Thomas Piketty's Capital: Live Blog I

We live tweet events so why don't we live blog our books? They may last longer than a Premier League match or election night special, but we read them continuously and their covers bound a discrete event. During their course our support veers between characters or new facts prompt us to change intellectual direction. They ebb and flow like all tweet worthy events.

Capital In The Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty is the perfect book for this project. It's long. It requires reflection. And because it's such an unexpected hit, everyone's talking about it but can't get their hands on one to read. So a live blog is like the newspaper reader in an eighteenth-century coffee house telegraphing to his neighbours. Which is where the book begins.

The introduction is properly long, properly academic, and properly structured. "Here's my thesis (wealth, as opposed to capital, generates arbitrary inequalities that undermine democratic society); here's a history and literature review (Malthus-Ricardo-Marx-Kuznets, no Keynes); here why my work is so different and necessary (data integrity and longevity); and here are my sources (tax records)."

And that's only the first half of the introduction. So we're off to a classic start and so far (but I am surrounded by cheering fans at the book office) I'm willing to believe some of the superlatives being thrown at this thing.

As an aside, I recognize the translator Arthur Goldhammer from my days as a medievalist. He's always been excellent, and how many times can you say you're familiar with a particular translator's work? More points then.

airplane reads

Picking books for an flight (both ways) and holiday is always a fraught decision. Especially when travelling to a country where finding an English book is unlikely. What if you don't like what you've brought?

So, when faced with a combined thirty hours of flying go with what you know. Go with some favourites. Go with your gut. And make sure it'll last:

• Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick: Something that's been on my shelf for years. So I've obviously always wanted to read it, but never got around to it.
• Summer House by Herman Koch: Great first novel and the blurb on this suggests more of the same. A safe, reliable choice.
• Capital by Rana Dasgupta: A cultural-urban-studies view of Delhi. Perhaps the riskiest choice, but urban studies is normally a win and a rapidly developing part of the world means interesting goings on.

And now off to Hong Kong.

how to rate a book: fiction

Now that I've figured out how consistently to rate non-fiction books, I admit that, on occasion, I've furtively read a novel. Or two.

Expertise and voice meant a lot in non-fiction. Voice, narrative, or storytelling is here the most important element. Along with character and plot. The classic fiction tools. 

★ "And then he woke up": Obviously the author didn't care enough to tell a story and fill it with characters. A nightmare of a book.

★★ Everyone has one good novel in them, right? Or so the saying goes, and this author just squeezed out a comprehensible plot and some almost believable characters. Just.

★★★ WYSIWYG: Standard, comfortable fare - tasty now, but will you remember it next year? (This is where the franchise authors live: Clancy, Patterson, Sparks, Grisham.)

★★★★ There goes my subway stop: An engrossing narrative moved along by real people. Escapism in the best sense of the word.

★★★★★ My life will never be the same: A story etched into your memory, filled with characters who will become your best friends for life, speaking in utterly memorable language. Tears are acceptable.

how to rate a book: non-fiction

Five-star ranking systems are popular among book readers. But what does a star mean? That you like a book? Through a year, how can you be sure that the two-stars you gave in January means the same as two-stars in July?

So, thinking about topic expertise and quality of writing, let's set out stars we can stick with.

★ How did I reach the end: Somehow the author found a publisher who overlooked their ignorance of the subject, and an editor who helped them string together sentences. At least they can spell.

★★ My mum said if you have nothing nice to say: Well, the author does sound like they know what they're talking about and can talk well. Albeit in a monotone.

★★★ Worth the time: Now you've got a decent chance of learning something new from an experienced researcher whose writing gets out of the way. Standard issue.

★★★★ Tell your friends: You're reading an expert in the field with something intelligent and original to say, who can explain it to the layman. Confidently recommend it.

★★★★★ Make room on your shelf: An outstanding book that challenges your thinking with memorable writing. Buy the hardcover and never let it go.

On occasion, you may be permitted to give a bonus star.

lazy thinking. and you can't own customers.

At the book office today, I read this headline:

New Amazon Low: Trying to Steal Customers Outside Indie Store

I've no love for Amazon and, yes, they play hard. But let's avoid assumptions and sloppy thinking (except my own).

So, Amazon set up a marketing kiosk outside a university bookstore. Maybe campus bookstores are different in America, but I wouldn't call them indies and the virtuous hardships that label often implies. A fairly captive audience, mark-ups on academic titles, and high margin paraphernalia with the school logo.

But my bigger problem is the phrase "steal customers". You can't steal customers. They aren't serfs. They aren't indentured purchasers. You can compete for customers. You can encourage them to shop with you. But, they're free. In the market.

Once you start feeling entitled to your customers, it's unsurprising you complain about the competition instead of taking the fight to them.

how much does a child cost (in books)?

Every so often, another report releases that proposes the cost of raising children. Forget these. I can tell you exactly how much it costs.

In books.

Thanks to goodreads stats, I know that I read 101 books in 2012. That dropped to 80 in 2013 after our daughter was born. That's a 21% decline. Because she was born in late June, almost exactly midway through the year, I should have read 50% of my books on either side. Well, my reading rate slowed (though not dramatically) because I finished only 47% of my books in the second half of the year.

But the shocking statistic is the page count. 34,385 in 2012. 24,476 in 2013. That's a 29% drop! So I read a lot of thin books.

Where did all the time gained from not reading go?

Sleeping commutes instead of reading commutes.

No more reading in bed. Manically do chores after baby goes to sleep.

Oh, and no more lazy Sunday afternoon reading.

But, we did read The Very Hungry Caterpillar together about fifty times. And that has to count as time well spent.

new year. new books. and some old ones.

Talk at the book office this week was about our goodreads 2013 reading challenges. And, of course, our 2014 goals, when I shamefacedly admitted to a smaller goal in 2014.

A simple 52 books, one for each week of the year.

Why?

I spent too much time last year charging through three-hundred pagers for work. Time to set aside commutes for longer reads like those thick histories I've owned for ten years but never opened.

Which includes continuing starting (it never really got going this year) a medieval reading project. I cannot resist buying those old paperback Penguin Classics. Never read them though. Too indecisive. So I took the decision out of it by simply heading to the beginning of the medieval section - Abelard and Heloise - and planning to read the shelf from left to right. It's like a school uniform: with no choice in clothing, you just got up and got going. Problem solved.

So, longer denser books. Medieval texts. That's a happy new year.