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The 10 Most Recent Dispatches
- The Bat Segundo Show: Stephen Fry
- The Bat Segundo Show: Deborah Scroggins
- Komen for the Cowards: Betraying Breast Cancer
- The Bat Segundo Show: Susan Cain
- Forgotten Writers: Dorothy Uhnak
- Dwight Garner’s Revisionist Ignorance: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Forgotten Writers: The Novels of John P. Marquand
- The Situation in American Waffles
- The Bat Segundo Show: Elliot Perlman
- The Death of the Heart (Modern Library #84)
Modern Library Reading Challenge
On January 10, 2011, Managing Editor Edward Champion pledged to read the top 100 fiction books from #100 to #1. Read about his progress as he makes his way through the Modern Library canon!
84. The Death of the Heart (January 6, 2012)
85. Lord Jim (November 30, 2011)
86. Ragtime (October 30, 2011)
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
Edward Champion Archive
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Cinematic Authenticity
Posted on March 7, 2008 | 2 CommentsTwo movies opening today have me concerned about the way that contemporary cinema is avoiding authenticity in an age of wartime. If we accept the idea that a movie is,... -
Interview with Bill Plympton
Posted on March 3, 2008 | 2 CommentsI’m currently putting the finishing touches on a number of new podcasts, which I anticipate releasing today. But in the meantime, here’s an excerpt from my forthcoming interview with animator... -
The Myth of Karma
Posted on February 27, 2008 | 2 CommentsOne is tempted to look upon an array of serendipitous factors, particularly those that are strange and unfavorable, and find some cosmic justification for karmic retribution. Some are tempted to... -
A Can of Grape Soda
Posted on February 26, 2008 | 2 CommentsIt’s safe to say that most of us fail to observe where our food comes from. I am currently examining an empty aluminum can of Welch’s Grape Soda, which was... -
Diary of the Dead
Posted on February 14, 2008 | 2 CommentsDiary of the Dead is going to split critics. The film snobs who can’t handle a populist movie with a brain will groan (as many did quite audibly at the... -
I Need a Husband!
Posted on February 13, 2008 | 29 CommentsAbout six months after I continued to remain happy and childless, I saw a woman sitting with her son on a blanket. Her name, I later discovered, was Lori and... -
Chapter One
Posted on February 11, 2008 | 2 CommentsOn Sunday night, I stepped into the chilly cold and ventured off to see two fabulous pals — Matt Cheney and Tayari Jones — read at the Sunday Salon series... -
Conscience and Integrity
Posted on February 8, 2008 | 7 CommentsHe was a passionate devotee of David Foster Wallace, Rick Moody, and many others who he sensed were writing the Great American Novel. He made acquaintances with a few of... -
Law of Averages
Posted on February 7, 2008 | 3 CommentsI hope to find more time to write at length about Charles Baxter’s extraordinary novel, The Soul Thief. Beyond Baxter nailing the relationship of “God Only Knows” to Brian Wilson’s... -
Breaking News: Snobbery Ain’t Cute
Posted on February 7, 2008 | 10 CommentsDear Zadie Smith: Well, this isn’t a difficult thing to write. Because the kind of sanctimonious attitude you espouse with your open letter really doesn’t tell us the whole story.*... -
A Tribute to Frank Wilson
Posted on February 5, 2008 | 5 CommentsFrank Wilson will be hanging up his hat as books editor of the Philly Inquirer on Friday and I feel that the battle to save book reviewing sections has been... -
Dave Itzkoff: The Genre Dunce Who Won’t Stop Dancing
Posted on February 4, 2008 | 18 CommentsDave Itzkoff has been an embarrassment to the New York Times Book Review for some time, imbuing his “Across the Universe” columns with a know-nothing hubris that one expects from... -
Class Distinctions
Posted on January 30, 2008 | 4 CommentsBack in the days when I played at the gilded trap known as the nine-to-five rap, there were often times in which my failure to distinguish social hierarchies was at... -
The U.S. Copyright Office
Posted on January 29, 2008 | 5 CommentsParamount Pictures Corporation holds co-copyright on David Foster Wallace’s “Host.” Nicholson Baker’s first two records, registered in 1981, were for two stories: “Snorkeling” and “K.590.” Both stories have not been... -
The Decline of Book Reviewing: A Case Study
Posted on January 28, 2008 | 9 CommentsIt is said that the Eunectes murinus — referred to by laymen as the anaconda or the water boa — spends most of its time shooting its slimy body beneath... -
Night at the Boxcar
Posted on January 24, 2008 | 2 CommentsThis was roughly the view you received if you had the privilege of attending the Boxcar Lounge on Wednesday night. The venue was indeed shaped like a boxcar and it... -
Interview with Charles Burns
Posted on January 22, 2008 | 2 CommentsFour new podcasts were released today at The Bat Segundo Show. And since we’re on the subject of Segundo, what follows is a short excerpt from my conversation with Philadelphia-based... -
The Video Game as Art
Posted on January 21, 2008 | 7 CommentsIn 2005, film critic Roger Ebert ruffled a few feathers when he suggested that because video games require player choices, games are therefore an inferior medium: To my knowledge, no... -
Beware of the Owl
Posted on January 18, 2008 | 4 CommentsThe reports promised snow but prevaricated. My mind marinated. You get that feeling when you are conned into picking away at a slice of red velvet cake because it’s there... -
Sprezzatura the Maligned
Posted on January 15, 2008 | 4 CommentsIt’s been more than a year since the manboy cultural critic Lee Siegel was temporarily suspended from The New Republic for allegedly posting anonymous comments on its blog, under the... -
Forgotten Statue, Forgotten Spirit
Posted on January 14, 2008 | 3 CommentsLike many statues nestled along the rectangular trestles of Manhattan’s parks, Karl Bitter’s bronze depiction of Carl Schurz — situated at the corner of Morningside Drive and 116th Street —... -
Rep. Randy Forbes: Revisionist Historian
Posted on January 9, 2008 | 9 CommentsHouse Resolution 888 (presumably 666 was unavailable) aims to celebrate and glorify a little bit of that ol’ time religion in a very big way. The resolution, introduced by Rep.... -
Mothlight and the WGA Strike
Posted on January 8, 2008 | 6 CommentsAmerica’s troubled soul snaked around two building corners on a late Monday afternoon. It read books. It offered quizzical pikers when WGA strikers handed out pink papers containing the phone... -
Pommes Frites
Posted on January 7, 2008 | 3 CommentsIt was an unwonted warm afternoon in January when my corpus decided that it required protein. My culinary id had screamed for the wrong kind of protein, the messy kind... -
Filthy Habits: An Introduction
Posted on January 5, 2008 | 12 Comments“Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.” — W. Somerset Maugham Welcome to Filthy Habits (working...