2014 book challenge

Some of my colleages have taken on reading challenges or set reading goals for the coming year, so I've decided to join in the fun. As I'll be working more closely with Young Adult and Tween fiction this year, I've decided to do an overview of popular topics. subgenres, whatever-you-want-to-call-em. I read quite a bit of YA lit already, but the point here is to sample some that I wouldn't necessarily grab for myself during a shelfcheck just 'cause they look cool. Some may be outside my comfort zone, but not all; if none of them were escapist, I'd probably never make it through the year. All the books should be recently published, not part of a series I'm currently following, and in our library system. They might be on a recent award list, or suggested by a colleague, or fresh off the new book display. To be read in no particular order.

Books I would probably read anyway:

• near future / postapocalyptic dystopia 
• superhero / special powers / special forces 
• time travel or chronological mishmash (steampunk, alternate history, etc.) 
• humor 
• plot or format centered around current technology or trends, or enhanced book  

Books I don't usually read:

• urban fiction  
• Hispanic 
• LGBT 

Books I would normally find too emotional or unpleasant to read:

• vampire / werewolf / supernatural romance 
• high school drama / gossip 
• mental health issues 
• various other serious issues (death, abuse, crime, etc.) 

Twelve topics, twelve months.

when looking becomes liking

Trends in tracking are creating a privacy problem that isn't about privacy, per se, that is, not about being personally penalized or embarrassed, but about representing -- or misrepresenting -- a public statement.

Recently, I came up against a quandry. Curiosity, and curiosity alone, made me want to read a book promoting an idea with which I very strongly disagree, and which scholarly critics have said contains poor research and poor reasoning. The challenge is how, in today's world, I can see what this book says without in any way rewarding the author. (I merely want to not reward, rather than to punish, which is why I'm not going to write a scathing review, or even reveal the title or author here.)

If I buy it new online, I not only pay the author, but also leave a record that I've bought it. Not only am I then inundated with suggestions to buy more books from an odious viewpoint, but my "voice" (if only as an anonymous datapoint) is added as a recommendation of the book to others. If I check it out from the library, it adds to the total number of checkouts and therefore prolongs the life of that book on the shelf. The remaining option, pay cash to buy it used, is fast disappearing as local used bookstores disappear, and is not an option in the ebook model that sees all transactions as licensed rather than completely sold.

The problem is that purchases and library checkouts are by default interpreted as liking, but sometimes one doesn't like every book one reads; sometimes one actively dislikes a book. If records are going to be kept -- whether personally linked or anonymous -- there should be a split-second-quick, completely effortless way of saying, "My datapoint is meaningless for your purposes. Don't link me to this or count my looking at it in any way."

Suggestion: Have "like" and "dislike" (or maybe better, "approve" and "disapprove") checkboxes on the order form. If the customer checks neither, it counts for nothing. Yes, that's right; the bean-counters will have to accept the reality that sometimes there are no beans to count. Note that this is not a ranking. The act of ranking or any other high-level evaluation  is to many people a stressful nuisance. If the business or organization wants ranking information, go ahead and put a scale on the form, but make it completely optional. While we're at it, it would be useful to have "not my choice" and "not for me" options for items necessary for school or work or other compulsory reason, and for gifts. These would count an item as neutral, and, in addition, prevent the item from being connected to the person's record in any way.

attention spybots: it's not always what it looks like

I sure hope the ubiquitous, commercial, spybots that track our every internet move to build up a personal profile are developing some subtlety. I've pretty much accepted that every move online is done in a public place full of nosy people, so my main focus now is to avoid being misunderstood and mislabeled.

Recently I got curious enough to dare to check on a link to an oddball piece on a business blog. So I hope anyone (or more accurately, any algorithm) watching is observant enough to realize that this is just a blip -- that I rarely read this type of puff piece, and more importantly, that the fact that I went to something on a business blog once does not indicate that I have any interest at all in business. All stupid, bizniz, money sh_t  bores me to howling.

And, heaven help me, I actually lingered on the site, pulled in by links. But, please note, little spybot, I did it because the articles were about technology, NOT because they were on a business blog.

the ubiquitous jack

It seems that every book -- at least the mystery, action thriller, and horror books -- set in Victorian England absolutely must include Jack the Ripper. (Yes, there are a couple of exceptions, but it's a pretty strong trend.)

One unfortunate result is that Victorian historical fiction is almost always set in the last decade or two of the century, when in fact Her Majesty's reign stretched back for twice that long before. What with the industrial revolution on the rise, and trains, the telegraph, and artificial lighting being brand new, the mid 19th century was a happenin' time.

C'mon, authors, there were people in England between Jane Austen and 1888. Some of them must have interesting stories.

WARP: The Reluctant Assassin

First of all, let me say that Eoin Colfer's W.A.R.P.: The Reluctant Assassin is a great read. The author shows his usual mastery of plot and character and evokes general late Victorian London in intriguing, lifelike detail.

I say "general" because he chose to assign the past part of the story an exact year -- 1898 -- a date which doesn't line up with some of the elements. This isn't a minor gaffe, like another book I read awhile back that describes people wearing the latest miracle dye color, mauve, half a decade before mauve was first synthesized.

In this book, an invention stolen from the future and prematurely introduced into the past, the "Farspeak," has more than passing significance. In real history, while the telephone wasn't common in 1898, it had been patented in 1876. Even more egregious, the Old Nichol rookery, an especially bad part of the Bethnal Green slum, is a location crucial to the plot. Bethnal Green was razed in an urban renewal project in 1891, and rebuilt to sturdier and cleaner standards over the next decade.

So why did the author insist on 1898? I suspect it was to realistically accommodate a cameo appearance by Jack the Ripper in the backstory.

Still, the book is definitely worth reading.

a panopticon with some shuttered windows

One of the many problems of the new reality of "ubiquitous" surveillance -- whether it be by the government, businesses, or just nosy people, is how much it leaves out. To the privacy-minded, this might sound like a strength, but in a world where people are judged by the results of such surveillance, it's a glaring weakness.

A recent NPR story discusses the amount of personal information that can be gleaned just by looking at the overall patterns of an email account, even without looking at the content of the emails. Actually, all email can expose is the person's email life. For those who use different emails -- some unconnected to a real name -- for different groups of friends, family, businesses, etc., the method is likely to leave significant holes. Ditto for tracking by social media. For those old fashioned enough to do much of their communicating face to face, or (horrors!) by traditional mail, the hole is bigger still.

curious omission

Try to read ninth volume of The Catholic Encyclopedia at Archive.org, and you come up against the message, "The item is not available due to issues with the item's content." Huh?  What topic from "Laprade"  through "Mass" could be so offensive? Or secret?

It shouldn't be a copyright issue. The entire encyclopedia is in the public domain because of age; this volume was published in 1910. Volume 8 and Volume 10 are both available with no problem.

Of course, the block probably is probably just due to a technical glitch, but imagining some kind of conspiracy is more fun ...