Roundup
Written byPosted on May 3, 2007
Filed Under Roundup
- Sarah examines the Yiddish controversy surrounding Chabon’s latest.
- The latest installment of In Our Time concerns Spinoza. (via Mark Thwaite)
- The jury is now deliberating over the Cussler/Sahara lawsuit. Is Cussler boasting about the number of books he sold or did Crusader Entertainment breach their contract?
- Frances Trollope’s America.
- The Book Marketing Society is trying to find the book that best defines the 20th century. The BMS, of course, does this purely out of the goodness of their collective heart. They have absolutely no interest in publicizing overpraised books. Which is why such century-defining books as Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch and Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary are the list. I know that when I ponder a book that best represents the escalation of technology, the horrors of Hitler and Stalin, McCarthyism, mass production, the influence of Freud and feminism, and too many 20th century ideologies and innovations here to list, a trivial memoir about soccer and a novel about a frumpy thirtysomething who can’t find Mr. Right are the first books that come to mind.
- Thomas Jones examines an interesting looking book about how the typewriter’s relationship to the gender divide.
- Ralph De La Cruz considers Ricky Smith.
- There’s a grassroots movement to get Peter Bagge’s The Incorrigible Hulk reprinted, which Marvel is now holding hostage. (via Eric Reynolds)
- In a surprise move, Carl Bernstein’s biography of Hillary Clinton has been moved up to June 19 from its original August pub date. Of course, this recent announcement has nothing whatsoever to do with Obama moving ahead of Hillary in the polls this week.
- Quixote Sound Machine?
- Frank Wilson’s contrarian take on McCarthy has spawned some fireworks.
- So this is the new way. When promoting literacy, boast about how fast your program is instead of the ability of people to understand it. You may as well describe how fast you ate your breakfast, instead of how tasty it was.
- Joan Baez has been banned from performing for US troops.
- Shannon Wheeler: “I looked at Gary and said ‘Why should I support you when you’ve never done anything for me?’”
- Thank you, Mr. Dirda, for spawning Novelgobbler. (via Galleycat)
- John Cleese makes love to a Barbie doll.
- Summer book recommendations from booksellers. (via LHB)
- loltrek (via MeFi)
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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.)
The book that best defines the 20th Century for me is unquestionably Anthony Burgess’ ‘Earthly Powers’–not a popular choice, no doubt, but a book that has the right scope and humour–but little navel gazing and no 30-something angst.
Speaking as a big Burgess fan, good answer, Andrew. Good answer.
“[A] book that best represents the escalation of technology, the horrors of Hitler and Stalin, McCarthyism, mass production, the influence of Freud and feminism, and too many 20th century ideologies and innovations here to list.”
You couldn’t be talking about any one book other than Gravity’s Rainbow. Mind you, I don’t think one book can get the whole job done, but this one comes closest.