Roundup
Written byPosted on November 13, 2006
Filed Under Roundup
- I can’t believe that I’m in the position of defending both Sam Tanenhaus and Franklin Foer for this review, but since Mr. Hogan has taken them both to task, I should note that, in all fairness to Foer, he probably turned in his review of the Woodward book well before Rummy resigned. Of course, with Tanenhaus timing this review to appear after last week’s elections, presumably with the assumption that the Republicans would win, demonstrates how untimely delay can sometimes be a book review editor’s folly.
- The Washington Post’s Bob Thompson talks with Philip Roth as the third Library of America volume of Roth’s complete works hits bookstores.
- Just how low has Duran Duran sunk? So low that they’re collaborating with Justin Timberlake.
- Where most people can laugh off (and possibly be honored) after being given the South Park treatment, Richard Dawkins is highly dismayed.
- The Beat unearths a telling indicator re: Lost Girls.
- Rumors of the fountain pen’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
- I’ve been highly dubious of Jerome Weeks’ book/daddy, seeing as how the man was such a cry baby about litbloggers. But any guy who cites Buster Keaton can’t be too bad.
- Bookworld asks whether blogs sell books.
- Largehearted Boy observes that this week marks the release of the great Joanna Newsom’s new album. And he says that it’s become his favorite album of the year.
- Instead of reading the rambling nonsense (apparently, a “review” of Lisey’s Story) that appeared in this week’s NYTBR, King fans might want to check out this King interview, in which he discusses what frightens him.
- The Simpsons Movie trailer. Yawn. Watching The Simpsons intermittently over the past several years has been a bit like watching a once robust American Cream Draft limp around the racetrack, when it really needs to be shot and put out of its misery.
- Jenny D in the New York T.
- Will Self on trying to procure song rights. (via Splinters)
- The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association is trying to sex things up. They’ve opted for a new title for their trade show. But it isn’t Indie Booksellers Unite for Good Merlot. It isn’t Booksellers for a Better Tomorrow. It isn’t the Indie Booksellers Plot for World Domination Conference. Instead, it’s the pedestrian “The Booksellers Sales Conference,” which sounds about as inviting as eight hours of watching Powerpoint presentations. Come on, NAIBA! You can do better!
- You’ve got to love the EU. They just outlawed television product placement.
- Ron Silliman on “Howl.”
- This may very well be a first: Norman Mailer has confessed a weakness!
- Time’s Richard Lacayo talks with Gore Vidal. His response to gay marriage: “Since heterosexual marriage is such a disaster, why on earth would anybody want to imitate it?”
- An Immanuel Kant mystery? WTF?
- The Scotsman’s Stuart Kelly compares Irish literary stratagems with Scottish ones.
- Anthony Lane on Casino Royale.
- Bella Stander reports on Ralph Steadman.
- Robert Fulford explains why you should be reading the Times Literary Supplement. (via Kitabkhana)
- Frank Kermode on William Empson.
- The Time Traveler Show features a 1974 conversation with Asimov.
- Richard Pachter: “It’s not enough to write a great book. Authors are now expected to play an active role in book marketing and promotion. In this brave new world of always-on media, scribes are expected to pursue or make themselves available to every potential reader.” Come on, Pachter. Do you really want to raise Updike’s blood pressure?
- RIP Ellen Willis.
- Editor Misael Tamayo Hernandez has been found dead after running several corruption stories.
- Some of this year’s NaNoWriMo participants include David Thayer and James Tata. No work online, but I wish them luck.
- Glenn Greenwald calls the Washington Post out for failing to note Bush’s little white Rummy lie.
- Ed Park uncovers some interesting papers.
- Done Waiting examines the interesting case of Kyle Sowashes.
- One thing you may not get from print media, particularly those who are more interested in being cultural gatekeepers: helpfulness and cooperation.
- Long Pauses discovers Fassbinder.
- HD-DVD: the future of advertising?
- Hitch on Borat.
- Flak Magazine introduces Flak Radio.
- Another Deng-Eggers interview.
- Re: Lost: I concur with Amy’s Robot.
- How many writers write. (via The Publishing Spot)
Comments
5 Responses to “Roundup”
Leave a Reply
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.)
I’m actually excited about the Simpsons movie for the perverse reason that the makers of the show have hinted in the DVD commentaries that it would probably kill the show. No specific details, but there’s a definite vibe that the movie will be a sort of grand finale.
Of course, I also totally bought into the idea that REM would break up at midnight on New Year’s Day, 2000, so…
Yes, to put a plainer spin on it, the fact that Foer couldn’t incorporate the Rumsfeld developments into his story is a problem with the way the story was ASSIGNED, not the way it was written. Considered in and of itself, it’s a perfectly competent review of State of Denial, just as good as any of the ones filed a month before it.
Ed, what’s your beef with the Stephen King review? I thought it was refreshingly energetic and broad in scope.
Updike can take Toprol XL like everyone else!
Ed–
Thanks for the good wishes on NaNoWriMo. I’ll need all the luck I can get!
Jim