All About Nooky. I mean, Nooks.

My husband bought me a Nook for Mother’s Day. (Doesn’t the word “Nook” sound…X-rated? I find that I always let my voice drop when I say it). When e-Readers began to pop up in the purses of my friends, I quickly skittered over to the “Oh, I like the sensory experience of real books. The smell! The purr of fanned pages under a thumb!” camp, with all the other people low on discretionary funds for trendy technology Luddites. But then I actually got my hands on a Nook (See what I mean about the word? I’m blushing…), and I suddenly felt as nostalgic about my “real” books as I would a collection of Ford Model T’s cluttering up my front lawn. That is to say, y’all can take those bad boys to a museum. I don’t want them. However, I’ve lived with the Nook for awhile now, and I find that my initial rapture was—as usual--a bit dramatic.


The Pros? I love how many books I can store on my Nook. My house is overrun with books, but I have always been—and will always be—a person who buys books. It’s my thing. I love how easy and turbo fast it is to purchase the books I want. It’s actually…dangerously convenient. Almost like you didn’t even spend any money. Like forking off bites of birthday cake when you’re whizzing through the kitchen. Doesn’t even really count. I love how lightweight the Nook is. While this sounds old-womany, big books kind of hurt my hands. I like how organized and accessible and portable my reading material is. The Cons? I’m terrified to read in the bathtub or the pool. This majorly cramps my style. The shame of returning a conspicuously wavy library book is one thing; the idea of dropping a $300 gadget into the tub is another kettle of fish altogether. I don’t find it as easy to flip back to previous sections of a book to remind myself of a character’s name or to reread earlier passages in light of later ones, since I am not likely to “bookmark” these passages at first pass. Also, my reading light doesn’t clip on my Nook. I’m sure Barnes and Noble makes one just for the Nook, but after dropping 300 bucks on the e-reader, itself, I’m fresh out of discretionary funds.




What about you? Do you have an e-reader? I’m sure many of you have hashed out the pros and cons of Kindles, Nooks, iPads, etc. on your blogs. If you’ve posted about this topic, leave a link to the specific post below so I can snoop around in your thoughts.

Sob Stories

Because I have small children (and thereby generate plenty of anxiety and maudlin What-Ifs using my natural-born imagination), I have strict criteria for sad books.  Usually, if a writer wants me to follow her into the depths of despair, she must lure me with one of two shiny objects:  exquisite writing (i.e. Elizabeth Strout) or extreme hilarity (say, Anna Maxted). 

I just finished Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes, one of the most consistently funny writers I've ever read.  She's so funny, as a matter of fact, that I followed her through a tale about the viciousness of alcoholism and drug addiction and clutched my sides with laughter all the way, going so far as to repeat bits aloud to myself in an empty room.  Rachel is a young woman on the brink--addicted to cocaine and other controlled substances.  When she accidentally overdoses and almost ends her life, her family and friends intervene and commit her to a rehab center where she meets a cast of memorable addicts.  Rachel watches as the fellow "inmates" twist away from personal responsibility, lie to each other and themselves, and grieve their broken, blank lives.  She flinches as they rage against nature and God, flail in physical, psychological, and emotional pain, and finally face the truth about themselves.  She is shocked by the scandalous tales their families tell of selfishness and abuse and stunned by their eventual transformations and recoveries. However, her greatest surprise comes when she finally gains the courage to take inventory of her own heart.  Super funny, super poignant. 

My favorite funny-sad writers are Marian Keyes and Anna Maxted.  What about you?  Do books with sad and/or disturbing themes mess with your mind?  What makes a sad book "worth it?" 

Columbine by Dave Cullen.

I took an accidental sabbatical from this blog. I got busy with kids and homeschooling and laundry and watching The Biggest Loser back episodes. Anyway, blah(g), blah(g), blah(g). I'm back. In the deafening silence, I did manage to plow through many excellent books, one of which was Dave Cullen's Columbine. Also, I got a Nook. But I'll save that for another post.

I did not follow the Columbine school shooting story beyond the initial media frenzy in 1999, so I probably wouldn't have picked up the book had it not garnered so much attention. The book won big (see here: left sidebar). So big, that I became curious how Cullen could have managed to provide a fresh, engrossing reassembling of facts which had to be, at this point, a matter of public record.

Cullen structures the book telescopically. He begins with a distant sketch of the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and the culture surrounding Columbine High School's other students and faculty. At first, Cullen paints imprecise impressions of Eric and Dylan, similar to ones non-intimate peers and teachers likely would've had about them. As the book progresses, he funnels toward the two boys, padding the skeletons of their characters and psyches with chilling, heartbreaking detail. An investigative reporter, Cullen relies on scrupulously picked-over court records, eye-witness accounts, interviews, and the killers' journals and home videos to unwrap the what, when, and how of April 20th, 1999 and the event's frenzied aftermath of confusion, scandal, and factual incongruity. The suck-in-your-breath factor of the book, however, is Cullen's well-reasoned (and well-documented) supposition for why the shooters attempted to kill all of their classmates and teachers. Systematically debunking all of the favored media explanations ("It was the Trench Coat Mafia! They hated the jocks! And the Christians!"), Cullen calls on some of the most invested, experienced mental health experts privy to the details of the case to give us a window into the minds of Columbine's infamous killers. The book also weaves together the stories of the survivors--students, parents, and faculty--who continue to fumble toward healing in different ways.

I am a mother of three kids with a low tolerance for horror. I practically had to hide The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold under my bed at night because it freaked me out, irreparably. (Frailty, thy name is Home Girl). However, Cullen handles a terrifying topic with a sensitive alchemy of abstraction and vernacular detail that kept me reading. For two solid days, and at the expense of all else, as it were. He manages to fit the tangle of events and characters into a deeply compelling arch that--by some writerly sleight of hand--deescalates into a satisfying ending. Serious skillz. Who could "end" a book on Columbine without leaving us straining for a resolving chord? But Cullen pulls it off. I sincerely hope he writes more books.

Have you read Columbine by Dave Cullen? Also, I'll finish book #32 for the year this week toward my goal. I think I'm a teensy bit behind schedule. What about you?