Update on San Diego Union Tribune
Written byPosted on June 25, 2007
Filed Under Book Reviewing
Arthur Salm informs me that yesterday’s Books section was indeed the last one. The books coverage will now be “two pages inside Sunday Arts, plus daily reviews once or twice a week inside the Currents section.” Salm also indicates that a Books website will be launching on July 1.
John Freeman offers suggestions on what can be done about this. Meanwhile, Ron Hogan is more skeptical, noting, “Might I humbly suggest that preserving the legacy of serious literary criticism in American letters, if that’s what the ‘battle for the book review’ crowd is actually doing, demands a slightly different approach than the one used to ensure a second season of Jericho?”
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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.)
Contact Ed by email.
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Or send materials to:
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Brooklyn, NY 11217
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I’m not even sure I’m sure about what I’m going to say, but let me throw a few thoughts on there.
First, is it a de facto “good thing” that book review sections be stand alone? I’m thinking maybe not. When I pick up my local Sunday paper (which has no book section anyway), there’s sections I have no interest in, like real estate, and buisness, and I quickly sort them and all the ad circulars into a pile and carry them to the recycling bin.
Now, given that we’ve heard all about how people don’t read, isn’t it possible that continuing to advocate for a segregated section is actually defeating to the cause. Couldn’t it be that too many people are saying, “books,” not for me, and shunting it aside without even cracking the cover? If a tree falls in the forest and is then made into newspaper that winds up as a book section and no one is around to read it, does it make a sound?
To me, it makes sense to put book reviews amongst other arts related news and information. I don’t generally listen to classical music, but I was intrigued enough by a review I read a couple of weeks ago (next to the Wilco review I wanted to read) to check out the music. Why not put the books information in with the other stuff where at least it stands a chance of grabbing the attention of a passerby?
Less column inches could, at least in theory, translate into more attention because of superior (if less exclusive) real estate.
But maybe I’m crazy with this stuff.
Am I crazy with this stuff?
No, not crazy, but I used to live in San Diego and I’d hold on to the section all week — if it’s dissolved into other parts of the paper I probably wouldn’t have read it.
For the record, I wasn’t skeptical of Freeman’s suggestions, which I had not read at the time of writing, but of Sandy Dijkstra’s call to bombard the Union-Tribune with protest emails. Freeman’s other ideas, particularly the development of a coordinated response involving the local publishing and bookselling communities, strike me as much more reasonable.