Roundup
Written byPosted on May 1, 2007
Filed Under Roundup
- I intended to link to it yesterday, but this week at the Litblog Co-Op, folks are discussing Marshall Klimasewiski’s The Cottagers. There’s talk of horrible vacations and, on Friday, a podcast interview will follow.
- Charles Shields reveals how he used the Internet to conduct research for his Harper Lee biography.
- George Eliot’s letters to Henry Lewes have gone online. You can access the letters here. My only question: why didn’t they do this in the middle of March?
- Patti Smith hits the New Yorker.
- Kathleen Parker: “People who read books are different from other people. They’re smarter for one thing. They’re more sensual for another. They like to hold, touch and smell what they read.” What Parker didn’t tell you is that some “people who read books” can also be found in criminal databases and some of the more unsullied readers are prone to displays of snobbery. I’ve known some pretty smart and sensual people who don’t read in my time and have even managed to get more than a few of them attracted to books. Largely because I was able to assure many of them that I was a schmuck. The key to getting people to read is to be humble and to listen very carefully to people. Then you can figure out what kind of books they’re likely to go crazy over. (via Bookslut)
- Niall Griffiths revisits Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and finds that there’s more inside the book than during his initial read. I’d like to see more newspapers do this. Litblogs are often accused of rushing out their posts (and I would agree with this to some degree), but many print critics are equally celeritous in banging out their reviews to meet deadlines. Because of these conditions, I have to ask whether a book like Pynchon’s Against the Day really received a fair reception, or, for that matter, whether most books are fairly assessed in today’s environment. Mr. Asher has more to say about the socioeconomics of book reviewing.
- Tales from the Reading Room compares the postwar Paris cultural atmosphere with today’s troubling media environment.
- Who knew that Harlequins were mining Village People templates for their book covers?
- There’s a documentary about equuphiliacs now making the rounds.
- I got the tip from Maxine, but it appears that Lindsay Anderson’s if… is getting the Criterion treatment. Now if they can somehow get Anderson’s other masterpiece O Lucky Man! onto DVD, we’ll all be very lucky.
- Michiko on Michael.
- The L.A. Times Book Prize winners.
- 50+ Free Resources for Effective Reading. (via Book Glutton)
- Mother Jones: “By the end of the century, half of all species on Earth may be extinct. Who will survive the world’s dwindling biodiversity, and why?” (via Isak)
- Gawker takes the NYTBR podcast theme song appropriately to task.
- Here’s a presidential platform I can get behind — apparently, in more ways than one.
- It had to happen sooner or later: Twitterlit, which comes from one Debra Hamel.
- The Audit Bureau of Circulations has reported sharp drops in newspaper circulation in Spring 2007.
- Also, the New York Times will no longer participate in the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Personally, I blame Rich Little.
- Arrested for holding placards of Orwell and the Magna Carta.
- Against National Poetry Month. (via Books, Words, and Writing)
- Scooby Doo manga. (via The Beat)
- Amazing.
- I agree with Lev Grossman. The X-Files has run its course.
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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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I agree with you about the snobby article about reading. I agree people should read more and literature is good, but reading books doesn’t make a person superior.
There seems to be a lot of importance placed on reading fiction books as a measure of knowledge these days. This article (correct me if I’m wrong) seems to point to fiction as the path to knowledge. Personally, I don’t have the time or patience to finish many books, and the books I read are rarely fiction. I do read all day long though, mostly news (online and print), stuff online and articles/books for college. The books I read for fun are usually non-fiction (although I do read fiction sometimes). Does that mean my brain is deteriorating? I don’t think so. I still feel somewhat of a inferiority complex because I don’t read a lot of fiction books though. For me, I guess I get a lot of fiction stories from films, and that takes away a need for read fiction. Maybe films are killing literature?
I also disagree about the X-Files, I’ve gotten into watching that show again (they play it a lot on cable late at night) and I’m dying to see another film! Even if it sucks, it would feel good to know they at least tried. It won’t make the older shows worse.
Scooby Doo manga is wrong. So is Rich Little.
Get “siller” with the triller, G (as in Grossman).
I can’t figure out whether cable is airing only the bad X-Files reruns, or if every episode was that way. I don’t remember much from 7th grade. Maybe one of these days, scientists will find that hormones are good for erasing memory. Either way, I won’t be seeing that sequel.
I have a hard enough time deciding whether to see the Simpsons movie.
I remember saying that The X-Files was going to be my generation’s equivalent of the original Star Trek. Seems like it’s right on schedule.
(Yes, that prediction was in part an unflattering comment on David Duchovny’s abilities, specificaly that he is about as much of an actor as William Shatner.)
They’ve been re-running a lot of the later conspiracy episodes lately, which aren’t as good (in my opinion) as the older stand-alone episodes.