High Road to China by Jon Cleary - Book Review #320

One of my guilty pleasures is the movie of High Road to China staring Bess Armstrong and Tom Selleck.

After reading North to the Orient I was wanting more adventures from the 1920's.  That book reminded of the movie.  Somehow I discovered it was based on a 1977 novel.   

As the saying goes, "The book was better."  In this case the book was very different.  The basic plot was the same; daughter must rescue father and needs the help of a pilot.  Tom Selleck's version of O'Malley was certainly funny but noting like the source material.

The book had a terrific love of travel and adventure.  Every time they had to put down for fuel, they would be entangled in the circumstances they literally landed in. 

Cleary's writing was crisp and I enjoyed how he changed the points of view and narrators in a consistent way.  Each chapter was broken into sub-chapters from these differing angles.

In my view, movies do not have to follow the books as scripts.  A different take on a story can be just as entertaining and there is something to be enjoyed by each version.

Like I said, I have a soft spot for the movie of this book.  Now that I've read the novel I can appreciate what the film lifted and made a new story from it.

Great summer read.

Because it is a period piece the book stands the test of time. 

I usually want a paper edition of my books but I really did not want to wait for a copy to arrive in my mailbox.  I download the eBook version from Kobo partly because I really liked the cover art.

Through this I've now discovered a new author to explore.  Sadly Jon Cleary is no longer with us but he left many books behind.  I am glad he did.

Travel Writing by Peter Ferry - Book Review #319

This was the strangest most satisfying book I've ever had the pleasure to experience.

It was narrated so very well by Anthony Heald.  His voice kept me coming back to the story especially when I was on the verge of giving up on it after I had put it down for a number of days. 

It was a complicated novel.  The very first lines established that our narrator (the actual author in this case) admits that he's making all this up, except for the parts that are true.  It's not often I've experienced the breaking of the fourth wall in a novel.  I certainly enjoyed it here.

The point of view changes from Ferry teaching a class, to the story of a car crash and how he becomes involved in it and then obsessed by it.  The genres also evolve from a literary fiction of his obsession and the effect is has on his relationships and professional life, to an investigative crime fiction. 

Through it all there are interludes of actual travel writing, which I enjoyed very much for it's observations of people.

Flipping through all of these "realities" sometimes left me confused, but I just allowed the narration to continue and let it wash over me.  I had faith that I would be able to pick up the threads later on.

Peter Ferry is an accomplished and very skilled writer.  To learn this was his debut novel astounded me.  I was left in awe of his skill to pull off such a complex story structure.

A surprise of a book.

Recommended for sure. 

Might I suggest a much more thoughtful review of the book?  If you find yourself unconvinced by me to pick up Travel Writing try, reading this review from the good folks at Bloom.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier - Book Report #318

 I've been reading the book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.  In it he made a chilling observation; how the consumption of news is no longer a shared experience.  In the pre-social media times folks would get their news from television, radio or newspapers.  Everybody got the same message.

Picture this, we are in a large room with dozens of people, or a football game, it doesn't matter, if everybody was looking at their phones at the same time, all looking at the news feed on Facebook, not one feed would be the same!  The algorithms choose what is presented to each individual, tailored to their browning history.

You can see how this could cause confusion among folks, because nobody is getting the same story.  Social media, being what it is, is not not held to the same standards as traditional journalism and therefore has the ability to muddy the waters of trust.

The trouble with algorithms is that they are not working for US, they are working for the social media companies.  They are designed to keep us "engaged" and to stay on their platforms for as long as possible.  These algorithms don't care HOW they keep us scrolling and they all eventually learn that negative stories are more powerful "engagement" tools than positive ones.

By law, traditional broadcast media must present fact-checked and balanced stories.  Do they sometimes get it wrong?  Absolutely!  They are run by humans after all.  But humans are guided by a moral imperative (some more than others to be sure) and we have structures of checks and balances to keep people who are reporting and broadcasting the news accountable.   The black boxes that feed us the news on social media platforms have no such morals and have a different goal than the reporting of the best version of the truth available at the time.

Lanier is a compelling writer and has a sense of humor about the predicament we find ourselves in today.  

Recommended.  It'll make you think about what you're doing with your phone. 

The Diray of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell - Book Review #317

I purchased this book from a lovely new book store, Daisy Chain Book Co. in The High Street on 102 Ave and 125 Street, here in Edmonton.

It was rather fun to buy a book about running a used bookstore from a used bookstore.

Shaun Bythell is a bookseller in Wigtown, Scotland  who took pen to paper and began writing a diary about his life in the shop.  It is filled with quirky characters; the employed, residents of the town, other shopkeepers, postal employees and customers.  All ring the bell over the door and enter his observations.

Bythell has a warm and yet weary take on humanity.  I can certainly relate to often wishing I could function without the encumbrance of other people.  And yet, there is love in his words.  He is a part of the community and he is just as exasperating as everybody else around him.  There is a self-deprecating undercurrent to his observations.

It's an easy book to dip into as each entry is about a page long.  People come and go from the narrative and it's nice when some pop up again.  I found his book buying trips to be very interesting.

The epilogue was heartbreakingly beautiful.  It is life.

Highly, highly recommended.