I love Pixar movies (though the movie Cars not so much) and I found this book about the history of Pixar fascinating. The first half of the book covers the backgrounds of the people who founded Pixar and the beginnings of the company while the second half covers the movies themselves including how story lines evolved and what kinds of things went into the making of the movie. It also covers some of the corporate background at Disney including the pressure Steve Jobs and Roy Disney were putting on the company to get rid of CEO Michael Eisner.

The three men who basically founded Pixar, Ed Catmull, John Lassiter, and Steve Jobs, were at a low point in their careers when Pixar was founded. All three had been fired, removed, or left their jobs. Catmull was being let go from LucasFilm, Lassiter was dissatisfied with Disney and took the job at Pixar, and Jobs had been removed from Apple by Mike Scully. Ed Catmull always idolized animation and wanted to be an animator, but the only problem was that he couldn’t draw. So he decided to make it his life’s work in the early 70’s to animate with computers. He was hired by the New York Institute of Technology to run their computer graphics division and his first attempt at animation was to make a plaster cast of his hand, draw tiny geometric shapes on the cast and get the computer to connect the dots and animate the hand. Catmull and his team weren’t satisfied at NYIT because their goal of making movies wasn’t being shared by the wealthy patron they had there. So they moved to California to work George Lucas at his Industrial Light and Magic. Gradually, Catmull was able to bring the rest of his team to ILM.

While at Lucasfilm, Catmull and his team designed a computer that could render computer graphics. Over dinner one night they were thinking about what to call the computer and someone suggested creating a Spanish type verb “Pixer” for something that makes pictures. Someone else suggested the “ar” sound at the end making it Pixar. The company soon broke away from Lucas although they were able to get a building on the same Lucas property and their first order of business was to sell these Pixar computers and their Renderman software. These computers cost 10s of thousands of dollars. Here is where Steve Jobs comes in. Jobs believed all computers should have this capability of rendering so he became a huge investor in the company and was in charge of the business dealings the company would have.

Over all this time was going on Catmull never lost what his true ambition was which was to make computer animated movies. They hired John Lassiter who had gone to school at CalArts and was very familiar with the Disney way of making movies. Lassiter would then direct these shorts using computer animation and show them at the annual Siggraph convention to great acclaim. Lassiter had a great talent for telling stories in his animation which has carried through to all of Pixar’s later movies. So while all of this was going on at Lucasfilm and then when Pixar was it’s own company, Lassiter was directing a short a year and showcasing them at this annual convention. Still, the goal was a feature film. They set a roadmap for getting there by first doing commercials, then a half hour TV special and then finally a movie. What was interesting to me was that Pixar was involved in the Listerine commercials where the bottle is in a boxing ring beating tartar and plaque. I don’t think Pixar did the TV special, but they were soon working on their first movie Toy Story. Toy Story was John Lassiter’s idea because he was a big toy collector and had done a short a year or so earlier called Tin Toy.

The rest of the book goes into what went into making each of the movies through Cars. Ratatouille is mentioned in the epilogue. This was really interesting also in the level of detail the animators wanted where they would get professors to lecture to them about fish for an hour for Finding Nemo. There were also a couple of lawsuits over Monsters, Inc. I don’t remember ever hearing about concerning Pixar appropriating other people’s drawings or poetry for the movie. That was fascinating as well. I’ve already written probably too much about the book already, but it was a fascinating listen (of course I heard the audiobook version) and sure would be a great read for anybody who is a fan of animation in general or Pixar in particular.

Dead Until Dark is the first book in Charlaine Harris’ 9 book Southern Vampire Mystery series. It is set in Bon Temps, Louisiana and the main character is Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress at the local bar and a mind reader. In this series, the vampires are out in the open and everyone knows of their existence. One day a vampire is at the bar and Sookie becomes entranced by him. His name is Bill Compton and he is a Civil War veteran changed into a vampire in the late 1800s. Sookie’s grandmother belongs to a descendants of the Civil War group and loves the fact that Bill was there and invites him to talk to her group.

As mentioned before, Sookie is a mind reader. Interestingly, this book is kind of the opposite of Twilight where the vampire Edward was the mind reader and he couldn’t read Bella, in this book Sookie can’t read Bill. Sookie, for the most part, thinks of her abilities as mind reader as a “disability”. People think she’s crazy when she can finish their thoughts so she tries to keep her guard up all of the time and not enter into people’s minds.

Well, right off the bat, there is an evil couple, the Rattrays, or as Sookie calls them “The Rats” who try to drain vampires because in Harris’ version of the vampire myth, vampire blood has healing powers over humans. It makes humans stronger and gives them more vitality. So the Rats can make a lot of money by selling this vampire blood. Sookie is not going to stand for this and tries to beat the Rats off of Bill and with Bill’s help end up killing them.

That is not the only trouble in the story, however. This book is a murder mystery. A couple women, known around town to sleep with vampires, one even admits to liking it rough, are brutally strangled to death. Bill, of course, is a suspect until it is uncovered that the vampire bites on their thighs are old wounds and the death was by strangling. Unfortunately, Sookie’s brother Jason becomes a top suspect because he has slept with both women and filmed himself doing it. As you can see, unlike the Twilight series, this one is much more adult. There is a lot of sex in this book. Over the course of the book a few more women become victims of this killer and Sookie is the ultimate target.

Probably one of the more memorable scenes in this book is the vampire bar in nearby Shreveport. This bar is called Fangtasia. It is populated by real vampires, goth girls wishing to have sex with vampires and as such are called “fang bangers” in the book and tourists eager to see some action. Sookie, being a mind reader, knows what everyone is thinking and that is sex. At the bar, they meet an elder vampire and one much more powerful than Bill named Eric. Eric is intrigued with Sookie’s abilities which comes into play later in the novel.

I would say this was a pretty good book. I don’t think I liked it enough to read all of the books in the series. There were a few page turning moments toward the end, but not like the Twilight series where I just wanted to keep reading and not put it down. In a lot of ways, Sookie is the opposite of Bella. She is a strong woman, capable of taking care of herself and even has to during the climax of the book. I did like the character of Sookie, but I’m not sure why the book as a whole didn’t grab me. I read this for a podcast called “Anna’s Book Club” part of the Delta Park Project series of podcasts.

Did you read Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, and think: “That was good, but, it just needs something,”? If so, then you are in luck! Right now, (for an unlimited time), you can read Pride and Prejudice, the classic by Austen, with extra added zombies! What could be better than that?

Seth Grahame-Smith has taken the very same classic you know and love, and imagined what it would be like if the story was set in a “universe” where zombies existed. All the characters you know from Austen’s book are there, in the same relationships you would expect. Jane falls for Mr. Bingley, who falls just as hard for her. Lizzy hates, then loves, then hates, then loves Darcy, who has equally mixed emotions for Lizzy. Some of the other Bennet sisters are just as frivolous and silly as usual, and the last one, Mary, is just as severe. Readers get all the wit and social commentary that no one other than Austen can write, and it still takes place in England around 1811 or so.

The differences, that Grahame-Smith adds, are delightful… if you like books involving zombies. The Bennet sisters are now trained warriors, experts at dispatching “the unmentionables”. People are wary of “the strange plague”. They have learned how to fight and kill the zombies, what to do with the corpses, and how to determine if their friends and neighbors might be turning into an undead. The soldiers are in town not because of a war, but in an effort to protect people from the swarms of zombies that seem to be everywhere. It’s something like a “bizarro world” of Austen’s famous book.

The first sentence reads:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

This was all I needed to know I was going to love this book!

Grahame-Smith didn’t hold back on the horror aspects that every good zombie story should have. There are epic battles, and some truly disgusting and disquieting scenes interposed with the parts of the story that Austen wrote. You also get a bit of what every reader of the original Pride and Prejudice wanted : Lizzy has a few moments where she seriously considers the pros and cons of killing off her annoying younger sisters, and her embarrassing mother, rather than suffer their incessant prattling on one minute more.

Included in several places in this book are wonderful drawings, that resemble wood block prints. Each drawing shows a scene from the book where somebody is fighting zombies, about to fight zombies, or fighting each other.

If you liked the book World War Z , and are looking for another great read involving zombies, this is the book for you!

Between these two covers lies two completely different stories, intertwined because of proximity, and both of them actually happened. Readers who enjoy American History, stories about Chicago, architectural marvels, or terrifying true crime murder mysteries will find something attractive here.

The connective force in all these little stories is, of course, The World’s Fair that took place in Chicago. In many ways, it is astounding that this Fair ever made it into existence. The Architects had far too little time to build what was essentially an entire new city. There were many discussions about exactly which architects would be involved, because where the architect was from apparently said more than could be expected at first glance. It mattered to so many people how many architects from the East Coast were selected, compared to how many were from the Midwest, for example.

It was hard to get architects, once invited, to accept the invitation because the general consensus was that this Fair would not upstage the previous World’s Fair in Paris. That was the Fair where the Eiffel Tower was unveiled, and, up until right before the Chicago World’s Fair opened, no one had any idea what was going to be built that could possibly be more impressive than that. The general belief was that this Fair would be a gigantic failure, that it wouldn’t be complete by opening day, and that it would bring shame to not only the architects involved, but also the city of Chicago, and America itself.

Imagine being the guy in charge of coordinating all that! Larson does a wonderful job of dropping you inside the heads of the the men in charge of this huge project. Eventually, these men, (and a few women), surpass all odds, and create more than just a Fair. They create a “White City”, clean and shining, wondrous and unforgettable. I realize a quick google search will, very likely, give you some quick facts about exactly what wonders appeared there. However, I suggest readers refrain from doing just that. Don’t spoil it for yourself, be as surprised as the Fair goers of the time, the book is more fun that way.

If you want an example of “Chicago Politics” at it’s finest, look no further than the chapters describing how the site for Fair was selected. It seemed to me that anyone who had a little bit of power or political sway stepped up to argue about how their precinct was, in fact, the very best place the Fair could possibly be located at. The eventual location, although pretty, became something of an architectural nightmare. The land was, in places, a quagmire, in other places impossibly hard to dig into. The weather itself seemed to be fighting the architects, with stifling heat, mountains of snow, and winds that insisted on tearing down freshly built structures. (If you’ve ever lived in or near Chicago, this will come as no shock. Readers who haven’t will get a little taste of what “Chicago Winter” can be.)

The Fair brought jobs, in a time when jobs were incredibly scarce. Not only did the Fair employ builders, and masons, and painters, and architects, etc… it also allowed other jobs to sprout around it. Hotels, boarding houses, apartments, and restaurants near the Fair flourished, long before the Fair opened. Everyone wanted to be in Chicago. It was not unusual for young women to take their newly learned office skills, and move to Chicago, alone, to start a life. It was these combination of factors that allowed a very twisted and dark soul to find endless prey.

A man, who went by a series of fake names, went to Chicago, built a massive house with some peculiar features, and used his innate charisma to get everything he wanted out of people. He bilked people out of money, by promising to pay for his purchases “later” when his situation got better, and also by creating a fake person who “owned” the property.

Women, especially young women, quickly became enamored with this man, and he had no shortage of secretaries, lovers, and even wives. Larson also puts the reader inside this man’s head, and it’s a creepy and disgusting place to be. This man was evil incarnate, and I can think of few better examples of what it means to be a sociopath. Because Chicago was so big, and because no one who thought they knew this man would ever think him capable of anything nefarious, he literally got away with murder, over and over again. Reading these parts of this book reminded me of the books by John Berendt, which I found fascinating.

The brilliance in this book is in the juxtaposition. Larson gives the reader one or two chapters about the “White City”, and sandwiches them between some chapters about “The Devil”. The contrast is striking.

This book was published in 2003, so, it’s not brand new, but it is still gathering attention. Just a few days before I wrote this review, I overheard a woman on the street downtown telling her husband “You’d like this book! It’s about the World’s Fair… and you won’t believe what happens!” If you haven’t picked up a copy for yourself yet, I recommend it. It’s now available in paperback.