Book Mini-Post.

Here's a word that I throw around a lot (more often than not with good reason, I think) and a concept I abhor:  elitism.  In some ways, I'm probably a music snob.  But this idea that anything that's not "high art" is not worth bothering with has always annoyed the crap out of me, and when I saw this book that seemed to share my feelings, I was elated.  In it, the author basically discusses how everything from video games to today's television and all kinds of other things commonly considered "garbage" are "actually making us smarter"--or at least, I assume that's what the book does.  Here's the unfortunate truth:  I couldn't make it past the first few pages.  It's not that it was a bad book, but two issues bothered me:  first, Johnson seems intent on pushing his little coinage, the "Sleeper Curve" (so named after the Woody Allen movie), waaay too much.  I understand, dude; you want us to adopt this term and throw it about at cocktail parties, or you want people to take notice and still be talking about your brilliant term 50 years from now, but sheesh, enough already.  Second, he dove right into a discussion of video games that was not only slightly dated (the book was published in 2005), but also seemed not completely informed.  Don't get me wrong, he was portraying them in a positive light; but I just didn't really feel like reading someone discuss the inner workings of games and gamer culture when I felt I knew more about it.

Probably a decent book, but I had better things to move on to.  If the premise interests you, give it a shot.
Here's the real reason I'm blogging now and not waiting till I finish a few more books.  I grabbed this since I so enjoyed Steve Martin's other novella, Shopgirl (which I guess I never reviewed properly on here--loved the book and the nearly identical movie).  I was initially disappointed:  I wasn't immediately into this book the way I was with Shopgirl, and the first person narration from an OCD protagonist really gave me issues with my whole tending to think in the voice of whatever I'm currently reading.  Since it was so short, I figured there was little harm in continuing, so I did... and was so glad.  Eventually we move out of the rather dreary in-depth descriptions of the obsessive, idiosyncratic thoughts and actions of the main character and into some actual y'know... story.  The story itself was wonderful I thought, alternating between sad and hilarious, setbacks and triumphs.  Definitely worth reading, and I thought much funnier than Shopgirl, which really shouldn't be considered a comedy at all.  (Although Jason Schwartzman does wonders for the humor level in the movie.)


Now I've got to decide what to start next...