THE BOOK LIST, PART 4

I feel a bit guilty posting more of my list of books to read when I haven't had time to do very much reading. Many good (very good!) excuses: A script to finish and another to dive into right away, the end of the semester at USC with all my students' work to read and grade, all the end-of-school-year stuff for my kids, getting ready to move, getting ready to move my mom and sell her condo... (I'm tired just typing it all!).

But with a schedule like that, maybe I should try to break off some time for reading, if only to preserve sanity!

In any event, here is the next promised section of my "to-read" list. This comprises the somewhat mushy and overlapping categories of psychology, sociology, parenting, and anything else that seems remotely close.

As always, let me know what you've read and what I should move up to the top of the list! Thanks!

The Psychology of Rumor by Gordon Allport and Leo Postman
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead by David Callahan
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman
Intuition by Allegra Goodman
The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian
The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters by Michael Gurian
Crazybusy: Overworked, Overstretched and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life by Edward Hallowell
Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs
Everything Bad Is Good for You by Steven Johnson
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson
Hip: The History by John Leland
Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future by Neil Postman
The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam
Dress Codes: Meanings and Messages in American Culture by Ruth Rubenstein
The Friendship Factor: Helping Our Children Navigate Their Social World and Why It Matters for Their Success by Kenneth Rubin and Andrea Thompson
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz
You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation by Deborah Tannen
Mom, They're Teasing Me: Helping Your Child Solve Social Problems by Michael Thompson

Just a few more lists to go through. I think next will be the fiction list (woefully short).

Let me know which of this is a can't-miss! Thanks!

THE IMPORTANCE OF SONG CHOICE

So, to our great shock as well as many other folks', Carly Smithson got voted off American Idol the other night.

Why? Song choice.

On the surface, it seemed like Carly made a fine choice. She sang the title song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and did a perfectly acceptable job. In fact, it was even the song Lord Lloyd Webber chose for her (out of her choices). So what went wrong?

I think we have to look at this in the light of previous weeks. Remember, this is the show where "Shout to the Lord" was reprised with the correct lyrics ("My Jesus, my savior" rather than "My shepherd, my savior) presumably because of the zillions of phone calls from Christians who cared about the lyric change.

This is also the show where Kristy Lee Cook had an unassailable week when she sang "God Bless the USA." Simon called it the smartest song choice he'd ever seen, and he was right.

Given that, picking a song that questions who Jesus is might not be the best possible choice. I mean, I know that the song is sung by Judas in the musical, that he is indeed questioning who Jesus is in the context of the show. But most people watching American Idol are far from fully versed on their Andrew Lloyd Webber. All they see and hear is a girl covered with tattoos singing, "Jesus Christ, Superstar, Do you think you're what they say you are?"

Carly shouldn't have been voted off. Her voice is spectacular. She shouldn't even have been in the bottom two: Jason and Brooke belonged there this week, if one were judging on merit alone.

But American Idol is not (just) a singing competition, despite what the judges always say. It's not a competition to find a back-up singer, it's a competition to find a star. And being a star means more than have talent and using it well. It means having a personality that people want to see more of (possibly also a problem for Carly), and it means making the right choices.

Carly made the wrong choice in the sense that she simply did not know her audience. And frankly, there are so many songs from the Lloyd Webber songbook that would have showcased her special talents better. I would have loved to have heard her sing "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina." Or even "I Don't Know How to Love Him," if she really wanted to stick with Superstar.

I always tell my students that the choice of story you want to tell is the most important choice you can make when you're writing. What happened to Carly just proves that again.

And we will all be the poorer for it in the weeks going forward.

THE BOOK LIST, PART 3

Surprisingly enough (at least I find it surprising), a fair number of the books on my to-read list fall in the "business" or "professional" category.

Here's a category where I really want your input. Because frankly, I get really frustrated reading many business books, mainly because the writing in them so often quite weak. So I don't want to waste my time on something that will end up boring or aggravating me.

(In addition, along these lines, if anyone out there has any suggestions on books about organizational growth, I'd love to hear them. The Alliance of Women Directors has grown to the point where we know we have to change some of the structures and policies we've been operating under, and I've ended up being one of the point people for researching this change. So give me your recommendations!)

Here are the "business/professional" books on my to-read list, again in alpha order. Let me know your thoughts!

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Ron Beckstrom
Most Likely to Succeed at Work: How to Get Ahead at Work Using Everything You Learned in High School by Wilma Davidson and Jack Dougherty
What Really Works: The 4+2 Formula for Sustained Business Success by William Joyce and Nitin Nohria
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need by Harvey Mackay
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Market by Nassim Taleb

Not all that many, I realize -- but maybe more once you add your "organizational growth" ideas to the list!

And the next list will be longer... the muddy, overlapping categories of sociology/psychology/parenting/etc. Watch this space. And send your suggestions!

THE HARRY POTTER TRIAL

I haven't been blogging much about Harry Potter in a while -- I needed some personal closure on the series, I guess, and my life has been a bit out of control. But I did want to at least say a word or two about the trial currently underway.

I know some websites, such as John Granger's Hogwarts Professor, have declared a moratorium on discussing the Harry Potter Lexicon trialcurrently underway in New York.

We could debate the issues of copyright infringement -- and frankly, it's hard for me to see how Warner Brothers could possibly win this lawsuit, given the fundamental nature of the book in question as a bona fide reference book. But this time around, that's not the part of the story that touches me.

Instead, my heart just breaks for Steve Vander Ark. I know Steve very slightly, having met him at a couple of Harry Potter related events, most notably the taping of The Hidden Secrets of Harry Potter for A&E. But regardless of that, and regardless of any ups and downs in his life since that time, all I could think of was how painful it must have been to take the stand.

Imagine you've spent almost 10 years of your life geeking out over one subject. You've devoted your life to it, you've become an admitted expert, you've spent probably thousands of hours on it all out of love. And during all those years, you've never had the chance to meet the one person behind the object of your life's devotion. Maybe you've looked forward to it, wished you could. But it's never happened.

And then when you finally meet her, it's because you're being sued by her. The person you hoped would be your advocate, would be your fan in at least some tiny measure, is instead your accuser.

I can hardly imagine anything more painful.

My prayers, such as they are, go up on Steve's behalf during this awful week.

AMERICAN IDOL SHOUTS TO THE LORD

I'm a little late coming to the party on this one, but thought I'd pose a few questions anyway.

Last Wednesday, as you may know, was Idol Gives Back, the giant American Idol telethon raising money to fight poverty and help children worldwide. Last year's Idol Gives Back was a pretty incredible show, as I blogged here.

This year's, I thought wasn't quite as good. They didn't seem to have quite as wide a spread of music choices. Some of the participating celebrities gave off a vibe that they were there to promote themselves more than to help a cause. There was more of an aura of the show (and the Fox network) promoting itself, from the very beginning when the very hot dancers backing the opening number turned out to be the So You Think You Can Dancers (and gee, SYTYCD is coming back on the air momentarily -- what a coincidence!).

I also wondered why Miley Cyrus got two songs. Who canceled at the last minute?

But overall I enjoyed the show. It didn't knock my socks off like last year's, but I enjoyed it.

And then came the closing number.

There was Ryan Seacrest, looking straight at camera, announcing, "And now your Idols sing "Shout to the Lord."

Huh? "Shout to the Lord"? The song we used to sing all the time in church? That "Shout to the Lord"? On American Idol?

Yup. That "Shout to the Lord." There they were, all the remaining Idols, all in white, backed by a gospel choir, singing praise to God.

Except... except they changed one little word. The song starts "My Jesus, my savior, Lord, there is none like you..." But the Idols sang "My shepherd, my savior..."

If you've been following this (admittedly minor) story, you know that the blogosphere lit up the next morning (proving how behind the curve I am). How wonderful that God was praised on the biggest show on TV! How blasphemous that they took out the name of Jesus! Why, without the name of Jesus, it's not a Christian song at all!

But the story didn't end there.

Because Thursday night along came the results show (What a shocker -- Michael?!!)... And this time they opened with "Shout to the Lord." "My Jesus, my savior..." they sang.

And this is where my questions begin.

Who decided to put the song on the show in the first place? Who even brought it to their attention? Who made the decision to change the lyrics? Were there complaints from any of the Idols? From any of the producers? From the Fox network's Standards and Practices department?

Did they have to get permission to use the song, or was it part of the apparently-huge packages of songs they license to have available for the contestants every year? Did they get the songwriter's permission to change the lyric? Did they need to?

And why did they decide to sing it again the next night? Was it that huge a hit (judging from the iTunes downloads overnight)? Did they get a lot of calls and e-mails from Christians ecstatic to hear one of "their" songs on the show? Or from Christians angry at the name of Jesus being dropped? Was there a copyright problem if they changed the lyric without permission (they shorten songs all the time, thus changing the lyrics, so I can't believe that would really be the issue)? What discussion went on within the show itself about the repeat? Did the Idols get to weigh in at all, or are they just puppets here?

My only educated guess: Based on the level of promotion on the earlier parts of the show, I would say they chose to put the song on the show in the first place to respect (or pander to) their large Christian audience. But that's only a guess.

As for the rest of the questions? I'd rather not guess. I'd rather find out what really happened. I don't expect to, of course. But wouldn't it be cool?

THE BOOK LIST, PART 2

I loved the comments, posted and private, that I got about the first part of my "to-read" list. Believe me, I will incorporate all of them, both positive and negative, into my reading choices.

So here's the next mini-list. These are books about writing and about Hollywood (or entertainment in general) and about writing in and for Hollywood. Again, I put them on my list because someone somewhere recommended them, but I probably don't remember the details of the recommendation.

Here they are, alpha by author's last name. If you have any thoughts on any of them, please let me know!

The Screenwriter's Survival Guide, Or, Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War by Max Adams
The Hollywood Rules by Anonymous
Shootout: Surviving the Fame and (Mis)Fortune of Hollywood by Peter Bart and Peter Guber
Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon -- The Case Against Celebrity by Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner
Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby
The Studio by John Gregory Dunne
Hollywood Animal by Joe Esterhas
On Moral Fiction by John C. Gardner
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris
99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden
What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting by Marc Norman
The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time by William Safire
The Hollywood Writers' Wars by Sheila Schwartz
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp

Quite a range here, from the serious to the snarky. Let me know if you've read any of them, and what you think! Thanks!

THE BOOK LISTS

So many people either posted comments or emailed me privately saying that they've always wanted to have a to-read list, but have never done it, that I decided to post parts of my "to-read" list. This is a selfish endeavor on my part: I would really like any of you who have read any of these books to let me know not to bother, because my list is massive (probably around 100 books to read -- and that doesn't include all the Madeleine L'Engle books for this year!).

My list is formed in a random fashion -- I jot down books I hear about mostly, either through word of mouth, or mentioned in something I'm reading. Sometimes a book will sit on the list for a couple of years before I get to it, and sometimes I don't even remember what it is when I finally track it down. All I know is that once I thought it interesting enough to write it on the list.

I'll try to post the list by category. Let's start with the Christian/religious books. (These are often the hardest to find, as most public libraries won't have them.) Let me know whether to highlight any given books, or cross them off.

In alpha order by author:

Finding God in the Movies by Catherine Barsotti and Robert Johnston
The American Religion by Harold Bloom
Roaring Lambs by Bob Briner
Ashes in the Wind by John Fischer
What on Earth Are We Doing? by John Fischer
A Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
Jesus Mean and Wild by Mark Galli
The Call by Os Guinness
Prophetic Untimeliness by Os Guinness
Habits of a Child's Heart by Valerie Hess and Marli Garlett
unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
How to Win the Culture War by Peter Kreeft
The Word on the Street by Rob Lacey
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning
Pop Goes Religion by Terry Mattingly
Love God With All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland and Dallas Willard
He Shines in All That's Fair by Richard Mouw
Do Fish Know They're Wet by Tom Neven
Christ and Culture by Richard Niebuhr
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson
Eyes Wide Open by William Romanowski
The Christian Imagination by Leland Ryken
The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers
The End of the World as We Know It by Chuck Smith Jr.
The Christian Culture Survival Guide by Matthew Turner
Community and Growth by Jean Vanier
God's Politics by Jim Wallis
Rumors of Another World by Philip Yancey

And that's only a small part of it. Now can you see why I want to do some weeding out? Quick, tell me what I can cut off the list (or what I shouldn't dare cut!)...

THE BOOKS OF THE FIRST QUARTER, PART 2

As I said in my last post, most of the books I've read so far this year are by Madeline L'Engle, pursuant to my New Year's resolution to read my way through her bibliography. I have to say, with no disrespect intended to one of my favorite authors, that so far it's mostly been a bit of a slog.

Much as I love alphabetical order, I'm actually going to list the L'Engle books in chronological order, because that's how I'm reading them (more or less, with some blips depending on how long it takes me to actually track a few of the books down).

As always, if I loved it, I link it.

The Small Rain by Madeleine L'Engle.
The Small Rain is the story of a teenage pianist who struggles to figure out how to relate to people when her mother dies and she's shipped off to boarding school in Switzerland. Light on plot, the book fairly pulses with emotion. I found it somewhat overwritten reading it at my age, but had I read it as a teenage girl myself, I suspect it would have been one of my favorites. Let's just say it's definitely a first novel that shows the promise of the writer L'Engle was to become.

Ilsa by Madeleine L'Engle.
A teenage boy grows up in Charleston, captivated by Ilsa, the daughter of a naturalist who is looked at askance by the local inter-married families. This is probably the weakest L'Engle book I've ever read. She tries to write a male character in the first person, and he comes off awfully female at times. The story meanders all over the place, and never resolves. This was not fun to get through, and I had to force myself to keep going back to it. Apparently the book is out of print because L'Engle herself was dissastisfied with it. Good for her.

And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle
Another Swiss boarding school story. A teenage artist is sent to a French boarding school where she doesn't fit in, but learns how to get along with the girls, and meets a local boy with whom she falls in love. I suspect I read this growing up, though I don't have specific memories of it. L'Engle's starting to find her feet here as a writer, with the character of Flip the strongest she's written so far. The boarding school girls also come to life with distinct voices, again an improvement in the writing. If I were still a teenage girl, I know I'd read this one again.

Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle
Also published as Camilla Dickinson. Teenage Camilla's life is rocked when she learns her mother is having an affair. She starts to sort through her emotions, choices, and philosophy of life as she spends time with her best friend's older brother (which the best friend resents). But when they start to fall in love, the older brother has to move away from New York and Camilla is sent off to (you guessed it) Swiss boarding school. This novel was interesting because of the slice of life in 1950s New York it showed us. I was sort of shocked at how much freedom Camilla had. But I wouldn't read it again.

A Winter's Love by Madeleine L'Engle
I tried to read this one. I really did. And I failed not because of the writing, but because of the incredibly odd font. The words literally swam together before my eyes, and I had to keep closing the book. It's out of print, so the chances of finding it printed in a readable font are slim. Maybe I'll try again. If any of you have read it, you can tell me if it's worth the eyestrain.

Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle.
Here's the Madeleine I grew up loving! As an overly-imaginative only child growing up in a blue collar neighborhood with parents who really didn't know how to be a family, how I wanted to move in with the Austins! To have a stalwart, understanding big brother like John, to live in a rambling house with lots of floors and a mom who actually cooked, and a crowded dinner table, and all those brothers and sisters and strangers-taken-in-for-however-long-they-need tumbling all over the place. Meet the Austins is more vignette-driven than plot-driven, but it's the characters we care about here, and I'd happily read whatever happened to them, now just as much as when I was 13.

Here There Be Dragons by James Owen
Three young men who will grow up to be C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams travel to an alternate universe to restore the rightful king; along the way presumably they get the ideas they will use for their own fiction later in life. I should have loved this book. But oh, I didn't. I really didn't. Let's set aside the necessary presupposition that Lewis, Tolkien and Williams didn't have the imaginations to come up with their fiction on their own. The story itself is weak, tedious, and unconvincing. Presumably one should write a pastiche like this for fans of the three authors, yet so little rings true about any of them; the characters are out-and-out boring, in fact (something none of these men would be in "real" life!). A fabulous idea that ended up a mess. What a shame.

...

Okay, I'm back to reading Madeleine, and next in line is A Wrinkle in Time (I assume it will hold up!). My next what-I've-read list will come at the end of June... but I do promise to post before then!

THE BOOKS OF THE FIRST QUARTER

I feel as if I haven't read very much so far this year, but as I look over the list, I realize I've managed more than I thought. Part of that is a lot of reading at the very beginning of the year, while we were still on strike and I hadn't yet gone back to USC.

Lee always gives me mysteries to read at Christmas, usually from used book stores. I'm a big Agatha Christie fan, but there are very few of hers I haven't read, so it's always tough for Lee to track down "new" ones (and he inevitably gets trapped by the fact that her books were sold under multiple titles).

I also have a lot of Madeleine L'Engle on my list, as it was one of my New Year's resolutions to read through her bibliography. I started at the beginning chronologically, and obviously have a long way to go.

So here are the books of 2008 so far. The ones I recommend have links attached.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
Cory got me this book for Christmas, after urging me to read it for months and months. Set in a future where aliens have attacked Earth multiple times, Ender's Game tells the story of child genius Ender who is plucked from his home to undergo incredibly intense military training. Only children, it seems, can learn the skills needed to fight the aliens, skills which take the form of the most extreme video game every imagined. No wonder gamer Cory is such a fan. I was a fan, too, though perhaps not as extremely. I found Ender's Game absolutely riveting to read, couldn't put it down -- but then realized I had no desire to pick it up for a second read, nor to read any of the sequels. I saw the ending twist coming a third of the book ahead of time, and found the overall writing somehow distant. Still, worth the read.

Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie.
When a rich man dies, his family gathers for the reading of the will, only to find other family members kicking the bucket left and right. A Hercule Poirot mystery, Funerals are Fatal is typical Christie -- the country house, the hyper-consciousness of one's place in society. And that's the best part of murder mysteries, after all -- the opportunity to be immersed in a very specific society and understand it from the inside out. Well-plotted, well-written.

Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie.
I really didn't enjoy this at all. A departure from her usual murder mysteries, Passenger is a somewhat bombastic novel suffused with a faux-mysterious tone. When a man loans his passport to a mysterious woman, he gets drawn into a sort of Nazi-based conspiracy. Overall, it feels as if Christie is trying to write a polemic of some sort, but, this far removed from the era in which it was written, one can't really tell what she's trying to warn us about. Not fun to read, and not well-written. Pass this one by.

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie .
I enjoyed this one because it's set on the Cornwall coast, where Lee and I honeymooned oh-so-many-years ago. Not so much a whodunit, Peril at End House is more a who-will-do-it. Poirot, joined by faithful friend Hastings, becomes convinced that a string of accidents are really murder attempts, and sets out to solve the mystery when the "wrong" person is killed. A fun read.

Peril in the Air by Agatha Christie.
This one is so out of date, I don't think it's even in print anymore. Not one of Christie's strongest, it's an interesting period piece because it takes us inside the world of commercial air travel when it was brand new and extraordinarily luxurious, for the most wealthy only. A murder happens on an airplane mid-flight, and Poirot is fortunately on hand to solve it. Interesting for historical reasons only.

Postmortem by Patricia Cornwall.
The first of Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta mysteries, this follows the story of a female medical examiner chasing a serial killer who finally comes after her. I know Cornwall has a lot of fans, but I found this one so-so. The "I'm the only woman and look at the problems it causes me" attitude that Scarpetta sometimes displays feels dated (and not in an interesting peek-into-history fashion as w/ Christie's books -- maybe it's just that enough time hasn't passed yet), as does the CSI technology. Also, the murderer is introduced at the very end, making the opposite of a deus ex machina (someone with a better grasp of Latin can come up with the right term). It didn't make me want to run out and read the next one in the series.

The North Face of God by Ken Gire.
I already blogged about Ken Gire's beautiful, haunting book about facing the silence of God, already listed it on my Best of 2008 list here. So why haven't you bought it yet?!

....Okay, that puts me halfway through my list, and gets me up to the Madeleine books. It's time for me to start gathering myself together for my trek to USC, so I'll leave this here and come back to pick up with Madeleine (and the only book coming after her alphabetically) tomorrow (or so).

Happy reading!