Science fiction author Steven Brust has come up with an analogy to categorize different types of reading matter according to their “nutritional” value:

Books can be broken down into four classes: popcorn, steak, caviar, and celery.

 

Popcorn is pretty obvious. Anyone here enjoy The Destroyer novels by Sapir and Murphy as much as me? gobble gobble gobble Steak is the stuff you can bite into, chew, swallow, and gain sustenance from. …

 

[Caviar] is a lot of work to get to. You have to open the can, you have to make sure the refrigeration is exactly perfect. You have to have the right atmosphere, and you have to approach it with the proper reverence if you’re going to get anything out of the experience. But if you do, my god, is it worth it!

 

Celery is that stuff you have to chew and chew and chew and, by the time you’re done, you’ve gotten even less nutritional value from than the popcorn. I won’t name any names.

What’s interesting to me about these categories is that they are, to a certain extent, subjective. I think everybody can agree that certain books are “popcorn” — Dirk Pitt novels, for instance — but it seems that one person’s caviar is another’s celery, i.e., the ratio of reward versus effort expended would vary widely depending on one’s education, interests, and tastes. For example, there are folks out there who happily read high-brow postmodernist lit (Thomas Pynchon, anyone?) and find it both entertaining and nourishing, while I myself think it’s a tedious slog from which I take little of value. By contrast, many of Stephen King’s novels qualify as “steak” for me — the Dark Tower novels, in particular, have a lot going for them that some folks might not notice because of the genre elements — but many people dismiss his work as popcorn reading (or worse).

I don’t have much else to say on this subject, I just thought it was an interesting little thought exercise for the day…

(My thanks to SF Signal for the referral.)

And we’re back. Here’s the other half of my annual media retrospective, focusing this time on my literary pursuits.

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There was a time — roughly 15 years ago, if you’re keeping track — when I would’ve called Michael Crichton one of my heroes. He was even somebody I aspired to be like, a popular storyteller who sold novels by the truckload, occasionally dabbled in Hollywood, ate dinner with Sean Connery, and routinely confounded the literary snobs who resented his success. I loved the movies Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, and Runaway, which he wrote and directed; I was fascinated by his personal journeys as recounted in the autobiography Travels; and I thought (and still do) that the original Jurassic Park novel was a terrific thriller. In my unsophisticated youth, I even prophesied that Crichton would someday earn the respect of those aforementioned snobs through dint of his popularity, that his books, loved by millions, would endure long after the “literary fiction” beloved of the ivory-tower-types had passed from memory.

Then I grew up.

Continue Reading…

Here’s a public service announcement for any local bibliophiles who may be reading my humble blog: The Great Salt Lake Book Festival is now underway at the beautiful Salt Lake Main Library. The Festival’s director, Rebecca Batt, is an acquaintance of mine, and it looks like she’s done a fine job this year. The schedule for the next three days is packed with interesting speakers from the Western literary scene, including the novelist Ivan Doig, nature photographer and writer Stephen Trimble, graphic novelist Dave Sim and artist Gerhard (the creators of the monumental work Cerebus), and Steve Hendricks, a journalist who has just published what sounds like a very intriguing book on the way the FBI derailed the mid-70s movement for American Indian rights. Also on hand are Salt Lake’s favorite Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings and Betsy Burton, the outspoken advocate of independent booksellers and co-owner of The King’s English bookshop.
For those, like me, who probably won’t be able to attend in person, a number of the author lectures will be broadcast on KCPW, a radio station that’s headquartered at Library Square on 88.3 FM, 1010 AM, and, of course, over the Web. Should be some good stuff going on… check it out!

Here’s Scalzi talking about the choices one makes in the writing life:

…a Bennington grad won the Booker Prize this year, for a novel that is praised for “illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a ‘better life,’ when one person’s wealth means another’s poverty.” Meanwhile, my [new] book starts with a chapter primarily about farting an alien to death. Would I have written a book with farting, had I gone to Bennington? And would it have won the Booker Prize? These are the personal alternate personal histories of my life. Be that as it may, two roads diverged in the woods, and I, well, I took the one in which intestinal emanations were used for humorous effect. And that has made all the difference.

And the Monday-morning laughter continues…

Just got back from lunch and a brisk afternoon walk around the mean streets of SLC. Saw something that gave me a chuckle as I passed the stinky bookstore and thought I’d share.

In the shop’s window, among the antique steel cans of Miller Beer, the Godzilla toy, and an ancient, crumbling Book of Mormon held together with a red ribbon, was a pair of recently published but used hardcovers standing side-by-side. A hand-lettered sign tucked between them made the following offer:

“Ann Coulter’s Treason $7. Living History by Hillary Clinton free with Coulter book.”

Is this someone’s gesture at political balance? Or just an observation about what sells in Utah and what doesn’t?