Printed text is like the wheel in some ways. It’s one of the first basic inventions, one that millions of others benefit from. Before printed text, reading was reserved for the few who, through luck or wealth, could get their hands on the labor-intensive, hand-printed texts. After Gutenberg, books became accessible to larger and larger pockets of people and more and more information became available because it was printed. Knowledge wasn’t lost after a sheepskin or papyrus disintegrated. Even the internet exists because we were able to amass and share knowledge through printed text. Reading has allowed us to transmit knowledge for a long time but, partly because it works so well, we didn’t really monkey around with the basic delivery system for years. We have now. As a kid, I heard about audiobooks but only as substitute for blind people who hadn’t mastered Braille. It was the 1990’s before I used them. We rented them for long car trips as an alternative to recorded music and conversation. Don’t ask me why but books about ocean disasters always seemed to accompany us on trips to the beach. (It’s probably a mistake to listen to A Perfect Storm or Jaws when…
Society always finds some lethal “Big Bad” to fear. It might be a meteorite, or a pandemic, or even industrial pollution but every culture identifies some civilization-killing threat and then worries about how to survive it. When I was little, adults were obsessed about “the bomb”. Everything was about A-bombs, and the H-bombs: who had them, who would get them, and how would we survive if they went off. The Bomb was the boogeyman of our culture and creative people used it in their work. One of the earliest post-bomb stories is also one of the nicer ones. Until you look at it up close, it’s hard not to like Alas, Babylon. Alas, Babylon is the story of how a small Florida community fares in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. They’re close enough to see distant mushroom clouds, but distant enough to avoid lethal exposure to radioactivity. Many people die, from to illness, injury or suicide. The people who survive have to adapt to a much tougher world and, in a few cases, the disaster gives their lives new meaning. The author implies that by stripping some things of their artificial value (for example money reverts to worthless paper)…
Every kid needs to have role models. They show us what to do. Our parents are great but they’re grown-ups with lives we kids can’t fathom. The same thing goes for teachers. Kids our own age are too close and smaller kids look up to us. So, we look for role models among the kids a bit older and cooler than we are. We follow them around and copy their ways hoping some of their aura will rub off on us. Of course, my first role model came from a book. I’m sure my Mom would have preferred I pick a real person or at least a heroine she could understand, like Mary Lennox. Instead, I found a precocious, formidable loner and claimed her as my ideal. I didn’t know where my life was going until I met Harriet the Spy. If your recollection of this eleven-year wonder is limited to the movies, you need to pick up the book. Harriet is nobody’s darling; she’s a curmudgeon with eyeglass frames and a notebook. To say she’s focused doesn’t begin to describe her; single-minded and blunt come closer. Harriet has a single ambition in life, to become a writer. She knows…
Everyone’s hometown plays a special role. It’s a part of each person’s identity, and wherever they go, some fragment of home travels with them, tucked around a corner of their soul. Strangers may see the same place as a paradise or living hell but to to a native son or daughter, this spot is where they started to become the person they are today. That tie never completely loses its grip and while a lot of us leave our hometowns, some of us eventually go home. The rest return in their dreams. That’s the theme of Fannie Flagg’s 2011 novel, I Still Dream of You. On the surface, it’s a story of twentieth-century women adapting to twenty-first century demands. Brenda’s jumped into real estate work and politics with both feet, trying to improve the City of Birmingham and lose weight without losing her Krispy Kremes. Brenda’s friend Maggie isn’t adjusting as well. Maggie was raised to be a lady, considerate and kind but her inbred courtesy is often undercut by other, unprincipled real-estate agents. Like her beloved old homes on Red Mountain, Maggie is in danger of being destroyed by opportunists driven by the almighty dollar. The friendship between Brenda…
Anyone unaware of The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood must have spent the last twenty years under a rock. The book came out with it’s trademark blue cover and sweet story of survival, family and redemption and hit the ball out of the publishing park. Then came the film adaptation and even though it cut some of my favorite bits from the book, it hit another home run, chick movie, older actresses and all. All of the sudden, everyone was “Ya-Ya” and Girls Raised In The South until I was ready to scream. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the book but I knew there was so much the writer left out. That’s one reason I love Little Alters Everywhere, the story of these characters before they found forgiveness in the first church of Ya-Ya. Trust me, there’s a lot more to that story. For example, there’s Shep. In the sisterhood, he’s Saint Shep, the man who accepts punishment from a wife for not being the man she expected to marry. He can’t give her the life she thinks she deserves or she needs but he’s her champion when the chips are down. The worst thing you can…