- Since the sleeping schedule has gone all to hell, it seems as good a time as any to point to numerous things. (I forgot what happens when my mind remains active without a break for seventeen hours. Must remember to do stupid things so that I can sleep in the future.)
- The Los Angeles Times checks in with Howard Junker and Zyzzyva, as Junker has just retired. There doesn’t appear to be a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in Mr. Junker’s hand, but perhaps some unknown moment of spare time involving Photoshop and, well, let’s face it, PBR might remedy this. [UPDATE: To be clear on this, Junker is retiring at the end of next year.]
- Dan Green offers many thoughts on Steven Millhauser.
- And speaking of Millhauser, I’m wondering if there’s a specific name for that optical illusion in which two lower-case ells appear to converge into one when you’re looking at them in a small font. I’m convinced this is why I can never trust myself when I type “Philip Roth.” I always think there might be another ell, when there isn’t. Because if you stare long enough at two ells, they merge into one!
- If Obama wishes to preach hope, I certainly hope he has a solution for this retail bloodletting. Chelsea Green has managed to anger Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers because it intends to distribute Robert Kuttner’s Obama’s Challenge at the Democratic National Convention. There’s just one problem. With the book comes coupons that can be redeemed at Amazon’s BookSurge, which is their POD offering. Independent booksellers revolted and canceled orders, feeling that Chelsea Green’s move was a slap in the face. Chelsea Green president Margo Baldwin responded, blaming this favoritism on the importance of the election season. (Gee, I wonder if I can tell my landlord that I can’t pay the rent next month because I believe that this year’s Mets season is particularly important. Think he’d be sympathetic?) Anyway, instead of offering an alternative that might assist these indie bookstores, Baldwin writes that Chelsea Green “could not have survived and thrived without the innovations that Amazon brought to the book marketplace.” Amazon may be important for a small press to survive, but the people who run indie bookstores are often passionate readers. It’s the people behind the counter who have some say in where your book is positioned. There’s little doubt in my mind that POD will become a retail reality at some point. But with so many POD options out there and the atmosphere uncertain, it seems to me extremely foolish to alienate the support you have operating in the present like this.
- Am I the only person who really doesn’t give two shits about Michael Phelps? You know, world events, economy in the shitter, U.S. presidential election, Georgia, rising gas and food prices, et al.
- Leave it to the EFF to nail down some of the Kindle’s problems. (via Booksquare)
- Newspaper online traffic is jumping. It’s going online. Get on the wagon while you can.
- Is Tom Shales out of line? You make the call.
- Esquire fiction editor L. Rust Hills has died. Daniel Murphy is believed to be in some way responsible.
- The reading tastes of the homeless.
- George Orwell considers cement.
- Wired interviews Neal Stephenson.
Roundup, Sleep When?
– August 19, 2008Posted 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. (
No, I don’t care about Phelps either, since you asked. But I’m not especially bitter at people who do –not that I’m above fury at the press’s focus on trivia, but maybe I don’t spend enough time with the news headlines to get annoyed on this one.
Love your round-ups and am glad I’m not the only one who worries about double-l’s.
Daniel Murphy was in Pittsburgh.