- Lifelong reader Jessica has less time to read. It’s a situation that plagues us all, but consider not being able to finish a book sitting on your nightstand since January. (via James Tata)
- The original title of Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn was Jolly Murder Mystery. (via the Literary Saloon)
- The current state of book review coverage.
- This year’s nominees for Governor General’s Literary Awards. George opines that it’s “a great small press list.”
- Alvaro Pombo has won the Premio Planeta, Spain’s most lucrative literary award.
- Everything that’s wrong with author appearances: “Those purchasing books will be given a number, and the signing will follow in numerical sequence.” Not mentioned: Those who get there at 6 a.m. will be automatically entered into a drawing to personally wipe Charles Frazier’s bottom.
- Why aren’t e-books successful? One word: plastics.
- Rawson Marshall Thurber knew he was the one to direct Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. The signs came as Thurber stared at himself long and hard in the mirror for seven hours, admiring just how goddam special Thurber was. He would have settled for five, had not Thurbert caught the glimmer of his own irresistible smile staring back at him. Thus, he required two more hours of solipsistic worship. Thurber clearly knew he was a genius. He also knew that Chabon was a genius, although it was quite clear to Thurber that he was the greater genius of the two. So he called Chabon and informed him that they were both geniuses. Chabon, in a particularly low mood, responded favorably to this plaudit and quickly signed away the film rights. And now Thurber stares long and hard again into the mirror when he isn’t directing, when he isn’t writing, when he isn’t existing. Rawson Marshall Thurber: if only we could all be like him.
- Chloë Schama asks why people love Murakami.
- Paul Barman talks with Weird Al.
- Chef Alain Roby has set a new record for the largest chocolate skyscraper. Unfortunately, current dessert zoning laws in New York have forced the building that Roby labored many long hours for to be prematurely demolished, to make way for Chef Robert Moses III’s grand boulevard of chocolate syrup.
- Bye bye, Macha. Best of luck, Tigers.
- Nick Tosches’ Dean Martin bio has been named the greatest rock and roll book of all time by Blender. What? No Lester Bangs?
Late Night Roundup
– October 16, 2006Posted in: Roundup
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. (
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. (