- Thanks to some technical trickery, I am now stealing wi-fi on my relocated desktop computer. This casual pilfering should last only a few days, and I have tried to keep this bandwidth theft to a minimum. Which means that email is spotty these days. (I should also point out that I am not really answering email because of this thing called settling in.) But now that we’re all here (or, rather, some of us are here; many are at BEA), let’s get down to business.
- Here is what I am apparently missing in Los Angeles: A booth where you can get your teeth whitened for $99. Dozens of dinosaur finger puppets. Sherman Alexie exclaiming, “Holy motherfuck! That’s Judy motherfucking Blume!” Faux surprise over the Scott McClellan book. Prince a reader? Litbloggers at BEA and not one of them is typing. The Rapture is Coming! Intriguing Germans with ridiculously named websites. A Mac in tow but no posts to show. A partnership between Amazon and S&S. Neil Gaiman stalkers. A women sprawled out on the floor before a taco run. Well, so far, it doesn’t seem all that different from a sunny afternoon in New York. But here’s Callie with no doubt the first of several reports! I hold out faith that prodigious reporting will expand beyond the established quirky details.
- Marc Weingarten writes about McSweeney’s, discovering Yannick Murphy and other fine authors two years after everybody else has. For his next piece, Mr. Weingarten will be writing about this really cool new band, LCD Soundsystem!
- Jeff points to a bookstore trick now becoming a more increasingly common practice: more bookstores are returning books 90 days before the tab is due.
- There is little left to mine, Mr. Sedaris. Please draw your attentions outward and evolve as a writer so that your humor can once again flourish. (via Quill & Quire
- Nicholson Baker reviewing in the NYTBR? Has hell frozen over? (Richard Russo and Marisha Pessl are in there too, making me wonder if Dwight Garner is turning the joint into a literary answer to those periodic Battle of the Network Stars specials that once aired on ABC. As it so happens, two of these reviews are quite good. You can probably guess which of the three is written with abject narcissism, instead of insight in mind.
- Anthony Lane on Sex and the City. The last paragraph in particular is dead on. (via The Old Hag)
- Maud wants to say just one word. Are you listening?
- The Reading and Book Buying Habits of Americans. (via Mark Athitakis, who has a few conclusions)
The Been Caught Stealin’ Wi-Fi Roundup
– May 31, 2008Posted in: Roundup, Uncategorized
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. (