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.
Book Reviewing Archive
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NBCC Ethics Survey
Posted on December 11, 2007 | No CommentsAt long last, Carlin Romano has posted the results of the National Book Critics Circle ethics survey. If there’s one thing that most NBCC members can agree upon, it’s that... -
A Dilettante’s Manifesto?
Posted on December 4, 2007 | 23 CommentsB.R. Myers reviews Tree of Smoke and cuts straight to the point in his second paragraph: “Having read nothing by Denis Johnson except Tree of Smoke, his latest novel, I... -
“The Editors” and Scummy, Little Book Reviewing
Posted on December 4, 2007 | No CommentsIf this piece isn’t written by Leon Wieseltier, then I’m a flying monkey. -
Sun-Times Books Section Latest Casualty
Posted on December 4, 2007 | 1 CommentAs John Freeman observes this morning, the Chicago Sun-Times books section is being cut in half, with the Controversy Section disappearing altogether this month. The five pages currently devoted to... -
Janet Maslin: Abdicating Her Critical Faculties One Review at a Time
Posted on November 26, 2007 | 2 CommentsSlushpile has dug up further evidence of Janet Maslin’s critical inadequacies, as evidenced by this review of John Leake’s Entering Hades. Apparently, the fact that Michael Connelly did not give... -
Edmund Wilson, Incompetent Genre Snob
Posted on October 22, 2007 | 19 CommentsIn between books I have to read for work, I’ve sneaked in a few pages of the two-volume Edmund Wilson set recently put out by the Library of America. It... -
Panel Report: The Crisis of Book Reviewing
Posted on September 19, 2007 | 1 CommentA good seventy people, composed of a handful of students and a majority of people over forty, congregated in the third floor lecture hall of the Columbia Journalism Building on... -
An Author’s Hubris Can Be Yours for the Low, Low Price of $1 Million!
Posted on September 12, 2007 | No CommentsHari Kunzru: “Literary critics will never grow up. Luckily for me, these days, people seem to be more interested in talking about my work than about money.” Gee, that’s odd.... -
In Defense of One-Sentence Book Reviews
Posted on September 10, 2007 | No CommentsA book review should be composed of one sentence; ideally, only a handful of words. That’s my response to all they hysteria now in the air concerning the death of... -
Say It Loud (I’m an Innovator and I’m Proud)
Posted on September 6, 2007 | 17 CommentsThere is now a literary crisis. Irony, once declared dead, may not be quite as interred as it was six years ago, when we were all still debilitated from Yamasaki’s... -
Presumably, This Explains the NBCC’s Contempt for the Bloggers
Posted on September 2, 2007 | 4 CommentsSteve Wasserman: “The real problem was never the inability of book-review sections to turn a profit, but rather the anti-intellectual ethos in the nation’s newsrooms that is—and, alas, always was—an... -
And for More on Book Reviewing
Posted on July 29, 2007 | No CommentsJerome Weeks cracks open the spine of Gail Pool’s Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America — that book that Orthofer mentioned a few weeks ago. -
Sven Birkerts and “Literary Life”
Posted on July 29, 2007 | 5 CommentsThe reputedly intelligent Sven Birkerts has entered into the print vs. online fray in today’s Boston Globe. He very kindly cites me, as well as Mark Sarvas, as a litblog... -
Finally, Someone in the NBCC Who Plays Doubting Thomas
Posted on July 10, 2007 | No CommentsConsidering all the hysteria that transformed Critical Mass in mere months into one of the most laughable blogs professing to concern itself with books, I must nevertheless commend the NBCC... -
Update on San Diego Union Tribune
Posted on June 25, 2007 | 3 CommentsArthur Salm informs me that yesterday’s Books section was indeed the last one. The books coverage will now be “two pages inside Sunday Arts, plus daily reviews once or twice... -
Why Settle for Cornflakes?
Posted on May 8, 2007 | 1 CommentFrom John Freeman: Several years ago, I had an editor at a newspaper who liked to go over copy by the phone. His edits could be brutal, but he always... -
Rachel Cooke: It’s the Author Photo, Not the Book
Posted on May 8, 2007 | 1 CommentRachel Cooke writes: “It wasn’t the hype that turned me off, nor the stories about how she’d been ignored as a novelist for years (Kevin was published by the small... -
The Perils of Honest Criticism
Posted on May 5, 2007 | 1 CommentLionel Shriver: “I try neither to be cowed by big names, nor to succumb to the pathetic illusion that by trouncing accomplished writers I make myself superior to them. I... -
Print vs. Online
Posted on May 2, 2007 | 3 CommentsMotoko Rich interviewed me on Monday morning for this article. While my larger points about convergence between print and media and my call for unity were both overlooked (and apparently... -
Another Newspaper Book Section Gutted
Posted on April 18, 2007 | No CommentsCritical Mass has word of the Atlanta Journal Constitution firing Teresa Weaver as book editor. John Freeman urges all concerned parties to write to editor John Wallace (jwallace@ajc.com) and publisher... -
Katie Roiphe’s Critical Inadequacies: A Case Study
Posted on April 6, 2007 | 2 CommentsWhile it’s good to see the ever reliable Liesl Schillinger offer a quirky and personal take on the new Clive James book, Schillinger’s pleasant review (as well as an appearance... -
In Which I Join the Fold
Posted on March 22, 2007 | 1 CommentSince I’ve amassed a tidy arsenal of reviews over the past six months, and, since my litblogging colleagues Mark Sarvas, Lizzie Skurnick, Sarah Weinman, Michael Orthofer, and Jessa Crispin were... -
Philly Inquirer Books Section in Danger?
Posted on March 4, 2007 | 2 CommentsYesterday, Philly Inquirer books editor Frank Wilson declared that he was unwell. I was concerned that this may have meant something more. And this morning, I checked out the Philly... -
More on the LATBR
Posted on March 2, 2007 | 1 CommentI’m not in New York. So I haven’t been able to confirm or deny earlier reports directly with top brass. Thankfully, Publishers Weekly reporter Jim Milliot has some concrete information,... -
Wait a Minute: Michiko Actually LIKES Fiction?
Posted on November 3, 2006 | No CommentsIt’s quite possible that the folks at the New York Times were sitting on this obit for a while, waiting for Styron to kick the bucket. After all, Vincent Canby’s... -
Devil on Devil
Posted on September 17, 2006 | 1 CommentI normally depsise Joe Queenan’s preening reviews, but his takedown of Joe Eszterhas’ The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood is pretty funny: Heavily influenced by Plato’s pedagogic masterpiece “Critias,” “The Devil’s... -
A Spot Where Nobody Really Bothers?
Posted on September 4, 2006 | 9 CommentsMark Haddon received savage reviews for his poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village, which followed his amazing novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog... -
Ed Park Axed
Posted on September 1, 2006 | No CommentsTerrible news from Kathy Daneman: Ed Park has been fired from the Voice. This is a foolish move and a great loss to the Voice. Aside from having a pretty... -
Stephen Thompson: Racist Reviewer?
Posted on August 28, 2006 | 2 CommentsGalleyCat reports on this Stephen Thompson review of Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games. The opening paragraph reads: There are certain books that are so similar to one another they almost beg... -
Case for a Natural Alternative
Posted on August 7, 2006 | No CommentsLondon Times: “Small independent publishers are rarely reviewed in the broadsheets even though their books are frequently as good as those from the big publishers. It is hard, often impossible,...