BEA Recap: An Overview

I’m just back from BEA and working back into the daily routine. Over the next couple days, I’ll be posting about various panel discussions and other specific items of interest. In a more general sense, the tone of the show was one of uncertainty and confusion. Nobody really knows what will happen in the future and everyone is worried about the sustainability of the industry. It's clear that traditional boundaries (e.g., between print and electronic media, between industry insiders and those commenting from the sidelines, between recognized genres) are breaking down. Enterprising publishers and booksellers (primarily the independents) are attempting to take advantage of the confusion to identify new opportunities while others seem to be nonresponsive, hoping the industry returns to the comfortable status quo of five years ago.

The confusion was perfectly represented in the speakers chosen for Thursday night’s keynote address. Chuck Klosterman (a bona fide author) first interviewed Clarence Clemons, the legendary saxophonist of the E Street Band, about his upcoming book of anecdotes about working with Bruce Springsteen, Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales. By far the best part of the interview was when Clemons played one of his well-known saxophone solos for the audience. The moment was pretty entertaining but, ultimately, had nothing to do with books or publishing. Next, Klosterman interviewed mega-star Steven Tyler (lead singer of Aerosmith) about his upcoming memoir only to discover during the course of the interview that the book “isn’t finished” and that Tyler is “not sure” when (if?) it will be released. While amusing, the Thursday night line-up implied that one must look outside the world of books to please a crowd and revealed the industry’s current lack of confidence.

More to come…

Rocket Man by William Elliot Hazelgrove (a review)

Rocket Man
3 out of 5: Rocket Man, the latest novel by William Elliot Hazelgrove, chronicles a week in the life of middle-aged Dale Hammer, culminating in a Boy Scout event involving the launching of hundreds of small rockets. Notionally, Hammer is a writer, but his books were written years ago and are out of print. He's struggling to keep his family in their large suburban house by selling mortgages, but he’s a terrible salesman. Hammer’s wife is threatening divorce, his kids are mad at him for constantly breaking his fatherly promises, and his unemployed dad has moved into the room over the garage, formerly Hammer’s writing studio.

Although this book is filled with laugh-inducing episodes, it’s a bit overlong and ends up feeling more like a string of funny events loosely strung together than a cohesive novel. Additionally, Hammer's latent racism (and his father's rather blatant racism) is off-putting at times and unnecessary to the story. Despite these failings, I quite enjoyed this tale of suburban angst and laughed through the whole thing. I could see this as a successful movie starring Will Ferrell.

Samuel Johnson Prize Shortlist

As reported by the Guardian, the BBC's Samuel Johnson Prize shortlist has just been announced. This prominant British prize covers all non-fiction genres, and the lists of finalists are generally quite diverse. This year, however, there's an overabundance of science titles on the shortlist:

• Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed
• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
• The Lost City of Z by David Grann
• Leviathan by Philip Hoare
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
• Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar

The winner will be announced on June 30th.

There's a "Top 10" for Everything

Adam Leith Gollner, author of The Fruit Hunters, picked his "top 10 fruit scenes" in literature for the Guardian. Gollner explains his list:

Fruit were made for storytelling. Dripping with hidden significance, they provide an ideal rhetorical device. They seem so sweet and pure, yet beneath their tempting exteriors fruit can be as deceitful – and complex – as the knowledge of good and evil. Red hearts or black eyes, capsules of sunlight or crystal drops of blood, fruit are a mystery tool in the crafting of creative acts. The [chosen] literary fruit scenes shed light on the ways this ripe symbolism can seduce writers – and their subjects.

Alice Munro Wins Man Booker International Prize

Alice Munro has just won the third Man Booker International Prize. According to the official Prize website, the Man Booker International Prize "is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage." Previous winners include Ismail Kadaré (2005) and Chinua Achebe (2007). Munro is a well-known Canadian short-story writer.

If you're not familiar with Munro, probably the best place to start is one of the compilations of her best stories. Carried Away is a selection of 17 stories chosen by Munro as her favorites. Selected Stories is a compilation of 28 stories, selected from 7 different collections spanning three decades of work. Alice Munro's Best: Selected Stories is a nice gift edition. it's tough to go wrong with Munro.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

James King, a 54-year-old freelance corporate writer, has just won the second annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which comes with a $25,000 publishing contract with Viking. Publisher's Weekly describes King's novel, titled Bill Warrington’s Last Chance, as "the story of a Korean War veteran diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease who, trying to reconcile with his three adult children, kidnaps his 15 year-old granddaughter in an attempt to bring the family together." For his day job, King "writes training and development programs for corporations."

Literary License Going to BEA

Book Expo America begins tomorrow in New York City, and I will be there. I'll be blogging about my experiences beginning Monday of next week.

If you're going to be at BEA, please stop by to say hello between 3 and 4 pm on Saturday, May 30th. Firebrand has generously organized a space for literary bloggers to meet with other BEA atendees, and I'm scheduled to be at the Firebrand booth (#4077) during that time slot. There's even been some talk of blogger trading cards. See the full schedule of blogger appearances here.

$500k is the New $1 Million

According to Crains, last week's auction for the story of Capt. Richard Phillips, the man who saved his crew from pirates and was rescued from his kidnappers by the Navy, "drew top bids of around $500,000--half the seven-figure advance it had been expected to fetch." A February auction resulted in no takers for a proposed Britney Spears memoir, and less infamous writers are facing ever-shrinking advances. Times are tough for writers.

Macmillan president Brian Napack comments, "We have to worry, when we come out of the recession, whether demand will reset to previous levels. So there's been a tremendous effort to streamline."

Words We Hate & Words We Love

Kristi Gustafson at the Times Union talks about words we hate. According to Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus, we most often hate words because of their sounds or because of their “’icky’ associations. Sometimes we hate words for no particular reason at all. On the other hand, words we love are generally associated with positive meanings.

For me, I hate the word “hammy,” whether it’s used in the “I think I just strained my hammy” context or the “I’ll have the ‘Moons Over My Hammy’” scenario. I just can’t stand the sound of the word or the inane way people use it to refer to either a muscle or a breakfast meat.

What words do you hate?

Cormac McCarthy Archives Now Open

Beginning May 18th, the archive of Cormac McCarthy's work papers, located at Texas State University’s Alkek Library in San Marcos, was opened for research purposes. According to the University’s press release, “[t]he fully processed collection stands at almost 100 boxes and includes correspondence, notes, hand-written and typed drafts, setting copies, proofs, and other materials documenting McCarthy’s career.” The University has published a detailed electronic list of what’s available. Research hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and access to the McCarthy Papers is by appointment only.

The Theory of Light & Matter by Andrew Porter (a review)

The Theory of Light and Matter: Stories
4 out of 5: The Theory of Light and Matter, a collection of ten short stories, won last year’s Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction, and it’s a deserving winner. Porter’s stories confront the everyday challenges of marriage and parenting and the difficulties of growing up. While exploring these ordinary themes in suburban settings, these stories reveal the subtle ebb and flow of relationships, the complexities of interacting that lie below the surfaces of normal lives, with insight and sensitivity.

Porter’s casual prose gives his stories an aura of reality. Nothing is strained, and the dialog is convincing. Although casual, it’s a studied casualness. The sentences are carefully crafted, the words conscientiously chosen, and everything is in its place. Although I sometimes wished for something apocalyptic to happen, that would’ve been out of character for these stories. These intelligent and well-crafted stories, though occasionally lacking in action, are a joy to read. The book, published by the University of Georgia Press, is beautifully designed. The understated and elegant look is the perfect complement to these stories.

Last fall, Porter read from The Theory of Light and Matter at Brazos Bookstore in Houston. Read my post about the event here.

A Kind of Spooky Power

In the June issue of the Nation, Kate Sifton, senior vice president of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, writes about the history of the publishing industry and questions what the future holds. Sifton dubs books "instruments of enlightenment" that have "a kind of spooky power" as cultural objects. Nevertheless, Sifton believes the industry has been brought low by "opportunistic books by or about politicians and celebrities." Sifton worries that the current "stifling excess of lucrative junk" will "dominate shelf space, ad budgets and public attention," leaving "nowhere near enough air, space or money for true literature." Her conclusion: "It is a confused, confusing and very fluid situation, and no one can predict how books and readers will survive." A somewhat disappointing conclusion after so many words, but the article is still worth reading.

European Constitution in Verse

The European Constitution in verse has been composed by more than 40 European poets, at least one from each European country. The message: "If the EU is not to be given a political constitution, at least give it a poetical one."

An excerpt from the Preamble:

at this moment amid history’s wind and dust
We know nothing about ourselves
We who come here from every country, church and slum, nooks and crannies,
We in Europe, we leave the mountains, visit the valleys, approach the villages,
Get lost in cities.
We, yes, all of us, we entreat the citizens, listen, please, listen,
Now hear the worries, the fires, the snows of our stories.

2666 as a Book Club Pick?

In the Telegraph, Genevieve Fox writes a humorous account of the fallout when her book club decided to read Roberto Bolano's 977-page 2666. The group reconvened after finishing the first 350 pages (through the third section of the novel's five sections) and discussed whether to continue.

Much anger was expressed, with one participant asking: ‘‘What is the point of this book? ... It seems entirely without form. Or plot. Or characters you can believe in or sympathise with.” Another concluded, ‘‘It’s just a platform for Bolaño’s ego.’’ The consensus: 2666 is nothing more than "an elaborate joke with no promise of a punch line." Nevertheless, the group voted to read to the end. I hope Fox let's us know how the next meeting goes.

Book Review Archive Now Available

Over the last year, I've received a lot of requests to put together a book review archive that's easily searchable. Finally, I've accomplished that task. Check out the new book review archive here at Literary License (available to the right of this post). You can choose to look at the list of book reviews organized by author's last name, book title, or rating.

Latest Starbucks Pick: Crazy for the Storm

Starbucks has chosen Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad as its next book pick. Beginning June 2nd, the book will go on sale at approximately 7,000 Starbucks-operated stores in the US.

In a statement, Starbucks described the book as "a vivid illustration of [Ollestad's] terrifying physical and psychological descent down the mountain in extreme conditions" after a plane crash. Starbucks thinks the book is a good Father's Day pick because it portrays Ollestad's "touching relationship" with his father and how his father "instilled in him the characteristics to persevere, and ultimately, survive."

See my prior post about the Starbucks Effect.

Technology Saves Literary Treasures

While many book lovers lament the current age of digitization, others see it as an opportunity to save literary treasures. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, new technologies allow us to decipher ancient documents that were previously unreadable, including those "blackened in fires or by chemical erosion, painted over or simply too fragile to unroll." Additionally, digitization of physical documents offers a way to preserve valuable documents from wars, political instability, natural disasters, and collapsing archives buildings. The ongoing "digital arms race" has uncovered such works as an alternate version of the Greek play Medea, a Syriac manuscript of a 12th-century account of the Crusades, and papyrus fragments from rolls that were stuffed inside mummified Egyptian crocodiles in the 1st century B.C.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave (a review)

Little Bee: A Novel
5 out of 5: Little Bee is a novel about two women, one from England and one from Nigeria (named Little Bee), whose lives intersect in a chance encounter with repercussions that change the lives of both women forever. Told from alternating first-person perspectives, the story unfolds slowly, allowing the reader to discover the details along with the women. This masterful construct pulls the reader along the same emotional journey as the characters and powerfully depicts how a split-second decision can have enduring and unexpected effects.

One of those effects is Little Bee’s forced assimilation into British culture. Her unique voice, which grows into the dominating force of this novel, humanizes the plight faced by many immigrants:

I am only alive at all because I learned the Queen’s English. Maybe you are thinking, that isn’t so hard. After all, English is the official language of my country, Nigeria. Yes, but the trouble is that back home we speak it so much better than you. To talk the Queen’s English, I had to forget all the best tricks of my mother tongue. … Learning the Queen’s English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails, the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had.

Although there is a political message here, it never overshadows the personal stories of these finely drawn characters. Cleave’s beautiful prose, infused with subtle humor, lightens this book’s dark and haunting story, creating a perfect balance between beauty and horror, laughter and tragedy. Little Bee might be a perfect novel, and it’s certainly the best book I’ve read this year.

Buyer Beware

As reported by the L.A. Times, Reading, Pennsylvania resident Forrest Smith recently pleaded guilty to selling forged signed first editions on EBay. The “signed” books include those by Truman Capote, James Michener, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Tom Clancy. Prosecutors alleged Smith made more than $300,000 on the scam, including more than $500 from a single copy of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.

The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato (a review)

The Glassblower of Murano
2.5 out of 5: Still reeling from her divorce, Leonora Manin arrives in Venice, the city where she was born, to seek a job as a glassblower in the historic business once owned by her illustrious ancestor, Corradino Manin. As Leonora continues to learn her trade and rediscovers romance, she uncovers dark secrets about Corradino's past and the difficult decision he was forced to make. This debut novel alternates between Leonora's contemporary story and Corradino's 17th century story, but Fiorato's beautiful descriptions of Venice enhance both stories:

Everything here [in Venice] was beautiful, even the decay. Rotting houses stood next to glorious palaces, squeezed on either side by grandeur, their lower floors showing tidemarks of erosion where the lagoon was eating them alive. The stained masonry crumbled into the canal like biscotti dipped in Marsala .... It was as if they submitted with pleasure to the tides--a consummation, one devoutly to be wished.

The Glassblower of Murano is a light historical mystery coupled with a modern love story, all taking place in the beautiful City of Water. The plot is fairly prosaic and predictable, but the evocative setting and likeable characters make this an entertaining read.

Should C.E.O.’s read novels?

In a New York Times editorial yesterday, David Brooks asked the question, “Should C.E.O.’s read novels?” Brooks concludes that the most successful C.E.O.’s are “humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional” and “not the most exciting people to be around.” In other words, not the novel-reading type.

While Brooks may be right about the personality traits and skills shared by many successful C.E.O.’s, I’m not sure I agree with his implication that people with such traits and skills don’t (or shouldn’t) read novels. It comes down to whether reading novels forms character or whether all types of characters can enjoy novels. Personally, I believe there’s a novel out there for every type of person, including C.E.O.’s. Ayn Rand wouldn’t have such a large following if that weren’t the case.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Finalists

The three finalists for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award have been announced. Through May 21, Amazon customers can vote for their favorite work after reading excerpts from the finalists’ novels. The winner, to be announced on May 27th, will receive a publishing contract from Penguin, including a $25,000 advance.

A panel of publishing professionals—bestselling authors Sue Grafton and Sue Monk Kidd, literary agent Barney Karpfinger, and Penguin Press Editor-in-Chief Eamon Dolan—have written critiques of each novel.

Here are the finalists:

• Ian Gibson, Victoria, British Columbia, for Stuff of Legends (a comic fantasy about heroism and celebrity, where a 15-year-old boy’s fondest wish is granted and he is teamed with his idol, warrior hero Jordan the Red, to defeat villains, monsters and demonic armies).
• James King, Wilton, Conn., for Bill Warrington’s Last Chance (Bill Warrington tries to reestablish ties with his estranged children after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. After several attempts at a reunion fail, he decides to kidnap his 15-year-old granddaughter, April, so that his children will be forced to talk to each other – and to him – as they attempt to “rescue” April).
• Brandi Lynn Ryder, Napa, Calif., for In Malice, Quite Close (in 1979 San Francisco, an unlikely relationship forms between 15-year-old Karen, who longs to escape her abusive father, and wealthy art collector Tristan Mourault. Tristan gains Karen’s trust and she soon adopts a new identity as his daughter, sending the two on an extraordinary odyssey that spans 15 years and two coasts).

The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Troyanov (a review)

The Collector of Worlds: A Novel of Sir Richard Francis Burton
4.5 out of 5: The Collector of Worlds tracks infamous explorer Sir Richard Burton on three of his journeys: his adventures in India as a young British officer, his hajj to Mecca disguised as a doctor from India, and his cross-continent trek to discover the source of the Nile deep within Africa. Each segment of Burton's story is its own well-crafted narrative filled with interesting characters and detailed settings, making this book more like three novellas than a single, integrated novel. In each story, Burton’s adventures unfold from the perspective of outside observers, most often those who accompanied him in his travels. This brilliant construct preserves all the awe and mystery that surrounds this eccentric individual. Part old-fashioned adventure tale, part travelogue, part biography, part history, The Collector of Worlds is a rich cabinet of curiosities.

Trayanov’s lush prose—and William Hobson’s able translation—infuse this novel with vibrancy and sensuality. Each of the exotic locales visited by Burton comes alive on the page, like this street scene in Bombay:

Stuffed to bursting, the city let out a belch from time to time. Everything smelled as if it was being eaten away by gastric juices. Figures lay by the roadside in the last throes of a fitful, half-digested sleep. A spoon sliced through the flesh of an overripe papaya; feet sweated coriander on their way back from market.

Or this description of the deserts of central Africa:

Above them, veils of cloud twine across the highest vault of heaven, far too high for any prayers to reach, while here below everything is scorched by an invisible furnace. This country is a beggar … with jaundiced skin and jutting ribs streaked with dried-up watercourses, the scars left by the floods that last its helpless body year after year.

Trayanov’s lyrical prose and Burton’s old-fashioned and exotic adventures combine to create a thoroughly delightful, and transporting, reading experience.

Literary License at Book Expo America

Book Expo America is in just two weeks, and Literary License (that means me) will be there. Firebrand has generously organized a space for literary bloggers to meet with other BEA atendees, and I'm scheduled to be at the Firebrand booth (#4077) from 3-4 pm on Saturday, May 30th. See the full schedule of blogger appearances here. If you're planning to be at BEA, drop by to say hello.

AM/PM by Amelia Gray (a review)

AM/PM

4 out of 5: AM/PM is a collection of 133 very short stories, each taking up no more than a single page. In concise and often brutal prose, these brief stories give surprisingly comprehensive glimpses into ongoing lives. Each story’s laser-beam focus on a single instant uncovers what’s really happening in the small moments of life, those moments that fit between two blinks of the eyes.

Because it’s nearly impossible to describe what Amelia Gray accomplishes in these stories, here are a couple examples:

There is a poetry to the wasted life, but little beauty. The poetry to an empty bed is beauty, Charles recognizes, and there is a poetry to the second hand on a clock, which is a kind of beauty, but the only beauty in the wasted life is of efficiency, and grace, and a complete knowledge of a small portion of the world. Charles recognizes the grace of a trip to the store. He feels the efficiency in slipping the same type of milk into the same place in the refrigerator door, between the pickles and the mayonnaise. Charles accepts the knowledge of the second hand.

And:

The trap in the attic was catching some seriously large squirrels. Rats too, but Reginald didn’t want to frighten Olivia by telling her there were rats crawling up through the walls. He installed a humane trap, a kill trap, and a poison trap, and left it up to the vermin to make the choice for themselves.

A Compelling Case

Over at Powell's (by way of The Brooklyn Rail), Paul Charles Griffin reviews Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing, edited by Rob Spillman of Tin House. Griffin describes the collection as a "keenly collected and expertly packaged anthology of urgent and vital writing." Griffin goes on to make a very compelling case for why we need to read this book:

One would do well to read this book because: a) Africa is larger than the United States, Europe, and China combined, and in our interdependent, globalized world, Africa's problems are our problems; b) African writing is, as Spillman argues in his introduction, entering a golden age due to a host of factors including rapid urbanization and expanding educational and economic opportunities, and is thereby 'ready for the international spotlight'; and c) these stories are really, really good.

(Via Conversational Reading)

Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

As reported in the Guardian and elsewhere, the Arts Council England has announced the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize: The Armies by Evelio Rosero, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish. Rosero is the first Colombian author to win the prize, and the judges described The Armies as "a beautifully wrought, gently spoken novel of love, war and grief." This year's prize is the second win for McLean, who first won in 2004 for her translation of Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas.

The Armies is not yet available in the U.S. but will be published by New Directions in September. Thanks to Three Percent for digging up this description of the book:

In the village of San José in the remote mountains of Colombia, retired teacher Ismael spends his days gathering oranges in the sunshine and spying on his neighbour as she sunbathes naked in her orchard. It is a languid existence, pierced by his wife’s scolding, which induces in him the furtive guilt of an aging voyeur. Out walking one day, Ismael and his wife lose sight of each other. The old man is fearful, for San José has random kidnappings in its past, but reassured by others who have seen her in the village. Soon, though, more people begin to go missing, and gradually bursts of gunfire can be heard in the distance. As the attacks grow steadily more brutal, Ismael finds himself caught in the crossfire; an old man battered by a reality he no longer understands. This is a novel with no easy solutions, in which no-one is spared, no-one is protected.

The £10,000 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (£5,000 for the author and £5,000 for the translator) celebrates a work of fiction by a living author, which has been translated into English and published in the UK in the last year.

Kindle Open to All Blogs

Amazon is now permitting bloggers to sign up as Amazon vendors to distribute their blogs to Kindle users. Of course, in exchange for this service, Amazon has the power to set pricing for blog subscriptions (usually in the neighborhood of $1-2 per month) and will keep 70% of the proceeds. I'm not in favor of this scheme, which seems to be yet one more way Amazon is trying to make money off the labors of others. Also, I want Literary License to remain a free resource to everyone interested in its content. However, please let me know if you'd like to see Literary License available on the Kindle.

The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane (a review)

The Walking People
4 out of 5: The Walking People is a modern story of immigration and assimilation. Beginning in 1956, Johanna and Greta Cahill, two young sisters from "the very western edge of Ireland," befriend a young boy, Michael Ward, from a group of "travelers," Irish nomads who travel from town to town performing odd jobs and selling an assortment of trinkets and remedies. At Johanna’s suggestion, the teenaged trio sails to New York City to seek a better life. It's a familiar story, but Keane’s lively descriptions of Irish country life and the immigrants’ working life in America, combined with her sensitive but never sentimental characterization, raise this debut novel above the conventional immigration saga.

In particular, Keane has a gift for describing the day-to-day working lives of her characters, particularly Michael's job as a NYC tunnel digger and Greta's job as a department store saleswomen. Although the immigrants’ Irish identity is never far from the surface, that identity is blended seamlessly and credibly into their ongoing struggle to adjust to a life in America. This is a contemplative novel composed of daily events and small changes. The momentum of the narrative flags in the final third of the book, but the slow pace gives Keane the time she needs to masterfully present this family's nuanced progression from Irish to American.

Esquire Short Fiction Contest

In celebration of the launch of Esquire magazine's new online fiction section, the magazine is running a short fiction contest. According to the rules, contest entries may be no more than 4,000 words and must have one of three titles: "Twenty-Ten," "An Insurrection," and "Never, Ever Bring This Up Again." The winning entry will be published in a future issue of the magazine as well as online.

As for the new online fiction section, it will focus on "great new American fiction." The stories currently available include works from Stephen King, Don Delillo, Chris Adrian, Michael Martone, Richard Russo, DFW, and many more big names.

Good Thing I'm Not in Russia

The Library of Congress website reports that, on April 23, 2009, a federal district court in the southern Russian province of Dagestan issued an unprecedented ruling against a journalist. The court ordered the journalist, who wrote a negative review of a book for the local newspaper, to pay US$1000 to the author, who claimed he and his family "experienced severe mental suffering" as a result of the review. Also, "his professional reputation was damaged as a result of the review." What?! Isn't that kind of the point of book reviews?

Not surprisingly, many have commented on the "very dangerous precedent" set by this ruling. Some have even suggested that if a book reviewer can be sued for writing a negative reivew, "a reader who did not like a book can sue the author for making a bad quality product."

(Via Three Percent)

Translation

The National Book Critics Circle asked its members and past nominees and winners of NBCC book awards this question: "Which work in translation has had the most effect on your reading and writing?" A recent post on the NBCC blog, Critical Mass, distills the nearly 80 responses received into a nice (somewhat lengthy) review. Books by Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, and Milan Kundera received multiple votes. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time garnered plenty of votes as well. Even Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones, which was described in a New York Times review as "an odious stunt," received a vote.

Kindle Goes Green

According to a university webpage, Princeton "is using the Kindle DX electronic reader to pilot the use of an e-reader in a small number of classes during the Fall term of 2009." Interestingly, the main motivation behind the pilot program is environmental:

Statistics show that students are not reading digital articles and book selections on their computer screens, but rather downloading the same files again and again, and printing them multiple times in the course of a semester. ... With an e-reader, one can easily carry a year's worth or more of course readings in a lightweight device, can search for content, and can annotate, bookmark, or highlight readings.

"Unable to Fetch"

After 400 years of living on the edge, people at the historic Bodleian Library at Oxford University are concerned about safety. Specifically, Oxford's Health and Safety officer has banned the use of stepladders to reach books on the upper level of the Duke Humfrey reading room. As noted in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail, the ladders "have been used by scholars to reach books since the library was built more than 400 years ago." Even more preposterous is the university's refusal to move the books from their now inaccessible "original historic location." Students requesting such books receive the following response: "Unable to fetch, book kept on top shelf in gallery. Due to new health and safety measures, stepladders can no longer be used."

(Via MobyLives)

Mothers in Memoirs

In this week’s NYT Book Review, Lori Gottlieb talks about the family fallout when memoirists are uncomplimentary of their mothers. Gottlieb explains the dilemma: “It’s just that it’s virtually impossible to write about your childhood without writing about your mother, and people who grow up to be writers generally have some less than flattering observations to share.” Mothers react in different ways to such negative portrayals. Gottlieb’s mother, for example, pretends Gottlieb’s book doesn’t exist. Mary Karr’s mother enjoys the publicity, even if it’s negative. Amy Tan’s mother wants input in what’s written. Gottlieb’s mother sums it up: “You’re brilliant as far as your writing. … But your subject matter, I’m not so crazy about.”

Publishing a Book in 48 Hours

Perseus Books Group is "asking the world to write the first sentence for a yet-to-be-written sequel to any book ever published" as part of a "collaborative effort to publish--during the span of the 2009 BookExpo--a book that highlights the new 'possibles' in our business. A book that will be created . . . collaboratively. A book that will be published into as many formats as possible in about 48 hours." BEA attendants will be able to watch the publishing process unfold on a real time basis. Royalties from sales of the resulting book will go to the National Book Foundation.

Indiespensable Volume 11

Volume 11 of Indiespensable, Powell's subscription book club, was recently announced, and, for the very first time in Indiespensable history, the chosen book is a translation: Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin (originally written in Dutch and translated into English by David Colmer). Kudos to Powell's for supporting works in translation. J.M. Coetzee describes The Twin as "[a] novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humour." It's not too late to join the club.

Houston Indie Book Festival

In addition to being Mother's Day, May 10th is also the day for the second annual Houston Indie Book Festival. Brazos Bookstore has all the details. This free event runs from 10 am until 5 pm at Domy Books (1709 Westheimer Road (near Dunlavy)) and "features Houston- and Austin-area independent publishers, magazines, and booksellers, all selling their wares at deeply discounted prices." Sounds fun. I'll certainly be there.

2009 James Beard Foundation Awards

The 2009 James Beard Foundation Award winners have been announced. These prestigious awards are "the highest honors for food and beverage professionals working in America." Jennifer McLagan's Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes won the cookbook of the year. Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto won in the Writing and Literature category. See all the winners here.

Super Kindle Update

As expected, Amazon announced its new Kindle model (inexplicably called the Kindle DX) in a press conference yesterday. The new Kindle DX is a hefty $489 and will start shipping this summer. According to Publishers Weekly, "Amazon hopes the larger screen and improved display will entice students to use Kindle DX." Last time I was on a college campus (which was last Tuesday), I didn't see any students running around with $500 gadgets, but maybe I'm missing something.

Booker Prize Not Always a Good Thing

Although most writers would love to win the Man Booker Prize, perhaps the most prestigious fiction prize in the world, James Kelman feels differently. As reported in the Sunday Times, Kelman claims the Booker Prize he won in 1994 for his novel How Late it Was, How Late, “damaged his career by making his work harder to sell.” Kelman’s Prize resulted in great controversy and caused one judge, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, to threaten resignation in protest, claiming “the decision was ‘a disgrace’ and the book was ‘crap, quite frankly.’” For evidence supporting his view that the Booker Prize didn't help him any, Kelman points to the fact that he’s only earned £1,400 in sales for his new novel, Keiron Smith, Boy, even though the novel “has won two major literary prizes and has been hailed by critics as his best novel to date.”

Super Kindle

Today, Amazon will be announcing a new Kindle model with a larger screen. According to which account you read, the Super Kindle is either aimed at the textbook market or the newspaper and magazine market. In any event, the new model boasts a 9.7-inch screen (instead of the 6-inch screen of the current model). Publishers Lunch states the new Kindle will have a "higher-resolution screen and improved ability to handle notation such as mathematical formulas." The Wall Street Journal reports that the new model will "enable textbook publishers to better display the charts and graphs that aren't particularly well suited to the current device."

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen (a review)

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet
4 out of 5: T.S. Spivit is a precocious twelve-year-old "mapmaker" living with his family on a ranch in Montana. Along with maps of the ranch and his bedroom, T.S. maps things like "Gracie Shucking the Sweet Corn" and "Fear Is the Sum of Many Sensory Details." When his scientific illustrations of bombardier beetles land him the prestigious Baird Award from the Smithsonian (based upon the mistaken assumption of T.S.'s adulthood), T.S. jumps on a freight train and heads to Washington D.C. to accept his award. As you might expect, many adventures ensue. In T.S., Larsen has created a wholly loveable character. T.S. is sweet, curious, honest, naive, courageous, and one of the best characters I've encountered in contemporary fiction. On top of all that, he's still a (mostly) believable twelve-year-old:

I got up from the couch and did some calisthenics. I found another carrot stick that had migrated to the bottom of my suitcase and ate it without shame. I did some vocal warm-ups. And yet, I still could not shake the feeling of dull melancholy that had been lurking since my departure, a kind of persistent hollowness, similar to the feeling I got when eating cotton candy: initially there was so much associated nostalgia, so much promise emanating from those luscious pink threads, but when I got down to the act of licking it or biting it or whatever one did to cotton candy, there was just not a lot there--in the end, you were just eating a sugar wig.

Just about every page of this book is filled with T.S's marginalia, including illustrations, anecdotes, and random thoughts. T.S's story in prose combined with these inventive and attractive sidebars make for a multi-sensory reading experience that's like reading a carefully crafted journal. For me, the incomplete story-within-the-story in the book's mid-section and the rare supernatural occurrences were the only false notes in this otherwise imaginative, charming, and often hilarious book.

England's First Female Poet Laureate

England has just chosen its first female poet laureate, a post that has been filled by men ever since it was created over 340 years ago. According to the New York Times, the new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, "is known for using a deceptively simple style to produce accessible, often mischievous poems dealing with the darkest turmoil and the lightest minutiae of everyday life."

Here are some lines from “Valentine,” a poem about giving a lover not a heart or a rose, but an onion, whose “fierce kiss will stay on your lips,/possessive and faithful”:

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.