BooksFirst - January 2014 - NaJuReMoNoMo

Books Bought
The Elephants of Style by Bill Walsh

Books Read
Daemon by Daniel Suarez
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen
The Rules of Attraction by Brett Easton Ellis

Books Heard
Loser by Jerry Spinelli
The High Place by James Branch Cabell
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Comments
National Just Read More Novels Month which I run every January encourages people to read as many novels as they can in the 31 days of January. This year I managed to only read two, but I did listen to three, which I also count. This edition of Books First also covers two books I read in 2013 which I forgot to catalog on my year end round up.

The first of these is a cybertechnothriller set in the near future. Daemon unfolds when a brilliant but mad computer game programmer dies under mysterious circumstances. However, strange things continue to happen seemingly guided by his hand beyond the grave. Daniel Suarez's novel is told through the viewpoint of a couple of characters entrapped by his cyberweb. One, a cop is framed for other nefarious reasons. The other is superhacker who gets lured into an organization with sinister goals.

The story is very fast paced even as it stretches credulity at every turn. Science fiction relies a lot on hypercompetent people, but the ones in Daemon would make Heinlein wince. Underlying it is a lot of crypto-libertarian philosophy about government and freedom and choice. It's really unclear which side of some of the rants the author is coming down on but they make for intriguing discussion.

The second leftover from 2013 is A Long Way Down which got inexplicably overlooked since I am such a huge Nick Hornby fan. In this one, the narrative gimmick that Hornby uses is four interweaving first person narratives of a group of people that all independently wanted to commit suicide. They are in turn a disgraced TV show host, a spoiled rich girl, a failed American musician, and the mother of a special needs teenager.

Each of the four people has secrets and baggage which get unpeeled slowly over the course of the book. However, not all four are equally intriguing. This makes the book uneven overall and drags some sections down. Part of the narrative force is watching them open up to each other Breakfast Club style while seeing them get on with their lives.

Hornby is always intriguing to read but here he is stretching muscles and showing off just a bit. But still a good fast paced thought provoking read.

My first novel of 2014 was Bad Monkey by Carl Hiassen. Hiaasen has toned down some of his excesses to good effect. The story opens very similarly to his first novel Tourist Season with the shark gnawed arm of tourist floating up. But there has to be more to the story if this is to be a Hiassen Florida Gothic novel, which it is.

The hero is former Miami cop on a downward spiral in a petty feud with his Florida Keys neighbor. He is the only one willing to track down the arm which is hard to do as a restaurant inspector. He is joined by a slightly kinky medical examiner and the usual cast of Florida oddballs.

The story is uproariously funny whether you are familiar with the Keys or not. The book does aim for a sensibility that is more 'realistic' than many recent Hiaasen novels were he seemed determined to top himself again and again for outrageousness and the book is better for it.

In the 80s I read all the hip enfant terrible writers of which Jay McInerney was the spiritual ringleader. I read Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis but never delved deeper into his oeuvre.  I finally got around to The Rules of Attraction which is now a period piece rather than cutting edge expose.

Told in overlapping first person narratives, the story covers several months in the lives of oversexed and overmedicated college students at an expensive rural liberal arts college not unlike Bennington where Ellis went. The main story revolves around a romantic triangle between two guys and a girl which is different in that none of the three realize they are in a triangle. There is a lot of drama involving overdoses and bad sex and parents who just don't understand.

Even with the passage of time, it's tough to reconcile the sheer debauchery depicted with any realistic trajectory of the 1980s as wild as they were. The list of drugs these students take is literally encyclopedic. And there needs to a level of randomness below casual to describe all the hook-ups. IIRC, Spy Magazine was published the definitive chart of who had slept with whom and it just looked like someone scribbled all over the page.

However, it is compelling storytelling with biting prose. It's just not that interesting a story.

A staple of elementary school literature is Loser by Jerry Spinelli about the travails of a kid who just doesn't fit in. The audiobook is narrated by Steve Buscemi who seems particularly suited for this story. The loser hero is Donald Zinkoff, a kid who marches to a drummer so different he might as well be in a band on another planet.

The story is sweet without being cloying as it details his troubles fitting in. He likes school perhaps a bit too much. He is painfully nonathletic and cluelessly oblivious to the taunts of his classmates. However, the book avoids taking the easy way out at a number of turns.

I can see why this book is so popular in schools. It is easily understandable without being preachy. Zinkoff is a character kids far less dorky than him can relate to. One can have worse role models.

I had never heard of James Branch Cabell but the audio version of The High Place carries the endorsement of and forward by Neil Gaiman. And the book does have a certain Gaimanesque sensibility. In a magical 18th century France, the son of nobleman enters into a pact with the devil to win the heart of a sleeping beauty he saw briefly as a child.

But nothing quite turns out as it seems and supernatural contracts always have catches. What makes this novel interesting is how wryly cynical it is. The hero is a self-deluded philanderer whose wives tend to die under mysterious circumstances. For a novel written in the early 20th century, it is slyly bawdy and deeply sacrilegious.

There is also a certain self-knowing sense that is slightly reminiscent of The Princess Bride, although much darker. It makes for a very interesting story in context by a writer who seems to have been forgotten.

Jonathan Safran Foer is a very ambitious writer and in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close he tackles the World Trade Center attacks and its aftermath on the child of one of its victims. Told in three intertwining first-person narratives between Oskar Schell and his grandparents. Oskar's narrative which is much of the book is both highly sophisticated and full of childish stylistic flourishes, not the least of which is the repetition of 'incredibly' and 'extremely'.

Oskar finds a hidden key and decides to find what it opens in hope that it reveals something about his lost father. There are a lot of odd plot holes that all seem to get eventually resolved but there is a certain tidiness to everything which is just too perfect.

The grandparents come from Dresden which is of course the setting of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. The book borrows or steals a major conceit of that book which is either a touching homage or outright theft depending on how charitable you want to be towards Foer. I'm not certain I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

National Just Read More Novels Month 2011

It's hard to believe it has been five years since the first ever National Just Read More Novels Month (or NaJuReMoNoMo for the abbrevophillic) and it has grown bigger every year. Celebrated every January, it is devoted to the appreciation of fiction. Just in case you are new to it or need a refresher, here is this year's version of the official rules:

1. Must Be A Novel. Works of fiction only, please. Memoirs, non-fiction, how-to books, and Doonesbury collections, no matter how thick, don't count, no matter how obviously fictional.
2. Memoirs Aren't Novels. No matter how made up the story, anything ostensibly true isn't a novel. This used to be known as The James Frey Rule, but is now called the Decision Point.
3. Start and Finish in January. I guess if you got some cool books for Christmas, Hanukkah or some other gift-giving event and jumped the gun, you can't be blamed. But I only count books I start and finish within the 31 day window.
4. Re-reading Doesn't Count. Try something new. Read something by your favorite author or try an entirely new author. This is a great chance to cut down on the height of the nightstand stack.
5. Have Fun. Nobody is grading you or paying you or judging you. Read what you like and like what you read.

Last year we started the Facebook group, which anyone can join. It has several dozen members and it just keep growing.

This year NaJuReMoNoMo is expanding to Twitter. Anytime you finish a novel, just tweet about it with the hashtag #NaJuReMoNoMo.Someone will be curious enough to try to figure it out.

In the past, people have claimed to not have enough notice about the start, so I am posting this a few days early so you can clear the decks and get those novels ready to be read at the stroke of midnight on New Years. It only takes one novel to declare yourself a winner.

As always we have a fine selection of badges and logos which can be downloaded from Photobucket or just swiped from this page.



And have a great month of reading.

NaJuReMoNoMo Wrap-Up

National Just Read More Novels Month, or NaJuReMoNoMo if you like tongue twisters, had a great year and lots of people read tons of books.

It's very heartening to see so many people participating for the third time or more. The biggest boost this year seems to have come from J. Kaye's Book Blog who was phenomenal at spreading the word. I also seem to have inspired a much longer challenge called the 12 x 12 Reading Challenge which lasts all year with a different blog hosting each month. If you love NaJuReMoNoMo, I strongly recommend visiting these other fine blogs.

It has literally become impossible to keep track of all the participants, but here is a partial list of blogs I'm aware of that took part. I also want to recognize all the non-bloggers that take inspiration as well.

Book Dragon - 1 book
The Lost Entwife - 30 books
Bookwormygirl - 20 books
Diva With A Budget - 10 books
Sandra of Fresh Ink Books - 12 books
Jules - 10 books
J. Kaye - 15 books
Helen - 5 books
Sharon - 12 books (her third year and her second gold year)
Sharon's Garden - 12 books
Barbara Maller - 10 books
Shewbridge
My Spring Snow
The Black Cell - 16 books
CMash - 7 books
Lab Cat - 4 books
Maureen
Hannah
Musings of a Book Addict
Reading Schtuff - 8 books
Jo - 19 books
Eating Y.A. Books - 13 books
Steena Holmes - 10 books
"Quote"topia - 6 books
A Chick Who Reads aka The Mistress of the Dark
New Century Reading
Vasilly - 20 +/- books
Veggie Mom of 2 - 6 books
Bibliophile By The Sea
The Book Zombie - 10 books
The Book Czar now at Review From Here

So until next year, keep up all the good reading.

BooksFirst - January 2010

Books Bought
none

Books Read
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Confusion by Neal Stephenson
The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman

Comments
For National Just Read More Novels Month, I decided to go for quality over quantity. The goal was to read the best books I could instead of just the most.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo doesn't count towards NaJuReMoNoMo since I started it way back in October. This book by the now deceased Stieg Larsson is huge word-of-mouth hit. At least part of it is the oddly exotic Swedish setting. Another factor is the slightly kinky narrative and the titular OCD fantasy girl.

A disgraced business journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, is lured into investigating a decades old disappearance. As with most murder mysteries, there is more to the tale than what first appears. The original title translates from the Swedish as Men Who Hate Women and there are plenty of them in this novel. We are talking some world-class brutal misogynists in this book. The creepy sado-masochistic scenes are more than disturbing.

I'm not quite sure what really explains the runaway success of this book. While it is a thriller, it is hardly taut. There are sub-plots that go nowhere. Blomkvist and the tatted up researcher don't cross paths until half-way through the book. Among the major characters are dozens of similarly named red herrings floating around. The novel could easily be a hundred pages shorter and not lose much. It was a good book, but didn't quite live up to the hype. Perhaps I am missing some clue, but I'm just not seeing what everybody else does.

Recently I have been running across lots of greatest science fiction lists and one of the books that kept coming up was Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. I'm not a big fan of military science fiction so I've never given this book a shot, but in a way it's the anti-Starship Troopers. Rather than glorify combat, it emphasized the random futility of warfare. Written in the Vietnam era, it has remains just as relevant today, if not more so. The edition I read has much longer, bleaker middle section than the original novel and it adds much to the tone.

Only now do I realize how much other novels owe this book. The relativistic time dilation that made the gap between Ender's Game and Speaker For The Dead plausible was in here. The detailed spaceship battles of A Mote In God's Eye resemble the maneuvers detailed here. I imagine nearly every book with a hint of interstellar combat owes it some amount of debt.

The book is not without its flaws. The sexuality is painful even when it is trying to be hip and open-minded. The minor characters are flat and often have a whiff of red shirt on them. But overall, this book is thought provoking. With a canvas of centuries, it paints an interesting panorama. It's a haunting book. One that drifts back into your periphery even when you think it's gone.

The real goal of the month was to make it all the way through the middle volume of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Taking place just after the events of Quicksilver, The Confusion follows the separate exploits of Jack Shaftoe and Eliza as they maneuver through pirate infested waters and the courts of Europe respectively. Tying it together is a MacGuffin load of mysterious gold.

For an eight-hundred page book that deals with banking and international commerce, the narrative is riveting and compelling. About half way through the book when I realized where the narrative arc was going, I became fascinated with the epic scope of the tale. Way more than a picaresque tale, it became a dissection of the world at a specific moment in time. There is real ambition here and for the most part, Stephenson pulls it off. It is more than a compliment to say that the undescribed interstitial episodes are probably more fascinating than other entire novels.

Despite being the middle book of a trilogy, it has very satisfying conclusion while still setting up the conclusion. After racing to the end I had to face the grim realization that there are nearly another nine-hundred pages in the saga. It won't take me until the next NaJuReMoNoMo to tackle them.

Having completed The Confusion a day earlier than planned, I still had time for one more book if picked the right one. For a fairly johnny come lately fan of Neil Gaiman (goth-lit rock god), it is perhaps surprising that I am unfamiliar with his magnum opus, the Sandman series. I read the first two volumes from the library but hit a dead end. Since then I have been picking up later books at locally run comic-book stores when I am near them.

The second true volume, The Doll's House, except for a single interesting sidebar story, tells of Morpheus hunting down some of his wayward minions. Along the way there are plenty of disturbing nightmares about abuse and torture and obsession. In the middle there is also an odd meta-swipe at the delusions of the traditional superhero type. Visually dense, the story requires careful attention to track the imagery and symbolism that are as important as the words.



So my final count is two novels and a graphic novel, so I'm giving myself the triple winner badge.

National Just Read More Novels Month 2010

The viral internet sensation that is National Just Read More Novels Month (or NaJuReMoNoMo for kinda short) continues to steamroll along. Now in its fifth year (which is 237 in internet years), NaJuReMoNoMo encourages people all over the world to take some time and curl up with a good book. There are tons of sites and memes and contests that encourage writing, but without readers writing is futile. Every year, I and other NaJuReMoNoMo participants dedicate ourselves to reading novels every January. By doing so, we are creating a demand for quality fiction and spreading the word about good books and authors.

January was picked because the weather is dreadful and it is a nice long month to catch up on all those books on the nightstand. Nobody is hectoring you to write a novel, so you might as well read one.

2009 was a fantastic year with over 30 formal participants and more than 250 books read. We had all sorts of blogs pass on the good word and many previous participants are listed here. I want to give a special shout out to Gautami Tripathy who is one of our charter participants and runs a wonderful bookblog here.

The rules are whatever you want to make of them, but here are the guidelines I go by:

1. Must Be A Novel. Works of fiction only, please. Memoirs, non-fiction, how-to books, and Garfield collections don't count.
2. Memoirs Aren't Novels. No matter how made up the story, anything ostensibly true isn't a novel. Also known as The James Frey Rule.
3. Start and Finish in January. I guess if you got some cool books for Christmas, Hanukkah or some other gift-giving event and jumped the gun, you can't be blamed. But I only count books I start and finish within the 31 day window.
4. Re-reading Doesn't Count. Try something new. Read something by your favorite author or try an entirely new author or tackle that novel you have always wanted to read.
5. Have Fun. Nobody is grading you or paying you or judging you. Read what you like and like what you read.

The big news this year is that we have made the social networking jump and joined Facebook. Join the NaJuReMoNoMo group and start discussing what you are reading and how you are progressing. I'm hoping this will open up the challenge to a lot more people including non-bloggers.

For bloggers we have the usual bevy of logos and badges that you can plaster your site with. I'm just linking to the Photobucket album so that you can pick and choose what you need. Just click on the slideshow to get taken to the album where you can pick and choose images. I'm doing this rather than providing code because you can take advantage of all of the Photobucket social networking links as well. So tweet and facebook and whatever other way of oversharing you have.

The green, silver, and gold multiple winner badges (3x. 5x, and 10x respectively) can be mixed and matched to document the exact number of books read if you want. Last year's top winner was a triple gold reader. But you only need one novel to qualify and the blue winner badge is plenty.

Nothing is a better entertainment value than a book. So read and share the novels you like and spread the word about NaJuReMoNoMo.

NaJuReMoNoMo Winners

National Just Read More Novels Month is finally over and hundreds of novels have been read. I want to thank everybody that participated and especially those that spread the word. Here are the winners that have left a comment or posted something that came to my attention some other way (I have my sources). Also, they are in no particular order since everybody is a winner and I'm too lazy to try to sort them.

Sue at The Conical Glass - 3 books
Lab Cat - 4 books
Tif at Tif Talks Books - 2 books
Elizabeth at As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves - 5 books
Claude at Baltimore Diary - 1 audio book and one graphic novel
Sandra at Fresh Ink Books - 18 books
nely at All About {n} - 16 books
Yooperchick at Penny's Pages - 18 books
Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise - 10 books
Cami at Becoming Army Strong - 12 books
mega89 at Literary Menagerie - 6 books
Book Blogger at Challenging The Bookworm - 13 books and 1 audiobook
Daewalker - 16 books
Bookworm at Behold, The Thing That Reads A Lot - 10 books
Kim at Page After Page - 3 books and 1 graphic novel
Book Dragon at Book Dragon's Lair - 14 books
Jules at Jules' Book Reviews - 5 books
Jenny at Jenny's Page - 7 books
gautami tripathy at Reading Room - 15.5 books
Kristen at BookNAround - 8 books
K at Slip Carefully... - 13 books
mostlurking/seasea - 1 book
A Novel Menagerie - 10 books
drey at Drey's Library - 28 29 30 books
Sharon at A Bookworm's Blog - 11 books
Joanna M at As The Nest Empties - 3 booksHippy Chick - 7 books
Marg at Reading Adventures - 5 books
raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading - 9 novels
katrina at katrina's reads - 5 books
April at Cafe of Dreams
Needles at Needles and Things
Booklogged at A Reader's Journal

If I've missed anybody or screwed up your link, or you just want to brag some more, feel free to leave a comment.

I want to again congratulate everybody for participating and I hope to see you all again next year. And bring a friend. And some good books.

Get Your NaJuReMoNoMo Awards

Throughout the month I have been floored by the runaway success of National Just Read More Novels Month aka NaJuReMoNoMo. If you haven't been leaving comments in the Kick-Off Post, now is your chance to brag about your success.

In a couple of days I will be scouring this post and the earlier one for a list of self-proclaimed winners. If you want to be included just leave a comment with your name or alias or witness protection plan identity, the number of novels you read, and any blog or specific post you want me to link to.

It's also never to late to join retroactively. If you read a novel before you even heard of NaJuReMoNoMo and meet all the other rules (mainly it must be fiction and it must be start to finish within January) you can still claim victory.

If you have left a comment already, I'll find it, so no need to re-post unless you just want to brag some more.

And be sure to pick-up your suitable for framing badges.

Winner: Read at least one novel start to finish in January.

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Green Winner: Three novels

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Silver Winner: Five novels

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Gold Winner: Ten or more novels

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And you can mix and match badges if you are so inclined. For example, eight novels would be a silver and a green. 35 novels would be three golds and a silver.

Look for the wrap-up in a few days and congratulations in advance.

NaJuReMoNoMo Is Working

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, reading of fiction is up for the first time in over 25 years. As reported in the Washington Post:

For the first time since the NEA began surveying American reading habits in 1982 -- and less than five years after it issued its famously gloomy "Reading at Risk" report -- the percentage of American adults who report reading "novels, short stories, poems or plays" has risen instead of declining: from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent in 2008.

While it would presumptuous of me to take ALL the credit, clearly National Just Read More Novels Month is having an effect. So congratulations to all you successful fiction readers out there that are bucking the trend.

Fourth Annual NaJuReMoNoMo

It's hard to believe that it is now the Fourth Annual National Just Read More Novels Month, or NaJuReMoNoMo as I prefer to call it (just not aloud, because it nearly unpronounceable). This is my lower threshold alternative to National Novel Writing Month which requires an awful lot of writing and not everybody can write. But if you are here, you can read. The rules are really, really simple. All you have to do is read a novel in the month of January. Since there always people that want to know the full legalities, here are this year's version of the fine print:

1. Only Novels Count. This means no non-fiction books, memoirs, short stories, essay collections, or books based on internet memes like LOLcats. The judge is out on graphic novels. It's your call.
2. Memoirs Don’t Count. Even if they are fictional. And especially if they are fake memoirs about the Holocaust.
3. It Can’t Be A Novel You Have Already Read. Expand your horizons. Try some new authors.
4. You Must Start At The Beginning. If the book is on your nightstand, you have to start over. We are looking at January 1 to January 31. That is 31 days. We are on a deadline.
5. Have Fun. This a lark. You wouldn't be reading if you didn't enjoy it.

And of course we have our valuable prizes. You get to brag about your literacy ability by posting our "Winner" badges on your site. Any book qualifies for the Blue Winner badge. Now a lot of people read more than one. Three books qualifies for the Green Badge. Five gets the Silver Badge and ten is the Gold level.



Just right click and download or visit the official Photobucket site. And you can mix and match for anything in between. Last year's top reader was 13.

Once you've read your book, just leave a comment if you want to be included to the wrap-up party. And have a great NaJuReMoNoMo.

NaJuReMoNoMo 2008 Wrap-Up

This has been a fantastic National Just Read More Novels Month and I want to thank everyone for participating. In celebration, I am putting together an admittedly incomplete list of winners since millions of people must have read a novel in January and just didn't realize it was part of a higher purpose. Pass the word onto your friends and let them know they are winners too.

Below is a list of people in no particular order that I am aware of as winners. If I missed you or if there is a more appropriate link for your blog, leave a message in the comments and I'll get you updated. And if you are a latecomer but feel like a winner, badges are still available.

gautami tripathy My Own Little Reading Room
Michelle - 1morechapter
raidergirl3 - an adventure in reading
Marg - ReadingAdventures
mostlylurking - Sue's Thoughts
Elizabeth - Charlottesville Words
Lab Cat - Lab Cat
dshep - ~shep nachas~
Charli - Bloody-Kisses.org
YummY - YummY! Down On This
Happily Coupled - Observed In Books
Clifford Garstang - Perpetual Folly
Leah - 888
Booklogged - A Reader's Journal
Becky - Becky's Book Reviews
Liss - Epiphanies & Random Thoughts
Jim Bashkin - Jim's Words Music & Science
Paula - The Magic Bookcase...
Amy - The Sleepy Reader
Stephanie - Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic
April - Cafe of Dreams
TBG - The Boodler
Nyssaneala - Book Haven
Nithin - When A Book Tells A Story
Sue - The Conical Glass
Margaret - Silken Tent

Remember, I hold this challenge every January and everyone is welcome to come back next year. It's great to know the love of reading is still alive.

BooksFirst - January 2008

Books Bought

None

Books Read

Slam by Nick Hornby
A Slipping Down Life by Anne Tyler
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Comments

I’m a winner! By reading three novels in January I am entitled to the Green Badge to proudly display my accomplishment. I’m still taking winner announcements in comments on any post with the NaJuReMoNoMo tag (which includes this one). I will collect a list of winners in the next post or two.

I talked a bit about Slam, Nick Nornby’s foray into youth fiction when I became aware of the hot new babies-having-babies trend in the media. I first discovered Nick Hornby when I picked up a copy of High Fidelity in the now defunct Bibelot chain. Since then I have read most of his other novels, several of which have been made into movies. One of Hornby’s trademarks is the hero who is stuck in an extended adolescent. For Slam he reverses the arc and an actual kid has to learn how to act like an adult while remaining a teenager.

Sam is a skater that talks to his Tony Hawk poster when he needs advice. Tony “talks” back entirely in quotes from his autobiography that ore often oddly relevant. He meets Alicia at a party and they begin fooling around with the inevitable tragic results. Unlike most stories about teen pregnancy, this one takes the point of view of the hapless father to be. The novel is told in the first person which is a stunning stylistic feat.

Anne Tyler has been one of my favorite authors since the mid 80’s when The Acccidental Tourist and Dinner At The Homesick Café were ubiquitous on the reading lists of people I knew. I reviewed Digging To America back in June 2006. A Slipping Down Life is one of her older novels, predating her adoption of Baltimore as her primary story setting location. A teenage girl gets a crush on a local struggling musician and carves his name into her forehead. From this rather disturbing start, a typically unsettling Tyler un-love story emerges.

I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly what makes an Anne Tyler novel so Tyleresque. These eccentric slices of life are often bittersweet and melancholic and all those elements are here. Evie is chubby insecure student that fall for a self-involved aspiring rock star long on hope but short on drive. Written in the late 60s, some of the dialog sounds dated, but the timeless Tyler themes of dreams deferred and opportunities lost and regained remain as poignant as ever.

Since I first discovered Neil Gaiman as a writer when he was Guest of Honor at Balticon a few years ago, I have been dipping into his works more and more. At first I thought Neverwhere would be a little too dark and macabre for me, but instead it was wonderfully inventive and clever. In the Neverwhereverse, there exists a parallel universe of lost souls in the London Underground. Richard Mayhew, a mildly milquetoasty Londoner, helps an orphan girl and his life changes as he crosses over to the down below. There he gets drawn into a web of intrigue and adventure.

The world Gaiman creates is full of myth and legend, both literary and urban. The world follows its own twisted logic and involves a plot to destroy a noted family with odd navigational powers. The real breakout characters in the novel are Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, a pair of assassins who speak in an odd formality. The novel is an adaptation of a six part BBC series that I am wholly unfamiliar with. Gaiman’s cross-media experiments continue to amaze me with how versatile he is. I hope he returns to London Below someday.

Nutjobs and NaJuReMoNoMo

Way back in October of 2005 I named a certain Scientologist movie star Hunkiest. Nutjob. Ever. Since then he has done everything possible to cement his crown. I have long spun an elaborate theory that the break-up between him and a certain redheaded Australian was due to her infidelity being discovered as a result of her pregnancy not being his since he was impotent. This theory refuses to die and was recently rehashed complete with a not entirely convincing timeline and official denials in Defamer.

A side conspiracy theory of mine implies that the child of his with his current starlet wife is not his own and is part of a cover-up when she needed to protect her squeaky clean image and he could use some positive publicity as cover. Now a new book is out alleging things that even my imagination is too tame to invent. Let’s just say that L. Ron Hubbard lives. Why have I written this without naming said nutjob? Because Scientologists are not just nuts, they are highly litigious. I guarantee I will receive at least one comment accusing me of religious intolerance for besmirching such a noble respected religious institution.

The parody newspaper of record, The Onion, has inadvertently commemorated National Just Read More Novels Month with this article (ht to kb) about a town upset at the oddball behavior of one of its inhabitants. He read a book. If you want to be among the many, many winners of NaJuReMoNoMo, you only have four more days left to get that novel read. I’m going to be combing through the comments, e-mail, and Google Alerts for as full a list as I can. I know that Marg and raidergirl are two of the many participants closing in on the coveted Gold Badge.

And for the record, while Dianetics is a complete work of fiction by a second rate hack, it does not count as a novel for NaJuReMoNoMo.

BlatantCommentWhoring™:: Does the couch jumping lunatic hurt or help himself with his constant libel lawsuits?

NaJuReMoNoMo Badges

National Just Read More Novels Month has gone international. Book blogger gautami tripathy from India has been spreading the word far and wide and daily more participants stream in. One point of confusion seems to be the multiple levels of winners and how to use the badges.

Every novel you read in January makes you a winner all over again, so you can win as many times as you want. Some people are content just to display the single winner badge, but others like to show off a little. For them I have multiple winner badges. Also, photobucket, being a blatant self-promoting entity, links back to the page with the badge rather than the NaJuReMoNo site. If you got the badge from there you may want to tweak the href= portion of the link to point to the official NaJuReMoNoMo 2008 page which is http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2007/12/najuremono-2008.html.

For your convenience, here are all the badges with cut and paste ready code. (Pardon the weird blank space, Blogger is inserting too many break tags and my skilz aren't 1337 enough to figure out why.)

	Participant – Show your intent by using this badge. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2l3mgt"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="100" src="http://tinyurl.com/ywr45o" border="0" alt="NaJuReMoNoMo" /></a>
	Winner – Any novel qualifies you to proudly display your achievement. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2l3mgt"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="100" src="http://tinyurl.com/2f563u" border="0" alt="NaJuReMoNoMo" /></a>
	Green Level (3x) – Three novels in January. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2l3mgt"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="100" src="http://tinyurl.com/2b74vs" border="0" lt="NaJuReMoNoMo" /></a>
	Silver Level (5x) – Five novels in January. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2l3mgt"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="100" src="http://tinyurl.com/2e6kmj" border="0" alt="NaJuReMoNoMo" /></a>
	Gold Level (10x) – Ten novels in a January. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2l3mgt"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="100" src="http://tinyurl.com/26fag2" border="0" alt="NaJuReMoNoMo" /></a>

If the exact number of novels you read doesn’t equal any even level, feel free to mix and match. Eight novels is a Silver and a Green. Twenty-three novels is two Golds and three Winners.

And if you are html savvy, or want the original image, you can still get the direct links to the badges at the Official NaJuReMoNoMo Prize Booth.

Have at it. I am so excited to see all these badges everywhere. Read with pride.

NaJuReMoNoMo Winners And Supporters

If you pay any attention to my sidebar you will see that I have declared myself a 2008 National Just Read More Novels Month winner. I finished Nick Hornby's Slam earlier this week and I thank him for writing a short youth-oriented (but by no means juvenile) novel for me to cut my teeth on. We are barely a third of the way into January and we already have some other NaJuReMoNoMo winners. Lets give some accolades to the early finishers here.

LabCat is a threepeat (sorry, I refuse to pay Pat Riley royalties for his trademarked phrase) participant who polished off The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath earlier this week. Kudos for tackling a more famous work and surviving the residual depression.

Achenblog Boodlers have jumped in the game and Sue, aka mosltlylurking, a great knitter has already declared herself a winner.

Leah finished The Game by Laurie King. Leah runs her own reading challenge for people that want some tougher year-round action if you already have NaJuReMoNoMo polished off. In the 888 challenge you read eight books in eight categories of your own choosing (or invention) for a total of 56 in one year. Yeah, I don’t get the math either, but I think you are allowed to overlap.

I also want to shout out to the many readers either new to me or hitherto lurkers that have helped spread the word. It’s embarrassing when you aren’t even the number one Google hit on your own invention. That honor belongs to Charlottesville Words which was good, game, and giving for my blatant self-promotion.

Among the CW readers that jumped in were Melissa Wiley of Here In The Bonnie Glen and Clifford Garstang of Perpetual Folly.

I don't know how DShep of ~ shep nachas ~ found me but I'm glad he did. The Deb-Log is another in-depth litblog that was nice enough to pass on a link.

Other people that have chimed in that I’m look forward to include lostcherrio aka The Harpoonist who is a writer herself. Maybe one day we'll get to read her novel.

And I would be nowhere without the support of my regular readers like Sue Trowbridge of The Conical Glass and HRH Courtney Queen of the Universe of the MSGAA (I link to her so much my wife may be getting suspicious).

Be sure to pick up your prize badges and keep reading as many novels as you can this month. This is clearly shaping up to be the best NaJuReMoNoMo ever!

BlatantForgivenessBegging™: If I haven't linked to you and you have done anything at all for me, leave a comment and I will get an update out.

NaJuReMoNoMo 2008

Two years ago I invented a semi-parody of National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo that I called National Just Read More Novels Month or, for not-so-short, the unpronounceable NaJuReMoNoMo. It’s only a semi-parody because I am completely serious about wanting people to read more novels. January is the perfect month for this sort of internet meme. It’s the middle of winter and doesn’t conflict with any major holidays. January is 31 days long, giving people plenty of time to read a book. Folks are flush with cash and gift cards from holiday giving, And they are burnt out from the endless November challenges that require too much work.

Best of all, NaJuReMoNoMo is astoundingly easy. All you have to do is read any novel from start to finish within the month of January. You can read memoirs or non-fiction in January, they just don’t count towards your NaJuReMoNoMo total.

Since this is the third annual NaJuReMoNoMo, I had expected it to be an internet-wide sensation by now, but participants seem to be limited to my regular readers. I thought long and hard and realized that the impediment to its breakthrough was the lame logo. The old logo was something I slapped together and it looked it. This year I ran it through Photoshop Elements and enhanced it. The logo now has a transparent background so it doesn’t clash with people’s templates. The dark letters are embossed with white outlines so they will look fine on dark backgrounds as well. Take a look at the improvement:

Old Lame Logo

New Super Cool Logo

Updated: You can find all the official NajuReMoNo winner badges here.

I also need to up the blatant meme plugging. I apologize in advance, but I am going to be relentless on book blogs and literary sites. If you found this site from a spammish link I have left somewhere, remember that it is never too late to start NaJuReMoNoMo. All you have to do is finish reading a novel by the end of the month.

And if you have a blog that does book reviews or know someone with one, either drop a hint or pass it on to me and I will make a nuisance of myself. Get the word out this year and next year will be even bigger than ever. We’ll get mainstream media attention and in-store promotion from BigBoxOfBooks and OtherBigBoxOfBooks. Maybe even prizes, but don't hold your breath.

Once you have read the novel, you are entitled to post this spiffy badge on your page. Either cut and paste the image or insert the code.

<a href="http://tinyurl.com/2l3mgt"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" width="100" src="http://tinyurl.com/2f563u" border="0" alt="NaJuReMoNoMo" /></a>

And since my mad graphix skilz are woefully inadequate, anyone with real talent (I’m looking at you, Dave) is welcome to improve on it. Just leave comments or links or e-mail and we can talk. If I were anywhere decent at it, I would have all sorts of buttons and badges and blinking doo-dads. But I’d rather spend my January reading novels.