http://www.goodreads.com/user/updates_rss/147289 en-US Mon, 12 May 2008 11:22:36 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 24710505 Mon, 12 May 2008 11:22:36 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22078499 to: The Gravedigger's Daughter (Hardcover)
by Joyce Carol Oates
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

So what's the dark fear that lies in the inner heart of all erudite nerds? Namely this -- that no matter how educated, intelligent or well-read you are, there are always going to be a certain amount of very well-known authors you have never read at all, not even one single page of, and that at any moment this fact might be discovered by your fellow erudite nerds. Just take me, for example, who can count among completely unread authors such stalwarts as (deep breath, Jason, deep breath) Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, Augusten Burroughs, Dave Eggers, and dozens more embarrassing admissions. So needless to say that I was excited to recently come across the latest novel by Joyce Carol Oates at my local library, 2007's The Gravedigger's Daughter, because Oates is yet another of these classic "everyone has read at least one book by her" authors who I haven't read myself; and that's apparently a shame, according to my fellow book-loving geeks, given that Oates (a lit professor at Princeton) has been a multiple nominee over the years of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner Award and Orange Prize, not to mention the actual winner of an NBA (in 1970), a Stoker Award and a dozen other accolades. And this is to say nothing of The Gravedigger's Daughter in particular, which made the New York Times' "10 Most Notable Books of the Year" list last year; and of course all of this is small potatoes compared to the greatest achievement of Oates' entire career so far, making it into the Revered And Blessed Oprah's Book Club Hallowed Be Her Name Amen.

So I checked it out and sat down a couple of weeks ago to read it; and then about a week later, found myself finally giving up on it for good around page 250 or so (or roughly halfway through), after two days of literally dreading the idea of even physically picking the book up again. So what happened? Well, to answer that, maybe it would be better for me to ask you a series of questions, questions I've been starting to wonder more and more about the longer CCLaP has been open. Ready?

--Why is it that almost all novels revered by the academic community principally feature characters who are constantly in a state of being slightly miserable? And not miserable as in "interesting" miserable, but miserable as in "that whiny professor in the corner of the room who ruins every godd-mn party they're invited to" miserable?

--Why is it that almost all award-winning novels go way out of their way, deliberately out of their way, to show off what pretty language that author knows, completely removing the reader from the natural pace and rhythm of the story itself? Why can no academically revered novel simply let the reader get lost in the actual story, which is the entire point of a novel even existing?*

--Why is it that academes are so fascinated by mediocre EveryPeople living in bland surroundings, who do nothing with their unremarkable lives and yet somehow still manage to make a whole series of terrible life decisions? Why do so many people in the academic community think that this makes for fascinating literature, and why do they think we should sympathize or even care about such oblivious, socially retarded chumps?

It's the great mystery of the arts, I'm beginning to understand, as CCLaP has me reading academically-revered award-winning novels on a regular basis for the first time in my life; that the exact novels most lauded by this community are the very ones least fitting the definition of an entertaining novel, the ones that instead most call attention to themselves as "precious works of art" more fit for years of overeducated analysis instead of simple pleasure. And in this I guess the so-called "mainstream literature" community is just like any community of genre fans as well, in that they are constantly in need of justifying their existence too, constantly in need of explaining why anyone should devote such time and energy doing delicate little analyses of barely readable books. It's disappointing to be sure, to realize that these revered prize lists are in actuality not a reliable way at all to simply find good books by good authors; it's a lesson about the arts I'm reminded of again by The Gravedigger's Daughter, a lesson I think I'll be paying more attention to in the future.

Out of 10: 4.8

*And since we're on the subject....Sheesh, Oates, will you please stop using exclamation marks! Over and over! In awkward places in your paragraphs! To make your point! Crazy you are driving me! Good literature this is not! Oh, and speaking of which, why like Yoda all your Jewish characters talk? Slightly offensive in a hazily defined way it is! UGH, this book drove me crazy. ]]> 24434374 Thu, 08 May 2008 12:07:13 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/ Jason read and liked Trin's review of Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel:

"Aging rock star Judas Coyne (surprise twist! not his real name), a collector of strange and macabre items, learns about a ghost up for sale on an "eBay knockoff" and decides he has to have i"   ...read more » ]]> 24433712 Thu, 08 May 2008 12:01:08 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/ Jason read and liked Holly's review of Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel:

" I had never heard of Joe Hill, the offspring of Stephen King who wrote this novel under a pen name because he did not want to gain attention to his work for the sole reason that he is Stephen King’"   ...read more » ]]> 24433245 Thu, 08 May 2008 11:55:58 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21867372 to: Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Joe Hill
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Regular readers know that one of the subjects I'm often talking about here at CCLaP is that of so-called "genre fiction" versus "mainstream literature," and especially of the natural danger of the former; that many genre novels are as popular as they are simply because they deliver that genre's fetishistic details in spades, not necessarily because they're good at the building blocks behind all good literature (or in other words, character and plot and style, the same criteria off which CCLaP's reviews are based). So why bother reading genre pieces when you're not a natural fan of that genre? Well, because every so often, a genre novel will come out that is good at the literary ABCs, that does appeal to audience members besides those who naturally love that genre to begin with, and as a result become much more exciting and worthwhile projects than simple mainstream literature; to cite a good recent example, think of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning The Road, how on the surface it seems like any other post-apocalyptic science-fiction thriller but in reality actually tells a much deeper and more profound message than most other books of that genre.

That's what led me, frankly, to reading 2007's Heart-Shaped Box this week, the surprisingly popular debut novel by Joe Hill; because it's a genre novel itself, to tell you the truth, a genre I don't usually care for that much (horror, to be specific), but one that's been getting a lot of attention in the last year from places other than the horror community, a small-press novel that has nonetheless landed in the top 10 of the New York Times bestseller list and with a big-budget Hollywood adaptation by Neil Jordan coming out later this year. Ah, but then I actually read it, and am now even more confused than I was before; because to be perfectly frank, Heart-Shaped Box is an okay novel but certainly nothing better than most other horror books, or at least from the viewpoint of this non-fan who tends to lump all their storylines together. Because really, if you want to think of genre novels in a standardized, almost scientific way, you can really think of them like this -- that all genre novels basically start with a semi-hacky plotline full of easily-guessed cliches (which is why they're known as genre novels in the first place), and how good or bad that novel turns out to be hinges on where that author goes with that semi-hacky plotline, either upwards into unexpected territory or downwards to wallow in its hacky, cliched mess.

And that's the biggest problem with Heart-Shaped Box; unlike the best genre work out there, the stuff that legitimately breaks through to a general mainstream audience, here Hill chooses to wallow in the most predictable cliches available whenever given the choice, whenever given the chance to otherwise elevate his material into something truly unique. Because I mean, seriously, just how many more horror projects do we need that feature as its main villain a creepy horse-faced old man in an antique black suit and fedora hat who talks with a threatening southern drawl? Or dogs that can somehow preternaturally sense the looming evil around them long before the humans do? Or sassy grandmas who accidentally provide the key to the story's entire resolution, through their folksy sayin's spouted around their homey kitchen during a down moment in the plot? These are all bad cliches of the horror genre, the things that make me as a non-fan flee from most hackneyed books within that genre; the entire reason I picked up Heart-Shaped Box was because I thought it was going to be better than that, given the fanatical grassroots popularity the book has inspired since first coming out.

Unfortunately the book is not that; it's a decent horror story, don't get me wrong, but ultimately nothing better or even different than a typical Stephen King novel circa 1982 or so, all haunted cars and cheesy inner dialogue and badly dated rock lyrics and the whole bit. (And speaking of which, by the way, can I just get this off my chest, please? What self-respecting death-metal veteran would ever possibly consider Counting Crows and Coldplay among his favorite bands? Cheese And Rice, Joe Hill, pick a music style and stick with it already, or don't bother making your main character a grizzled death-metal veteran to begin with.) If you're already a fan of horror novels, by all means go ahead and pick it up if you haven't already; if you're like me, though, and tend to only tackle a handful of such projects per year, Heart-Shaped Box unfortunately should not be one of them.

Out of 10: 6.8, or 7.8 for horror fans ]]> 24344383 Wed, 07 May 2008 13:02:19 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/20520995 Jason's review of Dracula (Norton Critical Edition)
by Bram Stoker

Oh, MY yes, do I certainly agree. In fact, I could say that about almost every book from the 1800s I've now read as part of this essay series. ]]> 24313314 Wed, 07 May 2008 07:25:07 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/ Jason read and liked Heidi's review of Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall:

"If you're interested in empires and spend any time conteplating America's situation in the world today, I highly recommend this well-written book.

I saw this writer on CSpan Book TV in January, a"   ...read more » ]]> 24313310 Wed, 07 May 2008 07:25:05 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/ Jason read and liked J.B.'s review of Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall:

"There is lots of great information in this book, and a brilliant conclusion. I was actually considering doing ressearch about the same topic, and i saw her interview so i had to read. I have 2 quote"   ...read more » ]]> 24309938 Wed, 07 May 2008 07:21:15 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21770894 to: Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall (Hardcover)
by Amy Chua
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Almost everyone agrees by now that the United States currently wields an enormous amount of power and influence over the rest of the world; but does that give us the right to call the US an "empire," at least as how we traditionally define the word? After all, the US isn't trying to actively annex or colonize any foreign lands, has no interest in adding more states to the 50 we already own; we do have a vested interest, however, in seeing American-owned businesses do well in these foreign lands, a commonality among many empires throughout the ages, and we're not afraid to use military force to achieve those aims, yet another commonality. We spread the idea of free-election democracies and free-market capitalism, but then insist that the countries we deal with adopt such measures themselves, or suffer the wrath of an imposed democracy through the barrel of a gun.

Perhaps it's better, then, says bestselling essayist and futurist Amy Chua in her new book Day of Empire, to think of the United States instead as a "hyperpower" -- not necessarily an empire or republic or kingdom dealing with all their warring neighbors, but literally a society that has gained unquestioned dominance over the entire planet at once, or at least whatever part of the planet was known to those people at that point in history. If you define it this way, Chua says, then you can actually see a clear line of hyperpowers stretching back chronologically to Cyrus' Persian Empire of 500 BC, with other such infamous societies as the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire, and even the Dutch Republic of the 1600s falling on this line as well; and what's more, you can actually see very obvious similarities between such groups when you align them in this fashion, lessons that can be applied to the US as well at this particular moment in history (the moment we're about to lose our hyperpower status, that is). And indeed, that's something else Chua convincingly does throughout the book as well, is show example after example of powerful empires that never did make it to hyperpower status -- the Ottoman Empires of history, the Spanish Inquisitions, the 20th-century fascist states -- and proves that none of them heeded the lessons about hyperpowers that she points out in this manuscript, thus reinforcing her theories about such societies' rises and falls even more.

So what exactly are the grand secrets about such hyperpowers that Chua discovers? Well, nothing too terribly surprising, if you really stop and think about; basically, that time after time after time, all hyperpowers in history saw their ascendency during a time when they embraced tolerance, when the society itself welcomed different religions and points of view and skill sets and culinary palettes, that the powerful combination of work power and brain power is what vaulted these societies into hyperpower status in the first place. And consequently, in example after example after example, where these hyperpowers started to fall is when they suddenly stopped being tolerant, when success and laziness and a drop in societal education turned the populace into xenophobic, superstitious zealots; time after time, Chua shows how such an attitude has driven away the very people and resources that made that society so powerful, usually right into the arms of another society on the rise that is happy to accept the resources. That's why this line of so-called hyperpowers seems sometimes to be an unbroken stretch from one society to the next for the last 2,500 years; because mainly it's a history of huge groups of people fleeing from one region of the world to the next, all the Jews with their money and scientists with their heretical ideas, and let's not even start with those dirty, dirty bohemians. Every time such groups are forced to flee one hyperpower because of rising intolerance, Chua convincingly argues here, these are always the moments those hyperpowers begin their downfalls; and whatever society ends up embracing these refugees tends to become the next hyperpower in history, which makes a lot of sense when it's explained that way.

And indeed, Chua's book is full of such "ah hah, yes, you're so right" moments, conclusions that make so much logical sense when you read them but that you had never really thought of yourself before this book; this manuscript is very much a reflection of the law professor Chua is during the day, moving very logically from one step to the next to the next. In fact, this might be the most interesting thing of all about Day of Empire, is that Chua does such a great job of pointing out the surprising amount of similarities from one hyperpower to the next; from Greek emperors bowing before Egyptian gods to Queen Victoria declaring herself the Empress of India, Chua creates an unshakable argument through facts and historical records of how important such religious tolerance and surface-level gestures have been to every single hyperpower in existence, no matter how those gestures are actually expressed from one decade to the next. In fact, as painful as it is, Chua also convincingly argues here how close such "evil" societies throughout history came to becoming long-term and secure ones, if they had only embraced such tolerance a little more themselves; to use one chilling example, how the Nazis would've probably gotten World War II called off as a stalemate, and survived well into our times, if they had only been able to embrace Russians, Poles and Czechs as equals and work out some kind of mutually beneficial truce. If not for the Holocaust, if not for their official policy of considering all their neighbors vermin, the Nazis could've very well "won" WWII precisely by not losing it; and this is the case with almost all the not-quite-hyperpowers in history, Chua argues, from the Spanish Empire embracing the Inquisition during the Dark Ages to China's Ming Empire embracing isolationism after the devastation of the Mongol Hoard.

It's an intriguing and thought-provoking book, one that will really have you looking at America's position in the world in a different way, wondering how we too might be able to "softly transition" out of hyperpower status like Great Britain did a century ago (a point in history Chua clearly admires), or if we are doomed to crash and burn like the old hyperpowers who never learned these lessons. Combined with the last section of this manuscript, a look at the rising regions and coming powers of the world (mostly the EU, China and India), it's a great primer as to how powerful societies get things right, where things go wrong, and what we can likely expect in global politics over the next 25 years. Day of Empire is a fast-moving, plainly-written book, one of those great nonfiction accounts geared towards a general populace that I love so much; not only policy wonks but simply those wanting to know a little more on the subject will find the book a real asset, and it gets a big recommendation from me today.

Out of 10: 9.3 ]]> 24245082 Tue, 06 May 2008 13:27:13 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21719144 to: The Somnambulist (Hardcover)
by Jonathan Barnes
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Regular readers know that I am a big fan of the unique subgenre known as "steampunk," but might not know what exactly steampunk is; and similarly, regular readers also know that one of the issues often tackled here at CCLaP is the difference between so-called "genre" projects and so-called "mainstream" ones, but might not know what those differences are or why they matter. And since today's book under review brings up these topics yet again, I thought I would use it as an excuse to talk about them in greater detail, along with telling you about the book itself; because the book under question, see, is the inventive steampunk tale The Somnambulist, the high-profile debut novel of Times Literary Supplement critic Jonathan Barnes, a book destined to make you either squeal with Victorian fanboy delight or shudder with non-fan disgust. It's a great example of why genre novels are loved by fans of that genre and hated by everyone else, and why it can sometimes be so difficult as an "objective" critic to review such projects in the first place.

So what exactly is steampunk, to not put too fine a point on it? Well, it was originally an outgrowth of the "cyberpunk" movement in science-fiction in the 1980s, which is how it got its name; novels and stories and comics that were being written by these same cyberpunk authors and dealing with the same complex modern issues, but couched in the visual sumptuousness and rigid morality of the Victorian Age, which for practical purposes you can think of as roughly 1840 to 1900. And indeed, it is not too much of a stretch at all to reimagine current tech and ethical issues through the filter of that era; it was the height of the Industrial Age as well, after all, the era that saw the profession of science first come into its own, a half-century of human history that arguably saw as much rapid technological progress as we're seeing in our own times. In a world where dozens of things formerly thought of as magic were actually getting invented, standardized and ready for retail sales, of course it would make sense to set a semi-fantastical, semi-magical tale within such an environment; now imagine the exquisite detail and luxurious materials that went into such Victorian-Age contraptions, all that brass and wood and ivory and the like, and you can easily see why a contemporary author might want to set a modern-style tale in those years instead of our own.

And in fact Barnes' book teeters right on the edge of fantastical the entire time, a novel which could be argued is actually more magical realism than science-fiction; London at the turn of the 20th century, yes, but a London with secret magical archives in the basement of the British Library, a London with secret police departments guarding millennia-old mysteries from becoming public knowledge. It's within such a place that we meet the book's two main characters: a past-his-prime stage magician named Edward Moon who doubles as a notorious Holmes-style private investigator (in fact, Arthur Conan Doyle exists in The Somnambulist's London too, and is considered an untalented hack by our book's hero); and the eponymous "Somnambulist" in question, a hideous eight-foot-tall mute with no body hair, Moon's on-stage assistant and the focus of his most famous trick, able to be stabbed repeatedly with swords without ever being hurt, who refuses to drink anything else in his life but milk and of that 15 to 20 pints a day.

And of course it's this that gets us into one of the first big differences between genre work and so-called mainstream literature (or movies, or whatever); a genre project is full of whimsical little details that cater to that specific genre only, that will be loved by fans of that genre but despised by most others. Because let's face it, unless you naturally enjoy dainty little complicated half-magical whimsical elements in your adventure fiction, you are bound to go a little crazy trying to read The Somnambulist, and very quickly into the manuscript too; this is a book, after all, that features a whorehouse catering to circus-freak fetishes, a gentlemen's lounge for hideously disfigured war veterans, cadavers brought back to life Frankenstein-style, and a subterranean spy agency hidden in the back of an East End opium den, among lots of other details that have you either laughing or groaning even before you've finished this sentence. All genres have their little details that cater just to those who love the genre, which is why they're called genres in the first place -- crime fans have their brilliant serial killers, western fans have their stoic cowboys, and steampunk fans have their disfigured mad-scientist supervillains in tophats and overcoats. You either accept these details or you don't, which means you simply either accept such books as entertaining or you simply don't; that's a big sign of a project being a mainstream versus genre one, if its enjoyment does or doesn't rest solely on the details of a specific type of literature.

Because that's the other thing about The Somnambulist, that the storyline itself is very much a fast-paced, plot-heavy one, which brings me to about the biggest complaint I have; that many parts of the novel feel like Barnes imagining how the eventual big-budget Hollywood adaptation of that scene will look, instead of the scene directly servicing the storyline itself. And this again is a big difference between so-called genre projects and mainstream ones, that genre projects almost always concentrate more on painting striking mental images in their readers' heads, almost always favor plot more heavily than character since it's the details of a plot that most defines what type of genre it is. Because make no mistake, if you're a fan of steampunk, The Somnambulist is going to give you a boner; it's 350 pages of hansom-cab chases and obscure clues found on ancient gravestones, a giant conspiracy tale that of course features a famous poet from the 1700s, of course features a pagan society leaving little signs of itself all over the city, of course features grandiose evil lairs buried within the labyrinthine tunnels of London's tube system! Whew, oh, excuse me, I think I need to visit the bathroom for a few minutes!

Now, I'm quite aware that the above paragraph has a certain amount of you shaking your heads and rolling your eyes even as we speak, which of course is another sign of something being a genre project; it's the same reaction I have, for example, when someone says to me, "See, he solves crimes, but he's a phobia-obsessed recluse! Hah? Hah? Isn't that interesting?" Well, no, not to me, because I'm not a particularly big fan of crime fiction, just as others don't care for steampunk, romance, historical thrillers, or all those other shelf labels at your favorite corporate superstore. It doesn't mean they're necessarily bad books, which is where the difficulty lies for me as a critic; because how exactly do you describe a book that's great, but only great to that small segment of the population who naturally loves that genre in the first place? It's always the balance I'm trying to strike here, given that CCLaP concentrates on a higher percentage of genre novels than many other lit-oriented publications.

I guess, then, I'll say what I always say about such books; that steampunk fans are sure to love it, others not so much, that it's definitely worth taking a chance on if you're feeling adventurous, but ultimately you're not missing all that much if you're not. That's the ultimate beauty and curse of genre fiction, after all, is that when all is said and done, the projects tend to bleed into each other a lot in our collective memories; it's why genre books receive so much scorn from the general populace and so few awards, despite such books comprising the vast majority of ones published, bought and read in this country. The Somnambulist is very much like that, a book that's definitely enjoyable but that you will likely get mixed up with other steampunk books years later when recalling; that's not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly something you deserve to know before going into it.

Out of 10:
Story: 9.0
Characters: 7.2
Style: 8.4
Overall: 8.0, or 9.0 for steampunk fans ]]> 24149532 Mon, 05 May 2008 12:16:35 -0700 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21646207 to: Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag (Hardcover)
by Michael Tonello
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

So are you familiar already with what's known as the Birkin bag? It's the product of Hermés, one of those European "designer boutiques" that exists for no other reason than to severely overcharge rich people with self-esteem issues; you know, one of those places that sells hundred-dollar handkerchiefs, $500 t-shirts and the like, eagerly bought up by the wealthy and idle so that they can prove to strangers that they too can afford to waste $500 on a t-shirt. (Yeah, I don't get it either.) But of all the ridiculously overpriced merchandise that Hermés sells, perhaps none is more infamous than their Birkin handbags; named after a famous French singer and habitual Hermés customer, these bags cost a minimum of $10,000 new from the store, and depending on the type can run you upwards of $75,000 or more. And human nature being what it is, of course, it's nearly impossible to get one's hands on an actual Birkin, with there being an infamous two-year waiting list at most stores to even be given the opportunity to blow that kind of money; needless to say, the self-imposed scarcity drives all these upper-class women with self-esteem issues crazy, with some of them willing to go to almost any lengths and pay any price to get ahold of one of them themselves.

And thus enters witty gay entrepreneur and Huffington Post columnist Michael Tonello, whose new memoir Bringing Home the Birkin is a doozy of a book; it's the purportedly true story of how Tonello managed to get his hands on literally hundreds of Birkins himself over just a few years' time, always done legally and with Hermés employees fully aware of his existence, making himself a fortune in the process by reselling them on eBay for insane markups. And I'm telling you, this is exactly what you want a personal memoir to be -- funny, thrilling, chock-full of great cocktail-party stories told with the flair of a natural raconteur, following an overall storyline as tight as any fictional project, one whose ending is not necessarily something you can guess beforehand. It's one of those books I just absolutely love coming across as part of maintaining CCLaP -- one of those books I would never naturally pick up myself, but that turned out to be a real delight, one that makes me happy and glad to be in a position to recommend to others.

So how did Tonello do it? Well, for starters, it helps if you don't buy into the hype of brand-obsession yourself; although a longtime collector of fine clothing (usually in the service of his former day job, providing hair and makeup services to various east-coast media shoots), Tonello admits that he doesn't share the religious devotion to certain designers like his clients do, and finds it emotionally easy to give up ownership of high-ticket items. In fact, that's what brought Birkins to his attention in the first place; after impulsively moving to Barcelona in the early 2000s, then having his prearranged job fall apart once arriving, Tonello found himself selling off big portions of his back wardrobe to the various designer consignment stores around the city, amazed that certain decade-old scarves of his would still be snatched up at nearly the original price by certain crazed collectors. This led him to eBay (of course), where he found that he could actually make a profit off of certain items depending on what they were; this then led to certain customers emailing him with "wish lists," certain old and new boutique items that Tonello would keep a specific eye out for while traipsing across Europe in his travels. And this, of course, is what led him to Birkins for the first time, and for developing the same kind of obsession over their fake scarcity as so many of us do when first hearing about them.

Because that's the smart thing about Tonello, and why he became so good at being a Birkin broker; he realized quite early on that this so-called exclusivity is simply a shell game on the part of Hermés, and that if you could just break their code it shouldn't be hard to buy a Birkin anytime you want, simply by walking into a store and asking for one. This led Tonello to trying out different things at the various Hermés stores he visited across Europe, trial-and-error style until he was able to notice certain things working over and over; and then this realization inspired the expansion of Tonello's globetrotting shopping sprees, to the point of finding himself traveling to places like South America and Russia on a regular basis, just to hit up the stores that rich old white women usually don't make it to. And when all is said and done, really, the winning equation to getting a Birkin turns out to not be that complicated at all...

1) Dress the part -- never walk in a store wearing less than a quarter-million dollars in clothes and jewelry.

2) Identify which of the half-dozen "Hermés employee types" you're dealing with when you walk in, then cater to their weaknesses. (So if it's a "Grandmother" type, act like the pleasant courteous son they never had; if it's an "Incurable Romantic," act like they have a chance of having sex with you later that night.)

3) Blow a thousand dollars first, buying other stupid crap. Or if you're in New York, blow five thousand dollars.

4) When they're ringing you up, off-handedly ask, "Oh, and would you happen to have any Birkins in the back as well?"

5) Ka-ching!

But of course, I'm simplifying the situation for humorous effect; as Donello actually demonstrates here quite well, the real secret to becoming a Birkin regular is more complicated and ephemeral than that, a strange mishmash of sucking up, buying into the hype, and sincere friendships, a legitimate community of high-end haute-couture lovers that you must somehow ingratiate yourself into, if you want any chance of making an actual career out of something like this. And indeed, this is one of the big strengths of Bringing Home the Birkin, and what separates it from the endless similar chick-lit crap that HarperCollins desperately, desperately wants you to think of when thinking of this book (and seriously, HarperCollins marketing department, if you mention Sex in the City one more time in your promotional material I might just vomit all over myself); because Tonello shines a light here through the foggy haze of all that, and shows how the entire haute-couture culture is an endless house of cards that ultimately relies on peer pressure and catering to people's fears in order to work. It makes it a weightier book than the ones it will undoubtedly get compared to by others, a stronger tale that doesn't have to rely so much on you being an obsessive fashion-lover yourself in order to enjoy.

Now, that said, oh man does Tonello tell some great stories on the way to this disillusionment -- of flying into Rio just to visit a Hermés store, of attending star-studded European fashion events, of racking up half a million on a credit card in a single weekend. In fact, that might be the most enjoyable thing of all about Bringing Home the Birkin, is that Tonello is simply a natural storyteller and gifted raconteur; take for example what is easily the best story of the entire book, his uneasy relationship with a skeevy chickenhawk gay hustler he accidentally meets one night, who has various Hermés employees "eating out of the palm of his hand" and so can therefore get his hands on certain items that Tonello can't. Needless to say, things quickly devolve between the two, with Tonello eventually having to hatch a wacky noiresque scheme to steal back a $25,000 Birkin the hustler stole from him in the first place; there's not much funnier of a mental image in this whole manuscript, to tell you the truth, than that of Tonello sneaking around the streets of Paris with a group of headphoned goons in sunglasses, wondering if his hotel room is "safe" and asking himself just what he's gotten himself into, when first thinking it would be fun to sell a bunch of overpriced purses to a group of rich housewives.

This is what I mean by how wonderful this book is; it at once gives us all the great anecdotal stories that come with the highest end of the fashion industry, while still pointing out all the depressing realities that such an industry produces, all the various hangers-on in a community like that who swirl around the small amount of rich, beautiful and famous in the center. That after all has become the biggest problem with America's entertainment industry as well, that there is simply so much money being generated from it in so many different ways that it's become an almost unstoppable monster; it's no longer just about the actors and directors and producers in the middle of it, but all their yoga instructors and dog psychiatrists and personal shoppers, all the gossip columnists and publicists and people who get paid to convince celebrities to use certain products in public. That's what makes Bringing Home the Birkin so fascinating, because ultimately that's what Tonello's story is about as well -- not the fashion designers themselves, but those who game the fashion system in order to skim a profit off its top, the endless retail employees and eBay resellers and party crashers and blog owners and the rest, all of them taking their own little cuts from the massive amounts of money being exchanged in the middle of it all.

It's a fascinating book that tells a fascinating story, not the best-written thing I've read this year but certainly far from the worst, one of those fabled books about fashion that even non-fashion-lovers can enjoy. It gets a big recommendation from me, and I imagine will also be one of the winners of CCLaP's annual "Guilty Pleasure Award." ]]>