Book 43: Great Expectations

Great Expectations
Charles Dickens

To begin, it must be said that this is surely a book whose reputation precedes it, and I embarked with, shall we say, great expectations of this enduring literary classic. I am not quite sure if they were met because, while this is an engrossing read and certainly a frank and excellent portrayal of its historical context, there are moments within when the reader's eyes glaze over and fight to proceed. The book's main fault, I believe, is that to modern eyes each of its characters is, quite frankly, morally dreadful. It's quite easy to side with young Pip when he rashly feeds a threatening escaped convicts in the marshes behind his humble home, but when he begins to turn his back on his family and upbringing he becomes quite intolerable and remains so for a majority of the novel. Dickens is correct in portraying Pip as so, but with an irritating and pompous narrator to book occasionally becomes frustrating and seems to carry on at length without purpose. Though the middle may be plodding, however, Dickens does move to wrap the novel up at quite a reasonable speed, solving its mysteries at a pleasant rate throughout the final acts and providing a sense of conclusion just when certain mysteries seem to have been dropped. Great Expectations has a great sense of mystery throughout, which serves it well and which keeps the reader interested as Pip goes along attempting to be a gentleman while adopting the moral repugnance so often associated with that station in that period.

It's a marvel that Dickens is able to bend readers' sympathies so that, when the time comes for Pip to receive his moral awakening, we are alongside him and cheering him on, almost having forgotten or forgiven his grave errors, only to have Pip remorsefully re-introduce them in full force. What Great Expectations creates, then, is a likely story of a young man's moral education populated by a host of unlikely characters. From the introduction of the very weird Miss Havisham it is clear that this vision of London is populated with unlikely characters who, save Pip, serve ably to flesh out the text with their eccentricities that become, strangely, stereotypical. Most interesting of the supporting cast, I believe, is John Wemmick, clerk to one-man machine Mr. Jaggers and who exhibits an interesting and telling divide between his work and personal personalities. This divide can serve as an imperfect reflection of Pip and his split life as a gentleman and a pauper and an example that even pompous Pip cannot help but draw upon.

Great Expectations is quite strange because it seems to move so slowly and without purpose, but upon finishing the final page each tiny piece of the puzzle has fallen into place and the package is wrapped rather neatly. Pip does not get away clean from his indiscretions, but readers can rest assured that he remains good at heart and for this he is marginally rewarded. Indeed, the novel's greatest failing is its neglect of one of its greatest villains and details of his fate as well as allowing the repulsive Mr. Pumblechook to get a favorable outcome, but perhaps that too adds to the moral of the story, which is ambiguous at best. It remains ultimately unanswered whether Pip has indeed lived up to his great expectations, and his best chance seems to come just as he is losing those expectations altogether. Likewise with the novel, which begins somewhat slowly but which picks up so that by its third act it is nearly impossible to put down as its opening mysteries are solved satisfactorily and with delicate care and consideration by the author. Great Expectations comes to modern readers with a wealth of burdens on its back and, though it takes a while to ease them, it leaves readers satisfied with its place as a classic of English literature and worthy of the giant who penned it.

Grade: A-

Book 42: History of Libraries in the Western World

History of Libraries in the Western World
Michael M. Harris

No, boys and girls, your intrepid reporter did not forget an article in front of that title, which is an incredibly apt fit for this dry, academic text. Harris definitely demonstrates a full grasp of the history of libraries in America and Europe, but what is lacking in this litany of collections and numbers is a great deal of context or intrigue. By and large, History of Libraries in the Western World is, in fact, a list of great libraries throughout the history of the Western World, and the number of books believed to be in those collections. There are entire paragraphs that are naught but lists, meaningless without context or distinguishing remarks and whose numbers exist without contextual note of their relative size to the era. Obviously there is a huge difference between a medieval collection in the hundreds and a modern collection of such paltry standards; Harris makes no note of this, however, and continues merrily to list library after library. This isn't to say that the book is a complete failure, however, though it is just about the driest book I have ever had the misfortune to come across. There is no academic argument and no Great Strand of History herein, but Harris does manage to inadvertently create a general timeline in between his endless, pointless library lists.

The book begins promisingly enough, with its introduction enumerating several factors that go into library creation and maintenance (including economic and political stability), most interestingly positing that libraries represent a kind of power and a thirst for control, being that they are assembled with deliberation and purpose. One may assume that the following pages will illustrate these principles, but political and economic developments are rarely mentioned in the pages that follow, often posing as segways between lists (with the hilarious exception of the contemporary economic crisis, mentioned alarmingly in almost every paragraph of the final sections). One cannot fault Mr. Harris too much for his lack of foresight, but even in 1996 it was obvious that libraries were headed toward a digital age that deserves more than a page's mention in such an epically sweeping volume, where it is relegated to the conclusion. The organization of the book isn't too bad as Harris guides readers from the various cultures of the ancients through the present day, making a necessary pit stop at the eastern Byzantine Empire and organizing his history through geography as much as historical epoch. This works but creates some awkward tension as he moves into the modern era, thoughfully dividing Europe and the Americas but creating entirely different time periods for these chapters without fully explaining why. Sure, it's obvious why the European chapter ends at 1917, but why does America's terminate in 1850, particularly when many collection figures therein are given through the 1870s or even later?

This illustrates a fundamental problem with this book: Harris has no desire to present context or construct an interesting argument, or even a dull one. This book strives to be dryly academic and as such is a great resource but very nearly unreadable. Harris seems to catch stride quite late in the book, where his discussion of the development of European national libraries and the United States's fascination with public libraries (arising out of our democratic tendencies and their bias towards an informed population; also interestingly linked with anti-immigration and Americanization policies), but it is by far too late to salvage the volume. Additionally, the geographic bias of the book is wide-ranging in the early chapters but narrows considerably, with the final European chapter mentioning Eastern Europe (which is still the West) for about one paragraph while focusing extensively on more popular countries, to say nothing of the bare mention of Latin American libraries. Harris seems unsure how to construct an interesting and varied text and though he very usefully divides discussion of modern libraries by type (public, governmental, collegiate/academic, school, and special) he fails to paint a picture as a whole and instead plods along country by country, again and always with the lists. History of Libraries in the Western World is a fairly thorough examination of collections throughout history and contains useful theoretical fodder in its introduction as well as a few interesting bits throughout, but this is not a book to be read lightly as a single, connected narrative; it would find its place, I feel, best in the reference section. But if you want to know the history of the number of volumes at Harvard, this is the place to go.

Grade: C

Book 41: The True Meaning of Smekday

The True Meaning of Smekday
Adam Rex

I usually shy away from books branded as Young Adult, with the notable exception of Harry Potter. We assume that these books cannot deal with big topics or possibly be well-written or entertaining, and this assumption is proven foolish and flat-out wrong by The True Meaning of Smekday, a remarkably entertaining, if light, book that never lets up on the gas pedal. There's no question that this is a book for those in the middle-school set: the narrator is a pre-teen girl whose voice is hilarious and right on target, a brilliant buffer for the adults who are subtly skewered by the perceptions of a narrator who is largely unaware she has them. Gratuity, also known as Tip, is a bundle of pep and determination and her unlikely friendship with a Boov alien mechanic after his race takes over the Earth is heartfelt and rife with cultural missteps on both sides. J.Lo speaks in a wonderful just-wrong dialect and provides Tip with plenty of opportunities to offer zingers to her own race, often cloaked in deadpan responses to this alien's sensibility. J.Lo and the spunky Tip take off after her mom disappears and have plenty of wonderful and wacky adventures as they travel in a souped-up car to re-settlement areas for the humans, meeting along the way an American Indian man. The irony is not lost, but is buried beneath the surface by Rex, who has a good sense of when to lay it on thick and when to let it seep into readers' consciousness gradually.

In fact, The True Meaning of Smekday is a superbly executed adventure story with plenty of social criticism, but built such that the criticism doesn't weigh the story down at all and it is allowed to float freely and fancy-free. The conceit of the book is genius and is a novel take on gradual world-building: Tip must compose an essay of the true meaning of Smekday, the holiday formerly known as Christmas, and her first attempt is cursory enough to acquaint the reader with recent history and set up two longer and more revealing essays, knitted together by the delightful allusions to the fact that the essay will be placed in a atime capsule (Tip often asks if we "future people" still have knowledge of certain products or modes of speech). Rex packs the narrative full of familiar stopping points, including trips to an excruciatingly thinly-veiled Disney World (the book suffers for this deception) and a blantantly realistic post-alien-invasion Roswell, for this is an alien story. Some real-world nods are unnecessary and overly silly, but they should do the job for this book's intended audience. The True Meaning of Smekday is a delightful and well-paced book with an easy sense of humor that allows it to deal with serious notions of racism and true friendship without ever becoming heavy-handed (Tip always realizes she's getting sappy and has a way of making these parts seem innocuous) and while remaining true to its mood and audience. Comics interspersed throughout the narrative enliven the text and are delightful, adding to the conceit and fleshing out the world's history while allowing Tip to avoid the woeful duty of dull exposition, making the book well-suited to shorter attention spans. Rex owes H.G. Wells for his conclusion but, then again, The True Meaning of Smekday deals with the same imperialist issues. That this book is meant for a younger set does not mean it isn't a delightful change of pace for more seriously-minded adults and The True Meaning of Smekday is an excellent, well-written, and entertaining book anyone should feel free to enjoy.

Grade: A

Book 40: The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

The Best American Mystery Stories 2007
Edited by Carl Hiaasen

I'm here again with the annual wrap-up of the best of the American short fiction world, and again I'm immensely grateful to this genre-based volume for its ability to showcase the best of a genre that speaks to the depths of the human spirit. The remarkable variety of stories speaks to the fact that the mystery genre is far more than a detective story, though the hardboiled stories in this collection are as inventive and intriguing as the more lit-fic types. Each uses the peculiar ability of human depravity, and frankness about our darkest desires, to shine a defining spotlight on the human condition. There are stories that are disturbing, sure, like the off-putting opener "Stab" and "The True History", but the violence within them magnifies their themes and they do much more than cheaply titillate. "The Spot' by David Means is a moving story that deals with horrific crimes in a strangely serene and meditative way, making it almost impossible to realize we're in the midst of an awful crime story. Somewhat odd in the collection is "The True History", a beautifully rendered period piece that is stark and disturbing, though the most effective stories are the open-ended "The Timing of Unfelt Smiles", which delves deeply into the psyche of a killer and offers an unexpected twist amidst mounting horror, and the devestating "Queeny", which offers an all-too-true look at the other side of the criminal coin we get in shows such as Law & Order.

That said, there are a few stories that are strangely satisfying and even humorous, and though none are laugh-out-loud hilarious there is plenty of black humor to be expected and found in such a well-rounded collection. Though astute readers will realize exactly where "Lucy Had a List" is going, it's a delight to watch the story unfold and to hear John Sandford magically conjure his dialect off the page. Likewise, Laura Lippman's "One True Love" is an earnestly fair and compassionate look at the life of an upscale Beltway working woman, with a plot that disgusts and warms by turns. Equally satisfying, of course, are the hardboiled noir stories most familiar to the genre, and these contributions represent the best of the genre, the unpredictable. "Keller's Double Dribble" puts a recurring hitman in an unusual situation and John Bond's "T-Bird" may be the best of the lot for its unapologetically noir crime-meets-poker-meets-crime dark deals amongst the glamour of Miami. While this collection is a bit uneven and a couple of the stories herein are predictable to the point of being boring, each offers a distinct sense of setting and plot that more often than not captures a rogue element of the human spirit. These unexpected revelations are by turns shocking and serene, blindsiding and blindingly obvious. Each sotry in The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 is a good representation of the crime genre, the gritty underworld of the human spirit, and a polished piece of literature.

Grade: A

Book 39: Memory's Library

Memory's Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England
Jennifer Summit

I must admit that my feeble attempts to properly "review" this book in any way are, in a sense, futile as this is a strictly academic work that presumes (and rightly so) an extensive knowledge of British history right around the Reformation. Knowledge of Middle English is a must and a working familiarity with Latin will benefit the reader, though long Latin citations are thankfully translated while titles stand unintelligibly in the original. My collegiate experience with the English of the period gave me a cursory knowledge on which to understand the book, but Memory's Library is certainly not a tome for the common, average reader, which is too bad because Summit raises some interesting ideas about libraries and their place in society. Summit traces several strands of library history in distinct chapters necessarily linked by their overlap but which each posits a main thesis; Summit never fails to remind the reader that she "is arguing" even though these "arguments" often read more like litanies of facts or obtuse histories, but no matter. Memory's Library employs a somewhat traditional case-study approach to the history of the major libraries of England during the transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance or, as it is recast here, the transition from monastic libraries to cultivated personal or university collections.

Summit does a good job keeping the overall picture in mind as she transitions from development to development in English library history within and between her chapters, but her account is free from most contextualizing information and the book would be greatly aided with a timeline and/or an appendix with the lifespans of the book's major players, many of whom seem to fade only to pop up in a later chapter, alive and well and corresponding with someone whose history is said to come well after theirs (the chapter about Bacon does this quite egregiously, and much to my confusion). Likewise, there is a lack of a dramatic narrative feeling in this book; Summit is talking about Big Ideas and Grand Developments in History and there is just story after story without attendant, interesting conversations about the meanings of religious censorship or the rise of literacy; it must be said, however, that the book has discussion of English religious development in spades. She is also somewhat repetitive with her quotes, employing large block quotes only to quote each and every line in later discussion, often multiple times. Memory's Library does trace interesting threads of library development in this particularly turbulent period of English history, but it is not meant for the general reader and is highly inaccessible to those not intimately familiar with the history at hand already. There are salient and relevant poitns about the changing function of libraries (such as an engaging discussion of Richard Cotton's library and the emergence of the idea of primary sources), but they are somewhat lost in the endless academic noise.

Grade: B-

Book 38: Maps and Legends

Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
Michael Chabon

Usually, I'm not really one for essays, and I picked this book up on a whim and having recognized the author's name from The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I believe, after reading this wonderful and whimsical collection, that I will have to read more essays. Chabon keeps his topics close at hand in this book, which focuses on the arts of reading and writing throughout and whose essays are usually either either specific criticism or personal anecdotes, and weaves the concept of literary borderlands throughout all of his essays, giving the book an overall theme without adding unnecesasry weight or focusing too much on a thesis or particular axe to grind. If there is any overall thesis to the work it would be the theme, introduced eloquently and humorously in the opening "Trickster in a Suit of Lights", that genre fiction is not to be overlooked and that much literary innovation takes place on the boundaries of genre, where tropes collide and authors experiment to create a sum that is not merely greater than but transcends its parts. Though Chabon writes with authority, he does not seem full of himself and offers what seem to be genuine potshots at himself as he describes his childhood and his early attempts at writing, stories that are referenced in some essays and fully described in others and which give Maps and Legends a semi-autobiographical quality that is light and fun and which gives readers a sense of Chabon's credibility and a sense of familiarity that, in this case, breeds respect.

Despite the fact that a few of the essays herein are focused tightly on one work or body of work, only "The Killer Hook", which focuses on a comic series called American Flagg!, suffers for readers' lack of familiarity. Essays on The Road and the His Dark Materials trilogy are fleshed out with much plot detail and make general points about literature that are supported by the summaries Chabon gives, though these summaries take up the great weight of these essays and become a bit cumbersome as they ramble on without context or interpretation. Regardless, it is easy to sense throughout Maps and Legends Chabon's unceasing affinity for genre fiction and playful literature; his book can be taken as an argument for the respect of now-marginalized fiction and it is difficult to come away from a delightful little essay like "Kids' Stuff" without wanting to run straight for the comic shelves or, better, to write the kind of comic Chabon describes therein. Chabon's essays on other works provide great insight into a modern author's mind and on the state of literature in general, particularly when he posits that the current critical darling lit-fic genre is, itself, a genre with tropes often stricter than those found in science fiction or fantasy; that he does this with gracious humor is a bonus and keeps him from seeming pompous. It is easy to share his disdain.

The essays at the end of the book take a far more serious and autobiographical turn than the more critical first essays, but it is here that Chabon is at his strongest. "Imaginary Homelands" is a fascinating and fresh look at the meaning of Judaism in the post-Israel world, meditative and funny and with an overall poignance that is quite touching and which provokes much thought. Also delightful are his anecdotes about creating his own work and the difficulty of inspiration, particularly "My Back Pages", which combines storytelling with light literary criticism and a thread of self-criticism that pulls the whole thing together and creates an inspiring piece for aspiring writers. From the first musings of "Trickster in a Suit of Lights" to the final words of both "Golems I Have Known" and its phenomenal postmodern postscript, Michael Chabon illuminates the world of fiction in diverse essays that share enough links to make a whole book without shedding individual grace and without becoming overbearing. Any lover of literature, and especially lovers of genre fiction, would be hard-pressed to find more amusing and insightful essays than these and readers of all stripes can appreciate Chabon's mode of self-reflection and intellectual grappling with the state of literature today. I loved every minute of this collection and thirst for more of Chabon's work, both fiction and non-fiction.

Grade: A

Book 37: The Social Life of Information

The Social Life of Information
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

It's back to the nonfiction with this book, which is an outlook on the possible trajectories of information technology from the authors' starting point around the turn of the Millennium. It's strange to revisit this book a full eleven years after most of its examples have had the chance to play out, and though it isn't fair to judge the book simply by the authors' inability to accurately forsee the future, it is hilarious to note a few instances where they are hilariously wrong (my personal favorite is assuming that a start-up will never be able to capture a market again; hello, Google). It is not these forgivable failures that sink The Social Life of Information, however. Buried within its excessive verbosity and obsession with authors' employer are interesting ideas, sure, but it is too damn hard to find them in the rambling, often contradictory prose offered by Brown and Duguid. The authors are perhaps a bit too enthusiastic as they fill their pages with incomprehensible jargon and work on the underlying assumption that readers share a strong business background. Particularly egregious is a mention of 6D thinking well before the list of 6Ds, odd buzzwords that all begin with de- or dis- and which are completely obtuse and unexplained, popping up occasionally in subsequent chapters (despite the authors' insistence that the "essays" can be read in any order). I mean, what does "disintermediation" even mean? Instead of shoring up their argument by explaining how each D represents a trend, the authors leave the words uselessly hanging.

This type of assumptive writing is prevalent throughout the book, which teems with unexplained examples that seem unrelated to the text at large and which unexpectedly pop up later after being left hanging for far too long. Brown and Duguid indulge in technical talk that is, at best, self-indulgent and throw in bonus-point vocabulary words that detract from meaning and come across as flagrant showboating. Their inability to construct an academic argument also adds an air of self-importance; though there are several coherent points in the book, these are repeated as bite-sized tidbits and aren't connected to the data presented. Often, Brown and Duguid use the book as a platform to attack futurologists and predictions of the future, a tendency that is hilarious when they are wrong (which is often) and ironic when they devote twenty pages or so to describing a future of universities which hasn't come to pass yet and doesn't seem to be close. It's paradoxical that in their love of paradox-exposing and use of the word "paradoxical" they unwittingly create a paradox in their own book. Amidst all this bad writing, they make the same point time and again. The Social Life of Information argues, where arguments can be found, that technology can't be ripped from the social context of humanity; the way we use information is as important as how we use information. Brown and Duguid have come up with many interesting examples of this but can't seem to connect them with each other or with larger principles; it's up to the reader to connect the dots and to discard the 85-90% of the book that is useless statistics and almost-unreadable language. The Social Life of Information is an interesting attempt to contextualize technology, but only hardcore information buffs willing to withstand a battery of poor prose should bother with this incoherent list of sometimes interesting ideas.

Grade: C

Book 36: The Invention of Morel and Other Stories (from La Trama Celeste)

The Invention of Morel and Other Stories (from La Trama Celeste)
Adolfo Bioy Casares

Jorge Luis Borges calls The Invention of Morel perfect in no uncertain terms in his introduction to that story, and while he is guilty of the hyperbole he claims to avoid, Casares's story of the strange experiences of a lonely fugitive inhabiting a mysterious island is an excellent and philosophical tale that effortlessly raises issues of free will, love, and immortality without resorting to haughty third-person narration or explicitly discussing these issues out side of the realm of the story. This is a story that is about so much more than its adventure, but it is nonetheless a moving story presented in an engaging and easy-to-read translation by Ruth L. C. Simms. Casares knows how to work with narrative tension, allowing his story to rise and fall without seeming artificial and allowing just enough of the plot ot remain curious and uncertain to produce a riveting tale. His use of an unreliable narrator is absolutely magical as the reader must choose what, exactly, to believe of the fugitive who may be losing his mind or who may have stumbled upon a morally ambiguous and life-altering invention. There are points where the story gets a bit confusing without adding tension or any real benefits to the story and for some reason Casares has an invented editor chiming in throughout the story to discredit the narrator or make asinine comments that may lend themselves to scrutiny of the story's credibility but which only pull the reader out of the story and which cause far more confusion than they clear up. Overall, The Invention of Morel is an engaging tale that posits a world-altering invention and lends itself to philosophical ramblings while maintaining an interesting story line that takes a drastic and tragic turn at its final crescendo.

The other stories in this edition, which together comprise Casares's short story collection La Trama Celeste, provoke similar feelings in the reader, if they are not executed as admirably or are as engaging and interesting beyond themselves. Aside from the incomprehensible "The Future Kings", which doesn't seem to have any sort of significance and which is written poorly and in a confusing manner, the stories of La Trama Celeste are engaging and deal with the unique quirks of spirituality and effects of the universe we can never hope to understand. The best story of the collection is by far "The Celestial Plot", which allows the reader to conjure an explanation without being obvious. The story is a delightful maze of a plot that is enjoyable to read and to ponder afterward.

Like most of its cousins here, "The Celestial Plot" uses engaging first-person narration, though Casares shows a taste for nested narratives that seems redundant and is only used with real success in the otherwise mediocre "The Perjury of the Snow". Overall, however, stories such as "In Memory of Pauline" raise some of the issues seen in The Invention of Morel and employ an atmospheric spookiness that is interesting and enveloping. Casares is able to relate the utterly fantastic with a deadpan seriousness that only serves to amplify the celestial nature of his plots and plot twists. While it's true that reading the collection in one sitting can be tiresome as each story follows the same formula, La Trama Celeste is interesting and engaging, certainly pleasant even if each story hinges on one crucial moment and possesses excruciating amounts of unnecessary detail (see "The Other Labyrinth", most of the plot of which is unnecessary but which leaves a lingering effect upon the reader nonetheless). Taken together, The Invention of Morel and the stories of La Trama Celeste do well to create a mood of the unexpected and present the work of a master of the fantastic. Everything is just a bit off-kilter in these worlds, and the effect is, more often than not, delightful.

Grade: B+

Book 35: Library: An Unquiet History

Library: An Unquiet History
Matthew Battles

In keeping with my recent theme of studying up for my, er, study of library science, I checked out this slim volume on the history of the archiving instinct. It is, for its size, fairly comprehensive chronologically as it stretches from the first collections of stone tablets in the Fertile Crescent through the magnificent Alexandria to the humdrum (and infamous) Melvil Dewey and, inexplicably and out of left field, immigrant narratives from turn-of-the-century America. The problem with any slim volume that attempts to be a complete history is that it must, by necessity, contain holes and, though Battles takes an admirable approach, there are too many holes in Library: An Unquiet History. The book does a good job at tracing the history of the library through examples that exemplify the values of libraries for the given time period, but some examples are far better than others and the book gains much momentum as it moves through history. The first chapter is by far the weakest, an inexplicable collection of trivial tidbits that bear no relation to the text at large and which do nothing to set the gears of time in motion or introduce the text at all. Thankfully, the writing improves but Battles maintains a close focus on trivia and a hearty distaste for context that plagues the book until its final third.

Library: An Unquiet History hits several turning points on the library's journey from elite collection to public free-for-all, but it hits them so perfunctorily and completely that any sense of transition is lost; there is no set-up between punches as they just keep coming. Some examples, like Swift's epic Battle of the Books as allegory, are useful but too drawn out in such a slim volume, existing solely for their own sake and over-explaining far too much in such a small study. Other examples, while interesting (such as the mechanization of the book-making process), are well-written but belong in a different volume. The truly shining examples used in this book are the Dewey Decimal System and the ideology of the nineteenth-century libraries it exemplifies as well as the Nazis' rampant book-burnings, both of which are presented with rich context and an examination of the history and development of the library and its relation to reading and general historical movements. Unfortunately, however, the excellent examples are somewhat hidden in the muddy excess of ephemera and poorly explained and connected trivia bits. Battles shows promise in so many places, but just as a lighthearted search for his own book in a modern library turns into a self-glorifying meditation on his own importance (he assumes someone has checked it out and preposterously suggests it could be classified as either memoir or fiction, proving the antithesis of his point). Ultimately, this book is useful for those heavily invested in the topic who can suspend the critical eye and glean as much information as possible from the scattered stories herein, but fails as an all-encompassing or even particularly thesis-driven work of general-interest history.

Grade: B-

Book 34: The Anarchist in the Library

The Anarchist in the Library
Siva Vaidhyanathan

The problem with so much nonfiction lies not in the ideas it espouses but the ways in which those ideas are presented, often with academic arrogance, disjointed ideas, and unexciting writing. Unfortunately, Siva Vaidhyanathan falls prey to all of these vices in The Anarchist in the Library, a book intended to be a jarring look at how anarchistic principles govern the Internet and information sharing systems in the real world. Instead, the book becomes a jumble of interesting, if poorly presented, ideas and grand pronouncements the author hilariously seemed to miss when declaring modesty in the book's concluding chapter. The book wisely begins with cursory definitions of anarchy and Cynicism (in the Greek philosophy sense) but almost immediately goes astray when these are presented in a confusing manner that presumes knowledge on the reader's part while attempting to serve as an introduction to the ideas in question. Things get more confusing from there as Vaidhyanathan continuously points out anarchy in systems but leaves it only as a label, taking it only at face value and failing to connect the dots or examine how the supposed anarchy is affecting the systems in question. This failure is also present at a mroe general level; it is possible to see what Vaidhyanathan is getting at in his discussion of anarchy and the rampant digital distribution of unauthorized free songs or the nuanced problems copyright (on which he appears to be an expert), but his discussion of the WTO and the People's Republic of China is a bit more obtuse and simply exists without any explanatory threads to connect it to the other ideas in the book.

It isn't that Vaidhyanathan's ideas aren't interesting or provocative; on the contrary, presented more coherently they could form a powerful manifesto about the digital age. The problem is that The Anarchist in the Library is far too concerned with naming systems and practices that promote or disrupt the reigning oligarchies and not nearly concerned enough with explaining how this is happening, why he calls it anarchy, or why it's important. Some overall themes are hinted at in the book's conclusion but they are far too little and come far too late. It is interesting, and perhaps fitting, that Vaidhyanathan's book seems to mirror the systems he describes within: it is a loose connection of ideas presented here, there, and everywhere with only the slightest hint of any editorial oversight. Some are excellent and well-presented (his discussion about copyright is engaging and well presented) while many are confusing and unnecessarily alarmist. In that sense, there's a kind of anarchy in this book, a collection of interesting ideas that just kind of float there and would benefit from some higher control, the kind of control Vaidhyanathan is consistently suspicious of in his book. Ironic, eh?

Grade: C