Reduced down to a simple scale, The Big Over Easy is very good, while most of the Thursday Next series (including The Well of Lost Plots) are great. Fforde is a victim of his own creativity.

The Big Over Easy is a mystery novel that follows detective Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crimes Division (NCD). Yes, he’s that Jack Spratt and in this alternate world nursery characters are real and live among us.

The NCD is under the microscope after Spratt fails to secure a conviction against the three pigs for death by scalding of Mr. Wolff. And now Humpty Dumpty has been murdered!

That’s the set-up and Fforde delivers with great nursery references (many of which I’m guessing I missed) and his usual absurd humor.

There’s nothing wrong with The Big Over Easy and yet, it’s not quite as inventive as The Eyre Affair, the first in the Thursday Next series. As much as I tried to simply enjoy The Big Over Easy for what it was, I couldn’t help but compare.

It didn’t help that Fforde draws at least one of his characters (Lola Vavoom) from the Thursday Next series into The Big Over Easy.

Comparisons aside, it’s a fun novel and yet again showcases Fforde’s ability to create a world populated with literary characters. This time it’s even more absurd because Fford draws on everything from a gigantic egg to a Greek Titan. Yes, Prometheus winds up living at the Spratt residence as he seeks asylum, escaping his daily liver pecking imprisonment.

The plot line of The Big Over Easy is satisfactory but nothing surprising. It’s a bit like a nursery version of CSI. That’s not why you read Fforde. Instead you get the clever newspaper excerpts at the beginning of each chapter and literary humor on nearly every page.

Read The Big Over Easy and become a fan of Fforde. Then read everything else he’s written.

Arthur & George succeeds on many levels. It is an intricate character study, a period piece, a mystery and a biography. However, it does fall short in some areas. At times Arthur & George takes a turn into Jane Austen like territory. The incessant honor, decorum and love themes became tedious. If that’s your thing, great, but it wore thin for me.

In addition, Barnes seeks to finish off his character study and biography which detracts from the natural conclusion of the story. In other words, there’s about 30 or so pages that seem superfluous at the end of the novel. Because of this, it took nearly as long to get through those final pages as it did to get through half of the entire novel.

But there’s far more to like than not in Arthur & George.

The portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle alone makes Arthur & George worthwhile. I don’t read many biographies but am thrilled when I get to learn about a historic figure in the context of a novel. Barnes does this with great elegance, giving the reader a real portrait of the famed author. In particular, Doyle’s views on religion are eye opening.

The other central figure in the story, George Edalji, allows Barnes to explore the period, from matters of race and society to industrialization and technological progress. Because George is a ‘different sort’ of person, Barnes can reveal and expose more about the time and surroundings. It’s a clever device that never feels forced.

Yet, the novel really works because of the mystery. It’s here that you’re turning the page, wondering in the back of your mind, ‘did George do it?!’ Doubting the protagonist in the story creates a pleasant friction and anxiety. You want to believe George, and for the most part you do, but somehow Barnes conjures doubt out of nothing.

Perhaps it’s the knowledge that Doyle is involved, and that a Sherlock Holmes story can be surprising. Whatever the reason, the doubt draws the reader further into the narrative. And when that part of the mystery is resolved, Barnes effortlessly transfers it toward another building climax. (I’m working hard here not to give anything away.)

Arthur & George will likely not appeal to the typical beach reading mystery lover. Instead, I recommend Arthur & George by Julian Barnes for those who enjoy history, biography and literary mysteries. Get through the over-wrought spots and you’ll find an enjoyable multi-faceted novel.

Moore is a master satirist and combines his satire with blazing creativity and a healthy dose of the absurd. Be forewarned, Moore is not for the easily offended. Nothing is out of bounds and he’ll regularly write the things you might be thinking but would never say.

A Dirty Job follows Charlie Asher, a recent widower with a young baby and a second-hand store to run. If this wasn’t enough, it seems that his wife’s death has changed him - and his daughter Sophie - into agents of … Death. Yes, Charlie is in charge of transferring the souls of the dead to new owners. The ’soul vessels’ can be anything, from a cane to converse sneakers to breast implants.

Did I mention that The Morrigan - a trio of supernatural ’sisters’ who take the form of large birds - are after these souls as well?

The battle between The Morrigan and Charlie is what moves the plot along. It’s the action/adventure portion of the novel. Moore does a fantastic job of bringing these creatures (and the Squirrel People) to life in gruesome detail. There’s a clear enthusiasm to these descriptions that makes it easier to read.

Charlie’s self-discovery of what he has become and his trips to retrieve the soul vessels give Moore ample opportunity for his uncensored social commentary. He aims at the natural inclinations of the Beta Male, goth girls, Internet relationships and other Bizarro Seinfeld observations.

Yet, A Dirty Job is more then just a smart action comedy. The main subject matter of death surrounds the novel. Death … is the topic of the novel. So, while you’re chuckling Moore is also telling you about how people come to terms with death. He provides a portrait of what it is like for a family to wait for the impending death of a loved one. There is a hard-edge of pain in the middle of A Dirty Job that Moore seems almost panicked to hide, which is in itself interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, A Dirty Job is not a downer. It’s Christopher Moore for Pete’s sake! So, grab a copy of A Dirty Job and hang on for a roller coaster ride of ‘eww’ inducing action and laugh out loud comedy with a chaser of thoughtful reflection on mortality.

In February, a Kindle sales theory was proposed by Citi Investment Research (PDF) using Sprint activation numbers.

Thanks to CIR Telco Analyst Mike Rollins, we have uncovered a key disclosure in Sprint’s September Quarter 10Q filing.  P. 42 in the Wholesale, Affiliate and Other Revenue sector.  Here’s the text:

“Certain wholesale devices are activated on the network by our wholesale partners prior to selling the device to the end customer, which resulted in approximately 210,000 such additions being activated on our network during the third quarter 2008.”

Additional sleuthing on Mike Rollins’ part suggests that there could have been 100,000 wholesale device activations in each Q1 and Q2 of ’08, and our combined view is that these wholesale device activations refer specifically to the Kindle.  Tie these points together with the knowledge that Amazon fully sold out its Kindle supply by mid-November, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Amazon sold approximately 500,000 Kindles in 2008.

I just couldn’t understand how one would think that all 210K were specifically Kindle related. I wrote to Sprint Investor Relations asking a very simple question.

Can you confirm that the wholesale device activations referenced are solely Kindle?

The other day, after a bit of persistence, I was able to get the following response from Sprint Investor Relations.

We cannot offer much additional commentary on this topic.  I can tell you that there are other data centric devices included in our reported wholesale and affiliate sub count than the Amazon Kindle.  Neither Amazon nor Sprint provides details on the number of kindle devices.  The comment below about the 210k devices at the end of 3Q08 references those that were activated but not yet in the hands of an end user.

This clearly states that the activations do not specifically relate to Kindle. However, it doesn’t provide any insight as to what percentage may be Kindle related.

The later comment regarding the device activations is odd. My question did not address this in any way, shape or form. Instead, this is a … spontaneous additional comment.

Perhaps it is a simple clarification but in some ways it feels like activations are divorced from the sales cycle. That the activations could be a supply number (for all devices) instead of being mapped to sales. Please share your thoughts here since I find the subject murky.

However, in light of this data, I believe the 500,000 figure is generous. I don’t blame Citi for trying to construct a sales volume theory. It is Amazon and Jeff Bezos who are to blame. Speaking to shareholders at the Seattle Art Museum, Bezos had this to say about Kindle sales.

I’m not sure we will ever reveal all the numbers. Our point of view is that there is a competitive advantage to keeping the numbers close. You may have to remain curious on that point and I certainly understand the curiosity, especially since I look at the numbers so avidly every morning.

I don’t find this a compelling argument and can only surmise that sales are weak. Otherwise, the impact Kindle sales would have on the business would be large enough to meet the materiality definition, and thereby be necessary to any shareholder report.

I understand that Amazon is in a fight with Google for the future of digital books and they want to play their hand like they’re holding pocket aces. But the player who consistently over bets is usually bluffing.

Due to the non-blogging contract, some Borders employees don’t feel like they can speak up for fear of being fired. I recently received an email from an employee at a store in Florida regarding a newly installed supervisor who posted the following by the time clock on July 4th.

Read Me

The past NO longer matters. It doesn’t matter who you are, how long you have worked here, or what your position is. If I do not feel that you are working hard meaning (selling make titles, shelving carts, cleaning the store, borders rewards, customer service, etc.) You WILL lose your hours and others will get them.  I have people calling every day asking for jobs that I can hire. I do like the crew that we have and I do not want to cut any ones hours, I do not want to lose anybody BUT no more mister nice guy.

There’s a lot wrong with this ‘letter’, but perhaps the biggest is the fact that it was done on July 4th. The fourth of July!

All major chains have employee issues. Not every employee is a model employee. Yet, a disturbing pattern seems to be emerging. Any advertising or eCommerce veteran knows that a small pattern of complaints on an issue may point to a greater problem. For every incident reported, there are often 10 more that are not.

Borders does not seem to be investing in their employees during their ‘turnaround’ attempt. So, Borders employees are angry and I hope that the non-blogging contract doesn’t squash the normal type of commentary that anyone should have about their life experiences.

Borders employees are claiming that they are being pressured into signing a non-blogging contract that essentially puts a gag on any writing about new policies and procedures implemented by the distressed book chain. Here’s what one employee said.

Borders is now trying to get the employees to sign a non-blogging contract, and several employees have been fired or put on probation for writing and producing videos in response to the “make books” controversy.

It’s unclear whether this is simply a repurposed version of the current non-disclosure statement from the employee handbook or if it is something new and specifically targeted at online and blog activity.

This blog, specifically the Borders Books Employees Are Angry! post, has been a forum for current and former Borders employees to vent. Their experiences provide powerful glimpses into a changing corporate culture and a company flailing amid economic turmoil.

I haven’t been able to obtain a copy of the non-blogging contract. Yet it seems clear that something has been communicated throughout the organization that blogging about new policies is going to get you in hot water. While a typical non-disclosure agreement makes sense, I wonder how a non-blogging policy would work.

If I have a Facebook page and my profile says I’m a Borders employee, have I violated that contract if my update says I’m having a bad day at work? Do comments on a blog (like this one) count? Has an employee transgressed if their personal blog contains a poor review of a ‘make book’?

Is Borders also seeking out those employees who think the new programs and policies are great? If you don’t want people blogging about things, then wouldn’t that apply to both the bad and the good?

Even the hint of a non-blogging contract seems antithetical to today’s business environment. In a time when more companies are embracing new methods of communication, Borders seems to be going in reverse. Instead of making their employees evangelists for their brand, they’re frightening them into being drones.

Imagine if Borders employees were encouraged to write about the great books just arriving. The hidden gems, the stuff they’ve just read. Tweets about upcoming readings. There are so many ways you could make this work.

There is but one prerequisite, investing and empowering your employees. Based on the experiences of those commenting on this blog, Borders has done the opposite. So, instead of hearing about the excitement around Margaret Atwood’s newest novel, we’re hearing about corporate censorship.

What’s your opinion on a non-blogging contract?

I’d read a number of negative reviews prior to reading Black Swan Green. Many readers seemed unwilling to stray from Mitchell’s multi-narrative structure (as seen in Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten) or couldn’t relate to Jason Taylor, the 13 year old stammering protagonist.

To those naysayers I say this: you are wrong.

Readers who really pay attention to Black Swan Green will recognize that it is a multi-narrative structure. Instead of stories from far flung reaches of the globe or throughout time they are simply stories from a year in the life of one person. Yet, what is packed into the year in the life of a 13 year old boy can be quite varied. They’re like the tracks on an eclectic CD compilation. Mitchell levels his unflinching prose on war, unemployment, acceptance, friendship, death and divorce.

In addition, Mitchell paints incredible stories through the lens of Jason Taylor. It’s not just about Jason’s coming of age story, it’s about all the adult issues swirling around him. You’ve missed substantial portions of Black Swan Green if you’re simply reading what is written on the page. Mitchell’s genius is in his ability to create stories that live off the page, that blossom out of a few simple sentences into the known spaces of understanding and feeling.

While reading I often turn the corner down on a page if I find a phrase or passage particularly interesting. Black Swan Green is filled with turned down corners! Here’s an example that is both evocative and intimately linked to the time period.

I crossed the flooded clinic car park leaping from dry bit to dry bit like James Bond froggering across the crocodiles’ backs.

Or this incredible observation in relation to how an alcoholic parent can be so different but the same person.

Green is made of yellow and blue, nothing else, but when you look at green, where’ve the yellow and the blue gone?

And then this supreme example of the inability to define beauty.

Beauty is immune to definition. When beauty is present, you know. Winter sunrise in dirty Toronto, one’s new lover in an old cafe, sinister magpies on a roof. But is the beauty of these made? No. Beauty is here, that is all. Beauty is.

Mitchell can also put down on paper and describe a feeling that I am certain many of you have experienced.

School corridors’re sort of sinister during classtime. The noisiest spaces’re now the silentest. Like a neutron bomb’s vaporized human life but left all the building standing. These drowned voices you hear aren’t coming from classrooms, but through the partitions between life and death.

In revisiting a elementary school Mitchell delivers another thought-provoking turn of phrase.

Primary school seemed so huge then. How can you be sure anything is ever its real size?

Finally, something that sums up much of what Black Swan Green is about.

The world won’t let things be. It’s always injecting endings into beginnings.

Many of these passages were jaw dropping, enough for me to stop reading and put the book down to marvel and think. Black Swan Green confirms and maintains Mitchell’s position as one of the best writers of this generation.

Going To See The Elephant follows Slater Brown, a budding writer who has traveled to San Francisco to launch his career. He winds up writing for a long-standing but third-rate newspaper, gaining scoops through a unique and strange method.

Brown becomes a local celebrity, incurring the ire of a colorful and voracious mayor. He also falls in love with a beautiful chess player, who is on a collision course with Milo Magnet a eccentric inventor.

Fishburne does an admirable job in creating interesting characters, from grumpy, gruff, grizzled newspapermen to an eager government entourage. He creates small worlds which resonate with the reader. The newspaper. City Hall. The mad scientist’s lab. Alone, they are actually quite good. Together they begin to lose focus.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like in Going To See The Elephant. The pacing is spot-on and you can’t help but be carried quickly through the story and enjoy the characters.

Yet, the theme of the book is about self-discovery and being true to your dreams. This subject matter deserves greater attention. It is in these instances where Fishburne seems to tell instead of show the reader how the characters deal with these internal conflicts.

In addition, the tone of the novel is uneven and is not cohesive. Is it supposed to be playful and humorous or is it supposed to be heartfelt and introspective? I’m not saying you can’t have both, but one should be consistent throughout, letting the other be the surprising and infrequent foil.

Science. Politics. Media. Love. There’s a lot packed into Going To See The Elephant and I can’t help but think what might have been. Could Fishburne have held back some of the ideas and used them in a future novel? Perhaps fewer concepts would have made it easier to keep Going To See The Elephant focused? I could easily have read an entire novel about Milo Magnet and his experiments.

So I chalk this up to a writer finding his voice. Going To See The Elephant by Rodes Fishburne is an interesting novel. Flawed but enjoyable.

This is one of those instances where it’s probably best if you’ve read the other books in the series.

Woken Furies hits the ground running in a rich world of Morgan’s making. It’s a world where your essence is written to a ’stack’ - a microchip of sorts at the base of your skull. Should your body die, your stack can be retrieved and you can be ‘re-sleeved’ in a new body.

If that’s confusing … well, then you should read Altered Carbon and Broken Angels to get your bearings.

Like most Morgan novels the plot is a pursuit. In this case the pursuit seemed to be secondary and was a device for Morgan to explore the impact of the innovations he’s introduced into his world.

How would our relationships change if we were able to re-sleeve and live for centuries or longer? How would you approach the world if you could live in a virtual construct?

These are interesting topics because they actually relate to modern day issues. How are we dealing with our growing life span and the ability to hop-scotch around the globe. How does that effect our current family dynamic? I live 3000 miles away from most of my family. That’s not something that happened much even 100 years ago.

How will ‘life streaming’ on sites like Facebook and FriendFeed evolve? What about those MySpace and Facebook pages that continue long after the user has died. Is virtual sex cheating?

We’re putting more and more of ourselves online so couldn’t the endpoint be something like Morgan’s Renouncers, a religious group who have renounced the flesh, live in a virtual construct and are awaiting Upload.

And then there are the more blatantly obvious parallels Morgan draws with his political and religious themes. He explores revolution, dynamics of economic class and politics, and weaves a type of religious extremism into the heart of the story.

Yes, there’s a lot to think about in Woken Furies.

In between you get high doses of well crafted, bloody fight sequences and raunchy sex scenes. The dichotomy between the action and cerebral are more pronounced in Woken Furies. It feels more forced then in Morgan’s other novels and was distracting at times.

Despite this criticism, I enjoyed Woken Furies. I read it quickly and enjoyed both the sizzle and the steak. I recommend Woken Furies but be warned, Morgan is not for the timid.

I have a love hate relationship with history. In the wrong hands history can be unbelievably dull. Too many times a pious academic has reduced a truly interesting event into cut and dry facts that have as much life as a waterlogged tennis ball. But history is actually amazingly interesting in the right hands.

I had a professor in college who taught European Civilization. He made history come alive! He talked about the people who were part of the history, about their motivations, about the odd bits of lore that don’t make it into the textbooks. (It also helped that he had a dry sense of humor and was fond of throwing Monty Python quotes into his lectures.)

I don’t pick up non-fiction because too often it leaves me bored. Instead I find my history in fiction, blended into novels like English Passengers by Matthew Kneale or Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gould. These authors tell a story using history as a backdrop. Erik Larson, on the other hand, has a gift for telling history as it should, as a story.

The Devil in the White City chronicles the construction of the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition by following the architects who pulled off the amazing feat. Larson makes it easy for the reader to understand the enormity of the undertaking. He educates and instructs on architecture and exposes city rivalry and political intrigue that isn’t much different from the present.

Larson also delivers a palpable sense of what it was like to live in Chicago in the 1890s. It was an age where the slow, dank, filth of cities began to diminish as buildings rose to the sky. You sense a transformation - a great leap forward for America and humanity in general. One foot in the dark past and the other in the bright future.

Maybe it was the time or the task, but the number of famous figures who pop up in the narrative is amazing. You get a glimpse of people like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Clarence Darrow, Susan B. Anthony, Buffalo Bill and Frank Lloyd Wright among others.

Of course you also get a chilling look at Herman Mudgett or H.H. Holmes as he was better known. Larson paints a disturbing portrait of a personable killer who excels in gaining the confidence of his victims. It’s frightening how easily Holmes was able to con and cajole people, and how he was able to perform such treachery right under the noses of so many observers.

I was also left with the odd sense of similarity in the intense drive of lead architect Daniel Burnham and H.H. Holmes. Though the aims of each are diametrically opposed, the passion with which they both pursued their tasks are eerily the same. It is not the city of Chicago, or the World’s Columbian Exposition, but the zeal of each that truly binds the two narratives together.

I highly recommend The Devil in the White City if you have any interest in history or enjoy chilling murder mysteries. Erik Larson will convince you that history is far from dead.