I finished David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas about a week before the Booker Prize was announced. And much in the same way I grouse about the Oscars without seeing half the movies nominated, I think it's rubbish he didn't win. There. That's mature.

Cloud Atlas begins in the diary of a San Franciscan notary, clearing up some estate issues in New Zealand back in the 1830s. It then pauses -- mid-sentence -- and slingshots forward through the letters of a composer at the turn of the century, a hard-boiled political mystery in the '70s, the biopic of a book publisher in the present day, the interview transcripts of a clone in the future and finally a yarn spun by an old man in the desolate wasteland of the faraway future. Then, it bounces back through them all again.

It's gimmicky, sure, but it's also the best novel I've read in a year. Mitchell's ability to take on the voice of each of the characters is astounding, and his inventiveness never gets in the way of his storytelling. It's a humbling book to read, especially if you're a writer. I could only think two thoughts the whole read: "This is guy is so good" and "Wow, I'm not very good."

I keep "forgetting" to log Candice DeLong's Special Agent, memoir of a female FBI agent, because it was kind of embarrassing to carry it around. But the truth is, I devoured it.

In Special Agent, DeLong takes you through training and into her life as a Chicago FBI agent, including stings on terrorists, prostitution rings, child molestors and drug dealers, and it's fascinating. The kind of stuff TV movies are made of. I missed two train stops reading it--it's tightly written and each chapter takes on a different case. It's also a pretty eye-opening take on surviving as a woman in a male-dominated profession.

My only complaint is that DeLong could have used an ace editor (I know, I know, it's hard to take the advice of the author of the dangling preposition in the sentence fragment in sentence two of the current paragraph, but stay with me). DeLong writes her story from the present, looking back, and drops vignettes in and out of sequence, which would be fine, if somebody just helped her smooth it out, and she didn't give away that she broke up with her boyfriend before the Unabomber chapter when it actually happened...and other repetitive elements that a venerable proofreader like myself couldn't help but catch.

Oh yeah, did I mention that DeLong was was of a handful of officers undercover in on the sting that captured the Unabomber?

There are two things to mention about Delicious Library. The first is that it looks like a pretty cool catalog software for your Mac to keep track of your books, movies, CDs, and video games. They sell a Bluetooth bar code scanner, or you can use your iSight or other webcam or digital video camera, or just type stuff in. Cool feature: check out items to your friends utilizing integration with Address Book and iCal. The second thing to mention is that they have a "Blog Us" link at the bottom of their webpage that launches Blogger's BlogThis! window (which I'm using right now)--it's a grass-roots marketing tool that's an inspired idea and only feels slightly self-serving. Well, they got their blog mention out of me, so I guess it's working.
What sort of library software have others on Wrybrarian used? I'd be interested in what people have found, and how Delicious Library might compare.

It took me until I got to work to figure out why my bag was so heavy when I walked to the bus/train this morning. It was all Joe Connelly's fault. I'd checked out Bringing Out the Dead (the book, not the movie) based on the book, started it, become incredibly depressed by it and decided to read Shape Magazine instead. Which would have been a great idea if I would have remembered to unpack The Dead, but instead I am stuck with this incredible downer of a story about life as a medic in Hell's Kitchen, and God knows I won't be able to keep myself from reading it while sitting waiting for magazine ads at my new job.

It's like an accident on the side of the road that you just can't look away from. Uh, exactly like an accident.

And yes, this is the same Joe Connely who wrote Crumbtown, which I reviewed last month. So what?

Blogger is on thin ice. It's been almost two weeks since I've been able to get anything up. I tried changing the template, thereby knocking out all of my customizations, but that didn't work. Now I simply have multiple copies of the last post I saved as a draft.

In summation, fuck you, blogger.

It's your fault that I'm not bothering to write anything more than the following pithy review in regards to Caleb Carrr's Angel of Darkness. Afterall, what's the point if you won't publish it?

When I was in library school, I took a young adult literture class taught by a published romance novelist/high school librarian. She taught the romance and mystery/adventure genres in one unit--and she maintainted that they were really the same genre, one designed to appeal to boys and one to girls. It's novelists like Caleb Carr that have convinced me that, while there's more to target audience than girls vs. boys, there's definitely something to the hypothesis that there's little difference in the romance and mystery genres. Angel of Darkness simply holds too many facets in common with a well-written historical romance to say anything else. And, of course, I enjoyed it, common little paperback whore that I am.

Wrybrarian, Washington, DC

This just in--it's damn hard to keep your blog updated when you're out on tour. That's not to say that reading and rocknroll don't mix. I've had plenty of time to get up to date on the latest scandals and such through such literary giants as People, Star and USA Today. Rather than linking to them, I'll just summarize the important points:

1. Jessica Simpson is a no-good rotten lip syncher.
2. The Royal Prince William is a bad boy.
3. Christopher Reeves was a hero.
4. Brittany Spears is getting awfully trashy.
5. Lots of movie stars take bad pictures in bad outfits.

Another secret I've learned while out on tour--thrift stores are a veritable treasure trove (dear God, excuse the cliche) of book bargains! I picked up Richard Russo's Pulitzer-prize-winning Empire Falls for a buck. I'm normally not a fan of small-town novels (unless they feature some sort of murderer or supernatural monster), but this story of a father, his daughter, ex-wife and a collection of other creatures of small-town life is pretty gosh-darn engaging (note use of small-town talk). It starts a little slow, but don't let that discourage you. Halfway through, I'm forsaking Star because I can't seem to put it down.