Further evidence that I lack common sense
We all have humbling experiences that remind us we aren’t as smart as we think we are. And even if we are that smart, sometimes we still lack common sense, and other times we just plain don’t think.
A couple of days ago, I woke up to the a slow but inexorable cracking noise coming from the vicinity of my bedroom door. Sometimes my cat scratches at my door in order to gain entry, oblivious as to my current state of consciousness. This sound wasn’t like a cat scratching, however, which was why I had trouble placing it at first. Unlike the frantic scrabbling noise of claw on wood, this had the deliberate sound of something going horribly, horribly wrong.
Several seconds later, the sight of the hooks on the back of my door falling out, taking my coat with them, confirmed this fear.
I had stupidly placed my library book bag on these hooks. When the bag is empty, this isn’t a problem. Yet as I gradually fill up the bag with each book I read, it becomes heavier, adding strain to the hooks.
My brother originally installed the hooks; he was also the one who affixed them to that dandy little wooden plank. Since I‘m inept at anything involving tools, I had my brother put the hooks back up. This time, I had him add anchors, which he didn’t use the first time around.
Of course, I won’t be putting my book bag on there ever again….
Speaking of books, here is a photo of my brand new shelving:
As you can see, I have much more room to grow as my book collection expands. My DVDs may soon need to usurp part of another shelf as well, unless I find an alternative storage area. The second shelf from the bottom provides a handy spot to house books I intend to read (they previously squatted on the floor and played poker while I wasn’t looking). On the left are library books—currently empty, since I’m reading my last one right now—and books I’ve bought are on the right. A LOTR boxset—touted by Metheun publications as an “authorized Canadian edition of the heroic tale”1 separates these two categories. The boxset originally belonged to my dad, but I “borrowed” it sometime in grade five or grade six to read, and I just never gave it back. Muwahahaha. One of these days I need to repair the binding on the first volume….
But I digress! To answer the question that is burning in your mind at this point: yes, that is an inflatable crayon. I‘ve had it for years, but never has it looked more at home than as a finishing touch on my shelves.
And that’s it for this week’s edition of “Ben has no common sense, but look at all his pretty books.” Next week: why we don’t run with power tools!2
Top 10 best and worst books I read in 2008
I had originally intended to eschew the “best of 2008” and “worst of 2008” trend that always appears at the end of the year.1 However, one of the best websites I discovered in 2008 was Goodreads. Since joining in May, I can’t recommend it enough. A self-proclaimed bibliophile, much of my leisure time goes toward reading. Thanks to a terrible memory, I have trouble recalling the particulars of books I’ve read; my reviews usually emerge as hazy generalizations that make me feel like I didn’t read the book at all. Continuing my trend of using technology to replace my memory, Goodreads helps me organize my books; I can keep track not only of books I‘ve read, but I also add books I want to read. It’s pretty much awesome.
So I thought, since I can actually remember what books I read this year, why not post a top 10 list of the best and worst books I read in 2008? Technically, this is “best and worst since May 2008”, since that’s when I started using Goodreads. Even so, I had trouble paring down each list to only ten books—I can only imagine it’ll be more difficult to do next year when I have twelve months’ worth of books from which to choose.
Top 10 Best Books I Read in 2008
10. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards
From my review:
This is a story of curdled bitterness. One of the main characters tears his family in two and creates a gaping wound that doesn’t heal until several decades later. A tale of “twins separated at birth”, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter explores how the secret complications of that separation affect all the members of the two families that raise these twins….
9. The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco
My review contains spoilers, so read it at your own risk:
It took me a long time to finish this book (perhaps the longest time it’s ever taken me to read a book). Umberto Eco sets out not just to provide another pulp fiction fodder for the masses, but to construct a richly-textured story—or rather, history—with elements of mystery, rhetoric, and religion. As a result of the book’s depth, not to mention its lengthy passages of medieval rhetoric, I started this in October and am only now finishing it; I read other books on the side to keep myself occupied. But the length of time it takes me to read a book is irrelevant, as long as I enjoy it. And that I did….
8. The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff
Judging from the other reviews, this is one of those books where you either love it or hate it, for the exact same reasons. Where I see wonderful voice and interesting plot, others see purple prose and pretentious fiction. And that’s fine.
First I read this book with curiosity and, I confess, not a little scepticism. Then I read this book with pleasure and even, perhaps, morbid anticipation. Finally, as I turned the last few pages and the book spoke to me of endings and new beginnings, I read this book with appreciation and wonder….
7. Small Favor, by Jim Butcher
The tenth book in Butcher’s bestselling Dresden Files series brings us yet another cover that showcases Harry Dresden in his trademark duster, hat, toting his trusty staff. From my review:
This may be the best Dresden Files book yet….
The blending of mystery with urban fantasy is tangible and potent. Few can do it so well. This novel is great in that respect, because urban fantasy lovers can read it and get exposed to a little mystery they might otherwise ignore; mystery lovers likewise get some urban fantasy. Yet Butcher remembers the golden rule of genre writing: the genre is a setting, not a story. This book is not about faeries, or wizards, or magic, or solving a crime. It is an action adventure with motifs of temptation, redemption, suffering, and all that makes us human. It’s a story, set in a world of faerie, magic, and crime. What’s not to like?
6. Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, edited by Gardner R. Dozois
Anthologies are a great way to discover new authors. I picked this one up because it had stories by favourite authors like Neil Gaiman and Orson Scott Card. Along the way, I’ve come up with a few new names I can explore.
5. Dreamsongs: Short Works (Volume 1), by George R.R. Martin
What a great way to tide us over until Martin gets around to finishing the next book in his epic A Song of Ice and Fire saga. Whether you‘re new to Martin’s work or a fan, like me, you’ll enjoy this large and varied collection of his earlier short fiction.
Martin is brave to publish Dreamsongs, which gives us—especially those of us who are younger readers and haven’t been as exposed to the short fiction magazines of Martin’s youth—a glimpse of Martin’s formative years and the works with which he became a professional author. You can clearly see his writing improve over the course of the five-part book. Yet at the same time, even his early stories carry the kernel of creativity that’s evident throughout this volume….
4. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity with Rwanda, by Roméo Dallaire
One of those books that every Canadian should read, this tells the chilling story of the Rwandan genocide from the perspective of the UN task force commander, Roméo Dallaire.
Daillaire’s book is commendable because even though it comes from an obviously biased source, it largely avoids obsessing over assigning blame. Instead, he chronicles what happened during tenure as Force Commander of UNAMIR. Thanks to him, future generations have a testimony as to what happened in Rwanda. Eyewitness accounts help make clear what government reports and newspaper articles cannot; they communicate the human experience one undergoes in these situations. They remind us that this isn’t fiction, so it isn’t a tragedy. It is truth, but it is injustice….
3. Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O’Neill
From my review:
About two hundred pages into the book, I suddenly realized that this story was breaking my heart….
The theme that resonates with me most is that childhood is the most precious innocence we have. Baby makes several philosophical remarks about childhood, how society encourages us to grow up too fast—and the fact that we can’t go back afterward. We’re stuck as adults. As an 18-year-old, I‘ve reached the legal age for adulthood. I’m venturing into that scary world of responsibility; no one treats me as a child anymore. I have the advantage of never experiencing Baby’s hardships, yet I still feel confused at times. Everyone probably does, which is why this book captures your heart….
2. I Love You, Beth Cooper, by Larry Doyle
This book was just fun to read. Yeah, it’s yet-another-book-about-adolesence, but it’s a witty one:
I Love You, Beth Cooper could be, at first glance, a typical coming-of-age story about the nerdy smart guy who falls for the popular cheerleader (or for his construction of who the popular cheerleader is). To some extent, it is such a story. But it’s not only such a story, and that isn’t the aspect of this story that makes it awesome. Rather, it’s the fact that in spite of employing such a major trope, the story is never trite, and it never tries to force a redeeming theme on the reader. Instead, anything and everything that could possibly go wrong for the protagonist does. And when things go right, they don’t always go right in the way one would expect….
1. Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri
From my review:
I went into this book not knowing what to expect, and I loved it. Jhumpa Lahiri creates timeless families that straddle the cultural divide between America and India. She captures the conflict of growing up as one tries to balance one’s parent’s wishes with the influence of one’s heritage and the culture of one’s surroundings.
Of the first part of the book, I loved “Unaccustomed Earth”, “Hell-Heaven”, and “Only Goodness.” The other two stories were great, but …more I went into this book not knowing what to expect, and I loved it. Jhumpa Lahiri creates timeless families that straddle the cultural divide between America and India. She captures the conflict of growing up as one tries to balance one’s parent’s wishes with the influence of one’s heritage and the culture of one’s surroundings….
Shortlist for the Best
Some books that made the shortlist, in no particular order:
- The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
- The Ravine, by Paul Quarrington
- House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds
- Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome, by Steven Saylor
- The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
- The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby
Top 10 Worst Books I Read in 2008
10. Lavinia, by Ursula K. Le Guin
This may come as a surprise to those who know that I love Le Guin’s other work, or for those familiar with Le Guin’s other work—she’s a pretty big name in fantasy and feminist fiction. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give Lavinia any more than two stars. It was enjoyable, but not great:
…in places the narrative was somewhat dry, so while the setting and characters were interesting, the story was not always so. Some people might not like the narrative style either—there is very little dialogue, except in Lavinia’s conversations with Vergil. Instead, it is told in an almost stream-of-consciousness perspective, with Lavinia relaying back her interpretation of the other characters’ thoughts and actions….
9. The Sword of Truth series, by Terry Goodkind
My coworker lent each of these consecutively to me during the summer; it was sort of a “summer reading project.” Goodkind, a fantasist who insists he’s not a fantasist, crafted an 11-book series in an alternative world concerning the ultimate battle of good versus evil. Oh, and there’s lots of rape.
My advice is that you should read this series, actually—or at least the first few books. Why? Because then you’ll have more fun when you read the parodies of it, of course!
8. Beginner’s Greek, by James Collins
Actually an OK book, if you don’t mind this genre. I expect it will be a movie soon. From my review:
As with most plots of this nature, I found it utterly predictable. Certain aspects were surprising, of course—I didn’t see the best friend dying by a lightning strike on Peter’s wedding day, of course. But it was clear that Peter and Holly would end up together, somehow, and that everyone would live happily ever after. If you‘re looking for a fresh new plot with compelling characters, you won’t get it here. Oh, the characters are interesting, and you’ll end up hating most of them by the end. But you have to be able to stomach the smugness that the book exudes as all the threads come together and the loose ends get tied up.
It was OK. Enjoyable light reading, and it fulfilled my need to yell at the book when characters are being stupid and cheer when good things happen.
7. The Uses of Enchantment, by Heidi Julavits
This story was a disappointment. Julavits has fantastic style, but the plot and the characters were substandard. From my review:
I empathize with Mary, who was either abducted and never properly counselled about it or engineered a fake abduction and never adjusted properly to society. But she spends most of the books complaining about how manipulative and narcissistic her mother was, and how she never got a chance to reconcile with her mother prior to her mother’s death from cancer. Although the story spends a lot of time discussing therapy and Mary’s experience with it, Mary never seems to have to exert much effort in her life or deal with any consequences (beyond her obvious estrangement from her family). She crashes a car, revisits the ghosts from her past, but at the end of the book, has she really changed from who she was at the beginning? No. And that was a disappointment.
6. Blasphemy, by Douglas Preston
A predictable mystery with a sci-fi twist, it was fine for formula fiction, but I could have done with something more satisfying.
5. Overture, by Yael Goldstein
Four words: “torrid but virginal liason”. Need I say more?2 If that intrigues you, you might like this book. If, like me, that would cause you to snap and perhaps evacuate the contents of your stomach, don‘t read this book. Because you need a stomach for plot-twisting romance, which is something I don’t have.
4. What I Was, by Meg Rosoff
This book was the origin of the “not my cup of tea” shelf on my Goodreads profile, I believe. It’s an example of how THE TWIST can ruin an otherwise acceptable book. From my review:
The first part of the book was quite intriguing. The narrator is a noncomformist boy who’s been expelled twice; this is literally the boarding school of last resort. Then he discovers a friend in the form of a boy living alone in a house on an island near the school, and the two form a tentative relationship laced with overtones of homosexuality—which is just what Rosoff wants before she pulls THE TWIST that changes everything.
Unfortunately, after THE TWIST, the book isn’t the same. It rapidly becomes a “hindsight is 20/20” sermon in which the main character regrets that he has no regrets and ultimately has not made much of his life. We are left with no resolution. It’s quite postmodernist….
3. The Last Theorem, by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl
As with Le Guin, I’m sad to say that Arthur C. Clarke earns a spot on this list—and at number 3! Since I don’t know how much of the book is actually Clarke’s, however, that somewhat mitigates my pain. From my review:
My major problem with the book is the lack of any consequences, or really, any conflict at all. At points the story threatens to inject a conflict—such as when Ranjit becomes an unwitting accomplice to pirates and subsequently spends two years being tortured in prison. For a moment, I thought that might produce some genuine unhappiness that could mar this otherwise oppressively upbeat book. Unfortunately, that was not the case….
2. The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom Perrotta
I didn’t buy this book when I was tempted to at Chapters, and I’m glad of that. I read it after my dad borrowed it from the library; I almost couldn’t finish it. From my review:
The Abstinence Teacher begins by introducing us to Ruth, a divorced mom who’s the sexual education teacher at the high school in this small, conservative town. She’s under siege at school for wanting to teach safe sex instead of just abstinence. Meanwhile, she picks fights with her younger daughter’s soccer coach, a born-again evangelical Christian, for leading the team in a prayer after a game. And she neglects her older daughter, which drives that daughter to seek meaning through—you guessed it—Christianity. Oh, and she wants to find a man. And she’s friends with a gay couple.
I’m not making this up.
See, that’s my problem with this novel: it’s too contrived. I say too contrived because I realize that most novels, especially ones with overt thematic agendas like this one, need to be contrived to an extent. Perrotta has gone further than that, however, because he weaves sexuality into every aspect of the book and uses stereotypes like “the gay couple” to advance his theme. Others may not have a problem with this, but I found it awkward and artificial….
1. The Art Thief, by Noah Charney
For the love of whatever deity(ies) you worship, or don’t worship, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. EVER.
This is an example of a book that isn’t anyone‘s cup of tea. Noah Charney’s career in art history is obvious in this book, since he spends so much time lecturing us about art history, at the expense of the plot. Ostensibly a mystery, whenever that story threatens to become interesting, Charney beats it back into submission with a baseball bat and resumes showing us how brilliant he is.
Blech.
Shortlist for the Worst
None of these books made it on the list because I disliked all of them, but they aren’t very bad books. As such, while they weren’t to my taste, if you think you’ll enjoy them, you could do worse than these:3
- The Book of Lies, by Brad Meltzer
- Nightshade, by Paul Doherty
- The Society of S, by Susan Hubbard4
- Mistress of the Sun, by Sandra Gulland
One Last Plug
And in case I haven’t linked to Goodreads enough for one blog post, here’s my profile so you can stalk me. If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. If you‘re not, and you like reading, why aren’t you?!
That’s it for the best and worst books I read in 2008. It was fun, no? Come back in 363 days or so, and we’ll do this all over again.
- [ 1 ] I still intend to avoid resolutions.
- [ 2 ] If I do, check out the review.
- [ 3 ] You could read one of the books that actually made the list, for instance.
- [ 4 ] I am sooo over vampire novels.
Wallpaper is karmically irresponsible
Apparently I’m a blue person. My old room was a horrendously light shade of blue, so I painted it a darker blue. It turned out too dark, however; this time around, I chose a better shade of blue—more blue grey, slightly lighter. My coworkers at the art gallery suggested doing three walls in a natural brown and having a blue accent wall, but I was too timid to follow up on this recommendation; I stuck with blue.
What was originally a one-man operation became a one-man-and-twins operation when my friends Cassie and Carly offered to help paint. I didn’t even have to ask!1 I woke up early that morning and moved most of my furniture out of my room. Then I washed the three walls without wallpaper before tackling that last, fatal wall.
Removing the wallpaper was tedious but not difficult. The surface vinyl came off easily, and the commercial wallpaper remover worked as advertised on the adhesive. It wasn’t difficult so much as a time-consuming, foamy mess. I finished shortly after 1 o‘clock, and then Cassie and Carly arrived in time to begin painting. After stripping off the wallpaper, I learned that the wall underneath was a light blue, and that the previous occupants of the house had decided to remind themselves it would be wallpapered. Although removing the wallpaper went better than I anticipated, I’m still never putting up wallpaper myself—it seems like an irresponsible undertaking, and I don’t want to inflict that sort of pain on another human being.
It went much faster with three people painting. I couldn’t imagine having to do it all by myself—it defintely would have taken me two days. As it was, we finished the first coat by four o’clock, then we took a break to watch an episode of jPod while the paint dried. Then we put did a quick second coat before my friends had to go—leaving me with lots of clean-up!
Here’s a before/after panel of my old and new room:
I’m going to put my shelves back up, of course. I pushed the TV stand against the other wall because I plan to put up floor-to-ceiling shelving where I only had three shelves before. Hopefully this should accommodate my growing book collection.
- [ 1 ] Of course, buying them each an xkcd t-shirt for Christmas might have had something to do with it.
Online/Offline is a false dichotomy
Two months ago I read The Numerati, in which Stephen Baker discusses how technology—particularly the Internet—is affecting marketing techniques and how businesses and individuals manage their data. Now that we have the tools and understanding to mathematically model more behaviour than ever before, there’s a new group of people—the eponymous Numerati—at the forefront of this information revolution.
One of the concerns Baker briefly addresses is privacy. On the Internet, this has always been an issue, but the surge in popularity of social networking this year makes it even more relevant. MySpace and Facebook have made headlines with the Lori Drew case and the launch of identity management Facebook Connect.1 What was once a matter of “privacy” is now a question of the most appropriate mechanism for managing the convergence of one’s offline and online personae.
And I can’t help but feel that some people are missing the point.
What is Privacy?
Like “Web 2.0”, we tend to throw the term “privacy” around quite a bit without much thought to what we actually want when we demand it. Does this merely mean we want our bank account details safe? Or do we actually want a guarantee of anonymity (if we choose it)? Is our personal data only private if we keep it secret, or is it still private if we share it with other people (such as friends or corporations) as long as it isn’t available to the general public?
Let’s face it though: in the evanescent medium of the Internet, any strict definitions regularly become obsolete. So instead, let’s define privacy as a mode of operation rather than a state of being. Online, privacy is more an ability of a user to control how his or her personal data is distributed. Privacy settings on web sites are an excellent example of this mode of operation: the web site gives the user the choice of what to reveal.
But We Just Wanna Have Fun
Then apparently you haven’t heard the news: the Internets are serious businesses. This is hard for many people to accept—it’s so easy to go online, create a fake identity, and begin fooling around. Yet at its core, the Internet is not a fictitious world or some sort of MMORPG. While you can often assume the cloak of anonymity,2 increasingly services expect you to dole out personal details and geographical information.
I can understand why this has privacy advocates concerned. It won’t be long, they argue, before everyone is chipped with evil, insecure RFID devices that allow the Google Overlords to track our every movement and even read our minds, right? After all, as soon as we tell a service on the Internet not only who we are, but where we live, it’s only a matter of time before an axe murderer shows up at our door, right?
It’s good to be wary and vigilant of flagrant violations of one’s privacy. However, these sort of overreactions are indicative, in my opinion, of a misunderstanding of the Internet as a communication medium. In that sense, the Internet really is something new. We’ve never had a communication medium quite like it. The Internet’s effect on society is tantamount to that of the printing press on fifteenth century European society—but it is also so much more. The Internet is both a library and a conference centre. When people pull out their mobile phones and say, “This is my office,” they aren’t necessarily joking.
The true potential of the Internet will never be realized unless we accept that geostamping is as much of a necessity as timestamping. Since the inception of the Internet, content creators regularly date the work they publish online—yet only recently have we begun tagging that work with geographical information. Now websites like Flickr can automatically geostamp your photos using the information embedded into the uploaded photograph. While watchdogs call that a privacy violation, I call that awesome. (And you can turn it off if you don’t like it.)
Knowledge Is Slavery
The counterargument to handing all our data over to the Google Overlords is to trot out George Orwell’s 1984 and staple the adjective “Orwellian” to everything. Now, I admit I often worry about that. Giving Google my personal information is one of my favourite pastimes, but is it a dangerous pastime? Is Google going to start editing the Internet to retcon reality?
The short answer is: no. The explanation to the short answer is: you won’t let them—at least, I hope.
See, the thing about 1984 is that Orwell wasn’t cautioning us against “Big Brother” type dystopian societies—most of us were already against those at the time. He was cautioning us that those sort of societies spring up because we don’t do anything about it. That message is kind of hitting home after recent events in Canada … but anyway, I digress.
My point is that there’s still plenty of room on the Internet for individuals and countercultures to survive. That’s the beauty of the Internet: as long as you have the technology, you can rebuild it, recreate it, and make it better than it was before. You only run into problems when you have a government, like China, that begins dictating what you can or can’t do when you browse the Internet and enforce it technologically. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, however, but that was not an isolated incident in China—that sort of government restriction was present in every part of the lives of Chinese citizens. Similarly, if we see the inception of an “Orwellian Internet”, it will happpen because we the people have sold out.
In short, Orwellian society begets Orwellian Internet, not the other way around. Orwellian. Orwellian. Orwellian.
Great adjective.
Wait, You‘re Still Reading This?
I would recommend The Numerati to everyone, not just people with an interest in this field. The book is very short and doesn’t go into the mathematical specifics behind this statistical analysis—Baker’s a business writer, not a math geek like me—so it’s quite understandable to laypeople. In his conclusion, Baker says:
So we’re going to have to reevaluate our ideas about privacy and secrets … until recently, our secrets were scattered…. Most of them, if we played it right, didn’t mingle much. Unless a detective was on the case, the bits of information didn’t find each other. Now they can and they will.
This can be scary. No doubt it will tempt a few of us to turn away from the data-spewing world altogether. Some will tiptoe around the Internet, if they venture there at all….
But with a bit of knowledge, we can turn these tools to our advantage. You may not have noticed, but as we make our way in these pages from the snooping workplace to the laboratories of love, we gradually evolve from data serfs into data masters…. We’re appealing to the science of the Numerati to protect us from falls and alert us before strokes and heart attacks…. The point is, these statistical tools are going to be quietly assuming more and more power in our lives. We might as well learn how to grab the controls and use them for [our] own interests. (204-5)
Before that, Baker makes another statement that pretty much sums up my entire view toward privacy: “The personal data can be shared but not the identity” (204). How many of you have done anonymous surveys, or checked off a box that says, “Yes, you can share my data as long as you don’t associate with my identity”? For those of you that haven’t—are you sure? How many of you honestly read through those tiresome EULAs that accompany any of the software you install—many of those include clauses that permit the software to anonymously report data about how you use the software.
As Baker explains, this sort of data is neither good nor bad. What matters is who uses it and how they use it. Unless you become a hermit3, achieving total privacy is impractical. So rather than run from the Google overlords, these Numerati, learn about them. Learn what they do with your data, and be vigilant in how you manage your online identity.
There are risks associated with any venture, and the Internet is no different in this case. Every time you connect your computer to it, you take the risk that you’ll inadvertently download a virus or be deluged with spam. But like many risky ventures, I think the Internet is worth that risk.
The debate over privacy should not be about how to keep your secrets—well, secret. That is a lost cause. Instead, the debate should be over how best to manage those secrets, and how to make sure our personal data is used to benefit us rather than exploit us.
I canna give her any more, cap’n!
I‘ve been very happy with my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop since purchasing it over a year ago. I bought it online, customized it to meet my needs, and this lovely machine has performed without complaint. There’s a chip on the lower left edge of the white trim; I’m not quite sure how it got there. And I had to replace my keyboard once—Dell support was very helpful and shipped one to me by the next day.
As for battery life? Well, the battery charge lasts a long time—I can get four, four and a half hours out of my laptop if I’m not doing anything more strenuous than browsing or writing—listening to music or playing videos drains it a little faster. This is a marked improvement over the twenty minute lifespan of my Toshiba Satellite’s battery, which is one of the reasons I love this laptop so much! 
The battery’s life, however, could have been better—past tense. The original battery has reached its golden years in a little under a year and a half of service. Unfortunately, Dell’s batteries are covered under a separate “standard” 12-month warranty. If the battery fails after that, you have to buy a new one, which can be as much as $300! Talk about highway robbery.
So I began to use the Internet for something it does very well: finding good deals. With laptop batteries, this can be a challenge: every manufacturer designs its batteries differently, and quality is important—I certainly didn’t want to get a battery that only lasts me six months, or one that only stays charged for an hour.
Eventually I came across LaptopBatteryStore.ca. It ships from Canada, which is great, because that means no customs delays and prices in Canadian dollars. Furthermore, these weren’t refurbished batteries—these are batteries manufactured specifically to match the specs on each machine. So I found the battery designed to fit in an Inspiron 6400—it was $99. That’s a much better deal than what Dell was offering. It came with a 30-day money back guarantee and a 12-month warranty, same as my original battery. so even if the battery fails, I can send it back and I won’t be any worse off than I was at the start of this quest.
My battery arrived several weeks ago. So far, the battery life is as good as my original battery was when I got my computer. Nothing has exploded yet. I am quite happy to have found this deal!
