- Jeff VanderMeer and M. John Harrison: how can you go wrong with that conversation?
- I couldn’t make the Lethem-PKD event, I’m afraid, but Matt Cheney has a lengthy report. The included novels in the second PKD LOA edition will be Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly and Now Wait for Last Year.
- I have not watched Smallville in two years (this was a sad addiction and nobody in particular can be blamed for this, except perhaps an old roommate), but if this is the kind of nonsense they’re now putting out, I think I may have chosen correctly.
- Things ain’t exactly cozy at the Poetry Society of America.
- A new “unheard” series of interviews with Graham Greene have been released.
- For a writer, the importance of cafes can never be underestimated.
- Exhibit #562 in the Case Against Franzen Being Any Fun. (Come to think of it, Franzen’s starting to look like a beardless Tanenhaus these days.)
- Carlin Romano on Exit Ghost.
- The Westchester Library didn’t think twice about nailing Elizabeth Schaper with a 50-cent fine. Schaper had gone to the library to return a book that her mother had checked out. But since Schaper’s mother had died the week before, Schaper’s mother wasn’t exactly in the position to return the book on time. To the martinet man behind the desk, this was simply no excuse. He insisted on the two quarters. The library, spineless to the core, has not issued any public comment or public apology.
- The AP is cutting its book review package.
- Want your kids to read? Start them early. (I learned, no joke, to read when I was two. So perhaps there is some truth in this.)
- Scorsese is making a film about George Harrison.
Roundup
– September 28, 2007Posted 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. (
The best way to get kids to read: don’t buy a television. My kids were driven to books out of sheer boredom.