- Just when you thought it was safe to return to the bookstores, an author named Barbara Delinksy has actually revived the Peyton Place series. Is Peyton Place as scandalous as it once was? Can it hope to restore the same admixture of wonder and scandal that Grace Metalious used to enchant Eisenhower voters? Well, I have my doubts. Not because Delinsky’s written 70 books or because she was kind enough to write to us from the lake, but because she can’t spell “germane “.
- A Yeats album has fetched �72,000 at an auction. The album includes 18 letters from Yeats to his friend, Sir Sidney Cockerell, and the manuscript of his essay, “The Tragic Theatre.” There is also an original draft of one of Yeats’ poems that reads, “When you are old and grey and full of water,/And a WC cannot be found and you shall burst, scream for help.” But this work appears to have been abandoned.
- Gunter Grass is interviewed by Deutsche Welle during one of his regular visits to Gdnask. I wish I were making this up, but it looks like Grass was even asked to beat a tin drum. What next? Asking Grass to wear a dog suit or asking him to play cat and mouse?
- For the 100th anniversary of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Herkimer County hopes to commemorate the murder that inspired Dreiser. Police have been commissioned to prevent die-hard Dreiserites from going too far during the festivities.
- Pop quiz: Does the phrase “Thousands more are demanding ownership” come from an article on eminent domain or the Harry Potter hoopla. Here’s your answer.
- As widely reported, publisher Bryon Preiss has died.
- And bookmobiles may be dying in the States, but they’re thriving in Indonesia.
Roundup
– July 12, 2005Posted in: Uncategorized
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
And she writes “natch” – a level-one offense in my world.
Am I a hippocrit for not going to a referred dentist because she could not spell? Absolutely.