After spending two months reading one book, which at 780 pages wasn’t even my longest of the year, I was definitely in the mood for one I could rip through pretty quickly.

Enter my old friend, John Steinbeck.  Yes, he has a few giant novels, but his bibliography also includes a whole set of shorter books.  I picked up a new stack of them just before my local Barnes & Noble closed, and this time went with “Tortilla Flat.”

I like reading Steinbeck in the summer because the natural imagery in his writing just makes me think of warm winds blowing through the trees.  Of course his stories take place in northern California, so the warmth is relative, but just go with it.

What I enjoy about the shorter books is that they feel like dropping in on a very small slice of whichever town he’s featuring.  If the stories were doled in small parts in a local newspaper, I would follow along for years.

This book is about a guy named Danny, who is kind of a deadbeat until he inherits a pair of houses.  He agrees to let a few of his friends live in one of them, until they kindly (accidentally) burn it down.  The rest of the story follows him letting those guys live with him, along with several other friends who move in and create a host of drama.

After the fire, Danny’s friends approach him, and he unleashes an absolutely wonderful array of insults I hope to incorporate into my own life:

“‘Dogs of dogs,’ Danny called them, and ‘Thieves of decent folks’ other house,’ and ‘Spawn of cuttlefish.’  He named their mothers cows and fathers ancient sheep.'”

I mean, when someone calls you “spawn of cuttlefish” what kind of comeback can you possibly have?  (This cuttlefish website has the f word in its url, but is amazing.) 

Beyond insults, Steinbeck also includes a fantastic name for a dog.  One of the characters is a simple guy who for a while sleeps in a chicken coop with his five dogs.  Danny and friends eventually convince him to join them in the house as part of a scheme to get his extensive savings, and he moves in with Fluff, Rudolph, Enrique, Pajarito and Señor Alec Thompson in tow.

As someone who would readily name a cat Captain Awesome, I’m always a fan of non-standard pet names, particularly ones that involve some sort of rank or honorific.  It’s not quite Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, but I fully enjoyed every time Señor Alec Thompson got a mention.

“Nobody really wanted to deal with the idea that they were going to be paying for a product that had been free.”

That sentence could fit in any modern story about newspapers that put up pay walls as they address they key funding issues facing media organizations today.  Instead, it’s about a cable company that in the 1980s began asking cable systems to pay for the right to carry its programming.

That company?  ESPN.  The result was a dual stream of revenue — subscriber fees + ad money — that allowed the network to grow into the behemoth of the sports world it is today.

The quote is from Roger Werner, ESPN’s COO in the 1980s.  It’s from “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.  They use what can only be described as a crap ton of interviews with the founders, executives, anchors, reporters, agents and competitors to trace the company’s 30-year history from its inception as a muddy field in Connecticut to a sprawling digital empire.

The format at first annoyed me, since it is basically relies on chunks of direct quotes one after another with very little narration in between.  I found it disjointing and difficult to get in a flow of reading, but eventually that waned as I had to do less and less work remembering who some of the non-talent people were.  I read a similar “from-the beginning” story about CNN a number of years ago, and it’s interesting to see how far each has been able to come from very, very humble beginnings.

There are some fascinating anecdotes about what’s going on behind the scenes.  One of my favorites involves when Monday Night Football moved from it’s longtime home at ABC over to ESPN.  The interviews tell the story of ESPN wanting to keep Al Michaels as the play-by-play guy, but he ended up leaving to do Sunday Night Football on NBC.  It seemed like a simple move at the time, but negotiations to get him out of his ESPN contract brought in Disney company executives who made a list of things they wanted in return from NBC Universal.  One of those items was the rights to a cartoon rabbit.  I can only hope my career involves a deal like that.

In talking about the future of how we get ESPN content and experience sports media, Disney CEO Bob Iger says, “ESPN has deals with several leagues that call for content distribution on platforms that have yet to be invented.”  I would love to hear how the negotiation for that part of the contract happens.  Does ESPN have the rights for NFL games projected on the moon?  Baseball broadcasts that resonate in your brain through Wi-Fi?  NASCAR races you watch in your dreams?

One other thing I thought was interesting is the way in which no matter what technology we have, fans will always have the same irrational reaction to people talking about their teams.  Hockey analyst Bill Clement shares in the book that no matter what city they were in, inevitably fans would criticize him saying he was favoring the other team:

“But I would get it from both sides,” he said.  “If I was doing the Rangers-Flyers series, I would be accused by Rangers fans of favoring the Flyers and I would be accused by Flyers fans of favoring the Rangers.”

I see this play out on a weekly basis now with ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney.  He appears on their Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, and on Twitter faces a barrage of comments every time he says something about one of the teams that somehow makes him some kind of superfan of that squad who is hell-bent on destroying the other team.  At least he has the sense of humor to retweet these people so the world can see how in five minutes he can be criticized of having that favoritism for both sides at the same time.

Interesting book for those who want to know about the ESPN empire — good, bad and ugly — and get some insight inside the Bristol universe.

Every year my reading list has several books that were recommended to me by friends.

“Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares” is the first that also came with the explicit statement that I was one of the characters.

My friend Brooke initially told me the Dash character reminder her of a young version of Caleb, the main male character in my book.  But when I told her that I had started reading, she tweeted back with the hashtag #youaredash.

The story by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan has a fun premise: Dash finds a notebook left on a bookstore shelf by a girl named Lily.  Inside is a dare.  He plays along, and leaves the notebook for her to continue the game.  The two teens alternate narrating chapters, revealing to the reader more about themselves and their lives just as they do to each other through the notebook.

This sounds like a tremendously interesting way to meet someone.  Though with my luck, she would turn out to be some kind of psychopath who hates Taco Bell, puppies and baseball.

I recommended the book to two other friends, but neither has finished yet so I can’t tell you if they agree with Dash = me.  I can say that at a bunch of times during the story, I certainly could see similarities in the way Dash thought about or reacted to something.

The most clear example came late in the book.  Dash is reading the latest entry in the notebook and reflecting on Lily’s words.  “I wanted to ask her…not to be snarky or sarcastic.  Because I really wanted to know if there was a difference…”  The context of the quote isn’t that important, but a few weeks ago I used almost this exact phrasing in a conversation.

There’s another scene with Dash & Lily in a secret room at the bookstore.  When Dash — self-described as “horribly bookish” — sees a complete set of the Oxford English Dictionary, Lily says he “swooned, with the palpable bliss of Homer Simpson exalting, ‘Mmmm…donuts.'”  I’m not pining away for an OED like Dash, but the sentiment is right.

At one point, Lily’s latest clues lead Dash to the mittens section at Macy’s.  In probably my favorite thought of his in the entire book, he notes that mittens are an evolutionary step backward: “Why, I wondered, would we want to make ourselves into a less agile version of a lobster?”

But really this story is about relationships, and both Dash & Lily have a lot to offer on that front.   Lily tells Dash that what she wants for Christmas is to know there’s someone out there for her, and to find that kind of meaning in her life.  He responds: “You want meaning?  Well, the meanings are out there.  We’re just so damn good at reading them wrong.”

I responded by nodding.

He continues the analogy, talking about how we learn to speak with first sounding out the letters c-a-t, then saying cat, then understanding that the word is connected to an actual animal.  “A lot of times in life we’re just sounding things out.”

Dash’s ex-girlfriend tries to temper his expectations for love, cautioning him to not expect a perfect girl to walk into his life.  “No one is ever who you want them to be.  And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head.”  Dash lets the idea of Lily build up before he actually meets her, and is extremely disappointed when she happens to be uncharacteristically drunk at that moment.  “What a wasted girl.  What a wasted hope.”

Nodding again.

Lily has her own insights.  When she thinks she’s screwed up with Dash, she writes: “I feel like you may be a special and kind person.  And I would like to make it my business to get to know special and kind people.”

I couldn’t agree more.  She also has to go see a film version of “Gramma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” as part of a Dash dare, and wonders why there’s so much blame thrown at the reindeer for the incident.  “Because we all know that if that happened in the real world and not in the movies, then the Wildlife Service would go hunting for that reindeer and do away with the poor antlered guy when it was probably Gramma’s fault for getting in his way like that!”

Even her initial placement of the notebook next to a copy of “Franny and Zooey” is noteworthy, even if the scheme was initially the idea of her brother Langston (who wanted her to have something to do while he hung out with his boyfriend).  Langston says, “If there’s a perfect guy for you anywhere, he’ll be found hunting for old Salinger editions.”

When I was first writing my own story, I chose “Zooey” for the main female character.  I named her after Zooey Deschanel, who herself is named after the Salinger character.  I thought that was a funny string, though I have since changed my character to be Sophie instead.

Dash wants to focus on that personal side of life, and not so much what happens day-to-day.  “I was attempting to write the story of my life,” he says.  “It wasn’t so much about plot.  It was much more about character.”

I think that’s a good outlook.  So am I Dash?  In some ways absolutely, and others not at all.  He describes himself as “persnickety” noting that “delightful and persnickety are not a common blend.”  His best friend’s mom calls him “finicky.”  I’ll let you know how the other reader-friends think Dash and I line up.

I fully blame my 16-year-old self.

That was the first time I read “The Great Gatsby,” and when I formed in my mind the picture of what Gatsby looked like.  Unfortunately, with a new movie version coming out, that vision doesn’t match who was cast in that role.

So when I re-read the book, I tried to force myself to see Gatsby as Leonardo DiCaprio, but a few pages later I would be right back to imagining him more like Jon Hamm.  Of course I haven’t seen the movie yet, but if it happens that way, I will feel vindicated.

I don’t want to get into an extensive breakdown of this one (if you want that, I can print a high school paper for you), but there are a few things that stood out.

The first is my apparent word of the year (in slightly different forms).  Narrator Nick Carraway is describing a lunch meeting with Gatsby and his associate Mr. Wolfsheim, and uses a not-so-common word that has cropped up in my other reading this year:

“Mr. Wolfsheim swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction.”

Hopefully sleep-walking isn’t an actual theme in my daily life, though since I work overnights for half the week, that may be an accurate description at times.

For a book that has pervasive themes of the basic way people treat each other — often badly, and for pure personal gain — it does have several instances of a more macro, selfless view.

In fact, right at the start, Carraway describes advice given to him by his father:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Word.  Unless those people are on a reality show.  That’s what they’re there for.

Carraway continues the same theme later, though after this instance admits that his “tolerance” has a limit:

“Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.  I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.”

And then there’s this from Gatsby (talking about Daisy), about the way we sometimes see others a certain way because of our own attributes:

“She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her…”

As someone who has been described by others as smart, but has a blog with a label “not smart,” I very much love this quote.

I’ll close with another theme of the story — the personal search each of the characters has in finding out what drives them and matters in their life.  Carraway narrates about Daisy and the indecision she faces in light of the men in her life:

“And all the time something within her was crying for a decision.  She wanted her life shaped now, immediately — and the decision must be made by some force — of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality — that was close at hand.”

Fitzgerald knows life isn’t that easy, and forces his characters to make their own lives.  I’m excited to see how that plays out on the big screen.

Nobody is perfect.

Author Jess Walter clearly knows this, and not only crafts characters who all have their own issues, but introduces them with those faults.  Instead of setting up a pattern in which those people are superhuman until proven otherwise, he leads character introductions with imperfections.

It is only fitting then that his novel is called “Beautiful Ruins.”

In this story, Walter shows how his characters work to overcome their individual and collective challenges, making some beauty out of their ruins.

One of the main characters is film producer Michael Deane, whose first impression on people is a “man constructed of wax,” Walters writes.  “After all these years, it may be impossible to trace the sequence of facials, spa treatments, mud baths, cosmetic procedures, lifts and staples, collagen implants, outpatient touch-ups, tannings, Botox injections, cyst and growth removals, and stem-cell injections that have caused a seventy-two-year-old man to have the face of a nine-year-old Filipino girl.”

This is a man of supreme self-confidence, self-importance and vanity — qualities that end up affecting the lives of every one of the other main characters.  It is his decisions and ideas that alter the life of aspiring actress Dee Moray, the child she later has, the small-town inn keeper Pasquale who houses Moray for a while and falls in love with her, the writer who also stays at the hotel and for whom Dee falls in love, and finally, Deane’s assistant later in life.  Just a few decisions change all of their lives — some for the better, others not.

Walter tells this story in a pretty fascinating way, using changes to fill in back stories while also pushing each one of the characters forward in time.  The two naturally eventually catch up, but it takes stories told through plays and movie pitches to get them there.

Along the way, the characters reveal so much that is deep inside of them, and by extension all of us.  When Pasquale first sees Dee, a beautiful American actress at his why-would-anyone-come-here part of the world, he is completely taken by the experience:

“Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life — not so much with the woman, whom he didn’t even know, but with that moment.”

Don’t we all have those moments, those times we think back on and remember with complete fondness no matter what has happened with the pieces involved since then?

Of course, life isn’t always easy, and in these “ruins” there is plenty of doubt and longing for something they can’t — or don’t think they can — have.

Walter tells a story of Pasquale as a kid on the beach seeing a woman drop a ring.  After some hesitation, and only after seeing his mother looking on, Pasquale does the right thing and chases the woman down to return it.  Later in his life, he gains even more perspective with more experience of his own desires and losses:

“Pasquale saw now what she meant — how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.”

And yet, as Dee describes after first reading a sad story by her later husband-writer, just knowing that other people are going through something similar, or at least have similar feelings, can make your own problems feel more manageable. 

“You find this story sad in my hotel?” Pasquale asked. “Oh, no, it’s very good,” she said.  “It has a kind of hopelessness that made me feel less alone in my own hopelessness.  Does that make sense?”

Yup.

I read this book as part of a monthly book club at the TV station where I used to work.  They call it “A Book and a Cook,” and I’m pretty jealous we didn’t have it around when I was there.  The weekend morning crew (my peeps) led a Facebook discussion about the novel last weekend, and soon will be airing a Skype interview they did with the author.  The “cook” portion involves a chef who whips up a dish inspired by the story.  What more could you want in life?

I get most of the pop/nerd-culture references in The Big Bang Theory, even if it’s just to the extent of having heard of what they’re talking about.

But a few seasons ago, Raj and Sheldon had a conversation about Edwin Abbott’s book “Flatland” that was pure gibberish to me:

Now, after reading the book, I completely understand.  It’s an interesting work, told from the point of view of a square in a two-dimensional world.  He explains all the intricacies of the place, including the hierarchy that begins with line-shaped women, progresses upward through the classes of triangles, squares, pentagons and so on until the highest ranks of circles.

It’s a commentary on class structures and the ways in which information — or the lack thereof — can be used to suppress those on lower rungs.

At one point, the squarrattor (square narrator) finds himself in Lineland, a one-dimensional place overseen by a king who cannot fathom life with a second dimension.  The two get in an argument, during which the king of Lineland utters something I hope to work into my daily speech:

“Acknowledge your folly or depart from my dominions.”

How great would it be to say that to someone who offended you?  I can’t wait.

If you don’t want to read the very short book version of this story, there’s apparently an animated film with the voices of Martin Sheen and Kristen Bell:

I haven’t seen this, but it seems like a fun way to experience the idea through with an old-school video game vibe instead of the printed word.

I’ve read books and later seen their corresponding movies.  I’ve seen movies first and then read the books.  Les Miserables is the first movie I’ve seen while in the middle of the book.

My goal, of course, was to finish the book first, but despite a few marathon reading sessions I was only 550 pages into the 829-page tome by the time my friends arranged to hit the theater.  The result was pretty interesting.

Because of the film, I knew the general plot for the big points at the end of the book.  Yet at the same time, I knew the movie had left out a ton of details and even changed the chronology of some pieces, meaning there was still a lot left for me to experience.

I wish for the sake of those who haven’t read the book that the movie did a better job of connecting the characters to one another.  We get the big relationships, but Victor Hugo weaves such an intricate web that in many ways drives the motivations of these characters.  The movie stands by itself as a perfectly good story, but even small things, like knowing Gavroche is Eponine’s brother, or the backstory between Marius and Thenardier, would have given that extra bit of depth the book provides.

Of course, that is why we still value books, right?  I don’t think we’re ready for the 14-hour Les Mis movie.

Maybe it was because I was really plowing through this book (at nearly double my normal page consumption), but I didn’t flag very many pages along the way.  I did have to laugh at Hugo’s description of Jean Valjean’s restless sleep, which for him was partially due to having an actual bed after years of being in prison:

“When many diverse sensations have disturbed the day, when the mind is preoccupied, we can fall asleep once, but not a second time.  Sleep comes at first much more readily than it comes again.  Such was the case with Jean Valjean.”

Such is the case with me.  I’m a great fall-asleeper, not so good at the getting back to sleep part.  Since we’re on the topic of sleep, this book twice uses the word “somnambulism.”  I flagged it the first time to look up the definition (an abnormal condition of sleep in which motor acts are performed), which helped tremendously when it popped up again and I thought, “Wait, I’ve seen that word recently…”

I also blame Family Guy for distracting me at one point.  Anyone reading in 1998 or earlier would have flown right through this section, but obviously the existence of Stewie in our modern world makes things different.  Jean Valjean thinks he sees the inspector Javert, but looks again to find it is someone else:

“What the deuce was I about to fancy that I saw Javert?”

Hugo obviously wrote Les Miserables in French, so the version I had was a translation, but there is a passage I thought would be right at home in any love story written today:

“When the mine is loaded, and the match is ready, nothing is simpler.  A match is a spark.  It was all over with him.  Marius loved a woman.  His destiny was entering upon the unknown.”

Like I mentioned earlier, I think Hugo created a plausible world with a lot of crazy interwoven relationships.  But there was one line near the end of the book that I had to question.  It comes in the description of Marius and Cosette’s wedding:

“…hand in hand, admired and envied by all, Marius in black, she in white, preceded by the usher in colonel’s epaulettes, striking the pavement with his halberd, between two hedges of marvelling spectators, they arrived under the portal of the church…”

Hedges of spectators?  Who were these people?  The bride’s side of things consists of a reformed convict who has spend the past dozen years doing everything possible to lay low and not form the kind of personal connection that would lead to a wedding invite.  Cosette, for her part, seems to spend every waking moment at Jean Valjean’s side, not out making tons of friends who would end up at this ceremony.

Marius did have a group of friends…but they were kind of all killed in the fighting that almost got him too.  His parents aren’t around either.  So the only possible explanation is that all the guests at this wedding are friends of his grandfather.  Sounds like an amazingly fun event.

Finally, let me close with a quote from one of the revolutionaries with whom Marius fought.  They have endured an assault by French soldiers upon their barricade, and now are sitting through the night, awaiting the dawn that brings the final blow upon them all.  Enjolras speaks to the remaining group:

“Let us understand each other in regard to equality; for, if liberty is the summit, equality is the base.”

Well said.