In doing behind-the-scenes work on Literary Kicks' book pricing discussion, I have recently spent some time paying attention to things that would normally fly right by me. One being The New York Times Book Review bestseller lists.
Earlier today, I finally had a chance to take a look at the revamped lists and immediately noticed the appearance of Richard Powers's The Echo Maker at number 20 on the new trade paperback list. Despite having won the 2006 National Book Award and recently being released in paperback, it was nowhere to be found last week and obviously benefited from the change.
TBR editor Sam Tanenhaus points out that the addition of a trade paperback fiction list means that more books that are actually reviewed in the Times will appear on the best-seller lists. Meaning, of course, literary fiction, not that shameful mass-market pop-fiction crap that the American people keep insisting on buying in large quantities. Good for the Times for making a bestseller list that keeps the riffraff out!
Oh, go fark your sarcasm, Vulture Blog. Some people wouldn't mind having a barometer of what's worth reading in paperback besides "mass-market pop-fiction crap." I'm not a book snob (Well, maybe just a little.) and have nothing against genre since I read my fair share of mysteries, thrillers, and romance. But if you've been through one Bourne installment, you've been through them all. And—before fans send hate email—I also have nothing against Robert Ludlum even though he's the Tupac Shakur of commercial fiction.
The new trade paperback bestseller list is a good thing for books. It will surely bring attention to worthwhile reads that might otherwise be buried under the massive sales of James Patterson's latest thriller he didn't write.
See, this is exactly why I prefer online book discussions to in-person book groups:
Is it acceptable, they debate within and among themselves, to listen to that month’s book rather than read it? Or is that cheating, like watching the movie instead of reading the book?
Because audio enthusiasts generally listen aloud in a private space like their cars or with headphones, they are spared having to publicly defend the format. When they join reading groups, however, they enter what can be enemy territory, where dyed-in-the-wool bibliophiles want to hear nothing of a book but the crack of its spine.
Dain Frisby-Dart, 40, an avid audio book listener from Trempealeau, Wis., told her book group a few years ago that she was listening to the current selection. One of the members, a man in his 70s, reacted as if she had been reading CliffsNotes.
“He said, ‘It doesn’t count if you listened to it. That’s cheating,’ ” Ms. Frisby-Dart said. “I was so floored by the comment that I just kind of laughed it off.”
Isn't the point of a book club to discuss content? And doesn't listening to an audio version deliver said content? And aren't people sometimes too busy to dedicate hours upon hours to reading but can get much food for discussion out of said content by listening while doing other tasks like driving or working?
Keep your wagging fingers to yourselves, holier-than-thous.
This morning, I drove into New York City to meet a friend for breakfast and heard this bit of news on the radio:
Call him Jumpin' Jack Cash.
Keith Richards, co-founder of the Rolling Stones, is starting up the bidding war for his life story and is likely to get lots of satisfaction as publishers have already pushed the price tag for the advance to $7.3 million in the hottest biding war of the year.
By late yesterday, the bidding had narrowed down to two houses, HarperCollins and Little Brown.
...
At the outset, Richards' only goal was to beat the nearly $5 million advance that Eric Clapton snagged for his memoir, due out this October.
Richards had an advance of $1.6 million to write his life story for Bantam in the 1980s, but gave it back after he supposedly told the publisher he couldn't recall enough to fill a book.
As I am currently a little strapped for cash, I have decided to officially put my own life story on the auction block. Although I am not a rock legend or one of the living dead, I did once cause such a scene in Wal-Mart that a security guard was compelled to flash his sidearm at me. You know you want to know all of the sordid details. Bidding starts at $7.30.
On Thursday, I had a lovely visit with Sarah, an old friend who blew through town on a Triumphant East Coast Driving Tour (a.k.a. vacation). As one of the charter moderators here on BookBlog, she is, naturally, a bibliophile.
In a rare moment of refined ladylike behavior, we discussed the books over tea sandwiches and deviled eggs in the cafe at Bergdorf Goodman. Well, rare for me, I must confess. Sarah possesses more poise and culture sense than I could ever aspire to and didn't bat an eyelash when I wheeled and dealed for a free gift from the Estée Lauder makeup guy even though I had no intention of buying anything. She did and got a gift set from a promotion that wouldn't be starting until next week, and she laughed politely when the makeup guy told me to "shut up" then stapled her bag closed as a metaphor for zipping my lips. A real lady courteously accommodates even the coarsest of people and handles every uncomfortable situation with grace. Sarah is all that and a bag of chips, despite the wardrobe malfunction at an ex-boyfriend's wedding.
As one of the faithful, Sarah was a little upset knowing that she'd be on the road today: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Day. Although she was sure she would find copies in every truck stop along the interstate, she was concerned about reading it before spoilers spread like wildfire. Being a freelance journalist, Sarah fully acknowledges Rowling's flat prose, the leading contender for my loss of interest after the first two installments. Like many, though, she loves the story and the tantalizing suspense that comes with not knowing what will happen next. She'll be listening to her iPod while driving today as an alternative to any talk of Harry on the radio.
My friend Kate is also a Harry fan and picked up her pre-paid copy at an indie bookshop's Midnight Magic event. Under normal circumstances, she would have ordered from Amazon but doubts about whether they planned to upgrade shipping for delivery today drove her off. When I called to check on her progress, she was about halfway through by 11 a.m. and steering clear of all media until she finishes.
How on earth could you run a review of the last Harry Potter? To do so, you had to break an industry-wide embargo — and not just any embargo, an embargo that is almost tantamount to a public trust at this point, given the worldwide hype about Harry Potter and the excitement and intense emotion generated by — finally — the end to this epic series.
Give me a break with the "public trust" and "industry-wide embargo" nonsense. Seriously, most of the public doesn't care. Even more shrill is The Leaky Cauldron's call for letters and suggested text.
Many ask why we care — why fans aren't all so rabid to get the book that we'll sop up any illegal download or purchase. There's one simple answer: We respect the author. We thought that a newspaper like yours, where so many of your reporters become authors themselves, would understand and respect that. We're so saddened that we were wrong. We feel let down by you and your editorial board.
Sincerely,
Your name here
Harry Potter Fan, and member of Jo's Army
Oh, come on. Why not just avoid the paper? Besides, The New York Times didn't sign a contract with Bloomsbury and Scholastic, like the booksellers did. The contract, by the way, also contained ridiculous conditions like keeping the books "in a secure area under lock and key" and even put the kibosh on taking photographs of them being delivered. They're books, not gold ingots.
And so what if some copies were mailed out early or if pages were posted on the Internet? Less furor erupted over the Valerie Plame incident. But Bloomsbury threatened to enforce the embargo, and Scholastic turned it into a promise when it filed lawsuits against Levy Home Entertainment and Infinity Resources. Without a book 8 to hold (or withold) over booksellers heads, the suits might be the natural course of action to take for breach of contract. After selling around 12 million copies, though, making a stink over 1200 seems kind of petty.
I was quite impressed by Vollmann, the man, which very much surprised me since I've never been impressed by Vollmann, the writer. His prose tends toward too much bloat for my reading taste, but he maintained my interest during the lecture because his speech is not peppered with simile upon simile. My ears especially perked up when he said his fiction writing is influenced by beautiful sentences. For me, beautiful writing conveys a message using as few words as possible; it's why I much prefer poets over prolifics. Vollmann's fecund style suddenly made more sense when he mentioned liking Lautréamont, a 19th century author who also used lots of words. Beauty, clearly, is in the eye of the reader.
Thanks to Zonker, I brought one of my new beloved Moleskines to the lecture in order to wave it about for some notebook envy. Of course, I was denied the pleasure as is always the case when I conspire to be deliberately evil. My section of the room was nearly pitch black and approximated an epileptic hell due to regular jolts from a flash bulb. Darkness notwithstanding, I managed a few notes, including a few statements by Vollmann which were also quoted in Ed's post about the event. We didn't write down exactly the same words, most notably:
Ed: "As the beast becomes more insatiable, it's for more and more types of meat in smaller bytes."
Me: "As the beast becomes more insatiable, it wants to eat more and more meat in smaller bites."
Despite slight differences in what we heard, both sentences convey similar meanings. However, the last word in each tells a lot about us. Ed's use of "bytes" is obviously interpretive of Vollmann's words while my "bites" is much more literal. I have new respect for vowels; they are the most powerful letters in the alphabet.
During the Q&A, Levi asked why photojournalism today seems to do nothing to change the world, specifically our entanglement in Iraq even though it's the most photographed war in history. Richard Drew said something about photographers recording history rather than influencing it, and my hand shot up to further Levi's train of thought. I brought up the 1993 photographs of mutilated soldiers in Somalia, which influenced U.S. public outcry for swift withdrawal (and, eventually, a book and a movie called Black Hawk Down). Drew responded that similar images have come out of Iraq, including the ones of burned Americans hanging from a bridge in Fallujah. He stated that the AP does not practice censorship and makes all of its war photographs available to the media, but that individual outfits self-censor due to pressure from readers and sponsors. At first I thought he was being overly defensive. I've since had a chance to think on it and do somemorereading, and I now see that most people prefer burying their heads in the sand to confronting anything unpleasant. We are a nation of pussies in denial.
Before departing, Ed brought Vollmann over to introduce him to the Internet crowd and I very much enjoyed speaking with him directly. I asked if he has ever become numb to the horrors he has seen (He has not.), and I told him I find it harder to handle gruesome imagery when I have a connection to it (For example, WTC photos are particularly difficult since my sister was on the shopping concourse when the first plane hit.). As Jason mentions on his site, Vollmann asked the group what journalistic projects should come next. No one came up with a suggestion on the spot, but Jason's afterthought about web video to accompany the written word is a good idea. It was at about this time that the Whitney wanted to begin closing up, so we said our good-byes and headed toward the door.
Now that I've had a few days to digest Wednesday's panel and more thoroughly look over my notes, I have a few additional thoughts.
When a book is reviewed in the newspaper, six forces go into play: writer, publisher, critic, newspaper, bookseller, reader. Each has its own agenda.
Writer - According to Hannah Tinti, writers want their books reviewed by as many different voices as possible. They do not want the same bad review to be passed around from paper to paper via the AP. As a result, lots of working critics at lots of different newspapers benefit the writer.
Publisher - Dan Simon mentioned the corporate value system in reference to the fact that the big houses publish the majority of books available today. They have to report to shareholders, so making money is more important than producing quality literature. From what I know, word of mouth and the backlist long tail are more profitable than anything else. Obviously, publishers will court anyone (including maggots) who are likely to flaunt their wares.
Critic - Each of the panelists, except John Freeman, mentioned the importance of placing a book within its niche since targeting sells. To him, the problem with writing reviews for niches (e.g., a title with local rather than national interest) is that they segregate discourse from a broad audience. Critics clearly want their reviews to be widely read and discussed; they are journalists, not salespeople.
Newspaper - It is unfortunate no one on the panel represented the business end of newspapers. Having once worked in a particular tower in Chicago, I can say this: newspapers, like the big publishing houses, are in the business of making money. When they think something doesn't earn, they will cut it loose—regardless of whether or not it serves the public or the greater good.
Bookseller - When I sold books to the trade, we operated on the idea that three factors drove retail sales: niche, store placement, and cover. I found it interesting when Sarah McNally said books without quotes on them don't sell no matter where she puts them in her store. Although I can't say for sure, my guess is blurbs from a respected publication (like The New York Times) or a well-known author (like James Patterson) move more inventory than ones from Joe Critic in The Unknown Tribune.
Reader - Presumably, everyone reading this blog also reads books. I'll leave it up to you to decide what your agenda is and where you fit into the grand scheme of the above. If you're willing to share, I'd love it if you'd leave a comment.
Despite the exclamation point, not much exclaiming went on, so I took copious notes. It's a strategy best employed in situations when audible snoring and free-form drooling are considered tacky. Don't get me wrong, many interesting points were raised and need to be further discussed by those interested in the future of print reviews. Maybe it's a character flaw, but I generally find book events boring. Stodgy. Overly serious.
For my contribution to the discourse, following is what stood out most to me:
John Freeman - NBCC president, panel moderator
The printed word is embattled due to three issues: space, quality of writing, and what's covered.
There is a lot of promise for book reviews on the Internet; there is no war between critics and bloggers.
One of his favorite critics is Adam Kirsch. [Note: Kirsch has recently brought some litblogger scorn on himself by writing an article called "The Scorn of the Literary Blog" which states, "bitesized commentary, which is all the blog form allows, is next to useless when it comes to talking about books." Ahem.]
Reviewers are considered publishers' "ideal" readers.
Indies make up 3% of the book market and, percentage-wise, get more books reviewed than corporate publishers. [Note: Very true because certain people gravitate toward anything "independent." Authors needing the most help, in terms of spreading the word, are no-names at big houses.]
Younger readers don't come into the store with print reviews; they buy books based on Internet buzz.
In-store placement (e.g. face up on tables near the front) sells more than reviews, but books without quotes on the cover don't move no matter where they're located.
Although the Internet has potential, it is not a substitute for the print review even if the critics are doing a bad job.
The Literary Saloon, the weblog component to his site, gets only 10% of his total traffic. The rest goes to the reviews. [Note: And I'd guess that most of those people land there from search engines.]
Orthofer couldn't come up with the name of a single print reviewer he liked.
There is a sick symbiosis between a dying art form (criticism) and a dysfunctional industry (publishing). [Note: Brown, in my opinion, was the most interesting person on the panel. His candor was refreshing.]
Journalists are lazy and much of what appears in reviews is spoon-fed to them by a publisher's press release.
Review sections cover the same handful of books each week, so reviewers should be more proactive in seeking out diverse titles.
The Audience - assorted and sundry
A soon to be self-published author asked something—I'm not sure what—but I understood immediately why he plans to self-publish.
An academic flatly stated that fiction coverage in The New York Times was boring, had no style, and needed more pizazz. She gets her recommendations from bookstores and "god forbid" Oprah. [Note: I don't understand why there's so much stigma attached to reading an Oprah selection. She moves books, which is a good thing, yet even those reading along with her are embarrassed.]
Ed Champion asked why we should bother saving reviews when the critics are doing a good job themselves of killing them. Simon said that Ed was speaking "provocatively."
In front of me sat an author with a book coming out soon from a small press. He had a copy of Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. His companion held pages—probably information on the event and its location—that had been printed off of Galleycat.
Two people clutched spiffy Moleskines, so I felt a tiny bit self-conscious about my notebook: a vinyl-clad school-year calendar that a teacher friend got for free from an educational salesrep but didn't want and was about to throw away.
During the afterchat, Brown mentioned that the founder of the African American Literature Book Club, a fabulous niche site, was also there. Had I known, I would have said hello.
Although I have been avoiding the NBCC, I haven't avoided the diminishing print reviews issue since lots of commentary on it appears all over the Internet. Thankfully, not everyone is as ill-equipped as they are at rational discourse.
Book bloggers and print reviewers are, in fact, natural allies against a common antagonist: media executives who think that the only thing people want to read about in the newspaper is what they see on television and that the only way to attract younger readers is to try to cover the bands they listen to. But I recently saw an overflow crowd of people under 30 (900 of them for a 300-seat auditorium) come to hear Chuck Palahniuk read. And I suspect those people were more likely to read about books online than in the newspaper - especially since newspapers are providing fewer and fewer reviews.
And:
One thing I’m pretty sure of: if the print reviewers can get the book bloggers behind them, they have a better chance than they would otherwise of getting the attention of those media execs.
Damn straight. And I'll tell you this much. If I got word that Frank's position was being eliminated, I'd gladly sign a petition and drive down to Philly for a read-in at the Inquirer's office. Why? Because he gets it.
Of course, I'd also sign a petition if it would force Richard Schickel into retirement. Why? Because he's an elitist burro.
And if there are fewer quotable parts? It means fewer reasons for publishers to take out an ad--there's just less to crow about--and fewer ads mean fewer book review sections will survive because many of them rely quite heavily on their advertising revenue. A vicious circle, to be sure. And don't even get me started on the fact that, if fewer books are being reviewed, a bad review hurts more since there will be fewer good ones to offset it.
I can certainly see the potential for a deeper cut from a pan in a future reality containing fewer, shorter reviews. However, I'm not sure I follow the logic behind the vicious circle, mainly because I rarely see print ads for books in my local paper. I see plenty of movie ads, and some of them quote only one or two words out of ginormous reviews and whole phrases from tiny ones—including pans.
Look, publishers are cheap. (I have the pay stubs to prove it.) Very little money is budgeted for advertising individual titles because publishing is like gambling. Out of 100 books, one or two big hits bankroll the next several plays. If you don't know how strong your hand is, it's not worth betting $500 on a single print ad when it might not return even money. Of course, sometimes bluffs win—like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. But a small publisher with a small pile of chips isn't going to bluff. I also doubt any struggling house would be willing to go all in, even with two aces in the hole.
Although spring has finally begun here, nighttime temperatures are still cold enough to require use of the furnace. After staggering out of bed this morning, I heard the heat kick on and I hate paying for heat. I decided to warm up the house by starting a fire in the wood-burning stove and needed some newspaper. I'm always behind on it, so I finally pulled the protective yellow baggie off Sunday's Star-Ledger in order to burn the sections I skip: Sports, Autos, and Real Estate.
The main news story, taking up the most prime spot on the front page, was "Harry Potter's Disappearing Act." How sad for poor, broken-legged, rib-fractured, stuck-in-the-hospital New Jersey Governor Corzine to be bumped to the side by Harry Potter. Corzine did get two front page articles: one on his speeding driver's affair with a married woman and the other about his staff's anxiousness to return him to power. But I didn't care. As I skipped the Corzine articles to read about Harry, I noted the subheading,"Even as he gets ready to take his leave, the wizard has the power to create wonder," and it made me chuckle. Clearly, on that particular day, a fictional character was a more powerful figure than a very real governor.
I'm not too much of a Harry Potter fan. Although I own the first five and plan on picking up the sixth now that the paperback can be found at discount prices, I've only read the first two. Eventually, I'll get around to finishing the entire series, so I'm not dying to find out what ultimately happens in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The Star-Ledger article, though, does a good job rounding up Harry's impact on the world and brought a few new facts to my attention:
By the time the seventh book is published, "Pottermonium" will have lasted 3,677 days (or 10 years), 4,195 pages, and 19.7 lbs.
There are 325 million copies of the first six books in print. In terms of numbers, they are only beaten by the Bible and "Quotations from Chairman Mao."
J.K. Rowling is the first author to become a billionaire.
Scholastic, the US publisher, will print 12 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In contrast, the print run of the US release of the first book was 50,000 copies.
The series can be read in 64 languages, including Latin.
In the UK and Ireland, it's the 10th celebration of World Book Day.
To honour our friends across the pond, I am carrying Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory to the launderette and will read it proudly whilst I wait for the spin cycle to complete. Since I am only 20 pages from the end, I will put a copy of Ian McEwan's Amsterdam in the bag with the washing powder to ensure I have something to read as my knickers dry.
I must ready to depart, so I leave you with this most excellent poem.
When You Are Old
by W.B. Yeats
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Over at the Guardian, an instructor at UC Davis laments the fact that his students are unfamiliar with Norman Mailer, Orson Welles, and the Beatles. He writes, "But what a majority of them don't seem to have is a genuine love of the broader world of 'culture,' of the fabric of ideas that transcend specialties and weave a group of people into a community." Ugh, I hate statements like this. The idea that "culture" can be universally defined as applicable to everyone of any age is a clear indicator of the generational gap. College kids have "culture" that weave them "into a community," but it's their community. Moaning about how they have never seen Citizen Kane is the closed-minded rhetoric of the old rather than evidence of shallowness in the young.
So what if college seniors haven't heard a Beatles song? I'm 37 and Beatlemania ended long before I began actively listening to music. I know and appreciate The Beatles because they were my father's music, but what did the parents of today's kids listen to as they raised their children? Duran Duran? Guns N' Roses? During my last year of teaching, I was blown away by overhearing a nine-year-old student singing "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls. When I asked how he knew it, he told me his father played the CD at home. In 30 years, will this same student complain that the next generation is ignorant of "culture" because they are unaware of glam pop's influence on modern music?
Speaking of old people's pop, a-ha's "Take on Me" is currently blasting from the speakers as iTunes's party shuffle randomly selects from a 10-gig library of songs released between 1980 and 1995. Next up is Alphaville's "Forever Young," which is relevant to today's youth from the soundtrack of 2004's Napoleon Dynamite and not the 1984 single. Vote for Pedro.
What about Norman Mailer? He's more than 80 years old and writes about cultural influences meaningful to those with similar experiences. His new book, The Castle in the Forest, is about Hitler, a man who tyrannized the world and died 40 years before college seniors were born. Even I don't care much about World War II. My life has been most impacted by The Vietnam War since I am Bui Doi, the progeny of an American sailor and a Vietnamese woman. Today, the defining war is in Iraq as our children deal with siblings and friends of friends who are dying in a fruitless battle against terrorism.
Jack Kerouac and On the Road? Sorry, but the Beat doesn't go on. Unless, of course, you're talking about laying down beats for the next hip hop sensation. See how out of touch I am? I think I read somewhere that hop hop is dead, and I have no idea what they call today's music.
Ultimately, the thing that really gets on my nerves is how the blame for supposed cultural apathy gets laid on teachers:
My students aren't stupid. In fact, once exposed to books like On The Road they rapidly become animated. But they are being short-changed by an education system, and by extension, a society, that increasingly devalues the lessons to be learned, and the joys to be had, from our cultural and intellectual forefathers.
And this from another teacher. During my tenure in an elementary school classroom, I saw a lot of bad teaching, some of it from myself, but it is hard enough to get a kid to pick up a book let alone impart an understanding of history. Elementary school students, with their limited experiences, struggle to keep up with classroom culture. In middle school, many more distractions compete with learning the basics. By high school, teachers are freaking out about how kids don't know how to read and not their lack of appreciation for what happened 50 years ago.
The presumption that a college senior should arrive to the classroom already equipped with knowledge about certain cultural influences is nonsense. Even more absurd is dumping on teachers before you because they did not teach what you think is important. They got those kids far enough to make it into your classroom and deserve thanks for it. If you have identified a gap in your students' learning, it is now your job to fill it. Bemoaning what they don't know doesn't help; it just confirms that you're officially old. Go educate.
Although most of the liternet is abuzz with news of the July 21st Harry Potter release, I'm not too much of a fan considering I only made it through the first two books. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the books and the movies but, eh, new book, whatever.
The Potter item that really grabbed my attention this week was the release of publicity photos for Daniel Radcliffe's upcoming role in Equus, a play which will include naked Harry and a horse. Well, not a real horse, since it is a stage play, but rather a man wearing a horse costume and, thankfully, pants. Naturally, many parents are freaking out over the explicitness of the Radcliffe photos, but I'm curious to know, "Is that a phoenix feather in your magic wand, Harry?"
Years ago, as an impressionable youth and long before the V-chip, I saw the movie version of Equus on cable. I'm sure no horses were hurt in the making of the film. Yet, yowza. Simulated horse porn still seems like horse abuse.
Even better is the following clip from The Extras (via KateSpot), which includes the boy wizard in a scouting uniform and wielding a condom. Hilarious!
that has become something of a full-fledged community bulletin-board for people dealing with issues concerning September 11 and its aftermath, as readers continually send in their unsolicited memories and images. I would be grateful if you'd take a look and, if intrigued, let your Bookblog audience know about it.
Thanks for your consideration,
David Friend
Everyone has a September 11th story. I was fast asleep in my bed in Chicago when the first plane hit, and was soon awakened by a frantic call from my mother in New Jersey telling me to turn on the television. A thousand miles apart, we watched the second plane. My mother, who left Vietnam, pregnant with me, in 1969 with an American sailor, sobbed, "Now you know what it's like to be at war." Later, her television showed snow when the antennas went down with the buildings.
What we didn't know was that my sister was shopping on the World Trade Center concourse. On her way to work in Brooklyn, she took the escalators from the PATH station to buy a new shirt because she was unhappy with how she looked that morning. She went to Express, bought two sweaters, and received a receipt stamped at 8:48 a.m. She was going to duck into a bathroom to change her top but realized she was late and got on a subway train. She saw a lot of police activity upon disembarking but didn't learn about her close call until arriving at work. Although stuck in Brooklyn for the night, she was able to get into Manhattan and onto a New Jersey-bound PATH train the very next morning.
But like I said, everyone has a September 11th story.
Did our lives change? Not really. I spent the days after September 11th preparing for my move back to New Jersey on the 28th. My sister's route to work changed because of the closing of the WTC PATH station, but she still went to Brooklyn every day. She even flew to Chicago on the 26th to help me finish packing and share the driving back to New Jersey.
Have our lives changed? Of course, but none of it has anything to do with September 11th. I went back to school and taught 3rd and 4th grade in Manhattan. Now I own a house and am on an extended vacation while I figure out what I want to do next. My sister got engaged and has a new job that she loves. My mother retired and is anxiously awaiting the wedding and the grandchildren that will hopefully soon follow.
To be perfectly frank, I haven't noticed much of a change in the lives of anyone I know. It was a tragic event for the victims and their families, but, at the risk of sounding cold, good people die every day. I watched a cable reality show about homicide detectives the other night that profiled two murders. In the first, a nine-year-old girl died while playing on her front porch after being hit by a stray bullet from a gang-related shootout. In the other, a young father was shot trying to stop a robbery at the gas station where he worked one of his two jobs. He left behind a toddler and a four-months pregnant wife. These deaths were also tragic, and, like on September 11th, I watched the aftermath on television.
My sister and I spoke briefly about the post-9/11 world. She said, "People's anxiety levels are higher. Like when you see extra police in train stations." Her comment is certainly true, but the logic, to me personally, seems backwards. When you see more police, shouldn't you feel safer because they are there to protect you? Why fear being killed by a terrorist when you're more likely to die by your own hand behind the wheel of your car? Right now, I could probably die in a hundred different ways while sitting here in my office chair. Life and death can intersect anytime and anywhere. I don't see the point in constantly feeling anxious about it.
Did the world change? Although we were told the terrorists wouldn't win, many still grapple with terror and anxiety. We've been looking but haven't found Osama bin Laden. A group of mourning families has become a powerful political lobbying group. In Manhattan, a major tourist attraction is a gigantic hole in the ground. Fear and unsubstantiated intelligence were used to put us into an unwinnable situation in Iraq. The media is filled with frightening images. And good people still die in tragic events every day. The world has changed since September 11th, but, to be perfectly honest, it needs to change again.
Thank goodness the holiday is over. I emerged from this one unscathed (last year's holiday season was rife with drama), so I'm adding it to the good day column.
Our Wuthering Heights discussion is ongoing and comments will remain open as long as the posts remain here on the homepage. Later today, I will have some thoughts to add to the latest comments (thanks, Maxine!) and also encourage anyone stopping by to chime in. I'd do it now, but I've already spent enough time this today surfing through my regular Internet stops. A sadly neglected woodpile and gorgeously warm day are both begging me to be outside.
During the last few days, I received several e-mails asking if we are accepting members. I must point out that everyone is welcome to participate in a book discussion. No membership is required to leave a comment.
After four days spent with family, having company, and going visiting, I was surprised to return to the computer and encounter a lot of litblog hooha over this article from The Observer: "Deliver us from these latter-day Pooters." Given the recent unpleasantness, I find this article to be quite interesting for a few reasons:
It dismisses litbloggers and amateur reviewers as hacks but includes a link to The Guardian's book blog. I read this as: litblogs suck...except ours.
Ethics is mentioned in reference to a John Sutherland piece on Amazon reviews. In it, he basically says that amateur reviewers prostitute themselves for freebies and are not held accountable to standards for criticism. Meanwhile, Kimbofo of Reading Matters tried to impart an ethics lesson to both sides (publishers and litbloggers) and got crapped on all over the place for it. Between criticism from the mainstream media and criticism from within the ranks, many litbloggers have been beside themselves trying to defend their integrity. It's more evidence of dishing it out but not being able to take it.
The article's author mentions being personally attacked by bloggers for criticizing them in the past. "I found my name on a bloggers' website called, charmingly, 'shit sandwich'. I was the focus of a lot of anger and frustration; bloggers didn't like my argument at all, seeing it as a way of getting at them and their amateur criticism." Amazingly, I have already come across posts personally attacking her on three different blogs. Sigh. Resorting to name-calling because the mainstream media is not taking you seriously is not the way to get the mainstream media to take you seriously.
And what the heck is a Pooter? My only knowledge of this word comes from a cartoon called Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and billboards promoting the series. Cheese, a character on the show, is known for using "I pooted" as a euphemism for "I farted." Is The Observer calling litbloggers Latter-Day Farters?
Via Bookninja, here's an interesting New York Times article called Selling Literature to Go With Your Lifestyle. Books in non-bookstores make perfect sense, like walking into a butcher shop and walking out with pork chops and a book on cooking pork. It's amazing publishers hadn't gone after sales in retail outlets long ago considering the difficulty in getting attention in big chain bookstores. When I worked in publishing, the sales VP used to tell employees to turn our books face out whenever we were in a bookstore. Face out sells better than spine out, and we did it because we liked having jobs. I'm also sure that publishers' profit margins are better since a butcher would not be entitled to the same deep discount as a big chains.
Just last weekend, I saw the quintessence of books as accessories during a shopping trip to IKEA. Smart people read, so show everyone how smart and stylish you are by putting your books on IKEA shelves. Their showroom is clever, clever, clever. Each room looks damn smart and you can't help but imagine yourself looking damn smart in your IKEA library. The irony, of course, is that nearly no one shopping at an American IKEA can read the books since they're all in Swedish. And, I have to wonder if they've had an impact on Swedish-language publishing.
One particular display room, set up like a bookstore, caught me off guard and caused me to exclaim aloud, "Is IKEA actually selling books now?" They weren't, as the point was to show how their shelving could look in a retail setting. Interesting. Books are marketed to non-bookstores and IKEA furniture is marketed non-homes. A few days later I went to Borders to pick up Doctor Zhivago for December's discussion. It was way up high, so a clerk assisted me by climbing onto the penultimate shelf and stretching for the book. Interesting again. Considering that the entire works didn't tumble down on our heads, Borders obviously does not get their furniture at IKEA.
Via Books, Inq., here's an interesting article about one possible future of publishing: Printing on Demand (POD). You have to admit that there's something Star Trek-like in walking up to a computer, making a request, and leaving with a book. "Computer, collected works of Jane Austen, years 1811 to 1814, bound in one volume." Like it or not, that show has spawned a whole host of innovations. For example, I'm sure the inventor of the flip phone used to sit in front of his television thinking about how cool it would be to have a communicator. Give the geeks enough time and they'll make Roddenberry's vision of the future happen.
Although I'm all for progress and not a fan of how bookstores do business, I actually like shopping for books. POD would take all the fun out of it. Every time I'm in a bookstore, even when I know what I want, I end up purchasing several other titles found while thumbing through displays or browsing spines in the literature section. I also browse books while online shopping, but doubt I'd go through the effort of driving to a Starbucks for a suggestion from their POD vending machine. I can get that right here from my own computer, and I don't have to wear pants as I click from a list to a review to a book description.
The hunt is almost as fun as the reading. Just this past weekend, I went to the semi-annual garage sale at Wild West City ("The best of the West in the heart of the East"? Uh, okay.) benefiting a local animal shelter. I was so impressed by the used book selection that I made an excuse, a friend had been looking for a particular title, to go back again the next day. After crawling around in the mud to see every spine and elbowing my way through the other bargain hunters, I walked away with 22 near-mint books for $5, including one for my friend. I almost went back a third time for the $2 bag sale, but hundreds of unread books cluttering up Casa BookBlog forced restraint.
Despite the futuristic novelty of POD, a traditionally published book is unlikely to lose its feel appeal. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Captain Kirk gets two literary birthday gifts: A Tale of Two Cities and reading glasses. Picard keeps a large, leather-bound copy of Shakespeare's works in his ready room. Couldn't they have simply POD'ed the books from a replicator? Even future-forward movie/television visionaries don't see the book going away completely.
Hmm. Maybe that last paragraph gave away a little too much of my own geekiness and didn't help my argument. But, damn it, POD is simply not my idea of an enjoyable way of obtaining a book and maybe I'm not a "real reader" since I don't care who sees me in a bookshop. Regardless, I think it's time to crawl into bed with a "real book" and put a dent in the old TBR pile.
Today is Friday the 13th of the scariest month of the year, which aptly marks the release of the 13th book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Although titled The End (Oh, Snicket, you rogue! No alliteration for the last book?), I strongly suspect that this will not be the last we hear of the Baudelaire orphans (Or is it? Could the abrupt flatness of the title mean it really is the end?). After all, there are paperbacks to release and promote. I'm still not over the fact that some of the books are already available in paperback for $3.99 to the school market, so I'm curious to find out what the pricing will be when mass market editions hit bookstores.
When I was teaching, I read the first 12 books during an informal competition with a student to see who could get to the end of The Penultimate Peril first. I beat the kid, but it wasn't a fair fight. I bought them from Scholastic for my classroom and didn't release each one to our library until I finished it. And then he had to contend with the rest of the class over who would actually get the book. He did ultimately read them all, but had to resort to going through a few of them twice while waiting for the next. Unfair or not, at least the competition generated some buzz over reading.
Even as an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed the Lemony Snicket books. From a marketing standpoint, the back cover blurbs are the best I've ever seen and the next-in-series teasers creatively generate anticipation for future books. They're fast-paced and easy to read, which was also noted by my former fourth graders, and you have to be pleased at kid's sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing 300+ pages. I especially liked the digressions on vocabulary and idiomatic expressions which subtly teach irony and wordplay in a fun way.
If you haven't read the first 12 books or need a refresher before tackling the 13th, here's a link to a Tim Curry narrated video, 12 Books in 120 Seconds. Other trailers and information about the series can be found at lemonysnicket.com.
Addendum: Via Bookninja (Who cares about the Nobel, indeed! We will soon find out the identity of Beatrice.), here's a link to The New York Times article about the release, which includes a few tantalizing details.
I’ve been trying to be better about posting here once each weekday so that there’s something consistently going on between discussions. Tonight, a friend read my last post and burst out, sarcastically, "Well, tell us what you really think." I guess it wasn’t very nice of me to call The Observer’s best book pick crap. And looking over my last few entries, I suppose they’re a bit more snarky than necessary. So I think I’ll attempt to write a nice post about something nice and with an exceptionally nice attitude.
When the 2006 Quill Book Awards were announced, I had noticed flack on several literary blogs bemoaning the People's Choice-like voting as well the additional publicity for titles from already big presses. Some simply don't like popularity. Personally, I didn't pay the announcement much attention because I'm really bad at being up on book news and mostly read backlist anyway.
Although consumer-driven voting is sort of redundant since the masses already cast votes with dollars, I'm more looking forward to the Quills now that I've had a chance to read The Observer article What's the best novel in the past 25 years? The newspaper polled "about 150 writers and 'literary sages'" and I think their pick is crap. Maybe I'm too American or don't understand post-apartheid South Africa or am not literary enough, but I found the winner, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, to be tediously boring. Tediously boring is not always a bad thing, though. I read it while house/cat sitting and it certainly helped me fall asleep in a strange bed. And I'm comforted in knowing I'm not alone in my opinion.
The Quills will be awarded tomorrow, which happens to also be the day for the Man Booker Prize announcement. Disgrace is a past Booker winner. Hmm. I think I'm more interested in what the people have to say.
I’m not really against having a Banned Books Week; I just don’t go for its overemphasis on challenges in schools. Parents should question what their children are taught and have every right to voice their opinions on required reading. Pointing fingers, as if their concerns are akin to book burning, can easily turn into a means of intimidating them out of speaking up. Isn’t fighting the suppression of ideas exactly what Banned Books Week all about?
But there is an enormous difference between a school and a public library, a place where adults should be allowed access to what they want to read.
Although Ed’s post focuses on the definition of pornography and whether or not the graphic novels’ challenger is qualified to determine the difference between art and the obscene, what’s gotten under my skin are several irrational jump-to-conclusions statements in the article:
"'We may as well purchase the porn shop down at the junction and move it to Eastwood. Some day this library will be drawing the same clientele,' Mills said."
"'I don't want seedy people coming into the library and moving into our community,' Aulgur said."
"'It's not a matter of censorship,' John Raines of Marshall said, 'but a matter of looking out for our kids.'"
I can already see the future headlines: PORN SHOP PATRONS GET THEIR FIX FOR FREE, SEEDY PEOPLE CHECK OUT GRAPHIC NOVELS THEN CHECK INTO TOWN, and COMICS DRAW KIDS TO A LIFE OF SERIAL MASTURBATION AND SEX.
Oh, please.
Looking out for kids should not necessitate taking books away from adults. Especially since most kids, including those in Marshall, Missouri, already know so, so much more about sex than you or I ever will. Our kids’ kids will know even more. Banning two graphic novels from a public library is not going to stop that train from rolling into town.
Last week was Banned Books Week, another bookish thing I’m ambivalent about. Its point is to promote awareness of challenges to books and to help guard against suppression of free speech. I’m all for free access to books, but I’m not exactly all for Banned Books Week either.
The vast majority of book challenges happen in school districts for assorted reasons: sexual content, graphic language, being unsuited to an age group, etc. I don’t believe books should be removed from a school library, but I can’t be upset at parents who want some control over what their children are taught. One way to improve a curriculum is to question it. And it’s a good thing whenever a parent shows interest in their child’s education, even if it is an attempt at banning a book. For the most part, I think school boards handle challenges in a reasonable way. A title is questioned, excerpts are presented (although reading the entire book would be better), debate follows, and the board votes.
It’s a shame, though, when books are removed from a school library. Not all parents feel the need to control environments outside the home and some want their own children to have access to “questionable” literature. Besides, a quick way to get kids to read what you’re trying to protect them from, like a book containing explicit sexual content, is to ban it. If it’s not available at school, they’ll find it in a public library or bookstore. Rather than waste energy on having a book banned, parents might be better off talking with their children about why certain content is objectionable. Unfortunately, many either don’t have enough time or aren’t equipped to deal with certain subject matter.
Of course, censorship, when it comes to suppressing information or ideas from adults, is wrong on all counts. You could make an argument that banning books at a public library makes the world safe for children. Yet the world isn’t populated solely by children. I understand the desire to keep schools as kid-friendly as possible, but you can’t stop adults from having access to books because you’re afraid a child might read it. Outside of school, parents need to monitor their children.
Don’t like the content of a library book? Take it away from your kid. Hate the fact that porn is easily accessible on the Internet? Watch your kid’s computer usage. Don’t like the language on TV? Change the channel.
I started writing this post about my own ambivalence toward Banned Books Week. In my own experience, I have never felt like I have been prevented access to any book I wanted to read. After a quick Internet search, I couldn’t find a single current reference to books being banned outside of a school system. Some have tried and failed, but I still feel confident that the First Amendment is doing its job. I’m just not so sure Banned Books Week has anything to do with it.
First Book, a nonprofit organization providing new books to children in need, is having Benefit Days at Borders and Waldenbooks this weekend. Click on the link below for a 10% off coupon valid on August 26 and 27. Not only will you get a discount, but Borders will donate 10% of your purchase to First Book and you’ll be helping kids own their first new books.
Update: The link has been removed since the coupon is now expired.
Although I run an online book club, I?m not very up on book news. I?m more of a reader than an industry watcher. A couple of weeks ago, though, I noticed a lot of subway riders holding James Frey?s A Million Little Pieces. I knew it had been Oprah?s Book Club October selection and was last year?s best-selling non-fiction title. But it?s several years old and it seemed odd that I?d suddenly see it everywhere.
Then I finally caught on. If you?re as news-ignorant as I usually am, Frey?s memoir has been put through an investigative ringer thanks to The Smoking Gun. He's been accused of exaggerations and blatant lies. For example, Frey claims to have spent three months in an Ohio jail for a host of charges, including hitting a police officer with his car, but in reality only did a few hours for DUI before posting bail. He describes his role and subsequent questioning in the train accident deaths of two teenagers, yet no one involved in the case knew his name. And is Frey actually wanted in three states? Nope.
During a recent phone conversation with Barbara, a BookBlog member, she mentioned that she was in the middle of the book and was angry at Frey. All of the recent news was ruining the story for her. Instead of reading the true history of a drugged, drunken, out-of-control enemy of the people, she was reading the fictionalized account of a drugged, drunken, out-of-control frat boy. He lied and she's pissed. Judging by all the press, so are a lot of other people. Except maybe Oprah and Larry King.
The thing that surprises me about the controversy is that A Million Little Pieces is a memoir. Although memoirs are supposed to be non-fiction, you can't take any of them at face value. They're based on memory rather than journalistic research, and memories are highly subjective and unreliable. I've always wondered how memoirists get away with using quotations in recalling conversations from 20 years ago, considering I can't even remember how many cups of coffee I've had so far this morning. When I read a memoir, I go into it knowing full well I'm only getting the impression of truth rather than truth itself. When I read a biography or autobiography, I expect facts.
Despite the lies, some simple truths remain. Frey wrote a book that made him a millionaire. He's been on TV and in the papers and people are talking about him. He has two books concurrently on bestseller lists. Regardless of bad press and Random House's refund offer, he will sell more books and make more money. And we, the book buyers, continue to be gullible. We made Frey rich by believing his story, and we'll make him even richer by not believing it.
By the way, I think I'm in the middle of my fourth cup of joe. But don't quote me on it.
I'm probably just being lazy here, but does anyone know when Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is going to be released in the U.S. in paperback?
It seems like everyone on the planet has read this book and I'd like to as well, but I refuse to buy hardcover books because they're too heavy to carry around. I could probably get my hands on the U.K. paperback, but shipping costs would make it more expensive than the U.S. hardcover. If I dug hard enough, I could also probably find a U.S. paperback book club version. But why should I have to dig when a paperback ought to be available? Seriously, The Da Vinci Code has been out since early 2003. It's time for a new format, and I?m not talking about the even more expensive hardcover special illustrated edition.
This reminds me of my quest to find the Lemony Snicket books in paperback and makes me think the publisher wants to squeeze as much money out of the reader as possible. Of course, it all boils down to supply and demand. Why would a publisher bother to release a paperback when the hardcover still sells well? Because they should, damn it. I want one.
Update: The U.S. paperback will be released on 03/28/06. Thanks to Brian at Bookland in Keene, NH, for the tip.
At around 10:30 p.m., I headed over to my local Barnes & Noble for ?Midnight Magic? and the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It?s true that I?ve been growing weary of Pottermania, but I thought the experience might be good for shits and giggles. Plus I didn?t have anything better to do tonight.
As I neared the shopping center, my mouth dropped open when I saw all the traffic. Awe turned into annoyance when I realized that parking was going to be hard to find. Being a native New Jerseyan and regular mall shopper, I quickly shifted into stealth parking mode. When I found my target, a guy carrying two large take-out bags, I slowly eased my car into position and stalked him at 2 m.p.h. all the way to his vehicle.
Inside the store, I kept looking for the ?Midnight Magic? but didn?t find much going other than Hogwarts fans occupying every inch of floor space and a decimated table which was once home to a display of the boxed set of books one through five. I passed on the goodie bag containing Harry Potter glasses and thunderbolt tattoos.
Up in the fiction section, I asked a clerk how many copies they expected to sell tonight. ?Well, we?re not supposed to talk about it,? she began. ?But I?ll tell you anyway.? The store handed out 2,000 yellow advance reservation wristbands. By the time I walked in, they had already gone through an additional 600 orange walk-in wristbands and estimated that they would sell 3,500 books by the time the last customer left somewhere around 3 a.m. All 8,000 copies in their inventory are supposed to be sold out by Monday.
Hmm? 8,000 times $29.99 less the 40% discount offered to the customer, oh, but then you have to figure that they probably got a 55% trade discount off list, and um, it comes out to be? Whoa! Was that an actual prisoner of Azkaban? ?a huge freaking sum of money for one store for one book in one weekend.
The PA system clicked on at 15 minute intervals to let everyone know that midnight was nigh. I thought about leaving before the madness began, but the friendly clerk suggested that the grand unveiling would be exciting. Oh, okay.
At just about midnight, I was pleasantly surprised at running into fellow blogger Riss of Tequila Shots for the Soul. Although she lives closer to another Barnes & Noble in an urban area, she decided on a suburban location because of the enormous parking lot. She sent her husband, Geo, out at 4:30 p.m. for her wristband, and he landed her lucky number 48. When the books went on sale, Riss let out a cheer and double timed it over to the registers since she was in the first group of buyers.
Some couldn?t even wait to leave the store before they started reading. Some took pictures of their children proudly holding the book, wearing their Hogwarts uniforms and huge smiles. Others jumped up and down and excitedly chattered about finally having Harry?s next adventure in their hands. The buzz outside the store was infectious.
During the drive home, I thought about how my bad attitude toward Harry might be unfounded. Before I arrived, I expected the whole scene to be pathetic. Sure, dressing like a wizard or drawing a thunderbolt on your forehead or getting into a 3500-person line might seem kind of silly from a distance. Being there and watching all of the excitement over a book made me wish my current reading selection contained a little magic.
But do you know what?s really pathetic? I didn't even buy it.
Ordered by a judge not to read it? Could we just all get over ourselves already? Maybe I'm the only one, but Harry Potter is starting to get on my nerves.
Why Johnny, or more properly Jack and Jill, can't read is back on the table. A year ago, the National Endowment for the Arts released a study that showed only 46.7 percent of adult Americans had read a piece of literature (novel, short story, play or poem) in the year prior -- a 10-point drop since 1982. Among Americans 18 to 24 years old, the drop was even more dramatic.
CNN.com has a sweet article about Ron McLarty, an author whose novel, The Memory of Running, was finally published after more than 30 years of rejection letters:
Ever since my quest for The Bad Beginning in paperback turned into a series of unfortunate events, Ive been noticing news about the books, the movie, and Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler all over the place. Its not surprising now that the movie is close to release. I was surprised, though, to read in this USA Today article that Handler sold the film rights before the first book was even published. Despite Handler saying, "Im still amazed so many readers liked the books," someone out there obviously knows kids are big money-makers. I, however, might be waiting for video:
In the movie, Snicket, played by Jude Law, mostly is reduced to a voice-over and is seen only fleetingly.
That disappointed Handler's wife, "who loves Jude Law. She wanted to see more of him, more of him than they would allow in a movie for kids."
The Stepford Wives makes its theatrical release on July 11, by the way, this isn't a digitally remastered version of the 1975 film.
(i wonder what that film will really be like...has anyone seen the previews??? a scene reminded me of The Cat in the Hat for some reason...)
One last note, there will also be a remake of The Manchurian Candidate...which opens on July 30. Don't count on seeing Old Blue Eyes in it...more like Denzel Washington.
Oh! I almost forgot...
The Da Vinci Code will also be made into a film.
Comes out sometime in the summer of 2006.
I came across this article while browsing the news on my isp's news site:
Numbers and narratives, statistics and stories. From Rudy Rucker's Spaceland to Apostolos Doxiadis' Uncle Petros and the Goldbach Conjecture, from plays such as Copenhagen, Proof, and Arcadia to many non-standard mathematical expositions, the evidence is building.
There has always been some interplay between mathematics and literature, but the border areas between them appear to be growing. Increasingly, fiction seems to come with a mathematical flavor, mathematical exposition with a narrative verve.
I'm on vacation and have Middlesex ready to go since I'm determined to read it this week (although I do have to get through the last few pages of Norwegian Wood, which, sadly, I find difficult to finish yet cannot say why). Middlesex caused a buzz when it came out and everyone was reading it, but I had no idea what it was about until I finally bought my copy and read the back cover.
This morning, I searched for reviews to see what others thought and came across one from Salon. It begins as one would expect, discussing Middlesex's central theme, then slides into how it "will inevitably be compared to Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections" although "the two works aren't all that similar." So why bring it up?
I am reminded why I gave up reading The New York Times Book Review. Besides the absurd decision to move away from literary fiction because "'the most compelling ideas tend to be in the non-fiction world'" (What? When was the last time you read a novel, buddy?), reviews seem to now be more about the reviewer than the reviewed. I've often been turned off when I've noticed subtle references to why the reviewer is a better writer, making me wonder if I'm being subliminally bombarded with "BUY MY BOOK" messages. I also have little interest in the well-read reviewer or how a particular work conjures up thoughts of Faulkner since the fact that you've read Faulkner impresses me not.
Please, just give me a plot summary and let me know if it's worth my time and effort.
Happy 2004, everyone. Two unrelated book-related things to begin the new year:
I just saw this (via Gawker, which found it via Bookslut), and had to share: The Puffies - 2003. They're a summary of the most dubious blurbs on book covers noticed by Alex Good. The winner this year is Amy Tan for a drippingly hysterical blurb.
Also, I recently read about So Many Books, So Little Time, a memoir in which the author, Sara Nelson, chronicles her life as she reads a book a week for a year. Has anyone read it? I'm not one for new year's resolutions, but I think I'm going to attempt this, reading a new book every week. If the books I read are an average of 250 pages, that's just 35 pages a day. Cake. And I have plenty of material: BookBlog will supply 12 books, and my shelves are lined with novels and nonfiction that I've been meaning to read. Anyone with me?
With all of the hubbub over crashing our server, I completely forgot to mention that September 20-27, 2003, was banned books week. It turned out to be excellent timing for us to do Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone since J.K. Rowling was the most challenged author of 2002. (It was bad timing, though, for the server to crap out.) Other frequently challenged authors include: Judy Blume, Robert Cormier, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Stephen King, Lois Duncan, S.E. Hinton, Alvin Schwartz, Maya Angelou, Roald Dahl, and Toni Morrison.
Do your part for freedom. Read a banned book today!
"Men and women ostensibly write the same language, on the other hand, but according to a recent article in The Boston Globe, they do so in ways that immediately reveal which sex is doing the writing." That's according to Sunday's New York Times Magazine, which reports on research done by scientists who "devised an algorithm that could predict with 80 percent accuracy the sex of the author."
They discovered that "women are apparently far more likely than men to use personal pronouns -- 'I,' 'you' and 'she' especially. Men, on the other hand, prefer so-called determiners -- 'a,' 'the,' 'that,' 'these' -- along with numbers and quantifiers like ''more'' and 'some.'"
Is it truly possible to determine the sex of an author by a mathematical algorithm? If it's true, is this because men and women are so biologically different that even our prose is shaped by our genitalia? Or is this because of we've been socialized so much that masculine and feminine roles affect even our writing? Especially in light of the discussion below, I'm curious to see what you all think.
And: Can you tell the difference? To see if you can, I've created a little test (read on).
The challenge: Guess the sex of the author of the following passages. The answers are at the end, in white. Give it a shot and then post your score. We're all friends, so we trust you not to lie. Ahem.
My methodology: I went to my bookshelves and pile of magazines, selected a handful of texts, mostly at random, and selected, again mostly at random, a few sentences from each one. I only chose a new passage if I thought that the first one I found was too revealing (e.g., you'd recognize the work and thus the author because of character names or details). I also tried to make sure it was representative, and not just a random wacky passage. That said, I realize my methodology is completely nonscientific, and the study above actually examined the whole text, not just a segment.
Just take the test. Are these writers male or female?
The test
The ape is too distant to be sedulous. All the great novelists like Thackeray and Dickens and Balzac have written a natural prose, swift but not slovenly, expressive but not precious, taking their own tint without ceasing to be common property.
Misunderstandings tangle like phone cords; perverse emotions simmer beneath neutral banter. But IMing can be oddly hypnotic as well. As long as the chat box remains onscreen, a psychic connection continues even if neither participant says anything at all.
Dorothy put her right hand on Cara's belly. She was carrying high, which tradition said meant the baby was a boy, but this had nothing to do with Dorothy's certainty of the child's sex. She just had a feeling.
Black America and white America still live separately. Most whites live in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods; most blacks live in majority-black ones. Americans of different races still tend not to live together, socialize together, or chart their paths in this society together.
Time to escape. I want my real life back with all of its funny smells, packets of loneliness, and long, clear car rides. I want my friends and my dopey job dispensing cocktails to leftovers. I miss heat and dryness and light.
I just kept quiet and looked around. And I noticed things. The dots on the ceiling. Or how the blanket they gave me was rough.
I had an inspiration once. I woke up one morning and I knew that today I had to swallow fifty aspirin. It was my task: my job for the day.
I knew he was near, because in the candlelight I could see blood scattered in the dust around my bed and there was a red handprint on the sheets. I guessed he was in the shadows at the other end of the longhouse, waiting to loom out and surprise me.
In the mystic offices to which such things were put, there was something that quickened his imagination. For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too great to be borne.
A fire walker with steel rods through his cheeks had predicted the year would end in disaster, the islands would be laid waste by a curse. Educated Fijians had laughed at his prediction, shrugging off the odd cyclone and shark attack.
The answers (highlight -- click and hold your mouse as you drag over the line -- to read)
male: Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
female: Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted.
male: Alex Garland, The Beach.
male: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
female: Kiana Davenport, "Fork Used in Eating Reverend Baker."
So, how'd you do?
After trying these, are you more or less convinced of the scientist's argument and findings? What did you find yourself looking for to determine whether the passage was written by a man or a woman? What parts mislead you on the ones you got wrong? What parts were giveaways on the ones you got right?
In a comment to a post below, Rich mentions that he hopes for the day when a book is judged by its content rather than the gender of its author. Women aspire to that as well, but we draw attention to books written by women because we so often get left out when it comes to talking about great literature. It's also the rationale behind the existence the Orange Prize. We're not trying to make the women?s movement pendulum swing too far our way, but rather it's an attempt at evening things out because gender bias still exists among both men and women whether we're conscious of it or not.
Here are a few interesting articles about gender and literature:
If you take a look at some of the big literary prizes over the past 30 years, you'll notice a trend:
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: 68% male winners, 32% female winners
Nobel Prize in Literature: 87% male winners, 13% female winners
National Book Critics Circle Award: 62% male winners, 38% female winners
PEN/Faulkner Award: 86% male winners, 14% female winners
Booker Prize: 69% male winners, 31% female winners
Perhaps there are reasons besides bias to explain why the division isn't closer to 50/50. If you have a theory, I'd like to hear it.
Tomorrow is the first day of summer. Looking for something to read while lounging on the beach or next to the pool? Check out these summer reading lists:
Ever wonder what other bloggers are reading? According to All Consuming, an aggregator of books mentioned in web logs, these are the top ten blogged books of 2002:
We Blog by Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, Meg Hourihan (63 mentions)
Hmm. Andy often accuses me of being obsessed with fiction, but I can't help noticing that nine of the above are non-fiction. Doesn't anyone read novels anymore?
Chuck Palahniuk, a BookBlog author, also made the list several times:
So, 2 friends and I are reading a few of the Banned Books in honor of Banned Books Week ("in honor" such an odd word to use for such an event).
Because this year the reading choice was mine, I picked Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Color Purple. I adore Toni Morrison and will almost always pick one of her books to read should the occasion arise, and the choice being mine.
So our first read is Beloved. This is a re-read for most of us-all English majors. We have discussed the text pretty intensely, and the reasons we think it was probably banned from school readig lists, etc. I am sure there are some sites online where we could discover the actual reasons too, but that is too easy.
And of course as the reading has gone along, we have talked about the recent movie made of this book - and how dreadful it was. I rarely find a movie to be as good as the original text (well the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice is pretty good). I think in this case, the plot and characters were too deep and complex to be adequately depicted on the big screen-even under Spielberg's direction.
My question is - have you ever seen a movie based on a book, where the movie is actually better - or at least as good as the original text?
Day. Although she was sure she would find copies in every truck stop along the interstate, she was concerned about reading it before spoilers spread like wildfire. Being a freelance journalist, Sarah fully acknowledges 
. Other bloggy folks in the audience included 
and 
. His companion held pages—probably information on the event and its location—that had been printed off of 
. But a small publisher with a small pile of chips isn't going to bluff. I also doubt any struggling house would be willing to go all in, even with two aces in the hole.
to the launderette and will read it proudly whilst I wait for the spin cycle to complete. Since I am only 20 pages from the end, I will put a copy of 
in the bag with the washing powder to ensure I have something to read as my knickers dry.
, is about Hitler, a man who tyrannized the world and died 40 years before college seniors were born. Even I don't care much about World War II. My life has been most impacted by The Vietnam War since I am Bui Doi, the progeny of an American sailor and a Vietnamese woman. Today, the defining war is in Iraq as our children deal with siblings and friends of friends who are dying in a fruitless battle against terrorism.
? Sorry, but the Beat doesn't go on. Unless, of course, you're talking about laying down beats for the next hip hop sensation. See how out of touch I am? I think I read somewhere that hop hop is dead, and I have no idea what they call today's music.
Although most of the liternet is abuzz with news of 
, has received a good deal of critical acclaim. But right now it is the book's blog
, and I much prefer the idea of the falling man flying upward into the heavens. It's naively innocent, but hopeful.
for December's discussion. It was way up high, so a clerk assisted me by climbing onto the penultimate shelf and stretching for the book. Interesting again. Considering that the entire works didn't tumble down on our heads, Borders obviously does not get their furniture at IKEA.
(Oh, Snicket, you rogue! No alliteration for the last book?), I strongly suspect that this will not be the last we hear of the Baudelaire orphans (Or is it? Could the abrupt flatness of the title mean it really is the end?). After all, there are paperbacks to release and promote. I'm still not over the fact that some of the books are already available in 
first. I beat the kid, but it wasn't a fair fight. I bought them from Scholastic for my classroom and didn't release each one to our library until I finished it. And then he had to contend with the rest of the class over who would actually get the book. He did ultimately read them all, but had to resort to going through a few of them twice while waiting for the next. Unfair or not, at least the competition generated some buzz over reading.
to a TBR pile. Despite being a fake inspirational title by a fictional character played by a comedian, I’m sure it will be quite entertaining. Plus, I’ve always viewed Vaseline as an underutilized resource and probably will be able to put some of the book’s tips to good use.
and said, 
, to be tediously boring. Tediously boring is not always a bad thing, though. I read it while house/cat sitting and it certainly helped me fall asleep in a strange bed. And I'm comforted in knowing 
is up for best graphic novel. While we've all been freaking out over its possible removal from a public library, Bechdel blogs: 
and 
. I knew it had been Oprah?s Book Club October selection and was last year?s best-selling non-fiction title. But it?s several years old and it seemed odd that I?d suddenly see it everywhere.
is going to be released in the U.S. in paperback?
.
. It?s true that I?ve been growing weary of Pottermania, but I thought the experience might be good for shits and giggles. Plus I didn?t have anything better to do tonight.
, was finally published after more than 30 years of rejection letters:
in paperback turned into a series of unfortunate events, Ive been noticing news about the books, the movie, and Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler all over the place. Its not surprising now that the movie is close to release. I was surprised, though, to read in 
, a memoir in which the author, Sara Nelson, chronicles her life as she reads a book a week for a year. Has anyone read it? I'm not one for new year's resolutions, but I think I'm going to attempt this, reading a new book every week. If the books I read are an average of 250 pages, that's just 35 pages a day. Cake. And I have plenty of material: BookBlog will supply 12 books, and my shelves are lined with novels and nonfiction that I've been meaning to read. Anyone with me?