I Win

I'm happy to report that at the next book club meeting (Friday, October 19) we'll be discussing Copies in Seconds. As you know, I'm always eager to recommend this book, and the book club members finally took the bait.

We've heard from one member who has already finished the book that she enjoyed it. I'm re-reading it now, and luckily it lives up to my memory.

In other news, some of you may know that I was the only book club member who didn't enjoy Water for Elephants (see post below). I did force myself to finish it, however, even after the discussion, and it didn't get any better for me. The author definitely did a lot of research into circus life in the '30s, but for me that alone didn't translate into an entertaining book.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the selection before that, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, probably because there wasn't a single expected sentence in that book.

Anyway, I just finished a lovely palate cleanser after the elephant debacle: Howards End by E.M. Forster. I was probably the only one left on the planet who hadn't read that book yet, so I was lucky to find an audio version (Recorded Books) at the library with a very good narrator. An older-sounding man with a great British accent (John Franklyn-Robbins), he struck the right balance between straight narration, imitation of character voices, and a very subtle emphasis on the funny parts. Run to the library now and pick this up before it goes back to Middletown.

And Now, For Something Completely Different

I recommend this book every chance I get: Copies in Seconds, by David Owen. It's about Chester Carlson, who was instrumental in inventing the Xerox copier.

At a glance, not my typical kind of book. I got it for my father, who eats nonfiction for breakfast. But he talked about it so much that I had to read it.

David Owen does a masterful job of weaving Chester Carlson's life story with history's attempts to make copies of documents, and with the technical details of the process that led up to the first Xerox copier. And as I read it all, I felt as if I understood it. I couldn't possibly explain any of it now, but while I was reading, I wasn't lost in jargon, and the author didn't presume any technical knowledge on the part of the reader.

This book is available at the library now.