Between the Covers

Reluctant praise, and not much of it

So I just read Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and while I can't say it wasn't a quick and entertaining read, I have to wonder: How did this slight  novel, narrated by a young Pakistani, make the Man Booker shortlist? It's irrelevant, of course; Anne Enright's The Gathering won, and as we all know, awards tend to be somewhat baffling in nature. (Yes, I'm bitter over the fact that Martin Amis has never won a Booker, and his only book to be shortlisted was the show-offy Time's Arrow, a good book but far from his best.)

Hamid's novel is set up as sort of a monologue, with the narrator sitting at a cafe in Lahore telling his tale to an unidentified American. As daylight trickles away, we learn how the narrator went from being an Ivy League prodigy to asset valuation whiz to an angry, embittered soul in the wake of 9/11. The book's simplicity is appealing, and it's interesting to enter the mind of an essentially decent man from a culture wildly different than our own. It's jarring to hear that his first reaction to seeing the planes hit the Twin Towers is to smile. "Please believe me when I tell you that I am no sociopath; I am not indifferent to the sufferings of others. . . I was caught up in the symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees."

Provocative stuff. What's less interesting is the narrator's infatuation with an American girl and a sense of anticlimax at the book's finale. I wouldn't advise against reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but I can't share the Booker voters' adoration of it, either.

Kids say the darndest things

So we're getting ready to head out to see Nikki Giovanni at the book fair, and my friend, in town visiting, is talking to her 9-year-old son on the phone before we leave.

"Connie and I are getting ready to go out. We're going to see a poet," she tells him.

"Emily Dickinson?" he asks.

Parents gone wild

Let's hear a round of applause for some of the high school students at Nitro High in Charleston, West Virginia. According to The Associated Press, a student group is vowing to sue the school board if it removes Pat Conroy's Beach Music and The Prince of Tides from school shelves, a move that could have countywide repercussions.

A couple of possibly inbred parents complained about the books, of course. They object to the violence, suicide and rape in the novels, which have been deemed suitable for high school upperclassman. Not only do they want to protect their tender darlings from scary words on paper, they want no other student to have access to the books - at least not in school. The board, wishy washy to the end, is exploring putting advisory labels on the books warning of objectionable content.

So let me get this straight: High school kids want to read books, and a couple of adults who should know better don't want them to? I have no idea why anyone would ban 16- or 17-year-olds from reading anything they wanted to read. Frankly, I have no idea why you'd ever take a book away from a kid. Books don't hurt people, folks. Not even the really bad ones (though I admit, trying to dig my way through Donna Tartt's The Little Friend made me think about hurting someone). Books don't drive drunk or get anybody pregnant; they're addictive, but not in a life-threatening way. They're fat free. They make you think. And even the ones with sex, violence and all sorts of dark content might encourage you to read something else that just might change your life.

Listen, Mom and Dad Kettle: If your kid is in an advanced placement English course, if he or she has hopes of going on to college and getting a degree, they're going to be exposed to the big bad world in a big bad way, and that includes literature. You can't protect them from the horrors of the world forever. Trying is futile. They're going to grow up and do whatever it is they're going to do, and you need to let go and hope for the best.

And for the record, if the worst thing you have to worry about with your teenager is what he or she reads, you've got it easy. If a book offends you, don't read it. But don't think the rest of us are going to have any patience with your righteous and ignorant indignation.

Symmetry of a sort

John Kretschmer, about whom I wrote Monday, emailed me that Andrea Barrett's Voyage of the Narwhal is one of his favorite books. See! I told you people to read that book in an earlier post. Obey! While you're at it, read John's book, too (At the Mercy of the Sea, about three sailors caught in a monster hurricane).

A Million Lousy Sentences

So remember when James Frey wrote a truly dreadful book and lots of people bought it anyway, because for some reason his drug-fueled imaginings became trendy thanks to Oprah Winfrey, who picked it as her book club book back when she was still choosing living authors? And then she got really mad and shamed him on national TV? When what she should have been ashamed of was thinking that book was worthwhile in the first place? And then Frey's publisher, Random House, offered money back to angry readers?

Well, on Friday a judge approved a settlement for the presumably angry hordes, but it turns out, according to the Associated Press, that only 1,729 people demanded their money back. That's it? After that book sat on the bestseller list for what felt like years? I wanted my money back, and I got the book for free.

Still, what's more frightening: That "A Million Little Pieces" sold more than 90,000 copies after the Oprah controversy, or that Frey has a new book coming out next summer?

This is not a sex advice column

Sure, the name of this blog indicates I can cure all the woes that Viagra and a few stiff drinks can't, but - brace yourself - I'm not writing about those sorts of covers. I'm writing about books, books I love and books I hate, books that confound me and books I could read 100 more times and never get tired of. I'll write about authors who are coming to Miami and authors who aren't and probably a few I'm still mad at for one reason or another (damn you, Dennis Lehane! Write another thriller!) I'll admit I have never made it through Moby Dick, and a lot of you will lie and say you have.

See, I read a lot. Presumably, if you're taking the time to read this instead of Star magazine or catching up on deleted scenes from The Office, you like to read, too. I can't claim to have a lengthy series of letters behind my name. My degree is in journalism, from University of Florida (GO GATORS!) , and I came by my love of books the same way most of you did: By picking them up and reading. And I'm always open to suggestions of what I should be reading; I love discovering new authors, although I have to warn you, if you start sending in comments about how we all need to read your self-published manifesto on living life to the fullest or why breast-feeding should be mandatory or how 9/11 was a government conspiracy, we are going to have a big fat problem.

So I may not be much help with the sex tips, but I sure can talk about books. So let's do it.