Roundup
Written byPosted on February 21, 2007
Filed Under Roundup
- Yesterday, I felt a man’s bicep in a hotel room. I’m not lying about this. This man, who will appear very soon on The Bat Segundo Show insisted that I do this, and who was I to turn him down? When a man makes a convincing case for why you should feel his bicep, my position is to throw caution to the wind and live dangerously.
- Speaking of which, Chris Lehmann talks with Martin Amis and asks him the real questions, such as what it was like to sleep with Tina Brown. I’m not sure what bearing this has on Amis as a writer, but if Lehmann is going to lower the bar like this, fair is fair. I’ll accept his needless and gossipy question as legitimate journalism the minute he tells us whether his wife takes it up the ass.
- Stephen Colbert has a comic book alter ego?
- Audrey Niffenegger has followed up The Time Traveler’s Wife with a graphic novel.
- Sarah has been hosting a roundtable for Patrick Anderson’s The Triumph of the Thriller.
- Hey, Brockman, what’s up with the penis references of late?
- The Office: a spec script by David Mamet. (via Gwenda)
- Michael Dirda on Clark Ashton Smith.
- Bookblog: “I’ve read a few interviews [Valentino Achak Deng]’s done along with Eggers, but I’m interested in what he’s like without having Eggers around.” This is a very good observation.
- Pete Anderson initiates St. Baldrick’s again. Help him out. It’s for a good cause.
- Frances Dinkelspiel and other Berkeley bloggers can be found in the latest Daily Californian.
- Behold! The latest Tournament of Books. I still don’t understand the purpose of the white chicken in the red circle. No doubt this is a deeply symbolic gesture on the part of Kevin Guilfoile. Or perhaps he and the Morning News gang came up with the whole idea at a KFC (the only restaurant that could accommodate the meager ToB catering budget).
- If you’re a Lovecraft fan visiting Providence, this is a handy article. (via Maud)
- A remembrance of Elizabeth Jolley.
- Five freaky Muppet videos.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Contact Ed by email.
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
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- The Mountain
I don’t remember the whole story about the rooster as the symbol of the tournament of books, but I know it has something to do with a David Sedaris story, that he nicknames his brother “The Rooster” or something like that?
They say on the site that the winner of the tournament gets a live chicken for their prize. Probably an excuse for boys to make cock jokes.
Forget Tina Brown, I want to know what it’s like to sleep with Claire Tomalin (which he did in the 70s). I’ve been hot for her since reading her Pepys biography.
Ha, that “up the ass” came out of nowhere at the end of that sentence and made me choke up some Pepsi.