall in Portland, Or. USA in January 2009. She left the book at my apartment in Vancouver, WA when she returned home to California. The book sat in the corner of my closet, obscured by the detritus of my existence. I rediscovered the book as I was packing to move out of that apartment in September 2011 in preparation for my upcoming deployment to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. "What an awesome place that would be to leave this book!" I exclaimed. I took the book with me to Antarctica, intending to find a good spot at McMurdo to leave the book. Unfortunately before this ever happened, I was horribly injured in a freak accident involving several Kiwi Army soldiers, one large weddel seal, a tri-wall container of medical waste and one entire pallet of Speight's Old Dark on the sea ice about two and a half miles off the shore of Ross Island, following the Great McMurdo Halloween Party of 2011. There may have been a violation or twelve of the Antarctic Treaty so the details of this incident will have to remain a mystery, for obvious reasons. Anyway I was medevac'd out of Antarctica before I ever had a chance to deposit the book and now here I sit, on my last night in Christchurch, New Zealand, at the public internet kiosk of The Legendary Elms Hotel, typing madly late into the night and reviewing MRI images of my mangled musculoskeletal system and suddenly the realization washes over me like the lava that any day will be begin to flow from the majestic summit of Mount Erebus, which looms over the population of McMurdo Station like the ever present blade of that great proverbial guillotine. "Holy shit!" I exclaim, "I still have that fucking book." That's right, I hand carried the damn thing all the way to Fucking Antarctica and failed to leave it behind, then I spent another week in New Zealand and never once even thought about the damn book, and now only 9 hours before I board a flight for that miserable filth hole, Los Angeles, CA where a team of highly skilled surgeons will begin the work of refurbishing my rotten corpse, I deposit the book here, on the cheap wooden veneer that lines the desk on which resides the bacteria ridden keyboard on which I type. There are others in this hotel right now who are heading the other way, down to The Ice, to that vast expanse of frozen mystery from which I just came and to which I wish I was accompanying them. I see them wandering the halls of this very hotel, wandering the streets of this very city, drinking it's beer and marveling at it's lovely Botanical Garden. I see them wide eyed in anticipation of the adventure ahead of them, the adventure which, for me, was cut short, my blood staining the ice of the Ross Sea. My hope is that one of these great explorers, the bearers of the same mad wanderlust that brought me to the bottom of the world will find this book and do with it as I had intended. I will return to my beloved Terra Incognita next year. Healed, rested and wide eyed as ever in anticipation of the new adventure that will lay ahead. And when I return, if I find this book again, inhabiting that frozen land that warms my heart like no other place, maybe then I'll get around to reading the damn thing, I'm sure it's very good.

I think this is the mother of all journal entries, at least that I've received. It's been awfully fun...AND, the best thing about it is that I met my partner at a Bookcrossing gathering over six years ago.

You can check out Bookcrossing at the home page here:
www.bookcrossing.com

And you can look at my Bookcrossing page here:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/2of3Rs

You can keep your eyes out for finding a Bookcrossing book...you never know when you may find one!

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A Book in Spanish...is an Insult?

One of my favorite customers came in yesterday. She's a little challenging to deal with due to having some health issues that make it hard for her to speak clearly. When she calls, it's hard to understand her, though she's cheerful and pleasant to deal with. Here is the blog post about an interaction I had with her...

http://notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blogspot.com/2011/05/customers-22.html

Yesterday when she came in I greeted her warmly. She smiled and seemed glad to see me as well.

Then she noticed the book I had next to my register. We are doing a holiday book drive for a local elementary school and they specifically requested bilingual books. I had La Telerana de Carlota (CHARLOTTE'S WEB in Spanish) on a plexi display easel.

        

"That's an insult, is what that is," she said, her smile now gone. "Unbelievable. Why would they DO that? I wonder what he would have thought about seeing his book in Spanish," she said, pointing at the author's name.

"Maybe he would have been glad that more kids could read his story," I said. She didn't seem to hear me.

"There's no benefit to being English any more." She shook her head. "It's an insult."

I finished her transaction and thanked her for shopping with us.

wow.

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Help for Finding a Book I Loved

When I was little there was a book called (I'm pretty sure), THE LITTLE WITCH. I loved this book, checking it out of the library many times. In it, a little girl is a witch. She wants to be a good witch. Her mother is a bad witch. I don't know the author, don't know the name of any of the characters, and I'm not 100% sure of the title. I do remember how much I loved this book.

I would like to find this book and read it again. I have searched for this book over the years, in used bookstores, and, of course, on the internet, with no success. There are too many books, both in and out of print, with the title THE LITTLE WITCH. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Just last night I stumbled onto Abe Books. On their website, Abe Books hosts a forum called Abesleuth, where you can post about the book you're looking for and people can post if they know it! You can also purchase books directly through their site.

http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom

This is wonderful! I haven't posted my request (yet!), but shall do so soon. I'll let you know if I find this long lost favorite book.

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