Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down” is the most entertaining book I’ve ever read about suicide.

It is one of those books I picked up off a bookstore shelf a year ago, didn’t buy, and looked at it every single time I went to a bookstore after that. The premise of four people deciding independently to jump off the same building on the same night, only to obviously run into one another is an intriguing start to a story.

Having each of those four people serve as narrators in a sort of rotating fashion is not only an interesting way to tell the story, but also pretty impressive. These are four really different people, and effectively finding a voice for each to be able to move the story is an accomplishment.

I probably dog-eared more pages in this book than any other this year. That means I was either really into it, or had near rage blackouts because it infuriated me so much. Fortunately, Hornby is a pretty solid writer so it was more in the “enjoyed” category.

I have written before about modern society’s need for everyone to be great, for kids to be special and for everyone to think they deserve everything. One of the characters, JJ, just broke up with his girlfriend on the heels of having his band fall apart: “The trouble with my generation is that we all think we’re fucking geniuses. Making something isn’t good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. It’s our inalienable right, as citizens of the twenty-first century.”

When I was “just” selling shoes, I heard a lot of “why aren’t you” kind of talk. But the reality was, despite certain frustrations specific to that company, it really wasn’t such a bad deal. It was something I was great at, got me a discount on things I used, put me in touch with new people every day with a chance to help them and often allowed me to wake up without an alarm. Plus it was the closest I will ever work to a Taco Bell.

Just a few pages later, a teenage girl named Jess is taking care of the narrating duties. This is one of those writing challenges I find fascinating — how an older male puts himself believably in the shoes of a teenage girl. She’s talking about the group of four potential jumpers, and the propensity for people to label individuals in certain sized groups according to popular culture. In this case, who in the group would be which member of The Beatles. Years ago you could have heard your friends posit on which “Friends” cast member each would be, or which “Sex & The City” gal best matched you. But being fictional characters, there’s always a flaw to this approach and Jess quickly realizes it’s not going to work out. “Thinking about it, maybe we were more like another group with four people in it,” she said.

Of course one of the great things about writers with multiple books is being able to draw parallels between them. Last year I read Hornby’s “How to be Good,” featuring the amazing character DJ GoodNews. And who should make a cameo appearance on page 181? The one and only DJ GoodNews. I practically shouted his name in excitement.

For some reason I found the inner thoughts of Jess to be the most insightful. She alienates all of her friends, her sister ran away from home and her parents sort of wrote her off as a lost cause. She talks about the benefit of having large chain stores instead of more personal, mom-and-pop kinds of places: “I like to know that there are big places without windows where no one gives a shit. I’m happiest…where no one gives a shit, and no one knows who you are. My mum and dad are always going on about how soulless those places are, and I’m like, Der. That’s the point.”

I also like her frequent use of the word “der.” When I moved to Jacksonville a few years ago, I went to a place where I knew absolutely nobody. Some people would find this absolutely frightening and would never try it. I know some of my friends said they couldn’t do it. But I will say there was a certain interesting dynamic knowing you could go to a store, the beach, a restaurant or just walk down the street and be 100 percent positive you would not run into someone you know. That also helps when you’re hungry and don’t feel like showering or even putting on clean clothes before going to the grocery store.

Jess also talks about how her dad always said she could do anything or be anything (despite what JJ may have said about that notion). But in the end, there are certain characteristics that always bring us back to who we really are. No matter how much you try to remove the barriers, at some point we just can’t get out of our own ways. She says: “Telling me I can do anything is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.”

I’m always a sucker for a good rant about people who aren’t into reading and look down upon those who do. And through JJ, Hornby delivers: “Why does reading freak people out so much? Sure, I could be pretty antisocial when we were on the road, but if I was playing a Game Boy hour after hour, no one would be on my case. In my social circle, blowing up fucking space monsters is socially acceptable in a way that ‘American Pastoral’ isn’t.” Amen.

Doing the daily crossword in the Washington Post always makes me wonder how on Earth I know certain random pieces of information. It’s like being with a group of people who have no expectation that you would know one of their other friends, or have heard of their obscure college. They always ask, “how did you know…” The explanation is always longer than it should be and would usually be better if accompanied by graphs and charts.

Hornby delivers one of these for me on page 196 with the line “Or that Australian girl who used to be on ‘Neighbours.'” I am not from Australia, or from England where this story takes place. I have never seen “Neighbours.” But I know he’s talking about Delta Goodrem. How I know this would take a solid 5,000 words to explain, and perhaps someday I’ll do that. But I will share a bit about Delta.

For anyone who has been in search of “the next step” in life, be it between jobs or just out of school, you know there is advice coming to you from every direction. You have heard it for years — talk to this person, take this class, get an internship, don’t do be like him, market yourself, break up with that guy, blah blah blah. Delta’s song “In My Own Time” begins: “So much is happening to me, so much that I can’t even see, so many words of wisdom that I am trying to be.”

And that’s sort of what these four characters are going through. There is a lot going on in their lives, a lot of thoughts swirling in their heads and a lot of opinions as to what they should be doing. It is up to them to figure out how to put it all together, and be.

“It was a pleasure to burn.”

That’s the opening line to Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” describing the feeling of systematically destroying the world’s hidden caches of books.

I wonder how our society would respond to a governmental anti-book policy. Sure, there are lots of us who love to read and consider books an important part of our lives. But what about those who could really care less?

If Major League Soccer folded tomorrow, I honestly wouldn’t think twice about it while die-hard U.S. soccer fans might be devastated. The same goes for coffee — I don’t drink it, so I really wouldn’t care.

Bradbury paints a world where leaders are scared by an informed public and sees banning books as an integral part of its control:

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.”

It is a world of dulled senses and stilted emotions, one marked by living room walls made up of giant television screens assuring everyone that everything is OK.

But like Winston in George Orwell’s “1984,” not everyone is content to buy into the system. Some people still think, still read those banned books even though they risk being caught and facing a fiery penalty.

If you enjoyed “1984” you’d absolutely get into this book. In a post-story interview in my edition, Bradbury explains the difference as Orwell tackling the implications of governmental control while he deals with the societal fallout.

The “bonus material” also adds a great tidbit about Bradbury renting time on a typewriter in the UCLA library in order to write the book. He says it cost 10 cents for a half hour, leading him to write the book at a furious pace — half of it (25,000 words) in nine days.

Despite the novel’s themes of having to fight attacks against intellectualism and personal voice, Bradbury weaves in moments of individual triumph. He portrays humans as having a hopeful spirit, one that perseveres through obstacles that will eventually ensure their own failure.

He writes: “It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching. The lawn cutter might just as well have not been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

Here’s to hoping people never lose the desire to create and share and think.

Sometimes you read a book and you and the author are not on the same wavelength.

Your eyes move over their words, but there’s something between you that just doesn’t click. I do not have that problem with Malcolm Gladwell.

“Whenever I look at an unopened bar of Ivory bath soap, I flip it over and burst out laughing,” Gladwell writes in his book “The Tipping Point.” “In the midst of all the product information, there is a line that says: ‘Questions? Comments? Call 1-800-395-9960.’ Who on earth could ever have a question about Ivory soap.”

If you’ve spent any time whatsoever reading this blog, you’d know that about half my entries are about just those sorts of questions. But while I mention the potential craziness of such situations, Gladwell is off being smarter than me. He thinks about why that’s actually a brilliant thing to put on the box.

It all comes down to what he describes in the book as “mavens.” These are people in our society who spend more time thinking about and researching products than the rest of us. They are the ones we would go to when we have questions–because we know they will always have good advice. So if you’re the Ivory Soap Company, you want to make it easy for the mavens to get their questions answered, since they’re really the only ones calling about soap. Then when I ask Joe Maven about soap, he’ll tell me Ivory is where it’s at.

Gladwell also taught me a lot about important things like “Blues Clues.” I had no idea Nickelodeon played the same exact episode of “Blues Clues” for five straight days. Because of the way kids learn, that turns out to be a pretty brilliant strategy and one Gladwell explains in detail. You can enjoy that when you read the book yourself–which you absolutely should.

I also learned that Paul Revere wasn’t the only midnight rider trying to warn colonists about the advancing British. It turns out he was the one who effectively spread the message because of his personal qualities. Revere was an example of what Gladwell calls “The Law of the Few.” He says that in order for social epidemics to spread, it is important to have the message in the hands of the right people. It’s more effective to tell five Revere types who can reach a wide range–with a sense of authority–than to reach a thousand people who don’t have a connective power.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call a guy about some soap.

Today was a fantastic day. A great, old friend came back into my life and I can’t think of a better addition to my Tuesday. That friend is chocolate Teddy Grahams.

Early this afternoon I had a hankering for a snack, nothing too big but enough to squelch the “I’m hungry” voice beckoning from my belly. I opened our pantry cabinet dealio to hunt for potential remedies. My eyes scanned over boxes of Pop-Tarts, granola bars and peanut butter crackers. I started to choose one of those satisfactory but not excellent snacks when I came upon a truly exciting box.

Teddy Grahams have been one of my favorite snacks since they were first thought of by the guy who invented them. I loved them before he or she even told anyone else about their idea for a bear-shaped cookie-type snack that comes in several delicious flavors.

We didn’t have them very often at my house, but they were a staple in my grandmother’s snack cabinet. There was nothing finer than a trip to Nana’s, complete with noshing on Teddy Grahams during a break from the pool.

Today I didn’t have quite the same experience. It’s about 37 degrees outside and there’s no pool here in the basement. But the taste of the Teddys brought me to my happy place like granola bars could never do.

Another recent smile-inducing moment was brought to me by my good friend TV. Actually, it was whomever decided a Web site called OnlineBootyCall was a good idea and made it happen.

Now I’m not saying I’m all about utilizing such a service. I just enjoyed this commercial for the site as it played during a popular TV show last week. The sheer bluntness of it is incredible. It’s not one of those jeans commercials where the only reason you know jeans are involved are because there’s a pair slumped over a chair deep in the background. You know exactly what OnlineBootyCall.com is about.

Don’t want a pesky relationship? Don’t want to promise marriage just to hook up? OnlineBootyCall is for you!

And lest you think I have abandoned reading for additional hours of television, here’s the stack of completed books in 2009:

That’s seven so far. For comparison sake, I was just finishing the second of 2008 at this point in the year.

This year’s picks thus far:
-The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
-Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
-You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers
-IV by Chuck Klosterman
-The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
-The Winter Of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
-The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Despite my heroic efforts, it appears the Year of the Book was not a nationwide project.

In fact, according to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts, the percentage of adults who read any book not required for work or school dropped in 2008. While I knocked out 20 titles, only 54.3 percent of adults finished even one. The Washington Post has more.

Come on people!

It’s not like there aren’t amazing stories awaiting people’s attention. Maybe if people were inside reading books murder rates and overall crime would plummet. Maybe car crashes would be a thing of the past if people had a book in their hand instead of a steering wheel (hopefully not trying to do both at the same time). Perhaps ratings for TMZ and Access Hollywood would be taken to crushingly low levels if turned off in favor of literature.

I certainly won’t hold my breath. But I will do my part and keep reading.

“For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can’t talk and they can’t write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves). This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?”

That’s what caused me to interrupt a perfectly calm holiday evening in our household as I failed to quell my laughter. Thank you Chuck Klosterman. That’s an excerpt from his book “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs,” specifically a section on the 23 questions he asks everyone he meets in order to decide if he can really love them.

So far, everyone I have asked says cats would enjoy Garfield. I think I agree, though there are undoubtedly some really snooty cats that would be offended. I think these cats are the really long-haired ones that seem to think they’re better than other cats and probably you as well as they eat their Fancy Feast. You absolutely must read this book for the other 22 questions, or at least spend the 10 minutes at a bookstore laughing in the aisle as others wonder what is wrong with you.

Ok, I’ll give you one more. This one has a familiar feel to anyone who has gone through the joy of journalism school and lessons on newsworthiness: “Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week. You are the front-page editor of the New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?”

Of course, in j-school the hypotheticals are usually more common occurrences about wars, car accidents, plane crashes and fires. Still a valid question though.

Even taking into account a low sample size, this is the only book of the 20 my mom has seen lying around and been befuddled by its title. Or at least the only one that has caused her to ask what the heck it was about.

“Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” has discussion of all three topics, along with a host of other pop culture essays and other thoughts. Cocoa Puffs come into play in a section about what you can tell about people from the cereal they eat. Klosterman writes that cereals that sell themselves with things like “a laid-back bear wearing a mock turtleneck” (as in Golden Crisp) are for “nonsense people.” That’s in contrast to “no-nonsense” cereals like Grape Nuts, that put a picture of, um, Grape Nuts on the box. “Consequently, we nonsense types spend hours and hours staring at cardboard creatures like the Trix Rabbit and absorbing his ethos.” I’m a Cocoa Puffs man myself.

Of course, perhaps even more important than a discussion of what cereal means to our society is a chapter featuring Saved By The Bell. Klosterman writes about watching the show with a friend in college. He says the friend–a term he uses loosely–would say virtually nothing during the show until one day he burst out in exasperation at the unlikely relationship between Zack and Mr. Belding. Klosterman writes about how odd it was that this instance was the truly unbelievable thing in the show:

“I mean, Bayside High was a school where students made money by selling a ‘Girls of Bayside’ calendar, and it was a school where oil was discovered under the football team’s goalposts. This is a show where Zack had the ability to call time-out and stop time in order to narrate what was happening with the plot. There is never a single moment in the Save By The Bell series that reflects any kind of concrete authenticity.”

I think high school would have been a lot more entertaining if I had the ability to stop time. I would have become a pro at stealing packs of mini chocolate donuts from the vending machine near the gym. Imagine what I could have accomplished by saving those 60 cents every time. That could put an end to world poverty, or at least have netted me nearly two chocolate chip cookies at lunchtime. I bet with stopped time I could also learn how to break into the Veryfine machine and add a fruit punch to my daily time-stop snack. I would certainly have moved things on people’s desks, but only slightly to mess with their heads without giving them any notion that anything concrete was happening.

The last bit of Klosterman-ness I’ll touch on is a more serious portion citing the Oklahoma City bombing. He writes about the newspaper coverage afterward, specifically of the victims. The Chicago Tribune mentioned each of the 168, with a one-sentence bit following their name. “There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those details. However, as I read and reread every little bio on the list, I found myself deflated by the realization that virtually everyone’s life is only remembered for one thing.”

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby.” James K. Polk was president of the United States. What will your sentence say?

Next up: Tomorrow I’ll do the grand wrapup of the Year of the Book, including fabulous pictures and perhaps even a graph! Make sure the kids get a good night’s sleep and keep their excitement under wraps (I know it will be hard!)