¡Roundup Dos!
Written byPosted on December 26, 2006
Filed Under Uncategorized
- Finally, a “Home & Garden” article I can concur with: “An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.” I vary between a messy desk and a clean desk. I like variety. And the neatniks can go waste their lives spending every spare moment squirting mildew remover around the house. I don’t have time for that OCD shit. Once a week (or two or sometimes three weeks) is good enough for me. (via Pinky & Gwenda; can’t remember where I saw it first so I’ll credit both!)
- Paul Collins is a brave man, but not nearly as brave as Jeffrey Steingarten.
- My copy of The Paris Review Interviews has languished in the TBR pile, but Scott offers some compelling reasons why it’s worth your time. Apparently, Richard Price pitched Clockers to publishers by the conviction of his oral pitch, as opposed to the book in question.
- Someone call PETA!
- So Debbie Weil suggests that if you don’t have multimedia on your weblog next year, you’re “sooooooooo 2006.” I contend that if you have a stiff black and white photo of yourself where you’re really trying to offer a genuine smile but can’t and you end up, as a result, resembling a humorless* realtor to be avoided at all costs, then you’re sooooooooooooo 1986. (via Maxine)
- Mr. Magee has a helpful recap for those who missed his “Year in Reading” series.
- Philip Gourevitch on James Brown. (2002)
- Wait a minute. Michael Orthofer’s actually taking a day off?
- A Conan Doyle Holmes adventure in the Times. (via Book Glutton)
- Bizarre as fuck Terry Pratchett profile. (via Jenny D)
- BookFox observes that the NYTBR finally got around to reviewing What is the What? yesterday — a good two months after the book was released. That’ll show the blogosphere, Tanenhaus! Timely news!
* — Argumentative support for modifier: Ms. Weil believes Six Apart’s bland corporate holiday video to be “funny” when it is nothing less than bullshit marketing.
Comments
One Response to “¡Roundup Dos!”
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.)
Actually, Machiko reviewed What is the What when it was released. And she liked. Seriously.