We asked librarian Randy Ham
to give us a short blurb about his
favorite book of 2013 so far. Like many book industry people Randy was unable
to pick just one book--totally understandable and only a few folks were able to
choose just one book. Randy however, wins the award for longest and most
passionate blurb. You won, Randy, you won!
Here's Randy's pick:
I’m addicted to Neil
Gaiman. There, I said it. I love his comics, I love his children’s books, I
love his screenplays, I love his restraining orders. That being said, The
Ocean at the End of the Lane gave me fits of rage as the publication date
loomed. First of all, I was so confident I would be able to get an advanced
copy, so I could read it ahead of the general public. When I found out there
were none left for me, I was beside myself. I would have to wait, just like
everyone else, until publication date. I’m not good with waiting. At all.
I badgered other
booksellers I knew who had copies, trying to get them to loan me their copy.
That didn’t go over too well (and to be honest, if the tables had been turned,
I would have had a hard time saying ‘yes’ to some guy on Facebook accosting me
for my Can’t Get It Anywhere Else copy of the book).
Publication date arrives,
and I finally get the book I’ve been salivating over. It’s 181 pages. ‘That’s
Not A Novel!!!’ I scream inside my head, ‘Where’s my next American Gods?
Where’s the next Neverwhere???’ I curse Neil Gaiman.
Then I read the book
anyway.
The Ocean at the End of
the Lane, tells the story of an
unnamed narrator, all of eight years old. His family becomes out of sorts due
to the death of a boarder in the home. To compound the problem, there may or
may not be forces outside this realm working against the boy. The only ally he
has is another young girl named Lettie Hempstock, and her family.
On the surface, the book
reminds us what it is really like to be 8 years old. It’s not all just
playgrounds, Happy Meals, and toys. Childhood is dangerous and scary. We’re
unable to see, understand or even imagine things that happen to our parents
when we aren’t around, and traumatic events like death tend to have little consequence
in daily lives, while little things like a new governess have far reaching
effects. Things that have absolutely nothing to do with us are still somehow
out fault in our little minds. One day, for no reason, we believe that our
parents don’t love us. Other days, we believe we are the favorite of the clan.
When you read deeper into
the text, Gaiman’s love of mythology comes through. He gives us mystical,
powerful women, terribly scary monsters, but most of all he gives us another
trait eight year-olds master above adults: Imagination. We may scoff at
monsters, oracles, and magical oceans, but they are the tools that help 8 year-olds cope with the real world. I could tell you so much more, and dissect it
for a proper review, but I don’t want to spoil the pleasure of reading it for
you.
I walk away from the book
impressed that Gaiman can do all of that in only 181 pages. It quickly rockets
to my #2 favorite Gaiman book (American Gods will always be #1). If you
have never read Gaiman, this is the perfect jumping on point. I recommend
reading it late at night, in your closet with your dog (who’s afraid of the
thunder outside).
Two other picks:
The Unchangeable Spots
of Leopards - Kristopher Jansma
(Gianna, she of the Short Story Brigade should be reading this). What is it
like to fabricate every single aspect of your life, and have everyone believe
it? Told in a series of vignettes, our unnamed protagonist weaves a story of
deception, betrayal and love. From page to page, you never know what parts are
real and what parts are fabricated. Fascinating.
The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate
Based on the true story of
Ivan, a gorilla at a roadside attraction, this Newbery winning young adult novel was
more entertaining and moving than I expected. It makes me very happy to know
that the quality of YA literature is magnified every year, and that kids are
being exposed to and reading such great work. In the end it just makes them
readers for life.
The best book
I've read this year was first published — posthumously — in 1981. It is G. B.
Edwards' The Book of Ebenezer Le Page.
The edition I read was published by New York Review Books in 2007. It's hard to
believe that it was out-of-print and unavailable for any length of time. It's a
longish and frighteningly ordinary novel and it made me cry, the last three
chapters did, which I rarely do. Ebenezer Le Page is an old Guernseyman writing
his reminiscences, covering the period from the end of the 19th century through
the mid-1970s on his beloved island in the English Channel. He loves but never
marries, lives through two World Wars, endures multiple friendships and
enmities, and bemoans the slow desecration of Guernsey by the inexorable forces
of modern life — the car, the phone, the television, and the abandonment of
religious faith for something far more irrational: monetary faith. The part
that made me cry was toward the very end, when Ebenezer goes around the island
to visit people he has long known to see if any of them are worthy of
inheriting his legacy. He has no heirs of his own and a considerable sum of
money that he has accumulated down through the years. No one is deemed worthy
until he meets a young man with whom he'd once had a legal run-in. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a book
that made me feel glad to be alive. Alive and yet mournful — almost
inconsolably so — at the passing of so many loved ones and at the passing of a
way of life. G. B. Edwards found the universal in the particular and I dare
anyone to read his novel without recognizing oneself in his protagonist. 
