It has now been eight days since we’ve heard anything from the Book Babes, with the last column featuring Margo alone (with an almost Stalinist exclusion of Ellen). Have the Book Babes been canned? Did someone actually pay attention to Mark’s petition? Inquiring minds want to know.
To be clear to the Poynter Institute (if they are indeed watching), the collected hope was to raise the level of discourse, not eviscerate it completely.
I certainly hope that Poynter isn’t foregoing book coverage altogether. But if they’re looking for replacements, there are more than a few possibilites.
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. (
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.
I know you’re keeping with the Book “Babes” construction by sending up all women, but howsabout Book Boys? There are a number of you out there who could do the job famously.
They’re back, and I’ve found something worse than the Book Babes talking about literary culture: the Book Babes talking about politics.