Monthly Archives: March 2005

Quickie review

I haven’t had much time to read lately, but I did manage to finish Meg Wolitzer’s newest book The Position this morning. I’ve been hearing good things about her for years and the galley appeared on my desk with a nice looking cover and I thought, now’s a good time to check her out. I am glad I did. I like her writing, but was ultimately disappointed with The Position. In my opinion the story falls apart in the end. The Postion follows Paul and Roz Mellow in 1975 who decided to write a sex manual complete with artful drawings of themselves. The novel examines what happens when their 4 children discover the book and how it impacts their lives. To me, there was a huge disconnect between the characters and Wolitzer throws in some drama, just for the sake of throwing in drama. I know I sound like I am trashing the book. In fact, I thought it had great potential and I enjoyed reading it. It wasn’t until I reached the end and thought about the book as a whole that I reached these conclusions.

Burn!

I am not sure if I agree with Jennifer Nix’s argument at Alternet or not. I don’t know why the various authors she mentioned went with those various publishers (my pessimistic assumption is that greed had something to do with it). But I like the passion she displays in the article. It’s nice to know everyone’s not publishing drones.

Random quote of the day

“Anytime that people love something so much that they’ll fight for it in a cage,” he said, “it’s funny.”

From NYT article on a new craft show called “Craft Corner Deathmatch”. The entire article contains some gems: “We are not being irreverent about craft,” insisted Mr. Taberski, who once worked as an aide in the Clinton administration and knows how to please a constituency. “We’re just being irreverent near it.”

Exciting Events

I just glanced at the Event schedule for April here at the Harvard Book Store. Man, do we have some good stuff coming up!

* Friday, April 1st, Ian McEwan
* Wednesday, April 6th, Jonathan Safran Foer (who has been getting lots of posts lately)
* Tuesday, April 12th, Camille Paglia
* Wednesday, April 13th, Jeanette Winterson
* Monday, April 25th, Ruth Reichl

I don’t know if I can make it to all of them. There’s a lot more too. Sorry if it seems like I am just plugging my store. I don’t write this blog for work. It’s just my own personal site, but I can’t help but mention this stuff.

Weekly Globe roundup

I’m going to try and be a bit more brief this week, if only because I have a lot of work to do today. But I think it’s important to keep examining the Books section to showcase what’s good and what’s not so good. Unfortunately this week, there is a lot of not so good. I hate to say it, but I find the Globe book review fairly boring. They only covered 4 fiction books this week and 2 of them were only short reviews. They try to vary things by having different columnists each week, but this week they were unable to generate much interest in any of the books they reviewed.

The first page always contains a column on the left and a large review on the right with a giant picture taking up valuable review space (there’s enough room for another review there). This week the first page featured Bill Littlefield’s ‘On Sports’ column and Kathleen Dalton review of Patricia O’Toole’s When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House. Not being a sports nut, I can’t say much about Littlefield’s column, only to say that there were no transitions between paragraphs in his reviews of the 4 books. It was all abrupt new paragraphs. Maybe I am being picky, but if your going to cover several books in a column you should try to connect them if possible. Dalton’s review on the other hand is one of the high points of this week’s review section. The author of another biography of Teddy Roosevelt, she does not agree with all of the conclusions from O’Toole’s book. But she also still makes sure to tell the reader to check out this book anyway: “Though I stand by my own biography’s more flattering portrayal of the truly progressive development of Theodore Roosevelt, I see O’Toole’s marvelous study as a must read for anyone who loves or hates TR.” It’s a well-written review and I repect the fact that she tries to remain objective throughout even if she refers to Theodore Roosevelt enthusiasts as “Tedheads”.
Continue reading →

More Da Vinci Blows

Scrolling through the deals from Publisher’s Lunch and I see this:

Stephen Lanzalotta’s THE BAKER’S CODE: Weight Loss Secrets of DaVinci’s Golden Proportion, blending science and Renaissance lore with the mathematical principles that govern life and beauty in a book that presents the benefits of a healthful Mediterranean diet that honors carbs, to Diana Baroni at Warner for their new Wellness imprint, in a significant deal, in a pre-empt, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (world English).

I can’t tell if he’s trying to cash in on the whole Da Vinci Code steamroller or what.