Ask A Book Club Veteran

Dear Book Club Veteran,

I am a relative newcomer to my book club, but the others have been going strong for years.  I’m not about to rock the boat, but what do you do when nobody seems to want to spend much time actually talking about the book? I mean, we touch on it, but most of the time we’re sidetracked on a seemingly limitless range of topics. Any hints on how to tighten this up a bit?

Mandy S, Portland, OR

Dear Mandy,

This is a known phenomenon, and it’s called “book club.” In other words, par for the course. If members really wanted to knuckle down and focus on the book, they’d go to college. The reality is, people need an excuse to get together and this is one of them. As for your desire to keep things on track, just watch for opportunities to drag the book back into the discussion. For example, when someone is talking about her dog, you can say something like, “Did anybody else think it strange that all the dogs in this book are male?”

Dear Book Club Veteran,

I am thinking about starting a book club, and even have five or six members lined up. But I’ve never done this before. Can you suggest a few rules that have served you well in your years at this? I don’t want to be draconian but there are probably pitfalls you’ve learned the hard way…

Rhonda V, San Antonio, TX

Dear Rhonda,

My book club has just two rules, and we generally follow at least one of them. The first rule is: every book we choose must be available in paperback. This obviously makes it cheaper for those buying it, and also increases the chances we can get it from the library, vs. newer releases that have like fifty people ahead of you on the hold list. The second rule is: nobody has to finish the book if they don’t like it, but we’re supposed to hang on for at least 70 pages. (Why 70? I can’t remember.) Once in a while I dislike a book so much I break this rule, as do others, but at least most of us try. (There’s also an unspoken rule that spoilers are totally allowed during our discussion, even if it’s a mystery novel and a member is only 20 pages from the end. I mean, that’s their problem for not finishing, right?) 

Dear Book Club Veteran,

Help! We had a guy join our book club about six months ago who totally dominates the discussion. He wasn’t so bad at first but now that he’s comfortable in the group, he acts like he’s like a professor or something. Nobody knows him well enough to confront him; ironically, the person who invited him has since quit (coincidentally or not). Is there some accepted protocol for kicking a member out?

Sarah V, Denver, CO

Dear Sarah,

I don’t know of any tactful way to ask a member to leave, and the question of who should tell him would be really tough. Plus, if you saw the guy around town afterward it would be super awkward. But I do know a workaround, which my mom’s book club resorted to: though it had been around for over 15 years, its founding members announced that the book club had run its course and would disband. This they did, or pretended to do; once the loudmouth was gone, they quietly reassembled (coordinating via clandestine emails) except for the one unwanted member. You could give that a try!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

How do you hold up a heavy hardback with those limp wrists of yours?

Clint B, Topeka, KS

Dear Clint,

Since you presumably know nothing about my wrists, I’m guessing you’re trying to be funny, insinuating that there’s something gay about a man being in a book club. Maybe you’re some kind of Manosphere cretin. If so, this isn’t the first time my masculinity has been impugned based on my book club. I was once playing poker with a bunch of men (as part of a fundraiser for my kids’ school) and was betting low and folding a lot, so I wouldn’t have to ante up a second time. Finally I got a great hand and bet big, and someone said, “He must have a good hand to bet that high.” Another said, “Maybe he’s just got balls.” A third said, “No, he’s in my wife’s book club, so I know he doesn’t have any balls.” The difference between what that guy said and what you wrote me is that he was actually funny.

I don’t know why book clubs tend to be female, other than the fact that many book clubs only allow women. Here’s an idea: as your first step in rehabilitating yourself, you should start an all-male book club … if you’re man enough to risk it.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

We’re all pretty busy people in my book club, so we only meet for an hour and a half. Of this short time, it seems like we always spend at least half an hour picking the next book. The host selects five, and prints out synopses and reviews and such, and we pass them around and then vote on little slips of paper and it’s just so inefficient. Any suggestions on streamlining this?

Angie W, New York City

Dear Angie,

My book club used to pick our books that way, but then during COVID, perhaps because so much else in our lives was going digital, we switched to everybody submitting a suggestion and then voting on them via SurveyMonkey. This gives everyone time to peruse the options at their leisure, and nobody has to print anything out. The only issue is that it’s a lot of work for whoever gathers the suggestions and produces the survey, not to mention tabulating the results. Chances are you can’t all take turns running the survey because not everyone would have the patience or math chops to get it done. (I award three points if somebody votes for a book as his or her first choice; two points for second choice; one point for third. It’s simple arithmetic but requires  a very methodological approach.)

There are benefits to taking on the work, though, if somebody wants to a) be helpful, b) save money, and c) never have to read a book he or she really doesn’t like. How? Well, as the survey master you can game the system a bit. For one thing, you’ll be the first to know which book won, so if there aren’t many copies at the library you’re first in line. Second, you can vote last, and if there’s a book you really detest, you can figure out what other book has the best chance of beating it, and throw your first-choice vote at that one instead of your own. It’s worked so far: I’ve never had to read the amateurish sci-book about the young, misunderstood video gamer who gains extraordinary power, saves the world, and gets the girl.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

My book club isn’t doing it for me anymore. How do I gracefully resign? I don’t really want to lie; for example, I’m not going to claim I don’t have time because honestly I totally do. But I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Any ideas?

Megan A, Ventura, CA

Dear Megan,

I’ve only ever been in one book club (for something like 20 years now!) so I don’t have any experience resigning. One of our members was very candid when leaving, saying something like, “I’ve come to dread these meetings.” I thought that was a bit harsh—so I totally get your point. So here is one idea, that worked great for my wife. She was in a book club that hadn’t announced itself as being feminist-themed, but every single book the members chose were in this category. (She once asked me to buy the book for her, since I’d walk by a bookstore on the way home from work, and I couldn’t remember the author. So I asked the staff if they had Eight Bald Chicks. The bookseller hadn’t heard of it and asked, “Do you have any idea what it’s about?” I replied, “It’s probably some feminist thing.” At his he laughed and said, “Oh, you must mean 8 Ball Chicks!” Which turned out to be correct.)

Eventually my wife wanted out of the club but didn’t want to look unsympathetic to the cause. At the same time, since the club had never said they wanted to focus on feminist literature, she was free to choose any book when it was her turn. She chose Remembrance of Things Past by Proust, and wouldn’t back down when they protested its length. For this she was summarily kicked out of the club on the basis of it “being a poor fit” for her. Fair enough, and at least they made that judgment.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

My book club is mostly great but there’s this one member who’s always sneaking smut into our reading list. She’ll describe something as, say, a historical romance so we’ll go ahead with it, and then fifty pages in there’s this jump scare smutty bit and we’re all like whoa, enough! 

Alicia C, Los Angeles, CA

Dear Alicia,

Evidently you’re not getting anywhere letting this person be the judge of smuttiness; you’ll need to rely on a wider, crowdsourced reading community to help police this. Platforms like BookStagram and BookTok employ an informal rating system based on chili pepper emoticons (🌶️). Decide as a group whether two peppers (i.e., explicit scenes being relatively brief, infrequent, and not very graphic) or three (steamy, highly detailed) should be the cutoff. Leave it to the offending party to delve into all this, as one reader’s three could be another’s five and you don’t want to be guinea pigs.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

My book club’s members take turns hosting. Whenever I host, my husband wants to participate. I wish I could tell him it’s a women-only book club, but it’s not—we do have men. The fact is, I love my husband but get plenty of him every day without him being a part of book club, too. What can I do to, frankly, exclude him without making him feel, well, excluded?

Francine B, Boston, MA

Dear Francine,

That’s a real tough one, but I do have one idea based on my wife’s writing group meetings. They invite spouses to come—not to all of the meetings, but to some—and the spouses form a “splinter group” and watch a movie or go bowling together. With this arrangement your husband wouldn’t feel singled out, and it would keep him from sulking in his room and/or making little trips to the living room on one pretense or other. Talk to your club’s members and see if they like the idea!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

What do you do when your book club is meeting and the talk turns political? This happens occasionally in my club—especially around election time—and though we all basically agree on our politics, I find it really tedious nonetheless. It’s usually one or two troublemakers initially, but then the blathering catches fire and is hard to snuff out. Recommendations?

Mark T, Boulder, CO

Dear Mark,

I’m really sorry to hear that … political talk could ruin a book club (not to mention a friendship or a family, in this day and age). And you’re right, even when people have similar views, it’s still a drag, because it’s usually a stupid little game of one-upmanship. Besides, what point is there sitting around agreeing about something, particularly when it probably has nothing to do with books and reading? 

Once again, my book club hasn’t had this problem to any great degree (and when it has, quick-thinking members led the discussion in a gonzo direction that made sincere political discourse impossible). For your group and others caught in this situation, I recommend something a Berkeley area breakfast club implemented decades ago: a formal prohibition against talking about politics, punishable by a $2 fine (which could go toward refreshments or something). See if enough members support this idea to make it an official rule!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

One of our longtime members had a history of neglecting to read the book, but in the last year or two he has always seemed prepared—but his insights seem pretty simplistic and a little too pat. I strongly suspect he’s resorting to AI summaries just so he can (try to) sound smart. How can I “out” this person?

Kate R, Seattle, WA

Dear Kate,

I admire your fighting spirit … if you’re right about this guy, he needs to go down, hard! I think you can test your theory and expose his fraudulent ways at the same time through a two-step approach. First, respond to one of his insights by delving deeper and bringing something really arcane into the dialogue; for example, “I’m interested in what you said about Pnin being a spiritually complex character, revering life, memory, and beauty rather than any specific deity. But what would you  say about the ‘dazzling Greek-Catholic cross’ he wears when sunbathing?” If this kind of specificity doesn’t cause an incriminating level of visible discomfort, employ the second step: ask about something that categorically is not in the book to see if he fakes having noted it. For example, you could say, “Good point about Clarice’s anxiety. Do you think it was realistic, though, that she ended up fearing her neighbor was  a vampire?” If this member says anything other than, “Honestly, I have no recollection of that,” you can prove (at least to yourself, or publicly if you’re feeling feisty) that he’s an AI-synopsis-reading fraud!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

I don’t know how else to say it, but my book club is pretty nerdy … nobody ever suggests anything lighthearted or fun, it’s always serious stuff like a presidential biography, nonfiction like Guns, Germs, and Steel, or some socially responsible novel about wretched oppressed people. How can I inject something exciting and novel (no pun intended)?

Jill M, Omaha, NE

Dear Jill,

I’m going to reach out to another reader, Alicia in Los Angeles, to see if she’ll put you in touch with the member of her book club who is always sneaking smut into their reading list, disguised as mainstream literature. That person might just become your book club mentor!

A Book Club Veteran is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a Book Club Veteran,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown

Introduction

As I approach my third week of shelter-in-place, and confront the (albeit still nascent) need to stave off boredom, one of the activities I miss the most is going to the library. So during a couple of days off from work I dove in to learn what electronic resources my library has to offer. This post documents that effort, and frankly that struggle. Don’t worry, it’s not as dull as it sounds. (Trigger warning: this post contains lots of profanity.)

Virtual book club

My book club moved its meeting to Zoom, following in the footsteps of my world-famous, game-changing Virtual Pub Night. This worked out very well. At the end, we chose the book for next time, which presented a problem for me.

My standard book club protocol is to go to my library’s website the very moment the next book is announced, to put it on hold (possibly ahead of my fellow members in case few copies are available). I’m a cheap bastard, and though I love buying books, I only buy cannot-lose titles I know that a) I’ll read more than once, b) I’ll want to loan out, and c) I’ll keep forever. Plus, I prefer to buy from library sales where books are only a buck or two. No disrespect to my book club, but our selections seldom meet these high standards. Now, with the library option no longer available, I had to buy Picking Cotton and had to figure out where.

The obvious solution would be Amazon, who has it for just $7.51. But can we really do that to our local booksellers, when they’re already suffering, while Amazon’s business is booming more than ever? My book club agreed we couldn’t. And yet, our local bookseller wants $17.99 for the book, plus $3 shipping, so with tax it’s almost triple the price. I’d still do it, except that it’s not at all clear how quickly this local outfit could fill the order right now. Actually, that’s the total BS rationale I contrived to feel better about myself. The truth is, I’m just a cheap bastard.

The Kobo

Fortunately, I have in my tech arsenal a little e-reader called the Kobo. What, you haven’t heard of it? Well, neither had my book club. In fact, I myself had no idea what this thing was when I inherited it from my late father a couple years back. I also have no idea why he bought it. I powered the thing up some months ago out of curiosity, and found that it only had one book one it, which was actually just a teaser excerpt of Heart of Darkness which was totally not my dad’s style.

Via a quick trip to kobo.com I learned they could sell me Picking Cotton for $12 all-in. Would it be worth setting up an account, signing up for endless spam no matter how many times I opt out, forking out the money, and learning the ins and outs of this weird Kobo thing?

I stared at the dumb little reader. Obviously it’s not best-in-breed because nobody has heard of it, and if my dad didn’t get any mileage out of it, why should I think I would? But that’s a loaded question. My dad, though an even cheaper bastard than I, often bought stuff he never ended up using, like a $2700 tricycle (featured here, but you’re too late, somebody already bought it).

Toward the very end of his life, when my dad was already riddled with cancer, he planned a cross-country solo road trip, dragging a little teardrop trailer behind his tiny car over remote highways. I talked him into getting a mobile phone in case he encountered trouble. He bought an Android phone and a prepaid plan and the guy at the phone store got him up and running, but my dad never used the phone. He literally never placed a single call, nor, apparently, did he even turn it on. It just sat there in its box. I suspect he was intimidated by the technology, particularly because he knew it was designed for anyone, even a dumb teenager or technophobe blue-hair, to easily grasp. Paradoxically, this increased the intimidation factor because my dad—an actual rocket scientist who programmed computers back in the ‘70s when they were the size of refrigerators—feared the intense embarrassment of being stymied by this basic consumer product.

Pondering this as I gazed upon the little Kobo, I realized I really had no choice but to engage with it. In fact, as tired as I was after book club, I knew I had to figure this thing out immediately. You see, another idiosyncrasy of my father’s was that he loved to put stuff off. A common rant from my poor mother, before they divorced, was “‘Someday’ … it’s always ‘someday’!” Sure, he’d fix the garage door … someday. He’d get that VW Beetle running … someday. So frequent was our mom’s rant, my brothers and I used to compete for who could do the most accurate rendition of her “‘Someday’ … it’s always ‘someday’!” So given my knee-jerk reaction to the very notion of procrastination, I stayed up late and had that Kobo up and running before I turned in.

Kobo vs. proper book – Volume I

So how did the Kobo work out? Well, nine years ago I blogged about the Kindle, giving ten reasons why I wanted to hate it. The Kindle was synonymous with e-readers back then, there having been no real competition. I conceded then that ideally I would have read an entire e-book before advancing an opinion on them. Now I have.

I had to install the Kobo app on my PC, create an account, and give over my credit card info. The device itself was fairly self-explanatory but I had to expunge my dad’s account info from it, which was just a little weird, like exorcising a ghost. It wasn’t clear how to do this so I pried the back off and stuck a paper-clip through a tiny hole to do a factory reset. When reconfiguring the Kobo I noticed the WiFi was extremely flaky: it’d find wireless networks I’ve never seen before on any of my other devices, but would fail to find the access point on my desk, less than five feet away. (It did pretty well when I leaned it right against the access point but really, should any device be that finicky?) Eventually I got Picking Cotton loaded on the Kobo and over the next few days worked my way through reading it. Now I’m able to give you the pros and cons of this e-reader.

Overall, in the “pro” category I’ll say this:

• The screen was pretty easy on my eyes;
• I like how an e-reader doesn’t interrupt and distract me the way a smartphone does via all the content being pushed to it by apps, friends, and colleagues;
• Unlike a smartphone, I don’t have to unlock it (which isn’t that hard, but still)
• Battery life was excellent;
• The Kobo sits flat on a table (unlike a book) so I could easily read while eating lunch;
• It’s lighter weight than a book, so if I were to read it while lying on the sofa I’d probably appreciate that (vs., say, a hardback of Anna Karenina)
• My wife didn’t bristle to see me peering into the Kobo, at least when she realized it wasn’t my phone;
• It gave me some interesting stats at the end (e.g., it took me 4.4 hours to read Picking Cotton)

In the “con” category I’ll just say at least 7 out my 10 original misgivings about e-books still apply. Looking at #5, “I can’t buy used titles at a great discount,” I figured it’s been a long time … maybe the market has changed. Since this may not be the first time I need an alternative to my local library, I figured I should see if the Kobo folks might have some great deals.

I searched a couple random titles to see how the prices were. Started Early, Took My Dog (2011) is ten bucks. That’s no bargain. Maybe an older book would be cheaper? Nope … The God of Small Things (2008) is $14. What about much older? I found Lolita (from 1955) for $13, which is a rip, but As I Lay Dying from 1930 is available for only a buck. If I searched on price, what else might I turn up?

Wow! They’ve got a lot! Check out these free titles:

Wow … “She’s stumbled into a lair of desperate dragons—and she’s just the thing they need.” No wonder my dad bought this Kobo! (Wink.) Now, if you’re not into the romance genre, there are also lots of free nonfiction titles for cheap… here are a few.

Remarkable, isn’t it, that Saundra’s sweet revenge actually happened, and that there really was a bike path killer? Fascinating. Now, if I’m willing to pay just a bit more, here’s a priceless book:

But seriously, this was getting me nowhere. The bigger question is, what could I get from the library for free to read on my Kobo?

Digital content from the library

I’ve long known that the Berkeley Public Library has lots of alternatives to bound paper books, CDs, and DVDs. Almost too many options, really … the full list is a bit intimidating:

• Kanopy (streaming movies & music)
• Hoopla (digital books, audiobooks, music, and movies)
• Naxos (music)
• Alexander Street (music)
• In-branch albertnet via guest WiFi (wow, cool!)
• Overdrive (e-books, audiobooks)
• RBdigital (digital magazines)
• Flipster (kids’ magazines)

The trick with these platforms is they don’t always get included when you search for a title on the library’s main website. (I learned that the hard way … it turns out Hoopla has as audiobook of Picking Cotton and I could have saved a lot of trouble had I discovered that earlier.) The other issue is that you have to set yourself up on each platform individually, which isn’t that hard but obviously presents some friction.

I tried out Hoopla for an audiobook and it’s really easy, once you’ve downloaded the smartphone app. It’s great for road trips if your phone can sync with your car stereo. I’ve also been using Kanopy for a while, and in fact I just set my wife’s PC up on it the other day, in less than five minutes. Kanopy’s digital streaming works great (no jitter or buffering) and it’s easy to connect your laptop to a modern TV.

All this being the case, I was emboldened to seek better return on the time I’d already invested in my Kobo. I asked my older daughter to research this for me, since she was on spring break and stuck mooning around the house anyway. She tapped away for a minute or two and said, “You have to do it through Overdrive.” And thus was my next tech journey launched.

Kobo vs. proper book – Volume II

So here’s where things get complicated. The library can’t just buy the online rights to a book and make it available to all its readers at once … that would be injurious to publishers, like Napster was to the music industry. The library must buy individual licenses for each title it wants, so only a finite number of library cardholders can check out the e-book at once. This is trickier than buying a finite number of physical books, because each library customer must be able to view the same title on more than one device. So when I check out the e-book, I’m downloading a license file with the content, and that file has to travel with the content. How does this work when there are at least 18 companies making e-readers?

The answer is, you have to download software called Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) and install it on your computer, and create a login for that. This software is how you manage the digital licenses. Then you have to authorize your computer, and also your e-reader, with your Adobe account. Now your ADE app will enable content on your e-reader for your login, but no other. You also have to set up Overdrive with your library, to check out the material. You download the content and license, and then use the ADE interface to copy these files over to your e-reader. So you’re getting a crash course in three platforms: Kobo, Adobe, and Overdrive.

So how hard is this, really? In principle it’s not that bad; getting the devices authorized wasn’t too hard. I was able to get an e-book working with my laptop pretty quickly, and then I loaded an e-book on the Kobo, ejected it from the PC, fired it up, and clicked the icon for the new e-book. And then?

This is super annoying on so many levels. It’s bad enough that loading the library book on the Kobo just plain didn’t work, after all that time and effort. Second, no error message should ever say “Oops!” That’s like hearing your dentist say “Oops!” when he’s drilling in your mouth. Meanwhile, the info this error message gives on how “this document is protected by Adobe Digital Rights Management (DRM)” is nothing you don’t already know, and the idea that you didn’t sign with the authorized ID is pure BS. The software wouldn’t let you copy the content over to the e-reader if it wasn’t authorized and you weren’t signed in. Clearly, I followed the process … it just didn’t work. And then, to get the dialog box to go away, I had to click “OK” when obviously this is not OK.

I found a help article about how to de-authorize your devices, delete all copies of the content and licenses, start over, re-authorize, and try again. This accomplished nothing. I also got nowhere cussing up a blue streak … it didn’t even help me feel better. At one point I got an error message about the license having actually expired, so I tried loading some very recently published books, but this too was a bum steer.

The Kobo error message should have said, “Oh, SHIT! I’m really sorry, my software is all jacked up so I can’t access this content, but you’ve done nothing wrong. Really—it’s not you, it’s me. See how easily you can read that book on your laptop? I know. That’s because the laptop works like it’s supposed to. I just can’t get it done. I suck. This is why nobody has heard of Kobo. I’m a loser, so why don’t you kill me.” And the “OK” button say either “FUCK ME” or “Make this dialog go away, and go get on with your life, I’m a lost cause.”

Oh well, I thought, at least I can still buy titles for the Kobo if I need to, like if this COVID-19 shelter-in-place goes on indefinitely. I mindlessly clicked on the Picking Cotton icon, just to remind myself the Kobo wasn’t without value, and was shocked to get another error:

Whoa. Let me get this straight, Kobo: because I tried to load a library book on you, and you couldn’t parse the digital license properly, now the totally separate title I paid for also can’t be accessed anymore? How is this okay in any universe?

Figuring I could at least start over, I deleted the e-book content and license files from Overdrive, de-authorized the Kobo, re-synced it with the Kobo PC app, and tried again. Still no dice … I just kept getting that stupid error message. So then, based on the advice from a knowledge base article from Overdrive, I de-authorized the Adobe account from my laptop, created a new Overdrive account for the Adobe app, re-authorized the laptop and the Kobo using the Overdrive credentials, and tried again with another library e-book. Still no dice. The Kobo still wouldn’t display the library content, and still wouldn’t even display the content I’d paid for.

Whoever wrote this second error message should be taken out and shot. Beyond the annoying recurrence of “Oops!” there’s the weak statement, “There might be a problem with the file.” Might be a problem? Like, this might not be working? Gee, you think? It should say, “I have clearly failed you.”

And then we get “Try updating your library.” Try?! Haven’t they heard Yoda’s words of wisdom? “Do or do not. There is no try.” I mean, I’m facing an obvious software problem and the Kobo coders are telling me what I might try? How about, “Try sticking your thumb up your ass and whistling Dixie”?

And don’t they realize the word “library” is meaningless here, since they could mean my library folder on the Kobo, or a device software library, or the Berkley Public Library I checked out the (apparently devastating) content from? Perhaps the worst part is referring me to “Customer Care” at Kobo, because Kobo actually does not have a technical support department … just a bunch of useless static content giving you a bunch more dumb suggestions.

(Full disclosure: after much searching, I did finally find a link for “Contact Customer Care” on the Kobo website but here’s where it led.)

Of course I tried rebooting my Kobo, many times. Finally, as a last resort and knowing this would mean starting from scratch and reconfiguring the device entirely, I went for the factory reset, prying the back off again and using a paper-clip through the hole in the back. In the process, because the back is so hard to pry off, I actually drew blood. (From me, not the Kobo, unfortunately.) This time, however, the device would not reset. The factory reset process is apparently as stymied as the rest of the device. All I kept getting was the stupid little smiley face as it rebooted again to its fucked-up state.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, you worthless little shit!” I boomed idiotically at it. You know, with this coronavirus pandemic I think we’re all a little on edge, and I find I actually have less patience than ever for anything that I’m supposed to have control over but suddenly do not. In this light I’m very proud of myself for managing, upon seeing that stupid little Kobo smirking at me over and over, to not just pound the stupid thing to rubble with my fist. It’s reduced itself to a paperweight, and a useless one at that because for its own safety, it really needs to be kept out of my sight. Perhaps my dad was wise not to tangle with it (though in that case he was foolish indeed to shell out $80 for it in the first place).

Silver lining

Okay, so the Kobo is a bust. Item #9 on my list of reasons to avoid e-books was certainly prescient: “I fight with PCs and other electronic devices all day, and books are my respite. I don’t care how foolproof the [device] claims to be: it has an OS that can have bugs, and it has WiFi of which it can be out of range, and it has a battery that can die … all potential headaches.” But I shouldn’t have lost sight of a larger misgiving, #5: “If I end up loving it, embracing its format, and becoming addicted to its convenience and cool features, my literary world will shrink from ‘anything any library or bookstore anywhere has’ down to ‘anything that’s available on the [platform].’” If I can’t buy the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina from kobo.com (and I can’t), but they’re offering me romance novels about “the brooding, sexy captain of the NHL’s Chicago Blaze” or a sexy young woman being “pinned to the floor by a billionaire playboy,” should I really be spending any time on this platform anyway?

On the plus side, I can still read the one Kobo title I paid for, albeit on my smartphone via the Kobo app. I’ve also discovered that Overdrive e-books can be read on my smartphone, via yet another app called Libby, which has a pretty nice user interface.

So, even if this shelter-in-place has me stranded for weeks or months, I know I’ve got options. I just have to relax … take a deep breath … step away from the Kobo … count to ten …

More reading on the pandemic

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• What Are Hospitals Like During the Pandemic?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• COVID Wristbands

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Life Hacks

Introduction

In this essay I examine the most modern meaning of “hack” (essentially, short for “life hack”) and provide a half dozen useful life hacks that I’ve stumbled upon myself. 

First, some etymological rambling

I most recently came across hack-as-a-noun in The New Yorker, which had four essays from various writers under the heading “Life Hacks.”  These essays—which needless to say inspired this one—included a software recommendation, a critique of A.I. cooking, an essay about gaming Twitter, and an examination of whether screen time is bad for kids.

As recently as 2004, The New Yorker itself defined “hack” very differently.  The term was only described in the sense of computer meddling, though the article allowed that “hacker” could mean—in geek parlance—“a righteous dude.”  In modern parlance, “hack” can be a noun—not in the original noun sense of “a rough cut, blow, or stroke,” “a writer or journalist producing dull, unoriginal work,” or “a horse for ordinary riding”—but as a reverse formation from the verb “to hack,” meaning to do something in an unconventional way.  Urbandictionary.com’s top definition of “lifehack” is (as of the moment), “A tool or technique that makes some aspect of one's life easier or more efficient.”  (“Hack” in the sense of computer hacking—or “cracking,” as pedants now describe the illegal stuff—is gradually being displaced.)

The first time I heard of “hack” as life hack was around a year ago when a mom on my kid’s high school mountain bike team asked, “What do you think of this hack:  after a muddy ride, I take my daughter’s bike to the self-service car wash and spray it off with the high pressure nozzle.”  (In case you’re wondering, this is a bad idea:  such a powerful spray can get past the seals on the bike’s bearings and destroy them.)  I answered, “Fine hack, but you better watch out for the NSA.”  No I didn’t.  (I warned her about the bearings.)

And now, on to the life hacks I recommend.

Life hack #1:  switch from cotton to wool

It might seem strange for a Californian to recommend wool over cotton.  It’s warm and sunny year-round here like in Baywatch, right?  Well, not exactly … it does get cool and damp here, which bothers us because we’re all wusses.  Plus, Californians still sometimes get rained on, which is the sweet spot for wool because wool keeps you warm even when it’s wet.  If you live in a place with real winters, you’ll get even more benefit.

But warmth isn’t all wool has going for it.  It also feels less clammy on the skin (very important when you’re hot and sweaty) and, in the case of socks, is more comfortable and durable than cotton.  Wool socks provide better cushion, don’t slide down your leg, and don’t become threadbare at the heel.  Don’t tell anybody this, but I like to wear wool cycling socks with my business suit.  They’re tall enough that nobody would ever know!

Synopsis:  Wool is like cotton on steroids.

Life hack #2:  stop trying to get your cat to love you

(Note:  if you don’t have a cat, run right out and get one, preferably from the pound, and then come back and finish this essay.)

Pet ownership (or, as they say in Berkeley, “human guardianship of companion animals”) can be hard, especially with cats.  We love them so much, but they don’t love us back!  They turn their noses up, or more to the point turn away so their butts are in our faces.  In short, cats are disloyal, snooty, and antisocial.  It’s heartbreaking.

But if you stop dreaming of a love that can never be, and accept the truth about cats, you’ll realize it has its benefits.  Their attitude takes all the pressure off, frankly.  It’s impossible to disappoint a cat, and almost impossible to sell a cat short.  All a cat wants is regular feeding, a roof over his or her head, and a clean cat box.  So you never feel guilty!  What dog owner hasn’t regretted his or her inability—or, let’s admit it, unwillingness—to give poor Waldo the attention, walkies, and love that he deserves? 

Then there’s the matter of energy levels.  Most of us humans are tired all the time.  The way a cat naps 24x7, she does a pretty good job of seeming to relate.  Contrast this with the burden of a dog’s crazy energy:  the frenzied greeting at the door, the bounding around, the almost pathetic hope he musters up when you go anywhere near his leash.  I don’t think I could handle it.  Much better to pick up a cat when you feel like it, pet her a little, notice her complete apathy, and walk away convinced that there’s no need to try any harder. 

Once you acknowledge these benefits and stop craving the attention this beast will never give you, it’s easy to love her all the more, even if most of your human/cat interaction is you watching her sleep.

Synopsis:  a cat is like your pet dog on Quaaludes.

Life hack #3:  go back to traditional books

Embracing the very latest meaning of “hack,” here’s an ironic one:  “Stop futzing with technology in your spare time.”  That is, set aside your phone, your tablet, and your laptop and spend some more time with traditional books.  Since most of our leisure time is in the evening, the main benefit of books is that they don’t interfere with sleep.  There are so many studies out now about screen time causing insomnia, I won’t bother to cite any (but here is a listing to get you started).  The idea is that the bright screen confuses your brain and inhibits melatonin production. 

Beyond any issues around sleep, old-school books, unlike various screen-based sources of text, can be bought used, borrowed, or checked out from the library.  Thus, you don’t have to pay for them—whether with your money or your privacy.

Plus, reading a traditional book also increases the odds that you’re reading something worthwhile; after all, a publisher wouldn’t spend good money printing most of the folderol on the Internet—all the blogs, online magazines, tweets, and mindless comments from haters.

Perhaps best of all, you can read a paper-bound book in bed without bothering your spouse/other.  Sure, there are some who wouldn’t mind the intrusion of a Kindle, tablet, or phone, but there are plenty more—like mine—who mind very much.  In fact, my wife put her foot down and won’t allow my smartphone in the bedroom at all.  On the flip side, I really doubt there’s a spouse/other on the planet who insists on a screen instead of a book.

Besides, isn’t there just something so cozy about a good old-fashioned book?

Synopsis:  a paper book is like an e-book on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Life hack #4:  drink your coffee black

I won’t elaborate a lot on this because I wrote a whole essay about it:  click here.

Synopsis:  coffee, neat.

Life hack #5:  get thee to a library

I am so sick of people telling me, “I can’t believe you don’t have Netflix!”  You know what?  Netflix—just like the cable TV companies—can go straight to Hell (where they’ll surely join bike thieves, telemarketers, and tobacco industry executives).  Since you’re forking out good money for these subscription-based services, you have a built-in lizard-brain impulse to get your money’s worth, which leads to all kinds of wasted time.  And you know what else?  I happen to know—because I surf Netflix when I donate platelets—that their movie selection is bad and getting worse.  Twice I’ve started a movie—and not my first choice, mind you, because they didn’t have it—hoping to finish it next time, only to discover on my next visit that the movie I’d been watching is no longer available. 

My library, on the other hand, has all kinds of movies.  I can reserve them online, pick them up from my local branch when they’ve been brought over, and keep them for 3 or 6 or 9 weeks, so I can watch them when I get around to it.  Often, when I happen to be at the library, I’ll grab a few movies practically at random and give them a try.  If, after 10 minutes, I’m not enjoying the movie, I’ll just eject it and try another.  Costs me nothing.

This works the same with books, of course, with the added benefit that you don’t have to struggle with the great debate of whether it’s harmful to authors and publishers to order from Amazon.  An added bonus is that the library is a great place to hang out, enjoy some peace and quiet (and free WiFi), and get some work done, without having to order coffee or food to pay your rent.  Meanwhile, you’re supporting a public institution which, as recently lamented by a fine author, is under threat (at least in the UK, and probably in this country as well).

Synopsis:  a library is like getting Netflix, Amazon, and a coffee shop on the house.

Life hack #6:  only drink with friends

A famous Harvard study on happiness, which tracked 268 men from all walks of life over a 75-year span, proposes two central ways to prolong and enjoy your life:  value your relationships and don’t abuse alcohol.  As described here, the study found that alcoholism among those studied “was the main cause of divorce” and “was strongly correlated with neurosis and depression.”  And as quoted here, the main author of the study, Dr. George Vaillant, declared, based on the evidence, “Our relationships with other people matter, and matter more than anything else in the world.”

After losing a good friend of mine this summer to a tragic accident, I decided to try to get out and see friends more.  Simultaneously, I noted my 10-pound weight gain since the previous summer, and (as I cannot bring myself to eat less food) decided that my (albeit moderate) alcohol consumption had to come down a bit.  So now I don’t stock my fridge with beer anymore.  If I want a drink, I have to go out.  From the Harvard study perspective, I’m killing two birds with one stone.  Is it working?  Yeah, I think so.  I’m seeing more of my friends, and have lost half that extra weight.

Synopsis:  imagine this initially breezy essay bogged down with bulgur wheat, flax seed, and other dietary fiber.  Yeah, sorry about that.

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Death of a Bookstore

Introduction

Recently I went to a Borders Bookstore in San Francisco for its going-out-of-business sale. I thought I would feel sorry for the place, but ultimately I didn’t. I’d expected to see Borders as the good guy in a Amazon-vs.-bookstore battle, but instead left the store thinking “good riddance.”

Amazon has always been a threat to traditional bookstores, and their Kindle e-reader has increased this threat. In this post I’ll start off explaining why I want to hate the Kindle. Then I’ll discuss my trip to Borders and why I think the chain deserves to die. If I have any energy left I’ll offer up some hopeful denial that bookstores—that is, true bookstores—will go extinct.

Why I want to hate the Kindle

I don’t hate the Kindle. I can’t hate it as a product, as I’ve never actually used one. You could argue that I should really try one out—not just play with the demo model at Target, which I have done, but should read an entire e-book—before I develop my opinion. Giving it a good try seems logical enough, but then, you could say the same thing for cigarettes.

I’m sure there are scores of happy Kindle users who would love to give me a demo. I don’t want a demo. There’s something evangelical about how people tout modern electronic devices (not just e-readers but smartphones, the iPad, etc.), and where the Kindle is concerned people can be downright apocalyptic. Consider this reader comment attached to a “Wall Street Journal” article about the demise of Borders: “Any prediction on when will Amazon only offer e-pub and drop the entire dead tree format from its lineup?” (That guy must feel really cool throwing around terms like “e-pub” and “dead tree format.”) In response, another commenter predicted that paper books would be dropped within ten years, to which the first guy replied, “10 years. That’s pretty pessimistic. How about one to two years.”

And why is ten years “pessimistic”—what does this guy have against paper books? Is it a desire to preserve our forests? I doubt it. I think the guy somehow associates himself with a sweeping societal change, and takes pride in his contribution to the success of a disruptive technology. (It’s a bit like feeling really proud when your local sports team wins a game, even though you yourself have nothing to do with the team or its victory.)

No, I’m not going to do battle with those who gleefully predict the Kindle’s eventual dominance. But in case you’re on the fence, here’s my top ten list of Why I Want to Hate the Kindle:

1. Nobody on the Bart train is going to ogle my book.
2. I can loan out my book and not have to worry about getting it back.
3. I can leave my book in the bathroom and not worry about it being ruined.
4. I have nice bookshelves full of handsome books that don’t deserve to be upstaged by a high-tech gizmo that pollutes my reading experience with the gaudy culture of PCs, cell phones, and the Internet.
5. If I end up loving the Kindle, embracing its format, and becoming addicted to its convenience and cool features, my literary world will shrink from “anything any library or bookstore anywhere has” down to “anything that’s available on the Kindle.”
6. I can’t buy used titles at great discount for a Kindle.
7. Reading in bed is somehow not antisocial. Bringing an electronic device to bed is.
8. My books don’t become obsolete, leading me to regret that I don’t have 50% better contrast, a 21% smaller form factor, double the storage, crisper and darker fonts, and better battery life, all available on a newer device than my primitive early version.
9. I fight with PCs and other electronic devices all day, and books are my respite. I don’t care how foolproof the Kindle claims to be: it has an OS that can have bugs, and it has WiFi of which I can be out of range, and it has a battery that can die … all potential headaches.
10. The name ... Kindle. Shades of Fahrenheit 451. Creepy.

My trip to Borders

So: back to books, and bookstores. I started off going to the wrong Borders, along the Embarcadero, which had already folded. It’s always a bit startling, and then disquieting, to see a business all boarded up like that. I have to say, I felt a little guilty for my role in the store’s demise; after all, I buy a fair number of books from Amazon. I headed over to the other Borders, in the San Francisco Shopping Centre. It was still open, and had its huge sale signs everywhere. As soon as I got in there my guilt evaporated. I’ve actually never liked this place, and the sale wasn’t changing my mind.

I guess I’d expected to see a certain amount of disarray and the sad signs of a business in turmoil. But the sale itself was marketed and packaged with a certain slickness; giant placards had been printed declaring “HUGE SAVINGS! ENTIRE STORE! LIMITED EXCEPTIONS APPLY.” Always the fine print. And the “huge savings” amounted to 20% off, making the place merely overpriced rather than hugely overpriced. They seemed well dug-in to enjoy a very long sale with healthy margins. They’re probably continuing to restock at this point. Who knows, maybe if the sale is successful enough, they’ll take the signs down and stay in business.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t find anything I really wanted to buy. I was hoping to get some books for my kids, but there was actually no children’s section. They had a “Young Adult” section (which should be called the “dumb adult” section because so many shameless grown-ups read such books due to lack of intellectual mettle), and they had a Manga section, and they had a section for toddlers that was mostly toys—but no actual children’s books.

My family is pondering a trip to the UK this summer, so I checked out the travel section. More than half of this section was for “local travel,” and they had some cutesy name for this. (To try to recall the cutesy name, I looked for the equivalent section at Borders online—but in vain. Borders has no online travel section online at all, and I think it’s worth pointing out that when I searched on “travel” on their site, the top three hits were a WWII history book; Eat, Pray, Love; and The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter 2011.) The Borders in-store travel collection did have a California section, a small travel memoir section, and then little corner devoted to England & Ireland. Italy was half a shelf at the bottom.

The Literature section was towards the back. More prominent was the Romance section, with a poster announcing “A romance for every mood!” I had to wonder what this was about. Could I collar an employee and say, “Look, I’m just royally pissed off right now, like I just want to punch something, and I’m wondering if you could recommend a particular romance for me to read while the feeling lasts.”

There was also a big Games section. I did find a game I was interested in (“You’ve Been Sentenced”) but at 20% off it was still pretty expensive. I decided if it was only somewhat more expensive here than on Amazon, I’d buy it. So I fired up the browser in my smartphone to check Amazon’s price, only to find I had no signal, despite Borders offering free Wi-Fi at this location. (I’m sure they jam the signal in the stacks. Borders wasn’t born yesterday, you know.)

There was a huge magazine section, a sizeable music section, and a large cookbook section (reasonable to find at a newsstand, a record store, and a cooking store, respectively). There was a giant display of vampire books. They also sold “gifts,” which I would describe as “something of dubious worth which you wouldn’t buy for yourself, but which you might buy as a gift for somebody you don’t know very well.” Then, up by the front, they were selling candy, just like at the grocery store or Office Depot. In short, this wasn’t really a bookstore as I’d like to define it. It was more like what Amazon would be if it were a brick-and-mortar store instead of an online entity.

Could you get good advice from a staffer at Borders? I understand that the original Borders bookstore was a small used-book operation in Ann Arbor run by a couple of brothers, and known for having a very helpful staff. But I’ve never felt like asking for advice in a books-et-cetera superstore like this. (When I have asked for help in such places, the response was like when you ask a waiter for a suggestion and he says, “Oh, I don’t eat the food here.”) I should point out that as I stood in line at checkout, the teenaged cashier did take some time to give another customer detailed directions on how to get to the Stonestown Galleria mall.

Ultimately, I don’t think Borders failed because electronic publishing and online retail leviathans like Amazon replaced brick-and-mortar stores; I think Borders failed because it tried to be a leviathan but its executives didn’t really know what they were doing. If the chain had succeeded instead of failed, it probably would have crushed out more independent bookstores in the process of continuing to change bookstores into something I barely recognize.

What is a bookstore?

What is a bookstore? Of course it’s not really for me to say, but I know what I like. To me, a physical bookstore shouldn’t be like Amazon, offering everything under the sun. In a way a bookstore should be more like the original Google—that is, a search engine whose primary purpose is weeding out all the crap I’m not looking for, to give me a manageable browsing experience. Actually, a good bookstore is more like a search engine with the best searches already keyed in: that is, a place where people who love literature have stocked the place with only the good stuff.

In the mid-‘90s when I lived in San Francisco, I frequented a North Beach bookstore called Columbus Books, on Broadway near the strip joints. This was an unlikely location for a small independent bookstore, as it was just around the corner from the famous City Lights Books and a few doors down from Big Al’s Adult Book Store. Thus, it had to face high rents along with serious competition from both ends of the literary spectrum. I don’t know when it folded (sometime after I moved to the East Bay), but its demise doesn’t worry me particularly, as there was something quixotic about its existence to begin with.

That bookstore was just chock-full of great books, many (if not most) of them used. Sometimes the used books were in eerily good condition. I found a used but pristine copy of a George Saunders book that had just come out, and had to ask the clerk if there was a mistake. “We probably bought it from a paid reviewer,” he explained. “The jerk probably never even read it.” It may be that Columbus Books wouldn’t pay anything for a used book they didn’t want to sell it in their store, and they took evident care in picking out what new books to carry. The staff would put their favorites up on the top of the bookshelves, cover facing out. Once, as a stunt, I decided to pluck a book absolutely at random from a shelf, give it only the most cursory glance, and then buy it. The book I snagged was a hardback, used but in great shape, and cheap. I liked the title, and I liked the cover:

I’d never heard of the author, but he passed the first-page test with flying colors and the book went on to be a glorious one. Just like that, I was turned on to a great writer.

Was the staff at Columbus Books helpful? Yes. One particular instance comes to mind. My wife sent me to find a book called Eight Bald Chicks that her book club had chosen. I had no idea who wrote it, and this was before Amazon or Google had really gotten going, so I the bookstore staff was my only hope. The clerk had never heard of it, but—and this is the important thing—it obviously bothered him that he hadn’t heard of it. He asked what it was about, and I said, “I dunno, I think it’s some feminist thing.” He scratched his head and said, “Ah! I know! You’re looking for 8 Ball Chicks!” (They did have it.)

You wouldn’t want the waiters at your steakhouse to be vegans, would you? Why shouldn’t bookstore clerks be bibliophiles? I’ve talked to clerks at two different Berkeley bookstores who knew Jonathan Lethem personally. Knew him from where? They worked with him, of course. At the bookstore.

It’s the network

Amazon makes a pretty big deal (and a good deal of money) from its ability to mine the data it accumulates as customers buy stuff. Their algorithm looks at what’s in my shopping cart or my recent search history, and recommends other things I might like. For example, if I’m looking at a Radiohead album, it’ll see that other customers who bought Radiohead also bought Coldplay, and will recommend Coldplay. The system sometimes works pretty well (I did in fact get turned on to Coldplay this way, though they’re no Radiohead). The algorithm has its glitches, though. When I looked up the rock band Cake in Amazon’s Music section, their algorithm reasonably recommended Cake’s new album “Showroom of Compassion” but also recommended a book, Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, and a Wilton 13 Inch Angled Spatula with Black Handle.

What isn’t widely acknowledged, at least by the gadget freaks, is that a good bookstore—and especially a good used bookstore—offers something better than Amazon’s algorithm: a community of diehard readers of actual literature. When a bookstore caters to the kind of people who actually read books, thick ones, even ones by old dead writers, it creates the perfect environment for somebody like me. If you got to a top-notch bookstore like Moe’s Books in Berkeley, you’ll find all kinds of good new books, without having to push aside folderol like The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter 2011, and you’ll find all kinds of good used books sold back to Moe’s by customers like yourself who have finished reading them. At a chain store, you’re offered what the corporate folks think will sell to a wide audience, but at Moe’s the used section is stocked, in effect, by Berkeley people who love literature.

When I was an English major in college, I went for over a year mindlessly buying my books from the student bookstore, which meant paying three times the cover price for a hammered old paperback edition of, say, Portrait of a Lady—a book that Moe’s probably has a dozen copies of. Then I realized, hey, wait a second, I’m not trying to find a relatively obscure physics textbook written by my professor; I could find any of these books at Moe’s! Once I started buying all my books there, I realized how deep Moe’s selection went. Looking for, say, Crime and Punishment, I had my choice of new vs. used, hardback vs. paperback, and three different translations. I could choose between really cheap for a tattered copy, cheap for a decent one, and full price for a pristine one. One of my favorite books is an old hardback copy of The Scarlet Letter, printed in 1935, that I bought at Moe’s for $7 twenty years ago.

Am I elitist? Not really—after all, I shop at places like Target, too. I just can’t mourn a bookstore chain that becomes too much like Target by trying to attract people who don’t much like to read.

Conclusion

I believe that the demise of independent bookstores, and of books in general, is greatly exaggerated. After all, just when MP3-loving Internet bloviators declared the CD dead, vinyl made a comeback. The Internet is a great tool for prognosticators, but I’m sure a lot of bookworm-types can’t be bothered to make their dissenting voices heard. Lots of traditional English-major types like me will always prefer paper books. And all the books already out there aren’t going to just cease to exist (unless there’s a giant bonfire or something) and will continue making their happy rounds of the used bookstores. I’m sure Moe’s will never be the next Amazon, but I think small bookstores will always be around to serve their niche.

dana albert blog