Weschler sighting

I had no idea that I was the one who introduced Scott of Conversational Reading to Lawrence Weschler. I'm glad I did because otherwise he might not have attended Weschler's visit to the City Arts & Lectures series and given us an excellent report. Every time I hear about Weschler I get more and more interested. I think, eventually, I'll read all of his books.

I was also happy to see Scott's report that Weschler described Joseph Mitchell "as possibly the greatest writer he's ever read." I was introduced to Mitchell in an offhand sort of way in a literature course in college, and after reading Joe Gould's Secret and dipping into Up in the Old Hotel from time to time, he remains one of my favorites.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:22 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

What about JT Leroy?

The people behind the JT Leroy* scam (our other literary scam), must be happy about the breathing room that the James Frey saga has given them. But is that it? They were called out by the press, but does it end there? As far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong), there has been no public declaration by Savannah Knoop, Geoffrey Knoop and Laura Albert in which they come clean, apologize and promise to donate all their ill-gotten gains to charity. Frey did it; shouldn't they?

Meanwhile, adding to the list of people who are unburdening themselves of their unwilling involvement with this scam, actress Ann Magnuson, with whom I had the pleasure of discussing Leroy during my recent trip to Los Angeles, lays out her correspondence with Leroy and also discusses how the scammers demeaned the state of West Virginia.

*Now that we know Leroy isn't a real person, I suppose I should quit making his name boldface, a stylistic treatment that I usually reserve for real people.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:52 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Attention Menand Fans

Louis Menand is one of my favorite regular contributors to the New Yorker, so I was excited to discover a Web site devoted to "the foremost modern scholar of American studies." The Essential Menand includes commentary by three contributors as well as a handy collection of links to dozens of Menand essays in the New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and Slate.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:00 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Recommending books for kids

The Guardian has a story in which some notable writers suggest what they think kids should be reading. While I don't agree with British poet Laureate Andrew Motion who proffers Don Quixote, Ulysses and The Wasteland, I love that lots of more appropriate classics are suggested. I've long thought that young readers, perhaps having read all the Harry Potters and Lemony Snickets, should be pointed in the direction of classic books which often do not reside in "young adult" sections and thus are not always offered to young readers. Robinson Crusoe (suggested by JK Rowling), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (suggested by Philip Pullman) and Great Expectations (suggested by Motion) are all great suggestions. Nick Hornby, meanwhile, declined to make any suggestions saying:

I used to teach in a comprehensive school, and I know from experience that many children are not capable of reading the books that I wanted them to read. If I choose 10 books that I think would be possible for all, it wouldn't actually be a list that I would want to endorse. I think any kind of prescription of this kind is extremely problematic.

- C. Max Magee @ 4:34 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Tourney Time

The Morning News is kicking off their second annual tournament of books. Among the nominees is the latest LBC selection, Garner by Kirstin Allio. The tournament was a lot of fun last year, and it looks to be good this year, too. Things get underway in February.

via Maud

- C. Max Magee @ 11:47 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Figuring out 9/11 with fiction

In her review of Deborah Eisenberg's collection, Twilight of the Superheroes, CSM reviewer Yvonne Zipp leads with this declaration: "The Great American Novel used to be literature's giant glass mountain. Now, it seems, we've switched to Making Sense of Sept. 11 as the ultimate unattainable goal." I don't know if that's really true. Is this something American fiction writers are grappling with these days? Is this the great question of our generation? I don't know, but then again, for whatever reason, I would love to read a work of fiction that takes on 9/11 in a challenging and illuminating way - so maybe 9/11 should matter to writers. Zipp goes on to say that "none have come closer to the top" than Eisenberg does with the title story in this collection, surpassing, in this contest to make sense of 9/11, Ian McEwan, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Anita Shreve.

Zipp also calls Deborah Eisenberg "the American Alice Munro," which is funny because I always thought Alice Munro was the Canadian Joyce Carol Oates.

See Also:Michiko Kakutani has a review of Jay McInerney's new novel, The Good Life, which takes on 9/11.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:37 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

More author troubles

It's a bad time to be an author. A Kirkus reviewer discovered that "renowned children's-book author and publisher" Harriet Ziefert borrowed from a 1983 book by Judi Barrett. One tip-off, both books have the same name: A Snake is Totally Tail. Barrett's version appears to be out of print, meanwhile Ziefert's publisher, Blue Apple, is pulling Ziefert's version from publication. According to the article, Ziefert's claim is that it's just a coincidence, but the evidence seems damning: "Comparing the advance readers' copy of Ziefert's book to Barrett's, it's obvious right away that 12 of the 23 lines in Barrett's version are repeated in Ziefert's, including identical concluding lines: 'A dinosaur is entirely extinct. This book is finally finished.'"

- C. Max Magee @ 9:13 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Seize the Day by Saul Bellow: A Review

I love finding old pocket paperbacks in thrift stores. That's how I ended up with a 1960s-era British pocket Penguin edition of Saul Bellow's Seize the Day. On the cover, the price is listed as "3'6" which, though I've been to England, I can't decipher. On the first page, in pencil is the price - 50p - wanted by some British used book dealer years ago, and in pen, the name of one of the book's former owners. I myself got the book for around fifty cents or a dollar from one of the neighborhood secondhand shops, and though I'd love to keep it on my shelf, I'm tempted to release it back into the wild so it may continue on its journey. The book does indeed fit in my pocket and so was a good one to take on my recent trip to Los Angeles. I read the book in its entirety on the plane ride home. I love reading books like that, in one sitting while in transit, because it feeds into a romantic notion I have of what I might spend my days doing if I had no other responsibilities. But, of course, I have responsibilities and so does Tommy Wilhelm, the protagonist of Bellow's book. Wilhelm, a failed Hollywood actor living in a New York hotel a few floors removed from his father, appears to be nearing the low ebb of a long downward slide. He has lost his job, owes money to his wife (who won't give him a divorce), rarely sees his children, fell out with his mistress, and is so nearly penniless that he must ask his father to cover the rent. Tommy's father, Dr. Adler (Tommy changed his name in Hollywood), sees his son as a big baby. Seize the Day reminded me of both Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. All the books of ruminating, somewhat pathetic male protagonists who appear to live their lives mostly in their heads. Wilhelm ruminates mostly on sorrows of lost opportunities, yet the book is shot through with humor as well, especially as Wilhelm gets more and more wrapped up in a stock market scheme. Bellow's book is sad and funny and deserves to be read far more than it is. (Special thanks to Millions contributor Patrick who first pointed me to this book years ago - it just took a little while for me to get to it.)

- C. Max Magee @ 6:15 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The LBC Blog, featuring me

This week at the LBC blog, we'll be discussing my nominee for this round of books, All This Heavenly Glory by Elizabeth Crane. Ed has done a very entertaining podcast with Crane, and I can be heard at the beginning introducing the book (Ed decided to portray me as some sort of bionic man. I'm not sure I get the reference, but I like it!). Also up is a dialog about the book, featuring me and Kassia (of Booksquare). Tomorrow the dialog will continue with help from Sam (of Golden Rule Jones).

- C. Max Magee @ 10:26 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions - Nilsen, Spiegelman, Chast, Seth, Burns, Ware

A new edition of Voltaire's Candide with a cover by Chris Ware came out a few months ago. At the time, it was announced that there would other books in this series with covers by other famous artists, and I've been waiting to see them ever since. The other other day Penguin's Summer 2006 catalog arrived, and I was excited to see that the covers are in there. I was going to wait until the pictures were up online somewhere before posting them, but it was taking too long, so I scanned them. Candide is already out, the rest are out on March 28:

Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Cover by Anders Nilsen	The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, Cover by Art Spiegelman
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, Cover by Roz Chast	The Portable Dorothy Parker, Cover by Seth
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Cover by Charles Burns	Candide by Voltaire, Cover by Chris Ware

See the full-size pictures here

Update: See Part Two

- C. Max Magee @ 12:59 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Bit about Frey

I haven't said much about the James Frey fiasco, just because it's been covered so well by other blogs and news outlets, but I did want to share a couple of thoughts:

I was working at a bookstore when A Million Little Pieces first came out in April 2003, and I think it should be known that there were questions about the veracity of the book from day one. When you work at a bookstore, you become pretty jaded about the publicity efforts of your counterparts from the publishing companies. When hyperbole is the order of the day, it's hard for a particular book to stand out from the crowd. But, on rare occasions, the publishers put on such a full-court press, you can't help but think - from the retailer's perspective - that a book is going to be big. Pieces was one of those books, and the number one selling point was that the book was unbelievable but true. Still, my coworkers who read advance copies found the book hard to believe, there were whispers among many in the industry that the book was heavily embellished and people who went to see Frey in person as he publicized the book found him to be both vague and abrasive when he was asked about particular parts of the book. With cases like this one - J.T. Leroy comes to mind here as well - it's almost as though the media knows about these doubts all along, but they play along to build a story line: the credulous public and media buys into the unbelievable story, the author achieves fame and fortune, and then, like clockwork, Boom! the big hoax is revealed and we - the public and the media - all gleefully tear him down. It seems like an age old story to me.

My second point is that before this whole story goes away, I'd like one thing cleared up because I think it speaks to the publishing industry's culpability in this whole saga. Was Pieces originally shopped as a novel or not? As far as I can tell, this notion was first put forward by Frey in a profile by Joe Hagan in the New York Observer in February 2003:

Mr. Frey said he originally shopped the book as a work of fiction, but Ms. Talese and Co. declined to publish it as such. He said he hoped Ms. Talese's imprint would deflect the characterization of his book as part of the sentimental recovery genre. "That imprint lends a lot of credibility to what otherwise might be considered a recovery memoir. Nan's not in the business of publishing that bullshit," he said.

(I love that quote, don't you?) This idea has since been oft-repeated by the media and was, in fact, repeated by Frey himself on his most recent appearance on Larry King Live. A story in yesterday's New York Observer quotes Frey as saying this on the show:

"We initially shopped the book as a novel, and it was turned down by a lot of publishers as a novel or as a nonfiction book. When Nan Talese purchased the book, I'm not sure if they knew what they were going to publish it as. We talked about what to publish it as. And they thought the best thing to do was publish it as a memoir."

The question is this: Is Frey making this up or did Frey's agent, Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein/Grey, or publisher, Nan A. Talese, decide to relabel a work of fiction as a memoir in order to sell more books? Talese denies this in the same Observer story: "Ms. Talese said that she 'almost collapsed' when she heard Mr. Frey make that statement." I think most people will believe Talese, a well-respected name in the publishing industry, over the now disgraced Frey, but I still want to know for sure.

Update: According to this GalleyCat post, Evashevski told Publishers Weekly, "Nan Talese believed in good faith they were buying a memoir, just as I believed I was selling them one." So Frey's been lying from day one.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:10 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Four for Three

Not to be a shill for Amazon, but for those who like to save money on books, you can get a fourth book free after buying three books under ten dollars. They've got lots of paperback classics that fit the bill.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:34 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ship breaking

Anybody who read William Langewiesche's book The Outlaw Sea or is simply interested in the modern day high seas should take a look at Brendan Corr's photo essay from Foreign Policy magazine. It chronicles ship breaking in Bangladesh, the process by which the world's tankers and freighters, ready to be retired but unwanted by any developed nation, are dismantled by hand for scrap metal. It's remarkable and post-apocolyptic and when I heard it in Langewiesche's book (I listened to it on audio) I couldn't quite visualize it because it seemed so outlandish, but these pictures tell the story.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:47 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Handy

This would come in handy on the train. But would I have the guts to use it in public?

- C. Max Magee @ 11:46 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online

The BBC is offering limited online access to the OED as part of a BBC miniseries on the famous (and famously huge) dictionary. Unfortunately, it's only available until February 13, and according to Boing Boing they are trying to limit access to Brits only. However, you may want to try to get in, because I managed to access it from here in Chicago. (I emailed Cory at Boing Boing to suggest that perhaps the restrictions had been lifted, but he chalked it up to the fact that "IP-based filters genuinely suck.") At any rate, considering the astronomical cost of the OED, it's worth a try to check it out while it's free.

Update: More details at Language Hat.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:06 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Wade Rubenstein's Gullboy: A Review by Andrew Saikali

It's a balancing act. How do you express yourself within a rich tradition without resorting to cliche? The deeper you go into the tradition, into the familiar, the more blindingly original your own expression really needs to be.

Take, for example, the songs of Will Oldham. A staggeringly good songwriter, his understated records resonate long after the songs end, leaving a kind of haunting humility in their wake. This is music at its freshest. And even when tapping into long-established styles of music, never do you feel that you're listening to a musical cliche.

I've been listening to a lot of Will Oldham lately, wishing that the same sense of freshness and subtlety had been adopted by the otherwise gifted author Wade Rubenstein in his novel Gullboy. I kept wishing that this comic novel simply had more confidence in its own inventiveness, and in its strong central story, often marred by shopworn supporting characters and cameo players straight out of central casting.

At the heart of this story is a bit of magic realism. The conceit is this: Into the Coney Island lives of a good-hearted chef and his not-so-good-hearted stripper wife comes a baby on the doorstep, a child half human and half seagull. And you go along with this flight of fancy in part because the chain-of-events that led to this birth is quite cleverly set-up. Plus, this is a Coney Island it-takes-all-sorts/anything-can-happen carnival ride of a tale.

And for much of the novel it works quite well, largely because the central relationship, the father/son bond, is warm and engaging. A them-against-the-world story.

Well, the "them" part of this was fine. My big problem was with "the world".

The odd premise and its comical effects and possibilities should have been enough for Rubenstein who indeed writes with enormous energy. It's a vibrantly told tale, full of bounce. All the more frustrating, then, to encounter supporting characters at virtually every turn who are caricatures. A blinded-by-money doctor, a blinded-by-power cop, shysters and hucksters everywhere you look, and drawn exactly the way they've been drawn in countless comic stories and on TV.

Broadly drawn outrageous characters, themselves, aren't even the problem. One of my all-time favorite comic novels is A Confederacy of Dunces, in which the central character is big, loud and outrageous, but he's so off-the-charts original that he propels the story, rather than grinding it to a halt. It's the difference, I suppose, between a comical character and a cartoon character.

A couple of years ago, I read DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little. And while I enjoyed this comic novel tremendously, I found the depicted media circus a bit old. Not that media doesn't deserve to be the subject of parody, but the joke, along with the one about the egotistical doctor and the parasitic lawyer have been told the same way so many times that, for me, they've completely lost their edge.

So, then, is Gullboy good? Well, parts of it are great, and you certainly won't get bored reading it. But you might become frustrated. Every time I felt that I'd settled into the inventive tale, the genuine comic invention would begin to be weighed down by some heavy-handed parody. Whether you think the author manages to walk the comedy tightrope depends, I suppose, on how much parody you can bear.

For me, this high-concept, over-stuffed comic novel ultimately collapsed beneath the weight of its own brand of humor.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:14 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The White Earth by Andrew McGahan: A Review

Andrew McGahan's The White Earth was a big deal when it came out in Australia in 2004. His previous novels had given him a following, but The White Earth was the winner of the Miles Franklin Prize, Australia's richest literary award, catapulting him to a new level of recognition. The book is a multigenerational tale in which the generations collide. Young William and his mother are cast from their homestead in Queensland when William's father burns to death in a farming accident. They are taken in by William's cranky great uncle, John McIvor, who lives holed up in a decrepit mansion on what's left of what was once a great homestead called Kuran Station. There is still enough land left at the Station to lust after though, and William's sickly but greedy mother sets out to make sure that William will be the heir to his hermit uncle. The main action of the book takes place in 1992 and is filled with what I understand to be the political questions of that time, mostly having to do with compensating aborigines for the ancestral land that was taken from him. All of this makes old John McIvor something of a crank, obsessed with protecting his land and leader of a fringe organization whose membership has racist tendencies fueled by fears that cityfolk will allow their farms to be taken away. Luckily McGahan provides flashbacks to the life of young John McIvor so we can see how Kuran Station, taken from him when he was young and regained after middle age, became his life's obsession. Though not as masterful as other books in this same mold and a bit heavyhanded in the use of certain images (men on fire), The White Earth is an enjoyable epic of the struggle for land Down Under.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:08 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The People's Act of Love by James Meek: A Review

A few of the twentieth century Russian history books that I've read have touched on a detachment of Czech soldiers who were stranded in Russia after World War I. The Bolshevik Revolution soon followed and the soldiers remained stranded, thousands of miles from home. The soldiers who numbered as many as 40,000 and were stretched out along the length of the Trans-Siberian were, according to John Keegan in his history of World War I under the sway of an anti-Bolshevik officer and were "both in a position and soon in a mood to deny the use of the railway to anyone else." In his novel, The People's Act of Love, James Meek drops into to the town of Yazyk amongst a stranded group of these Czech soldiers. In a book of many protagonists, the point of view of Lieutenant Mutz, one of those Czech soldiers, is the most reliable. Mutz, who mostly wants to return home after years in Siberia is surrounded by a collection of eccentrics. Anna Petrovna, the woman who Mutz would like to escape with, is restive and noncommittal. Mutz's boss Matula is a vicious young man drunk on the power he wields over the small backwater that his soldiers occupy. Yazyk is also home to mystical sect of castrati who lurk through the town like ghosts. But the catalyst for much the book's action is Samarin, an escaped prisoner who claims he is being chased by a cannibal. Meek ably handles these characters and many others as he crafts a story that feels both otherworldly and historically accurate. The novel was longlisted for the Booker and is engagingly dense and action-filled - worthwhile for any reader but a must for anyone interested in Russian literature or history. Meek himself is not Russian. He's British, formerly a journalist, the Guardian's Moscow correspondent for many years.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:23 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 42nd in a Series (Garcia Marquez and Kawabata)

Ashok writes in with this question about a pair of "magical realists:"

I heard that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores can be read as a continuation of a Yasunari Kawabata novel. Can you tell me which is that novel?

Kawabata was the first Japanese Nobel Laureate in literature (1968), and while not considered a "magical realist" like Garcia Marquez, Kawabata was known for the surreal quality of his writing. A brief bio is available here. For several critics, Garcia Marquez's latest novel echoes Kawabata's 1961 book House of the Sleeping Beauties, though nobody that I saw described Garcia Marquez's book as a "continuation" of Kawabata's. The pre-pub review in Library Journal describes a "situational resemblance" between the two books, while a review in the Washington Times calls Whores "something less" than Beauties. In a chat with Michael Dirda of the Washington Post (scroll way down), an anonymous reader even went so far as to suggest that Garcia Marquez plagiarized Kawabata, an idea that Dirda dismisses:

Anonymous: I have read all the praise for Garca Marquez's "Memoires of my sad whores" in the Books Section of the Post, in particular the review by Marie Arana. Nowhere I have seen the reference to Yasunari Kawabata's "The House of the Sleeping Beauties." Garca Marquez himself said that that would be a novel he would like to have written.

Question: Being the two stories so close to each other, Kawabata's obviously preceding Garca Marquez's, when a homage turns into plagiarism? Thanks

Michael Dirda: Writers always borrow or steal from each other. G-M acknowledges Kawabata's work, just as Zadie Smith in On Beauty acknowledges E.M. Forster's Howards End. But the books are still their own. I suspect that Kawabata's book will outlast G-M's.

So, clearly there is some relationship between the two books, and hopefully some Garcia Marquez fans have been introduced to Kawabata as a result.

- C. Max Magee @ 12:20 PM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Quick links

I've gotten a little behind in my reviews of books I've read recently. Maybe I'll get to it this weekend or early next week. In the meantime here are three literary links that caught my eye today:

• The many challenges of turning books with non-textual elements into audiobooks. Also discussed: how to verbally render David Foster Wallace's copious footnotes. (New York Times).
• Daedalus, the big remainder house, is opening a standalone bookstore in Baltimore (Baltimore Sun). Previously: I discuss remaindered books - and buy some, too!
• A mysterious person - or possibly persons - has been placing roses and a bottle of cognac on Edgar Allen Poe's grave each year for 57 years on the anniversary of the writer's birthday. This year some nosy people got in the way, but the meaning behind the ritual and the identity of the visitor remains hidden. (Guardian)

- C. Max Magee @ 3:55 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Care for a Drink?

Yet another use for books (other than reading them): pile them up and use them as a bar.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:42 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Oprah picks a real memoir

Still in the throes of controversy surrounding James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, Oprah has selected Elie Wiesel's memoir Night as the next selection for her book club. While this selection was no doubt in the works long before the Frey controversy, the juxtaposition is still remarkable. Frey's confessional, sensationalized addiction memoir, the credibility of which seems to crumble further with every passing day, looks awfully silly next to the beloved memoir of a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor whose character is unassailable as far as I know. In the New York Times, Wiesel says he hasn't read Frey's book (big surprise), but then goes on to make some comments that seem to me to be directed at Frey's fast and loose treatment of the truth (emphasis mine):

He acknowledged that some people and institutions, including on occasion The New York Times, have referred to Night as a novel, "mainly because of its literary style."

"But it is not a novel at all," he said. "I know the difference," he added, noting that Night is the first of his 47 books, several of which are novels. "I make a distinction between what I lived through and what I imagined others to have lived through."

As it is a memoir, he said, "my experiences in the book - A to Z - must be true." He continued: "All the people I describe were with me there. I object angrily if someone mentions it as a novel."

Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Amazon is changing the classification of Night from fiction to memoir. As of this writing, Night is number one on Amazon, bumping Pieces to number two.

- C. Max Magee @ 3:58 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Vacation Links

We have returned from Los Angeles, where it was so sunny and warm, to Chicago, where it is so cloudy and cold. It actually rained briefly one of the days we were in LA, and we thought it was hilarious that everyone kept apologizing for it. If people apologized for bad weather in Chicago, nobody would have time to talk about anything else. Anyway, I've spent the day catching up on e-mails, RSS feeds, blogs and the like, and I thought I'd share the links that caught my eye.

Mad Max Perkins, editor and secret-identity blogger, returned from a long hiatus to reveal the title of the novel that he had gotten so excited about editing back when he was a regular blogger. The novel is Dope by Sara Gran, and I have to admit, I'm very intrigued. In the process, Perkins revealed himself to be none other than Dan Conaway of Penguin Putnam, as Sarah at GalleyCat explains.

At BookLust, a gorgeous sculpture constructed out of books.

Hikikomori, Japan's epidemic of shut ins. In the New York Times.

An oddly terrifying look at all the psychological engineering that goes on in reality shows: The Omarosa Experiment at The Morning News.

Hilarious and informative: Outrageous firsts in television history.

Jonathan Yardley's review of Michael D'Antonio's Hershey gives an interesting snapshot of the chocolate magnate's life.

- C. Max Magee @ 3:34 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

My nominee

I've posted an introduction to my nominee for this round at the LBC. Unfortunately the book didn't win, but it was still a great read. You'll have to go to the LBC blog to find out who it is.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:42 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

LBC Week Begins

If you're not there, you're missing out on the latest LitBlog Co-op Read This! pick.

- C. Max Magee @ 12:39 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Searching Amazon Customer Reviews

Amazon has a huge repository of customer reviews, and now, for the first time, they are searchable. I don't know if this is something I'll use very often, but it's pretty fun.

(via Micro Persuasion)

- C. Max Magee @ 11:23 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Gone West, LBC Week

Mrs. Millions and I are headed to Los Angeles for a few days starting tomorrow morning. We're excited to see how LA is doing since we moved away, and we're especially enamored with the idea of taking few days off from the Chicago winter (although it hasn't been too bad here these last few days.) Among many other activities, I plan to visit the book store where I used to work. That'll bring me back to the roots of this blog, remind me of the good old days. All in all, it should be a pretty busy trip; lots of friends to see and some family, too, and lots of In 'n' Out Burgers to eat. Wifi isn't free at the hotel, apparently, and we'll be staying with friends some of the time too - so expect little or no blogging.

However, I implore you to please direct your browsers toward The LitBlog Co-op on Monday morning where the newest LBC pick will be revealed with much fanfare. The nominees will be announced over the course of the week, as well, (and there will be an appearance by yours truly.) Next week is LBC Week. See you then.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:13 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Covers

"Covers is dedicated to the appreciation of brilliant book cover design." - Click on the covers to see comments that people have left.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:12 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Most Anticipated Books of 2006

I decided to put together a list of the "most anticipated" books coming out this year (as I did last year, in a somewhat different form). I had no idea that there would be so many big name authors. Pretty exciting. If there's anything you think I missed, please leave it for us in the comments. Happy reading in 2006!

Coming Soon or Already Here:

• Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster (NY Times review)
• Arthur and George by Julian Barnes (Booker shortlisted, NY Times review)
• Company by Max Barry (author blog)
• Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird (Zadie Smith's husband, Kakutani's review)
• The Accidental by Ali Smith (Booker shortlisted)
• Correcting the Landscape by Marjorie Cole (Thanks Laurie)

February:

• Intuition by Allegra Goodman (PW Review)
• A Family Daughter by Maile Meloy (excerpt)
• The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (thanks Gwenda)
• The Best People in the World by Justin Tussing (thanks Dan)

March:

• Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead (A "Face to Watch")
• River of Gods by Ian McDonald (Thanks Laurie)
• The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (thanks CAAF)
• Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout (thanks Cliff)

April:

• The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D'Ambrosio (EWN interview)
• This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes (#2 on Stephen King's list)
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (interview)
• Seeing by Jose Saramago (Nobel Laureate)
• Adverbs by Daniel Handler AKA Lemony Snicket (interview)
• The World Made Straight by Ron Rash (thanks Dan)

May:

• Theft by Peter Carey (Carey is a two-time Booker winner)
• The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq (Guardian review)
• Everyman by Philip Roth (Guardian interview)
• Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart (interview)
• The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld (synopsis)
• Ludmila's Broken English by DBC Pierre
• jPod by Douglas Coupland (sequel to Microserfs, an evening with Coupland)

June:

• Terrorist by John Updike (Reuters preview)
• Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali
• In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders (interview)
• The End of California by Steve Yarbrough (Thanks Dan)

July:

• Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane (New Yorker interview)
• Talk Talk by T.C. Boyle (Boyle's blog)

August:

• Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (list of stories)
• Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell (Thanks Dan)
• Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain (thanks Stephan)

October:

• One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (sequel to Case Histories)

A small sampling of other 2006 previews: Boston Globe, Portland Phoenix, The Australian, Guardian.

Addenda: Books suggested in the comments are being added above.

- C. Max Magee @ 9:52 AM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

What makes a book good

Following her post about her favorite books she read last year, Laurie sent me another e-mail about her criteria for what makes a book good. It's a great list and I thought I'd share it.

Trying to figure out what I liked best got me thinking about what my criteria were. Just "I liked it a lot" didn't cut it, because I liked a lot of stuff and it became hard to prioritize. So here's my tentative criteria for choosing a "year's best" (other readers will likely think of other criteria). Anything that scores 4 or more from these criteria probably makes it into my "year's best":

The book was:

1. Hard to put down.
2. Quotable.
3. Fast, fun to read (not a slogging chore).
4. Compelling

Also I:

5. Kept reading bits out loud to anyone who'd listen.
6. Will likely reread it.
7. Can recommend it to a lot of people.

And it:

8. Elicits a strong gut reaction (laughter, tears, shivers, outrage, etc.)
9. Makes you think.
10. Sticks with you long after it's done (you keep
    recalling parts of it months after you've read it, or you keep mentioning it to people in the course of conversation).

By this set of criteria, Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala scored a 4 (checks next to criteria #4, 8, 9 and 10) whereas Knee Deep in Blazing Snow by James Hayford scored a whopping 5 points because I could put a check next to items #2, 3, 5, 6 and 7. But that's just me. Maybe after a year of horror and complexity in the news and literature, I was just ready for simple, happy observations about goats and weather.

Thanks again, Laurie!

- C. Max Magee @ 4:36 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: Laurie's Best Books

I want to leave 2005 behind, but I keep getting great stuff to post, so I hope you don't mind. I got this great e-mail from Laurie who wanted to share her favorite books from amongst her considerable reading last year. I'll be following this up with another e-mail Laurie sent me about what makes a book really good for her:

I just read your Jan. 5th entry about "year's best" choices by various people. I thought about sending you my list, but then figured you only wanted to post the lists of people you knew [Max: Not true! I welcome e-mails from anyone and everyone!]. I don't blog, but kept a reading journal this past year and totaled 60 books (some of them children's books). It was fun looking at it at year's end and figuring out what I enjoyed the most. I began reading your blog about midyear, I think, and your posts probably influenced some of those book choices.

For what it's worth, the three top titles on my list were Cold Skin by Albert S. Pinol (Catalan 2002, English 2005), War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1898), and Knee Deep in Blazing Snow by James Hayford (2005). Of those, my enjoyment of the last surprised me the most, because it's a poetry collection. It's also the only book of all 60 read this year that I'd recommend to just about anyone, kids and poetry-hating adults alike. The poems are short, unpretentious, mostly rhyme and are illustrated. Washington Post accurately called it "quietly lovely". It precisely captures the minutiae of the seasons and farm life that even a sheltered city-dweller can recognize with a smile. Also in my top ten were Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala (chilling), Travels With Mr. Brown by Mark Twain (Letters to the Alta California 1866-1867), and Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin. The latter is a fun kids' book.

29 of the 60 were first published in 2005.

For some idea of what those "top choices" were chosen over, the 29 first published in 2005 are:

• From Sawdust to Stardust - Terry Lee Rioux (biography)
• The Bradbury Chronicles - Sam Weller (bio)
• Bradbury Speaks - Ray Bradbury (nf, essays)
• Pinhook - Janisse Ray (nonfiction, nature)
• Beware of God - Shalom Auslander (short stories)
• Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (novel)
• Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land - John Crowley (novel)
• Storyteller - Kate Wilhelm (nonfiction)
• Science Fiction: the best of 2004 - ed. Karen Haber & Jonathan Strahan (ss)
• Year's Best SF 10 - ed. David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (ss)
• Blue Dog, Green River - Brock Brower (novel)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (novel)
• Cities in the Wilderness - Bruce Babbitt (nf, environment)
• Dahlonega Haunts - Amy Blackmarr (allegedly nf)
• Wonder's Child - Jack Williamson (updated autobiography)
• Cold Skin - Albert S. Pinol (novel)
• Beasts of No Nation - Uzodinma Iweala (novel)
• The March - E.L. Doctorow (novel)
• Diary of a Spider - Doreen Cronin (kids picture book)
• Don't Be Silly, Mrs. Millie - Judy Cox (kids picture
  book)
• Whales on Stilts! - M.T. Anderson (short kids novel)
• Best American Science Writing 2005 - ed. Alan Lightman(nf)
• The Highest Tide - Jim Lynch (novel)
• Knee Deep in Blazing Snow - James Hayford (poetry)
• Travels With My Donkey - Tim Moore (memoir)
• Animals in Translation - Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (nonfiction)
• From Another World - Ana Maria Machado (short kids novel)
• The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion (memoir)
• Confessions of a Recovering Slut - Hollis Gillespie (memoir)

Funniest were:

• Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin
• Travels With My Donkey by Tim Moore (Bill Bryson meets Monty Python)

Grimmest were:

• Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Hardest to put down were:

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
• Cold Skin by A.S. Pinol

There. More than you wanted or needed to know.

Thanks, Laurie!

- C. Max Magee @ 3:15 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Google Online Book Store

Not much news here, but a BBC story suggests that, as part of its digital book initiative, Google may sell e-books sometime in the future. CEO Eric Schmidt - being extra careful in this area it seems - said "that this would depend on permission from copyright holders." Google already provides links to online booksellers from its book pages, but, as far as I can tell, this would be the first time that Google was selling books directly.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:52 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Birthday Loot

I got a package today from my inlaws who decided to get me five books for my birthday (which was Jan. 5). They came right off my wishlist, so, of course, they're exactly what I wanted. Two of the five are coffee-table books. I'll be spending a lot of time with the utterly gorgeous book The World on Sunday. Nicholson Baker and Margaret Brentano have put together really nice reproductions of Joseph Pulitzer's colorful newspaper. Baker's foreword and Brentano's captions really elevate the book. I wrote more about it last month. The other big book I received is a monograph, put out by Aperture, of photography by Robert Capa. Capa is famous for his war photography from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. His photographs, all in black and white, are unflinching and powerful. He's essential to the grand tradition of war reportage. (This one actually wasn't on my wishlist but they knew I'd like it.) In keeping with the Capa theme, I also received his illustrated memoir of World War II, Slightly Out of Focus. I also got The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux which Andrew wrote about a few months back, and Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Oster, which I think I first heard about at Language Hat.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:45 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

New Yorker University

If my college had offered a class on the New Yorker, I definitely would have taken it, but it didn't, and, until today, I wasn't aware that any colleges did. What a great idea for a class. Last fall, Prof. Bryant Mangum of Virginia Commonwealth University taught a class called Literature in Society: The New Yorker. Each class is constructed like an issue of the magazine with the assignments divided into these parts: Goings on About Town, The Talk of the Town, Features: Fact/Fiction, The Critics, Poems. Aside from the magazine itself, required reading includes classic New Yorker fiction. Perhaps coolest of all is Mangum's Miscellany page which includes scans of a New Yorker rejection slip, note and check.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:57 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Corey Vilhauer Book of the Month Club: January 2006

I find myself wading through stacks of books, it seems, every month. I seek a way to read everything I've purchased, but for the most part I can't. Nobody can, I suspect.

Sometimes I need structure. Sometimes I need to be willfully led to my next book. Sometimes I need something easy, like (for instance) a box set with a bunch of short books by a bunch of great authors. Something that I can systematically read one by one in order, from #1 to #70.

Penguin, upon celebrating their 70th anniversary, produced such a box - a literary "best-of" compilation, if you will. I became incredibly desirous of it. I searched all over the internet for a place to purchase it. I was a man possessed; no one could stand in my way - no one would dare hold me back from owning what looked like the greatest sampler in the history of publishing.

The Penguin Pockets 70th Anniversary Collection includes all 70 of the publisher's "Penguin Pockets," a series that collected the best authors from Penguin's existence and brought them to the masses at the relatively cheap price of £1.50 each. Each book features either an excerpt of a previously released novel or a collection of shorter unreleased stories. At roughly 55 pages each, the books are by no means meant to be an all encompassing look at their respective authors. Still, I used each one to further my horizons - to experience new writing that I might otherwise pass by, or even worse, be completely closed off to.

My favorite, so far, is Jonathan Safran Foer's The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning. Maybe I'm out of line here, but I found a lot of comparisons between Foer's writing style and the immortal (at least, in the opinion of many reviewers) Dave Eggers. In fact, my first response to Foer's writing was the same as it when I discovered to Eggers' writing two years ago: "this guy is really, really good."

The comparisons are obvious - both authors write in a fresh, unconventional way, and both are fueled by emotion - Eggers uses his own past and thoughts while Foer borrows from the imaginary, yet brilliant mind of a nine-year old, the mute thoughts of that child's grandfather, and the lost voice of the boy's German grandmother. It's exciting in a way that only a true book lover can comprehend - it's not just good, it's different.

Yes, if you want to get technical, The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning is the Book of the Month. But really, I'm looking at this collection as a whole. It's amazing in its completeness. Just to get your mouth watering, I'll present a list of authors: Nick Hornby, P.D. James, Marian Keyes, Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Jonathan Safran Foer, Homer, Paul Theroux, Anais Nin, Gustave Flaubert, Simon Schama, William Trevor, George Orwell, Michael Moore, Gervaise Phinn, Ali Smith, Sigmund Freud, Simon Armitage, Hunter S. Thompson, Tony Harrison, John Updike, Will Self, H.G. Wells, Noam Chomsky, Jamie Oliver, Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Anton Chekhov, P.G. Wodehouse, Franz Kafka, Dave Eggers, John Steinbeck, Alain de Botton - and that's just the stuff that I readily recognize.

Really, there are only two reasons that any book collector shouldn't own this collection. Number one - it's expensive. It took me months to will myself into parting with the $150 it took to bring it over from the U.K. Number two - the books contained inside are only 55-pages long, and many of them are excerpts and previously released books. To this I say "Bah!" The covers alone are enough to make the box worth the price.

What this ended up leading me to was a complete waterfall of book-buying ideas. I can no longer say, with a straight face at least, that I don't know what to read next. After all, it seemed as if every other book I read caused me to stop, jot down the authors name, and then search Powells.com for other selections. I bought the set to become a more well-read person, and I fear that it's going to slowly sap the money from my billfold as each respective book's influences gets added, one by one, to my "must buy" list. I tell you, it will be the end of me.

I'm very pleased with the selections offered in this collection. After such a long time, you get the feeling that a company was built to last, and Allen Lane (along with his Penguin empire) has proven that Penguin Publishing will be around until books no longer matter. The seventy books in The Penguin Pockets 70th Anniversary Collection span the company's life, from Freud's early work to Hunter Thompson's last words. All in all, it's a great set, for collectors, for people looking for a primer on Britain's literary tastes, and for people who just like to read and aren't afraid to stumble into something out of the ordinary.

Though, after seventy years, you'd expect the best, right?

Corey Vilhauer - Black Marks on Wood Pulp

- C. Max Magee @ 10:52 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Introducing the Corey Vilhauer Book of the Month Club

[Max: This is the introduction to a new monthly feature written by Corey Vilhauer who blogs at Black Marks on Wood Pulp]

For the most part, I'm a young reader.

I'm not well versed with years of thoughtful reading. I'm only 27, and in that time I've only read so many books in between finishing school, staring a career, and watching too much television.

Now I'm struggling to catch up. Luckily for you, I'm broadcasting this struggle to the masses.

Each month on my blog I recap everything I've read - a "What I've Been Reading" column. There's a lot to be said about the paths a mind takes when selecting a new book, and part of what I do is try to make those connections. Why would I bother reading a George Orwell essay right after finishing Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island? It could be that I was obsessed at the time with English culture and wanted to continue riding the wave. Or it could be that Bryson mentioned a certain Orwell passage while recounting his three month jaunt around England.

Or, it could be as simple as "I bought it and wanted to start it immediately."

Well, I can't bring all of that to The Millions. What I can bring, however, is my favorite book of the month. Call it the Vilhauer Book of the Month club. Some months it's going to be a classic, like John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Others are going to be more obscure - think Jonathan Safran Foer's The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning (a 70th anniversary Pocket Penguin released only in the U.K. and Canada).

Regardless, I'll bring it to you. You'll get the background as to why I'm reading it. You'll get the story itself. You'll get why I like it. You'll get what it led me to read next.

All in all, you'll get every stinking second I've spent on the book - from selection to completion - and you'll have no one to thank but Max for allowing me to spout off on this site. Thank him later, if you wish.

Corey Vilhauer

- C. Max Magee @ 11:42 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The continued unmasking of JT Leroy

An article by Warren St. John, to appear in the New York Times tomorrow, declares that the person who appears in public as JT Leroy is, in fact, Savannah Knoop the half-sister of Geoffrey Knoop, who, with Laura Albert, is suspected of creating the Leroy persona, as well as the backstory and novels that have been underground successes. With this latest revelation, it seems that we may finally be close to a mea culpa that puts JT Leroy to rest once and for all. St. John also suggests, and I would tend to agree, that these folks have done Leroy fans a great disservice:

It is unclear what effect the unmasking of Ms. Knoop will have on JT Leroy's readers, who are now faced with the question of whether they have been responding to the books published under that name, or to the story behind them.

The Savannah Knoop revelation also helps explain the odd experience I had when I met Leroy several years ago. The Leroy I met was so furtive and inscrutable that it was impossible to get any sense of who he was. Now it looks like there was no Leroy at all.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:16 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Amazing Literary Magazine Offer

Most of us litbloggers just blather on about books and publishing industry gossip, but Dan Wickett is a man on a mission. Part of his mission is to get people to read the literary magazines that are so important to literary fiction culture yet are so little read. In an attempt to rectify this situation, Wickett has approached a number of these magazines to put together a discounted subscription offer for anyone who subscribes to at least three. For all the details, visit his blog.

- C. Max Magee @ 1:12 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

A Year in Reading: New Yorker Fiction 2005

My year in reading involved a couple dozen or so books, most of which I wrote about here, but it also involved, to a large extent, my favorite magazine, the New Yorker. I spent three or four out of every seven days this year reading that magazine. So, for my "Year in Reading" post, I thought I'd revisit all the time I spent reading the New Yorker this year, and in particular, the fiction. It turns out that nearly every one of the 52 stories that the New Yorker published this year is available online. I thought it might be fun to briefly revisit each story. It ended up taking quite a while, but it was rewarding to go back through all the stories. What you'll find below is more an exercise in listing and linking than any real attempt at summary, but hopefully some folks will enjoy having links to all of this year's stories on one page. I also wanted to highlight a couple of blogs that did a great job of reacting to New Yorker fiction this year - you'll find many links to them below - Both "Grendel" at Earthgoat and "SD Byrd" at Short Story Craft put together quality critiques of these stories. Now, without further ado, on to the fiction:

January 3, "I am a Novelist" (not available online) by Ryu Murakami: This story by the other Murakami is about a famous novelist who is being impersonated by a man who frequents a "club" of the type often described in Japanese stories. The impostor runs up a huge bar tab and gets one of the hostesses pregnant. Murakami is best-known for his novel, Coin Locker Babies. Links: I Read a Short Story Today

January 10, "Reading Lessons" by Edwidge Danticat: A Haitian immigrant elementary school teacher, a resident of Miami's Little Haiti, is