Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (Bat Segundo interview with Bissell)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Archive for February, 2004
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Mergers, Revelations and Glorious Kooks
Posted on February 20, 2004 | 2 CommentsThe Independent notes that separate literary entities are being killed by their corporate parents. HarperCollins recently killed off Flamingo (home to Ballard, Lessing & Coupland) and Random House threw Harvill... -
Posted on February 20, 2004 | 3 Comments(via Book Ninja)
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How to Make a Caitlin Flanagan
Posted on February 19, 2004 | 4 CommentsTake: One jigger of Anita Bryant One jigger of Jane Russell One jigger of Ann Coulter A dash of pretentious language (for faux sophistication and New Yorker credentials) One quart... -
Don’t Blame the First Lady. She Still Doesn’t Know About EKG Treatment.
Posted on February 19, 2004 | No CommentsThe Age has the Mark Haddon profile to end all Mark Haddon profiles. He confesses that he’s a fortysomething who listens to the Flaming Lips and Sparklehorse, is 30,000 words... -
Fifty Years Ago Today…
Posted on February 19, 2004 | 2 Comments…I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning... -
Most People Just Go to Anger Management Training Or Get An Antidepressant Prescription
Posted on February 19, 2004 | 2 CommentsSalon: “And instead of playing the peace-loving Christian, Gibson is swatting at critics, real and imagined. Of New York Times writer Frank Rich, Gibson admits to having said, ‘I wanted... -
Press Secretary Reveals Wedding Ring-Marriage Connection to Journalists; Iraq-WMD Link Remains Unanswered
Posted on February 19, 2004 | No Comments -
Quickies & Jesus, Not the Book Babes Again
Posted on February 19, 2004 | No CommentsRo Sham Bo in lit: Unfortunately, the article stops just as it begins to reveal something. McSweeney’s vs. Partisan Review/Agni: guess who gets more coverage. The Book Babes are so... -
I Must Confess That This is REALLY Good Tylenol
Posted on February 19, 2004 | 1 CommentJanet Maslin demonstrates how you can write a redundant-laden lead about nothing: “The history of Texas would seem to be a natural subject for the popular historian H. W. Brands.... -
Fuck No
Posted on February 18, 2004 | No CommentsSarah Jacobson has passed on. She died last night. She was only 32. Cinetrix points to this forum for those as bummed out about this news as I am. And... -
Too Good to Keep the Silence
Posted on February 18, 2004 | No CommentsThe Observer: Camille Paglia, who traded blows with Ms. Wolf in the early 1990’s over their radically different views on female sexual power, said she was no longer at war... -
A Respite
Posted on February 17, 2004 | No CommentsAway for a few days or more. -
Sorry, the Bronchitis Has Made Me Angry
Posted on February 17, 2004 | 2 CommentsAsimov’s somehow emerged as a magazine choice in a school fundraising drive. But one mother flipped through the magazine and was “shocked” to read about “young girls with no panties,... -
But What If You Want Them to Live?
Posted on February 16, 2004 | 1 CommentCinemorgue: Easily one of the most disturbing sites I’ve ever encountered. -
An Uncharted Desert Isle
Posted on February 16, 2004 | 3 CommentsRashomon’s been asking bloggers what their top 10 albums to take on a desert island are. Here’s my ten (at least right now in my present quasi-bronchitis mood, and discounting... -
Meeting Minutes for the Sunday Major Metropolitan Newspaper Review Society, Sioux City, Iowa Branch — 2/15/04
Posted on February 15, 2004 | 1 Comment7:15 PM: Meeting Coordinator Alice Koon let down the gavel, deferring floor to President Horace Henrietta Woosey (hereinafter “HHW”), who slid the curtain (meager partition to be replaced with available... -
Anonymous Eggers Review: You Make the Call!
Posted on February 15, 2004 | No CommentsSince Sarah did some digging, I became a bit curious myself. The following review has a very similar feel to McSweeney’s house style. Is it from Eggers? From “A reader... -
Current Feelings Towards Unfinished Books on My Bed
Posted on February 15, 2004 | 2 CommentsThe Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber: Oh, come on. I’m almost done with you. You’ve been good for about 500 pages. But isn’t this getting a bit... -
Fuck Me, It Had to Happen on a Long Weekend
Posted on February 14, 2004 | 3 CommentsI get sick very rarely, but one thing I do know: the current loss of appetite, aching muscles, headaches, lack of concentration, and weird pain in my alveoli is not... -
The Effect of Reviewing Backwards
Posted on February 14, 2004 | No CommentsBig news from the Times this morning: An Amazon glitch unmasked the psuedonyms of reviewers. One “David K. Eggers” (confirmed to be Eggers) called Believer editor Heidi Julavits’ novel “the... -
Sins of the Father
Posted on February 14, 2004 | No Comments“No man can cause more grief than the one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.” — William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust -
A Special Guest Column by Dale Peck
Posted on February 13, 2004 | 1 CommentSeveral weeks ago, the Village Voice told me never to write for them again. My literary outing had come, as it were, as a hatchet man. But after talking with... -
In Defense of Terry
Posted on February 13, 2004 | 4 CommentsSince everybody wants to see some dissing (well, maybe only Mark), and Terry’s been accused of “joining the ranks of other conservative authors and commentators who have recently been expressing... -
Now That I Have Your Attention
Posted on February 13, 2004 | No CommentsH Bomb is one thing, but now that a Yale panel has concluded that the U.S. is too uptight about sex, I’m convinced that the next wave of unfettered sexuality’s... -
Norman Mailer: Innovator In His Own Mind
Posted on February 13, 2004 | 2 CommentsA couple has donated $100,000 to the University of Mississippi for the only national scholarship devoted to the work and life of William Faulkner. “We hoped that we could stop... -
Woo Hoo!
Posted on February 12, 2004 | 6 CommentsWe’re in. Look for Wrestling an Alligator, written and directed by Edward Champion, at this year’s San Francisco Fringe Festival, sometime in September 2004. More details later. -
Nebula Award Nominees
Posted on February 12, 2004 | 297 CommentsThis year’s Nebula Award nominees are up, with links to most of the short stories and book excerpts. Among the nominees: Carol Emshwiller, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Cory Doctorow, and... -
Drudge on Deck for Old Sparky
Posted on February 12, 2004 | 2 CommentsDoes Matt Drudge seriously believe that an unconfirmed rumor is going to stop Kerry? Because if he does, and groundless character flaws are the best he can muster against Bush’s... -
Elder Statesmen
Posted on February 12, 2004 | 1 CommentAnn Taylor Cook, aka the Gerber Lady, has been using her postpartum postergirling to move copies of her first novel. Cook said that she sold 10 books in an hour... -
The Cultural Debate of the Century. Obvs.
Posted on February 11, 2004 | No CommentsPollack vs. Grambo on Lou Dobbs. If anybody Tivoed it, let me know.