Category / Roundup

by Edward Champion

The “We Battled Insomnia with Gin Last Night and the Gin Won, But Heaven Help the Fallout” Roundup

  • The fantastic Carrie Frye points to the Word Nerds, a podcast devoted to “the effect of Internet communication” and various language-related issues. I’ll definitely be checking it out, as soon as I finally finish the next installment of my own damn podcast.
  • So according to the Associated Press, the book world “is still searching for this year’s great American novel,” eh? There are endless ways that I can answer this, but for now I’ll point again to Lee Martin’s The Bright Forever and Kirby Gann’s Our Napoleon in Rags as two books that I’ve enjoyed very much this year and, in my view, do indeed cut the mustard. Perhaps the key here is to stop thinking about the big boys and dare to delve into the little ones.
  • Dan Wickett doesn’t read Playboy for the pictures or the articles. No, sir, he’s reading it for the literature. I knew about the four-bunny system for books, because I actually had a Playboy subscription at the age of sixteen, in which I would secretly run to the mailbox and grab the latest issue covered in black plastic. (Remind me sometime to tell you the tale of what happened when I was finally caught and how I talked my way out of it.) The nice thing about this was that it allowed me to outgrow a reliance upon visual prurience and apply my perverted sentiments to everyday discourse without shame and of course evolve my unabated interest in breasts. But if the likes of Robert Coover can be found within Playboy‘s pages, then I may have to pick up a subscription. I have to wonder, however, if Mr. Wickett is secretly on Hefner’s payroll.
  • Dubya actually reads serious books? Apparently, some of the books that he’s taken on a five-week summer sojurn are Mark Kurlansky’s Salt: A World History, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar (which seems peculiarly apt) and John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza.
  • The Gothamist talks with Foop! author Chris Genoa.
  • Another celebrity reading slacker: Noel Gallagher, who only just started reading fiction with Angels and Demons (“my first ever book. Believe it or not, it is.”). In the same article, Hester Lacey suggests that to dismiss someone who hasn’t read “seems both sweeping and snobbish.” Oh come on, Hester. We’re talking Dan Brown here. If Victoria Beckham has not even read Green Eggs and Ham, should her raison d’etre not be suspect?
  • The new China Miéville short story collection, Looking for Jake, gets an early look at SFF World.
  • What the hell was I thinking with the gin? Head hurts. More later.
by Edward Champion

Morning Roundup

by Edward Champion

Et Tu, Posh Spice!

It’s doubtful that any well-adjusted (one might argue: regular) person would expect either a meaty anecdote, much less a bon mot from one-time Spice Girl Victoria Beckham. But I happen to be one of those strange aging men who has retained a soft spot for the Spice Girls and kept the faith over the years . In fact, I’m not ashamed (nor should you be!) to confess that I not only forked out eight bucks for Spice World, but actually enjoyed it!

Throughout the past decade, when in the doldrums, I have turned on “Wannabe,” danced like an ungraceful Caucasian within the privacy of my own bedroom, and connected with the deceptively primitive cadences of “So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ha.”

All along, I’ve had faith that there was something more to these many “wannas.” Perhaps somewhere between the “I” and the “wanna,” the brief pause (as the Spice Girls recaptured their breath) suggested a secret existential void that imparted a certain fortune cookie wisdom from performer to listener. It was, one might argue, a fortune cookie of one’s own making, formed within that milisecond of pause and inhale.

So it disheartens me in the extreme to learn that, all along, the Spice Girls have lied to me and that I’ve been led astray. They are indeed authentically vapid.

Or at least one of them is.

The latest news from England is this: Victoria Beckham, the Spice Girl once known as Posh Spice, has, despite having authored a 528-page autobiography, never read a book in her life. “I prefer listening to music,” says Posh, “althogh I do love fashion magazines.”

Fashion magazines! No possibility of her whispering sweet Shakespearean sonnets into anyone’s ear (well, specifically, that caveman soccer star Beckham’s) anytime soon. Heaven help her children.

How did she get through school? Who sent the checks to the headmasters? Isn’t this attitude a bit like performing fellatio but not receiving cunnilingus in return? More importantly, what hope for Ms. Beckham’s autobiography if she ain’t read none of dem books?

Because of this, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to turn my back on the Spice Girls and sell all of my Spice Girls album to Ameoba, if they’ll take them. This was a tough decision. But I’m a man of honor. And frankly there is nothing that turns me off more than a lady who don’t read.

by Edward Champion

Where She Stops, Nobody Knows!

  • Video game developer Vivendi Universal, in search of a Tom Clancy-style name, has signed a deal to develop games based on Ludlum’s thrillers. Ludlum’s death in 2001 will no doubt ensure creative flexibility (or what’s known in the field as “pillaging in front of a gravestone”).
  • When you run out of television remakes to film, there’s always cheesy 1970s science fiction. The Cell director Tarsem Singh is on tap to remake Westworld. The Governator was originally on board to play the android played by Yul Brynner, but he’s a bit busy. A pity, given that he seems to play machines, whether cinematic or political, quite well.
  • Jim Crace’s The Devil’s Larder has been turned into theatre. Dominic Cavendish says there’s not much to chew on.
  • Christopher Sorrentino’s Trance gets a review in the Mercury News. Sorrentino is accused of being “more impressed with his own voice than the humanity of his characters.”
  • I report this only because Mr. Esposito tortured me by showing me his seven volume Rising Up set the other night. As noted last week by Bookdwarf, this weekend’s NYTBR featured an appearance by the Vollster. He takes on the new Nietzsche bio at length.
  • Newsday chronicles some of the ways that publishers are trying to generate new interest in titles. Many publishers are distributing the first two chapters of a novel. But one teacher by the name of Jackie Spitz remarks, “I only took it because I felt sorry for the people handing it out.” Our heart is all a-trembling over Ms. Spitz’s noble munificence. In fact, as I write these words, I am sobbing into an issue of FHM that I found in my next door neighbor’s trash, watching my tears stream down some beautiful lady bent into an unfortunate position that resembles modular furniture. But I’m also wondering why niche markets and such projects as Vidlit and the LBC aren’t mentioned in the article. When will publishers realize that randomly giving chapters away to ad hoc educators isn’t nearly as effective as targeting people who actually read?
  • Time asks Bret Easton Ellis how “true” Lunar Park is. Apparently, Jay McInerery wasn’t thrilled by his “cameo appearance” as a cokehead buddy.
  • A new book of criticism studying Irvine Welsh’s work is out. But the International Herald Tribune asks if Welsh deserves to be compared with other authors.
  • Is the great rock’n’roll novel at death’s door?
  • The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana: an anti-Proust novel?
  • The Boston Globe examines literary hoaxing.
  • Riverhead editor Sean McDonald talks with Mr. Sarvas.
  • And E.L. Doctorow takes Bush to task, suggesting that Bush does not know what grieving is.
by Edward Champion

The “I’ve Got Tedious Meetings But Here’s a Quick” Roundup

by Edward Champion

Morning Roundup

  • Does the apple fall far from the tree? Owen King would prefer that nobody knew about the apple at all. Owen is Stephen King’s son and has a new book out called We’re All In This Together. Whatever We’re All‘s literary merits, we’re absolutely confident that nepotism and King’s connections had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the book getting published. Perhaps like other sons of famous authors, Mr. King’s talent will be separate from his father’s and we’ll see him pen a small chapbook called Invasion from the World of Warcraft.
  • As widely reported in the blogosphere this morning, the Washington Post has issued a retraction for Marianne Wiggins’ review of John Irving’s Until I Find You. It seems that Wiggins was married to Salman Rushdie, who in turn is a longtime friend of Irving’s. Ron, David Montgomery and Sarah have posted their thoughts on this issue. The question here is where the line is drawn. If a reviewer has exchanged emails with an author (which appears to be the Post policy), it seems preposterous to me that this will sully one’s critical perspective. (And in fact, I’ve struck up a few unexpected and amicable email volleys with authors whose books I’ve ruthlessly panned.) If the publishing industry can swing between art and commerce swifter than a disco king, than surely the reviewer can negotiate the much simpler divide between the parquet floor of the books and the authors who dance on it. We’re adults here, not junior high school students. Apparently, the Post doesn’t seem to believe that an adult is capable of disagreeing with someone while remaining cordial in person.
  • Poet Laureate Ted Kooser gets up at 4:30 AM each morning to write his poetry and wants to bring poetry to the people.
  • Benjamin Kunkel plunges into Balzac’s Lost Illusions.
  • The Gentleman of San Francisco, one of the first works of Russian poet Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin has been translated and published. It only took ninety years to get around to it.
  • Richard Herring and Stewart Lee have returned to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after 18 years. They are determined not to turn into Ben Elton.
  • And while there may be more memoirs right now than ever, Andrew O’Hagan says there’s reason to celebrate over this.
by Edward Champion

The Post-Insomnia, Sleep-Deprived Roundup

  • It looks like Soft Skull Founder Sander Hicks has opened up a bookstore/cafe. Before it was called Vox Pop, it was apparently styled “Down With the Man.”
  • Kelly McMasters talks with Lydia Millet, who asks, “Why not be as bold as ‘Tristram Shandy’?” I’d take that sentiment a few steps further and suggest, “Why not be as bold as the Old Testament?” After all, with all that violence and cruelty and magical realism in there…oh, never mind.
  • The next hot trend? Australian surfing literature.
  • Shakespeare & Company isn’t the only bookstore going strong after 70 years. In Palo Alto, Bell’s Books continues to persevere.
  • In Moraga, mysterious scrapbooks containing odd newspaper clippings from 120 years ago were left on the doorstep of the local historical society. No one knows where these painstakingly collected scrapbooks came from them. But it was either leaving the scrapbooks or a baby in a basket. The owners decided at the last minute that they wanted to keep the kid, overpopulation crisis be damned.
  • Hiroshima haikus. What next? Auschwitz cantos? Oh wait.
  • Francis Ford Coppola’s On the Road film project has, at long last, received the green light. Because this is a loose autobiographical version, the filmed Kerouac will be about 100 pounds heavier than the real Kerouac and own a winery.
  • In Chicago, Steppenwolf will be featuring all new plays this season. Interestingly enough, they receive about 1,000 submissions a year. The remaining 990 or so will be staged at Slamsteppenwolf, Slumsteppenwolf and Nosteppenwolf.
  • If you’re into Wagner and you live in Seattle, you have until August 28 to catch the four-opera marathon version of Ring des Nibelungen Like the King Tut museum in Los Angeles, it will only be schlepped out again when Germany needs cash.
  • The Michael Jackson trial coverage isn’t over by a long shot. There are book deals to be had. What next? A finger-painting diary from Bubbles portraying Jackson’s stress during the days leading up to the verdict?
  • Paul Theroux used drugs to write his new novel. He also used this paltry sensationalism to get a CNN article.
  • And did we mention how much we heart Defamer?
by DrMabuse

Speedy Gonzales Roundup

by DrMabuse

Round Robin

  • In light of the assaults on eminent domain and flag burning (and with the frightening prospect of Justice Rehnquist resigning looming in the air), there’s at least some good news on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting/PBS budget cuts. Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted by a 284-140 vote to rescind the $100 million cutback. And that’s really what current politics is about these days: finding scant hope in small victories while the fiber and sanctity of this nation is gutted. So bust out the party poppers while the apocalypse ravages across the heartland.
  • The so-called “Pope” has published a book that urges all non-believing Europeans to live as though God exists. If that fails, then there’s always putting on a tin hat and looking for crop circles in the hinterland.
  • It looks like Limbaugh and Noonan are running away from the Klein book. Their latest amusing claim is that The Truth About Hilary was “written and published by a bunch of left-wingers.” Well, that’s pretty interesting, given that Sentinel, the publisher of the book, describes itself on its webpage as “a dedicated conservative imprint within Penguin Group (USA) Inc. It has a mandate to publish a wide variety of right-of-center books on subjects like politics, history, public policy, culture, religion and international relations.”
  • Cynthia Ozick talks with the Melbourne Age.
  • The Connection continues its series of writers talking about other writers who have influenced them. The latest audio installment is Russell Banks talking about Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
  • Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell is on a book tour for his new novel, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way.
  • So can James Frey follow up the intensity of A Million Little Pieces with his new memoir? Mike Thomas of the Chicago Sun-Times talks with Frey and learns that Frey’s life is “sort of surreally magnificent.”
  • James McManus has been tapped to write a poker column for the New York Times. Executive editor Bill Keller says that McManus’ column will be “a literate combination of the drama, strategy, psychology and color of card play that should interest both serious players and the simply curious.” This from a guy whose idea of literacy is questionable at best.
by DrMabuse

Morning Linkage

I’m trying my best to post lengthy entries (and reply to the email backlog), but other obligations have kept me firmly bogged. In the meantime, here’s some morning linkage:

  • David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College a few weeks ago. (via Scott Esposito, who has returned from Spain and has somehow managed to get the keys back from Dan Wickett)
  • A whole-hearted congratulations to M.A.O. for being selected one of Time‘s 50 Coolest Websites.
  • Ron Hogan has a modest proposal. Even though his idea doesn’t involve cannibalism, I did manage to cough up a few shellacs. Have you?
  • I don’t know what’s stranger: the idea of six good reads to the sound of rain or the fact that this high-concept article came from the Tuscon Citizen. Riddle me this: when did Arizona journalists become cummulus experts?
  • Tempo has announced the 50 best magazines for 2005. It’s safe to say that Beads Today and Anal Angels didn’t make the list.
  • CNN explores Maine’s literary heritage, but one has to wonder why Stephen King gets more paragraphs than Longfellow.
  • A new version of Sling Blade will be released to DVD. It’s 22 minutes longer. Remarkably, 19 of these minutes are composed of medium shots of Billy Bob Thornton saying “M’hmmm. Yup.” But there is now a three-minute monologue of Karl Childers extolling the virtues of “taters.”
  • Yes, indeedy. Michel Houellebecq is a badass. (via Maud)
  • And this compelling public access show may get me to rescind my eight year self-imposed ban on cable television. Here in San Francisco, we have a show called “Fantasy Bedtime Hour” that involves two nude women reading Stephen R. Donaldson’s 1977 novel, Lord Foul’s Bane, and other strange speculative fiction titles. I’ve always been a sucker for a nude woman reading to me in bed. I’ve also been a licker too. But then that’s probably TMI.
by DrMabuse

Roundup

  • Because one can never cover too many awards, I note that Orhan Pamuk has won the 2005 Book Trade Peace Prize. The prize is the most coveted literary award in Germany.
  • Alan Riding points to a quiet controversy that has been unearthed regarding women’s writing prizes (and the Orange Prize in particular). Specifically, novelist Anne Fine is quoted, “I do think the Orange Prize has created a division, an artificial barrier where there was only an awful inequality.” Perhaps the answer is much simpler. Could it be because Fine has never been longlisted for the Orange Prize?
  • Super Size Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is entering the book industry. The first book is Don’t Eat This Book. The second one will be Slightly Smarter Though Still Stupid White Men.
  • After years of relying on numbers cobbled together from disparate sources for our neighbor up north, publishers can now rejoice. BookNet Canada has introduced a new centralized sales-tracking system. This makes Canada the last English-speaking nation to do this. But the Globe and Mail‘s Kate Taylor is mourning: “At its most useful, it will let publishers stop guessing how many books they have really sold; at its most dangerous, it will draw them yet further into the pointless game of second-guessing their customers.”
  • In Waynesville, MO, as many as 20,000 books from Waynesville school libraries are going straight to the dumpster. This remarkable idea comes to us from the mind of Superintendent Ed Musgrove, who is inflexible to donations because “it would cost more for us to pack them up and donate them than to destroy them.” It seems that despite the fact that other members and local residents expressed concern over this small-town homage to the barbarians who destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria, Musgrove stayed firm, revealing that the main factors being employed to remove the books are the copyright date and the subject. If you’d like to let Musgrove know how you feel about this, here’s his contact information.
  • One amusing thing that’s come out of the ballyhoo concerning Edward Klein’s expose, The Truth About Hilary, is, as the BBC has reported, the listings over what other books the customers have bought. Currently leading the list is John E. O’Neill’s Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. Craig Shirley and Dick Morris are concerned that Klein’s smear approach will make Hilary Clinton a more sympathetic person and thus a more viable presidential candidate for 2008. Meanwhile, Klein himself keeps flip-flopping with his source (Or is it none or more than one? One never knows with this guy.) that claims that Bill Clinton raped Hilary to conceive Chelsea. [UPDATE: Ron Hogan has additional information about Klein, jumping off from this Publishers Weekly article.]
by DrMabuse

Insomnia

by DrMabuse

Sun-Soaked Roundup

  • Sarah is interviewed by Kacey Kowars. Sarah talks about the history of her blog, how she reads and selects content, her new day job, inter alia. The subject of “mean-spiritedness” is also brought up, to which I reply that what I do here isn’t nearly as vicious as 200 proof vodka. I trust most people to read between the lines.
  • So what were some of the other LBC nominees? Were they corporate sellouts? Were they part of the “literary demi-puppet” conspiracy? Au contrarire. Michael Orthofer weighs in on his selection, Christa Wolf’s In the Flesh. I hope to weigh in on my selection (which was second place!) sometime soon too, but there’s some incredible sunshine and a big trip to Nueva York to prep for.
  • The wifi cafe problem is one of the reasons why I’ve remained reluctant to use wi-fi embedded laptops (although this is likely to change to give you folks up-to-the-minute BEA reports). Cafes are social places where you unexpectedly run into friends and acquaintances or get into conversations with strangers about the books they’re reading or the cool tees they’re wearing or the guitars that they’re playing. But I’ve noticed the gloomy misanthropes who stare into their Powerbooks as if expecting some great theological pronouncement taking up tables intended for four people at my own neighborhood cafe and wonder if this is indeed part of the lingering problem Robert Putnam wrote about in his book Bowling Alone. These people, who feel the chronic need to be connected in all ways but the most tangible ones, rarely buy anything, tip or consort with the nice people behind the counter. Frankly, if killing wi-fi access during the weekends will get these deadbeats to understand that (a) a change in locale doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not a work-every-minute drone, (b) you won’t be rebuked if you don’t answer your email within an hour (at least by the people who matter), and (c) if access is the thing, perhaps broadband at home is more your cup of tea (or hazelnut latte, as the case may be).
  • Tanenhaus Brownie Watch is forthcoming. But cut some slack. It’s a three-day weekend.
  • Jacquelyn Mitchard thought that calls from Oprah were a prank and very nearly didn’t call her back for an OBC selection.< ?li>
  • They’re young! They’re hot! They’re good-looking! And damn, these puppies can write! Wouldn’t a writer make a great catch? Lisa Allardice exposes some of the realities behind pairup glamour. And, yes, J-Franz is name-checked.
  • Hemingway’s Havana estate is endangered.
  • Why does Dracula endure?
  • Diana Abu-Jaber dishes dirt on her food memoir.
  • Decency prevents me from commenting upon this Nick Laird “training” revelation. Return of the Reluctant promises a two-month moratorium on Zadie Smith and Nick Laird news, for reasons similar to Ms. Tangerine Muumuu.
by DrMabuse

Morning Pileup

  • Frederick Forsyth has decided to run against Tony Blair. Well, if this is what it takes to get him to stop writing, count me in as one of his most febrile supporters.
  • Chang-rae Lee’s next novel will center around the Korean War. The story will involve “a refugee girl raised in America after the war, a solider and an aid worker during the war.” Lee also confessed that he made a mistake titling his last novel Aloft, pointing out that too many people were hoping for a gripping tale about real estate developers fighting over a flat.
  • Somehow it escaped our eyes, but “Harry Matthews” gets an appropriately mysterious writeup in the Gray Lady. But an interesting side note is that nobody should trust John Strausbaugh with an “off the record” comment.
  • We all know about Kathryn Chetkovich’s infamous Granta essay about J-Franz. But what I didn’t know is that Franzen’s ex-wife stopped writing and reading after the breakup. The lesson here is that if you hope to keep up your writing career, DON’T DATE J-FRANZ! This has been a public service announcement for the Society to Preserve Creativity.
  • Alice Hoffman was “deeply affected by The Twilight Zone.”
  • Fumio Niwa has passed on. He was 100. Also RIP David Hughes.
  • There’s a campaign in place to restore Ohio’s image by the Ohio Secretary of State. Unfortunately, what the campaign doesn’t tell you is that most of the writers and artists (including Toni Morrison, Michael Dirda, and Roger Zelazy) ended up moving away from Ohio.
  • Oliver Stone + James Ellroy? Say it ain’t so. What next? Paul Verhoeven and Donald E. Westlake?
  • The Cumberland County Library in North Carolina has catered to its constitutency. They’re paying $18,000 of their hard-earned money to offer 700 audio books. By my math, that’s $25.71 a pop, or considerably more than a wholesale or library-rate hardcover.
by DrMabuse

Afternoon Headlines

  • The illustrious Mark Sarvas has served up spectacular coverage of the L.A. Times Book Festival. He even makes a noble attempt to understand Steve Almond. We also wish Mr. Sarvas the best wishes on his new reign as a teacher.
  • A new novel penned by the late Park Tae-won has been found. The new book’s called Flag of Motherland and is the first novel Park wrote before crossing the border during the Korean War.
  • Arianna Huffington has launched a group blog. Alarmingly, Michael Medved is involved.
  • Why publicist Shawn Le thought we’d be interested in this thing is a mystery. But we can’t resist exposing yet another reason why James Patterson should be avoided at all costs. We thought at first that it was an obscene joke, but Patterson has devised a blog for his new book, Maximum Ride. This dreadful tie-in can be accessed through James Patterson’s official site. The novel involves genetically engineered killing machines hunting creatures who are 98% human, 2% bird. A sample entry reads: “It?s finally starting to look like spring and the flying is great! It?s still a little chilly but there?s no better skyline to glide over then New York! Angel, Gassy, nudge and even Fang is in a good mood! We all want to fly, unfortunately all the regular people are looking up and enjoying the sun – not good for 6 winged kids trying to keep a low profile.”
  • Steve Stern doesn’t get any respect, and he’s been turning out literary fiction for 25 years.
  • Apparently, the twelve men who have walked the moon are “an unusually dull lot.”
  • Ever since she appeared in The Incredibles, Sarah Vowell now has to contend with little girls coming up to her at book signings. At least she hasn’t been showered with spare security blankets.
  • The casting of Harry Potter’s girlfriend has unleashed a good deal of racism on the Internet.
  • Two public libraries in the UK reopened with new buildings. Guess what? The number of book loans went up.
by DrMabuse

Insomnia-Charged Roundup

  • Radio host Paul Kennedy is trying to win Leonard Cohen a Nobel Prize. “He’s different from a celebrity; he’s almost God,” says Kennedy. You can make the same claim about mescaline, but you’d never nominate a drug for a distinguished honor.
  • It certainly isn’t news that laughter is good for you, but I didn’t realize that Anthony Trollope died laughing. Apparently, it was F. Anstey’s Vice Versa which was the culprit and has Orwell’s admiration.
  • Ayelet Waldman describes her day.
  • If Tom Wolfe’s slithering wasn’t enough, Natalie Krinsky’s new book, Chloe Does Yale, hopes to steam up the Ivy League. A telltale excerpt (“Every time I move, the bikini bottoms wedge themselves a little higher, and I am stuck trying to extract them from their chosen crevice.”) suggests that this novel has a lock on this year’s Bad Sex Award.
  • It’s the 200th anniversary of Victor Hugo’s birth. The Suntory Museum Tempozoan in Osaka has an exposition lined up.
  • My heart bleeds for the wealthy Irish artists soon to lose their tax-free status. Particularly when they include such dubious figures as Def Leppard. “Women to the left, women to the right, there to entertain and take you thru the night.” Yup, today’s answer to “No Second Troy” right there.
by DrMabuse

AM Roundup

by DrMabuse

Rundown with the Devil

  • Gore Vidal’s Civil War play On the March to the Sea has been revived and revised. The protagonist’s name has been changed to Hal I. Burton, all paternal figures will be referred to as “Bagh Dad” instead of “Dad,” and the palatial home has been rechristened “The Other White House.”
  • The Man Booker International Prize nominees have been announced and already folks are stewing over who got left out. Which includes Salman Rushdie. In related news, it turns out that the fatwah was actually reinstated not by Iran, but by literary fans who have been annoyed by Rushdie’s inability to write a decent novel since Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
  • Spread the love for Dashiel. January Magazine and Pop Matters celebrate the 75th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon
  • Larry McMurty’s son is a singer-songwriter? I wonder if he’s nabbed some tips from Kinky Friedman.
  • Random House has obtained a minority stake in Vocel, which specializes in educational content transmitted over cell phones. While Random House plans on distributing language study guides and video game tips, since e-books have for the most part failed, will cell phone users actually read a book over a Nokia?
  • And there’s more on the revival-in-progress of Upton Sinclair and Sinclair scholar Lauren Coodley’s tireless efforts.
by DrMabuse

I Should Probably Sleep, But…

  • While we’d never expect USA Today to give us a call (we’d probably spend most of the time making fun of the infographs), we’re nevertheless delighted to see some of our favorite blogs get recognition.
  • And speaking of newspapers, we’re still wondering how the folks at the Scotsman find their fey subjects. A recent profile chronicles Francis Ellen, an author who has created a novel with music performed by the characters. The Samplist is expected to launch at the London Book Fair and a CD tie-in will feature a computer-generated, counterfeit piano piece.
  • Sarah Crompton wonders if anybody’s going to say anything bad about Ian McEwan’s latest novel, Saturday. Give it time, Sarah. Give it time. The minute Leon Wieseltier, Joe Queenan or Dale Peck get their grubby little hands on it, the reviews are almost certain to tip into the sensational. I suspect it’s a Yank thing.
  • We’d be terribly remiss if we didn’t remind folks that The Collected Stories of Carol Shields are now available, with an introduction by Margaret Atwood. In other Shields news, her daughters say that they learned a good deal about their mother working on their respective projects. (In Anne Giardini’s case, it’s a first novel.)
  • The word that appears the most in Birnbaum’s latest, an interview with Eva Hoffman: passport.
by DrMabuse

Roundup

  • Nadine Gordimer is shepherding a short story collection, Telling Tales. The book’s proceeds will go to fighting AIDS. Some of the heavyweights involved: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gunter Grass, Salman Rushdie, John Updike, Margaret Atwood and Woody Allen.
  • Because the hardback wasn’t turgid enough, the paperback release of Bill Clinton’s My Life will be published in two paperback formats: one that describes his presidential achievements and the other describing the linguistical disadvantages of referring to people as “that woman.”
  • A rare set of George Washington letters is being auctioned. The letters show that Washington consulted with Thomas Jefferson on capitalizing certain nouns. But because Washington was a hopeless speller, he was more interested in a cookie recipe for Martha that Jefferson had devised at Monticello.
  • Upton Sinclair is heading for a comeback. Historian Lauren Coodley has edited a book showing that Sinclair was far more than a muckraker. He published 100 books, he was a health nut, and, contrary to popular belief, not once did he step foot in a jungle.
  • And Jim Warren, the man behind fantastic back cover ads for skulls and Famous Monsters of Filmland, gets a thorough profile.
by DrMabuse

RIP Mr. Monitor

Our monitor is at death’s door, we won’t be able to replace it for a few days, and we’re overwhelmed by the stunning response regarding the Star & Buc Wild post. Factor in the other things we’re doing, and this has resulted in an uphill battle in email responses and regular bloggin. But for now, here are some highlights from the literary world:

  • As noted widely elsewhere (and kept under wraps with great glee here), many congratulations to Laila.
  • Birnbaum interviews T.C. Boyle. It starts off with the question, “Do people call you Tom?” We have to confess that we’ve been asked that question a few times ourselves, albeit in entirely different circumstances.
  • On the Star & Buc Wild front, thanks to the efforts of Devalina Guha-Roy, WUSL-FM‘s reaction has made the Philly Inquirer. There have been more than 130 e-mails and phone calls. Of course, the problem isn’t the broadcast or Star’s antics, but the “insensitive” employee who posted the clip online. Clearly, WUSL hasn’t gone nearly far enough to ensuring that “racially inflammatory” programming on this level won’t occur again. What’s particularly interesting is that Star & Buc Wild’s move to WWPR has elicited more publicity. It seems that in the wake of Star’s disgraceful banter, his publicist decided to issue a press release.
  • John Intini suggests that this generation has become too “resourceful” and suggests that readers of Arts & Letters Daily, McSweeney’s and bloggers in general are as bad as Trivial Pursuit junkies. We think he’s onto something, but we’re wondering what’s wrong with having a capacious storehold upstairs? Granted, when such brainpower is reduced to remembering Usher lyrics, it’s a considerable problem. But we can think of far worse things to remember and recite than, say, a passage from a Jonathan Lethem novel.
  • Lip Service is a UK-based theatrical and radio group who transmogrify literary classics. They sound like a lot of fun.
  • Is Patrick White Australia’s most unreadable novelist?
by DrMabuse

Coffee-Deprived Roundup

by DrMabuse

Afternoon Tea

  • Dean Koontz’s dog has written a book: a chapbook-sized ode to lapping toilet water.
  • An inmate has sued Stephen King for The Green Mile, claiming that there are, in fact, no magical black men inside prison.
  • It’s been reported elsewhere, but Cynthia Ozick’s book tour diary dishes fun dirt.
  • Amber Frey is set to release a memoir this week. Sample chapter titles include “Oh My God! Laci’s baby is due on my birthday!” and “You know, Scott, this murder might affect our relationship.”
  • The Rutles 2 is coming to DVD. Believe it or not, Salman Rushdie is in it.
  • A number of prominent Canadians highlight their top reads for 2004 (including Neil Peart, who champions John Barth’s The Book of Ten Nights and a Night!).
  • The Age does an admirable job trying to account for The Da Vinci Code‘s success.
by DrMabuse

Slow News Day

  • OPTR has the goods on how to check out the first five chapters of Murakami’s latest, Kafka on the Shore.
  • Carrie has done a fantastic job compiling the overlooked books of 2004.
  • Less than a year after writing a steamy novel, Jimmy Carter has a slim memoir, Sharing Good Times, in the works. After the unexpected titilation found in The Hornet’s Nest, the former President had initially planned to go off the deep end again, largely because Clinton’s memoir was so plodding. But Carter persuaded to change the original title, Sharing High Times, and excise a lengthy chapter about the benefits of THC, a pleasure that has assisted him in his negotiations throughout the past ten years.
  • Stuart Jeffries predicts 2005’s bestsellers. He’s hedged his bets on Pablo Tusset’s The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant and, like myself, is hoping that Martin Amis’s new novel will live up to its name.
  • The Times talks with Leslie Klinger about The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. “I bought 300 books from a collector $3,500 in 1976, and I’ve never looked back,” he says. That kind of sociopathic obsession has us convinced that Klinger’s the right man for the job.
  • And it seems that anyone can sell a memoir, including ex-Justice Roy Moore. Moore, you may recall, was the crazed man who tried to set up the Ten Commandments in the Alabama courthouse. In So Help Me God (I wish I were making that title up), Moore described that night as “the completion of a lifelong mission to use his position as the state’s highest judge to publicly acknowledge God.” Well, it’s nice to know that today’s judicial system is dedicated to impartiality!

[8/11/05 UPDATE: Looks like Stuart Jeffries was about as accurate as a blind dart shooter.]

by DrMabuse

Armistice-Challenged Roundup

The ongoing massacre in Fallujah and the nomination of Alberto Gonzales (who once declared the Geneva Conventions “obsolete”) as attorney general are enough to hinder any self-respecting humanist from smiling. But I’ll try nonetheless to offer a literary roundup on this most ironic of Veteran’s Days.

  • The first of two major reports on the Paris Review archive is now up. Laura Miller is expected to offer a writeup in an upcoming issue of the NYTBR.
  • A rare collection of Coleridge’s poetry has been saved by Lottery funding in the UK. The collection is now on display in Cumbria.
  • In other archival news, the world’s best-selling romance novelist Barbara Cartland will live on after her death. 160 of her unpublished novels will be released to the Internet over the next 13 years. Amazingly, none of them have any sex and all will have happy endings. There may, however, be kissing and frequent brushes of the hair and possibly “a nibble on a nipple or two.”
  • Duke University (based in North Carolina) weighs in on Wolfe’s latest. While “DuPont” University appears to be modeled after Duke, Chrissie Gorman notes that Wolfe never bothered to show up there during his research.
  • The tireless Ron Hogan has been interviewing the National Book Award fiction nominees. Meanwhile, the New York Times continues its baffling assault on the nominations, claiming now that the books are too short and that not one of them has a sense of humor. Well, by that criteria, maybe we better toss our copies of The Stranger, Desperate Characters and Hunger into the rubbish bin.
  • The castle that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula is going to be turned into holiday homes. The Van Helsing Suite will have a jacuzzi, a minibar, and a valet who will frequently stop into bite guests on request. Happy hour will feature affordably priced bloody Marys.
  • Nicholas Spark is ponying up the dough to renovate a high school track in his hometown. The track will be called Running in a Bottle. Runners will be required to sprint around the track for fifty years until either love or Alzheimer’s strikes first.
  • And Maud has an interview with Josh Melrod up, concentrating upon literary magazine launching (and perhaps lunching).
by DrMabuse

Material Girls, Zola’s Game Theory, Tipping Points

by DrMabuse

As I Drank My Morning Coffee