Month / January 2006

by Edward Champion

The Bookstore That Cried Wolf?

Frances notes that Book Passage, the independent bookstore in Corte Madera, might be in trouble. It seems that a Barnes & Noble may be moving into the vacated storefront (once occupied by a Marshall’s) at the Town Center shopping mall. (At this point, Town Center management hasn’t revealed who the new tenant is.) A number of Corte Madera residents are quite upset about this.

Even so, the devil’s advocate in me has to ask why there’s so much uproar over what is, at this point, just an unconfirmed rumor. Why, for example, did the Independent Journal‘s Jim Staats fail to call Barnes & Noble Corporate or its legal counsel to get definitive answers? (Staats notes that he spoke with “Barnes & Noble spokesmen,” but judging from the article’s reliance managers at other B&N stores.) All we have then is this article are unsubstantiated rumors from the Corte Madera residents. Would not there be papers filed with the Corte Madera Zoning Administrator? City planning papers? Documents outlining any necessary retrofits of the property?

I’m wondering if there is much ado here about nothing. I’d hate to see Corte Madera literary types waste so much time over, say, another Best Buy store.

by Edward Champion

John Banville Radio Play

As widely reported, John Banville’s radio play, “Todtnauberg,” can be listened to at the BBC site. Banville proved to be more skillful a radio dramatist than I expected.

And as an aside, I have to wonder why American radio (read: NPR) doesn’t offer these sorts of extended opportunities for authors outside of This American Life. Wouldn’t it be great to see Eric Kraft offer a radio adaptation of one of his Peter Leroy novels or any of the Escapist comics rendered into radio plays?

by Edward Champion

I’m a Novelist, Not A _______

While we’re on the subject of what authors are up, I should note that Mark Haddon has a small chapbook of poetry coming out in April (already out in the UK). Proving to the world that Haddon will likely specialize in extremely long titles until the critical interest grows inflexible, this one’s called The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea. But the consensus indicates that it’s not so hot. Ranjit Bolt says, “[N]othing could prepare us for the tendentiousness, the unjustified formlessness, the ghastliness, of Haddon’s verse.” Neel Mukherjee of the Times is more encouraging: “If only his muse didn’t fall into the jerky stop-start motion of a nightmarish traffic jam on the M23, and he loosened his lines to let them breathe more.”