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The Month in Reviews: March 2015

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This month I reviewed a dozen books (no, not a baker’s dozen–just a real dozen). My reviews included a couple books on higher education, both recommending a form of “unbundling”. There was an account of Jeff Bezos and the birth of Amazon, a couple of books exploring the paradoxical character of Christian experience, an unusual crime novel, a history of the clashes between Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall that defined the Supreme Court, a book on neuroscience, and several books exploring theological topics ranging from political witness to suffering to whether we can still believe the Bible.

What it comes down to is that I find a wide range of things interesting. Even so, I’ve also had the recent experience of refusing several people who wanted me to review their books–either because it was outside my range of expertise, or interest. I guess I still like the idea of defining what I think will be interesting to read and review!  Anyway, here is the month’s tally, along with my best book and best quote of the month:

1. College Unbound by Jeffrey Selingo. The first of two books I read about the challenges confronting higher ed. Of the two, I think this gives the broadest survey of innovative approaches being taken to “unbundle” higher ed.

College UnboundThe Everything StoreChristian Political WitnessFrom London Far2. The Everything Store by Brad Stone. A fascinating chronicle of the rise of Amazon, the relentless passion of Jeff Bezos to serve the customer, and the line between genius and hubris that he walks.

3. Christian Political Witness by George Kalantzis and Gregory W. Lee (eds.). This is a collection of papers from the 2013 Wheaton Theology Conference exploring a variety of perspectives on Christian engagement in the political realm.

4. From London Far by Michael Innes. A rather far-fetched plot of an Oxford don and a fetching woman scholar who fall into and try to subvert a plot to steal antiquities and art from throughout Europe.

5. The Steward Leader by R. Scott Rodin. Rodin develops a model of leadership around the idea of the steward that challenges the transformational, transactional, and servant leader models.

Minds, BrainsCan we still believe the BibleGrand Paradoxsteward leader6. The Grand Paradox by Ken Wytsma. The author explores the mysteries and apparent contradictions that come with the life of faith.

7. Can We Still Believe the Bible by Craig Blomberg. Blomberg takes on the critics and debunkers of the Bible and makes a scholarly case for the Bible’s trustworthiness.

8. Minds, Brains, Souls, and Gods by Malcolm Jeeves. A career professor of psychology explores the brave new world of neuroscience and the questions about the nature of being human and belief in God being raised by the contemporary research.

9. What Kind of Nation by James F. Simon. Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall clashed over the developing shape of American Federal government with Marshall playing a crucial role in upholding both a strong Federal government and a strong Supreme Court whose power of judicial review balances the powers of the other branches of government.

What Kind of NationA Glorious DarkCollege DisruptedSuffering10. A Glorious Dark by A. J. Swoboda. Another book exploring the paradox of our glorious hope revealed in the tension between the darkness of Good Friday, the waiting of Saturday, and the wonder of Easter Sunday.

11. College Disrupted by Ryan Craig. Craig describes the “unbundling” of higher education in the face of cost and value pressures, particularly through the use of innovative educational technologies including “competency management platforms.”

12. Suffering and the Search for Meaning by Richard Rice.  The book surveys seven ways Christians have dealt with the problem of suffering, assessing strengths, weaknesses, and how we might draw from all of these in coming up with our own ways of making sense of suffering.

Best of the Month: I would have to choose A Glorious Dark, because of the honesty and depth of the writing that explored the Triduum and the paradox of the glory of our faith revealed through the suffering of the cross.

Best quote of the Month: I liked this quote on the proper tension of engagement in the political process that Christians must seek, by former Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya, David Gitari, cited in Christian Political Witness:

“Our relationship with powers that be should be like our relationship with fire. If you get too close to the fire you get burnt, and if you go too far away you will freeze. Hence stay in a strategic place so that you can be of help. You can support the authority, but when they become corrupt you can criticize fearlessly.”

In the month ahead, I will be reviewing a book on shalom in higher education, another book on paradox and faith, a new book on nonviolence by Ron Sider, some historical fiction of Edith Pargeter, and a recent history of Africa (if I get through it in April) and a collection of essays on Christology by majority world authors. Happy reading!

All “The Month in Reviews” post may be accessed from “The Month in Reviews” category on my home page. And if you don’t want to wait a month to see my reviews, consider following the blog for reviews as well as thoughts on reading, the world of books, and life.

Review: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

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The Everything StoreIt is probably no exaggeration that hardly a day goes by without me having some contact with Amazon. If nothing else, there are usually a few e-mails from them in my inbox. When I’m writing about books, I sometimes link to their listing of the book. I have a library of e-books, many from Amazon on my Amazon Kindle. I’ve ordered everything from books to batteries for my car keys to rice cookers from their website. I guess I’m something of a poster child for “the everything store”.

Brad Stone, a Bloomberg Businessweek writer covered Amazon from its beginnings and gives us a fascinating narrative of both the company and its founder based on insider interviews as well as his long relationship with Jeff Bezos.

The story begins with a child prodigy who never knew his biological father until a few years ago. Years later we meet him working as a highly successful hedge fund analyst for D. E. Shaw as he conceives the idea of an online everything store at the dawn of the internet. He left in 1994 and ended up a year later writing to a former associate to come join him in Seattle to help with a start up he was calling Amazon.com. The rest is history. Tumultuous history.

By Steve Jurvetson (Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Steve Jurvetson (Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Much of the tumultuousness lies with Jeff Bezos himself who was relentlessly focused on one thing: delivering a great customer experience while scaling up product categories from books to music to toys to most anything imaginable. Stone recounts the harrowing struggles to build an infrastructure capable of providing the service to which Bezos was fanatically committed–from website to fulfillment centers to shipping. Bezos found the investors to buy him the space to trade operating losses for market share, giving him the leverage to relentlessly negotiate the lowest prices from suppliers (a tactic he learned from Walmart). He described his mindset as a cheetah hunting sickly gazelles.

Bezos, like counterparts Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, was known for his legendary temper and withering “Jeffisms” but also his honking laugh. He demanded total dedication from his executives and most found it both exhilarating and exhausting to the point of burnout. A forward of a customer e-mail from Bezos with a question mark would bring everything to a halt while a satisfactory resolution was made. Instead of PowerPoints, Bezos demands six page narratives from executives in business meetings, believing that much gets obscured between the bullet points.

He sought to define Amazon not as a retailer but as a technology leader. The creation of Amazon Web Services led to the advent of cloud computing as Amazon realized that its server capacity could become a profit center. And he had the courage to creatively disrupt the core of his business, bookselling, through the Fiona project to develop an e-reader and to pressure publishers to provide 100,000 titles in e-format by the launch date of the first Kindle. Others had attempted to develop e-readers. Amazon figured out how to use cellular service to instantly deliver titles to those e-readers and to provide a selection that made it a viable product that would change the way we read.

While driving companies like Circuit City and Borders into bankruptcy, Bezos wrestled to define the company in “missionary” rather than “mercenary” terms. And his own struggle perhaps explains why so many of us have a love-hate affair with Amazon as well. We love the flawless ease of downloading a book to a Kindle or other device before going on a trip and the wonder of ordering a last minute gift and having it at your door in two days (for free with Prime). Yet we hate that apparent competitive ruthlessness reminiscent of the robber barons that has contributed to the demise of big booksellers like Borders and some of the smaller indie stores as well. And perhaps we don’t like to admit to ourselves that convenience and sometimes price trump principle and aesthetics in our own purchasing habits. Yet we find ourselves fascinated with the person whose genius and relentless drive built this sprawling enterprise out of a website and very limited warehouse space in Seattle.

What is yet more fascinating is the personal dream Bezos’ Amazon wealth helps to fund–a venture called Blue Origin, aiming to develop commercial space flight from a 290,000 acre ranch in Texas. Brad Stone gives us a narrative of a man with no small ambitions, a razor-sharp intellect, and a relentless focus on the person who will consume his product, whether purchased at Amazon.com or read in his recently acquired Washington Post. I came away from this narrative with a deeper understanding of the incredibly fine line Bezos and his company walk between genius and hubris. The question I wonder about is whether Bezos will be able to sustain walking in that tension and living on that edge.

Are Books Too Expensive?

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By Steve Jurvetson (Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Steve Jurvetson (Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO thinks so. In a Business Insider story this week, Bezos argued that $30 is too expensive a price to pay for a book that is competing with content that includes not only other books but also blogs, video games and phone apps that are either free or cost far less.

This was one of the issues behind Amazon’s recently resolved conflict with Hachette. The pricing of e-books on Amazon’s Kindle has driven this push for low price points.

I find myself torn as I consider this. I totally get Bezos’ article as a consumer. I almost never pay anything close to $30 for a single book, unless it is an expensive reference text. The other night, we walked out of Half Price Books with four books and a CD that we purchased for about $20. I also recently sold a huge box of books back to these folks and netted $12. Both what I paid and what they paid me gives a truer idea of the value of a book on the market. You think cars depreciate when you take them off the lot? That’s nothing compared to books!

Now I realize that this isn’t the whole picture in terms of the worth of a book. There are physical books that we like to keep, especially those to which we return again and again over our lives. Sometimes, the illustrations and typography in a physical book, even the feel of the paper and cover justify the expense. But is that the case with the latest Janet Evanovich or John Grisham thriller? Most people read them and get rid of them, unless they are thrifty enough to borrow them from the library. These are ideal Kindle books at a low price point–you can read and archive them without them taking up any physical space and without the bother of returning or giving  or selling them.

Where I’m still torn is when I consider the role publishers and their editors can play in identifying and improving and marketing a good book. Already, writers and their agents are absorbing an increasing burden of the marketing. Editing is being outsourced to freelancers, some who might be quite good. All of these cost money and the only way to recover that cost is in the book. What I wonder is what the effect all this will have on quality? Will lower prices mean lower quality?

What I do see is that many good older works are available in e-book format at bargain prices, at least from time to time. Many of these disappear from the shelves of book stores and e-publishing and lower prices give these books a second life, and perhaps some additional revenue to the author and publisher they might not have otherwise enjoyed. Bezos’ Amazon has also allowed self-published authors to get their work out, some with considerable success who could never get their books published or had contracts with publishers where they received little or nothing. A good account of this can be found in a recent Salon article that consists of a dialogue between Rob Spillman, a Salon writer critical of Amazon and Joe Konrath, a self-published author who attributes his success to Amazon.

One upshot of all of this, I believe, is that one way or another the cost of quality will be off-loaded to the author and not all will be willing or able to meet this cost. I do think we will see more poorly edited books and those that are badly formatted for e-publication. I also wonder whether some great writers will get overlooked or discouraged because great writing and the entrepreneurial skills to get published and seen may not come in the same person. Even the self-published route has its costs as this PBS story shows.

My hunch is that quality isn’t a big concern either in the industry or for consumers. Rather, it is a matter of finding a page-turner, fiction or non-fiction, that will be a mental diversion when I don’t want to watch a video or play a game. Niche, indie, and academic publishers will still care about quality while struggling to survive. I do hope we will continue to see new authors of quality whose work is served well by the editing, typography, and layout of the book, whether in print or e-book. I can’t help but think that for this, we may need to be willing to pay more, even the $30 Bezos suggests is too much.

 

 

Books for the Bibliophile in Your Life

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People in my family have this dilemma. Given how many books I have and read, it is hard for them to know what to buy me short of asking.

That may be one way of finding out. If you don’t want to give yourself away the trick is being indirect, and probably far enough away from the time you are giving the gift that they might not remember. Asking them about what they’ve been reading or what kinds of things they like to read might give you some clues of genres to look in. Family members of the person may be of help if they know the person’s habits and don’t mind that they are a bibliophile!

If you have access, you can always try snooping around their homes and seeing what books they have. The challenge here, of course, is remembering what they have, and more importantly, recognizing what they don’t have, and all of this without being obvious. If you are a fellow bibliophile, they will totally get your book-snooping. Chances are they do the same at your house!

Once you have an idea of genre or genres in which you are looking, get some help. A good bookseller is a great resource at this point. In many cases, what you probably want are new titles that your friend may not yet have acquired, particularly if they like to wait to pick them up in second hand shops, a habit of many of us bibliophiles. They can point you to recent releases, particularly ones that have gotten a lot of notice or good reviews. This probably won’t be as cheap as Amazon, but this kind of service is worth extra, particularly if it is offered by an indie bookseller!

There are some indie booksellers that focus on particular genres. Friends who want to buy me theological books, for example, might not get much help at the local B & N. But if you contacted Hearts & Minds Books (probably via the web) I bet you can find something (and the bookseller sort of knows me!). There are stores around for everything from mysteries to feminist literature. You may have to check online–they may not be in your hometown.

There is some help online as well. If you have purchased on Amazon, you know you can create a wish list. Did you know you can also look up the wish lists of your friends? Of course, this presumes that they have created a wish list and it is current and that their name is not really common, like “John Smith”. To do this, just go to your wish list and you will see a box in the upper right hand corner that says, “Find Someone’s Wish List.”

You might also consider social media. If the person is a Facebook friend, their profile may show what books they have read. If they are on Goodreads (and you are) you can see what books they’ve read by genres and their favorite genres (or shelves). Some users also have a “wishlist” shelf. You can also look at their top-rated books and click on the book which takes you to the Goodreads page for that book and look in the upper right corner at the “Readers Also Enjoyed” recommendations. While Goodreads provides recommendations for books you might like based on what you’ve read, they don’t yet do this for your friends (I’ve suggested it!).

My son wins the award for the best book gift. For my birthday, he bought me A Heritage to Share: A Bicentennial History of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio. He knew I was blogging on Youngstown because I grew up there and like all things history. He went to Acorn Bookshop here in town and found this book. Little did he know that I had been in there and had seriously considered buying it, had leafed through it, and put it on my mental “sometime” list but passed up the temptation.

How have you figured out what books to buy your bibliophile friends?

Review: State of Wonder

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State of Wonder
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A letter arrives at Marina Singh’s pharmaceutical lab informing her company of the death of her co-worker, Anders Eckman. At the firm’s request he had gone to the Amazon to check on the research progress on a drug the company was funding, research being done by Annick Swenson. There are few details other than he died of a fever and was buried onsite. Marina’s boss (and lover), Mr Fox as he is known, and Anders wife (who still believes he is alive) both ask her to go to Brazil to find the truth. Marina can hardly say no, yet this trip brings to life her buried past. Before she studied pharmacology, she was an obstetrics resident under Dr. Swenson until she left the residency after performing an emergency C-section that resulted in a disfigured child.

"Ann Patchett 2012 Shankbone" by David Shankbone - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ann_Patchett_2012_Shankbone.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Ann_Patchett_2012_Shankbone.JPG

“Ann Patchett 2012 Shankbone” by David Shankbone – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ann_Patchett_2012_Shankbone.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Ann_Patchett_2012_Shankbone.JPG

As she journeys to Brazil, it is not a state of wonder we expect but a bad ending. She loses her luggage. She is stalled by a young couple, the Bovenders, who tend Dr. Swenson’s Manau apartment while she is in the jungle. Finally, she goes upriver with Dr. Swenson against her wishes into the heart of the Amazon rain forest if not the “heart of darkness”. Her arrival feels Conrad-esque, occurring at night, complete with natives who steal her belongings, and warnings of well camouflaged venomous snakes. She ends up staying with a deaf boy who had previously stayed with Eckman, Easter. Easter, at death’s door, was left with Dr. Swenson by a neighboring cannibalistic tribe.

Yet she survives and embarks on a journey of discovery that will involve a “descent into hell” (language used by Marina) at the end and yet also is filled with wonder. It turns out Dr. Swenson is only one of a number of researchers studying a small plot of trees visited by a unique species of moth and surrounded by psychedelic mushrooms. What’s more, the native women gnaw the bark every five days and continue to be fertile and bear children into their sixties and beyond. Dr. Swenson, experimenting on herself, is also pregnant at 73. But the compound they’ve isolated has other properties of global importance, which is why Dr. Swenson has stalled this research. Marina also confronts her past when she is called on by Dr. Swenson, debilitated by her pregnancy, to perform a C-section on a native woman facing a breech birth.

In the edge-of-your-seat climax, she learns the truth about Eckman, whose fate is wrapped up with that of the deaf boy, Easter. Like all of Patchett’s books that I have read, there were twists at the end, but I think ones that were better anticipated and coherent than in some of her works. And like all Patchett’s books, her writing is beautifully evocative and descriptive and her characters finely drawn in ways that explore the depths and complexities of the human condition. Of those I’ve read, I thought this one of her best.

View all my reviews

Close the Libraries?

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In the July 18th issue of Forbes magazine, Tim Worstall proposed that we “close the libraries and buy everyone an Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription.” This piggybacked on Amazon’s recently unveiled subscription service that gives you unlimited access to 600,000 titles (although it is worth investigating what those titles include and do not include). He argues that this gives for more access than any library can offer and, based on library budgets in the UK, could be done at a savings, particularly if a special mass subscription price could be negotiated (I can see Jeff Bezos rubbing his hands together now!).

Library Levy sign from November 2013

Library Levy sign from November 2013 (picture taken in our front yard)

While from a simple cost calculation this might be true (and there is a question of what would happen if Amazon were given an even greater monopoly of the book market–for example consider what happens with cable rates) there are some compelling reasons not to go this direction:

1. It gives Amazon (or Google) a greater monopoly on the access to books, and control over what books are available to the reading public. Our current library system, as de-centralized as it is, allows for local control, patron interest, and access through inter-library loan to most of the libraries in the country.

2. Libraries provide services to every class in society without charge. This includes borrowing privileges, internet access, and often loans of tablets and other electronic resources. Will Amazon also provide all users tablets, Wi-Fi at no charge? If not, this is only books for some.

3. Libraries provide trained reference librarians who can help access materials one would never find on Amazon, ranging from public records to a myriad of databases. Replacing this with Amazon at best assumes that heuristics and algorithms will guide you and at worst makes you your own reference librarian.

4. On a related note, online resources, whether from Amazon or others, are uncurated. That is, it is totally up to the user to assess the reliability of the information you obtain. Librarians are not infallible curators, but they devote time and research to assessing what books and other resources to acquire.

5. Amazon will recommend books based on your interests. Librarians will do this as well and also help you explore new interests and connect you with titles Amazon’s algorithms wouldn’t come up with.

6. While one can listen to a computer audio voice “reading” a book, libraries offer to children the wondrous experience of librarian-storytellers skilled at reading books and kindling in children the love of story.

7. Libraries offer a “third place” between home and work, whether for children at Story Hours, or teens after school, or senior citizens. Our local library hosts various community meetings and summer concerts. When a number of us in my community gathered to oppose the development of a local wetland, where did we meet? The library.

8. Libraries represent money invested into a local community that enriches our communal life. An Amazon subscription is not taxed and only draws money out of the community into the expansive vision of Jeff Bezos.

I’m not a Luddite. I have an e-reader and do read some books that way. Actually libraries offer many digital resources for lending at no cost. Given that you don’t “own” your Amazon content because of Digital Rights Management, might it not make sense to borrow through the library that you or others in your community support with your taxes?

The larger issue is what kind of a society we want, one where all our experiences are mediated virtually and digitally, or one where we remember that we are physical and social beings meant for real human contact in real physical places.  I suspect the reality for us in this digital age is that the best answer involves both-and thinking rather than the either-or argument proposed in the Forbes article. Both-and solutions may be more complicated than what seems a simple solution of closing the libraries. But I would contend that like so many aspects of life, simpler means smaller and less qualitatively rich. Do we really want that?