Monthly Archives: December 2009

Links for a Fine Tuesday

  • Salon asked authors like Judy Blume, Junot Diaz, Colm Toibin, and Chimamanda Ngozi Aidichie pick their favorite book of the year.
  • I really enjoyed Cory Doctorow’s article on audiobooks in PW last week. I’m not a big fan of DRM and agree with him that the current system doesn’t work. It all seems so complicated. What do you think?
  • The Huffington Post features “11 of the Coolest Bookcases“. I particularly like the one called Infinity.
  • Read Laila Lalami’s thoughtful piece on the Swiss’ ban on minarets from the Nation.
  • Have you read any of Mavis Gallant’s short stories yet? If not, get thee to a bookstore! They’re fabulous. I haven’t read her latest collection from NYRB Classics called The Cost of Living, but I’m sure it’s great. Over at the Guardian, she reflects on her life as a writer.
  • Maud Newton picks her favorite books of the year.
  • I didn’t know the New York Review of Books had a blog, did you?

The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee

Chang-Rae Lee has written a very ambitious fourth novel with The Surrendered. It travels back and forth through time from Korea to New Jersey to Manchuria and Italy. The story begins with June Han, a Korean orphan trying to survive a trek to safe ground. Young GI Hector Brennan finds her on the road and brings her to an orphanage where the meet Sylvie Tanner, a missionary wife. There the pair vie for her attention. At least that’s where it seems to begin at first, but Lee also brings us to the point where June is orphaned; why Hector joined the military trying to escape the death of his father; what brought Sylvie Tanner to Korea. And it will suddenly move forward to Hector and June’s lives after the war.

The death of parents scarred June, Hector, and Sylvie. The repercussions of their deaths cause ripples of grief through all of them. Lee has written a very powerful novel about not just how awful war can be, but how love can be damaging as well as uplifting. He offers no easy endings or heartwarming coming-together, instead bringing to life a powerful, unpredictable, and occasionally painful story.

It’s a Miserable Wednesday

The slushy snow has now turned into rain. Don’t let this deter you however from coming to tonight’s event featuring yours truly. It’s become a tradition to have the buyers present their favorite holiday picks from 2009. There will be wine and cookies and lots of talk about books.

I’m sad to be not watching the Top Chef season finale as it airs, but at least I can watch it later. I had the pleasure of eating at chef Kevin Gillespie’s restaurant Woodfire Grill while visiting my parents over Thanksgiving. The meal made it to the top ten best meals ever list. Just course after course of fresh deliciousness. And Kevin was there! He seemed glad to be back at his restaurant. He spent about ten minutes chatting with us and was as nice as can be.

In other news, critic and James Wood has made his list of favorite books of the year. It’s an interesting list. We actually overlap a bit.

The Millions has a great interview with translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Knopf just release their translation of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. Currently they’re working on a new translation of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago.

It’s Thursday and Over 60 Degrees Here

Yes, you read that correctly. I’m staring out into some Spring like weather here in Cambridge. I hope to escape for a lovely run on the Charles this afternoon. I dashed off to Atlanta last week to visit my folks for Thanksgiving. I didn’t read as much as I had planned, but I did finish Stefan Zweig’s The Post Office Girl, one of the awesome NYRB Classics series. It’s a strange and compelling book, marred by the unfinished ending. Now I’m entranced by Chang-Rae Lee’s new novel The Surrendered. The first section got me choked up a bit, but it’s too soon to past judgment on the rest. The novel involves several viewpoints who shift back and forth in time and I want to see how he pulls the story lines together. I’m going to leave you with some links for your reading pleasure.

  • The New York Times has announced their Ten Best Books of the Year. Meh. It’s a good list. Nothing exciting though.
  • Cory Doctorow put together some thoughts on the future of bookselling.
  • The Wall Street Journal asked me and some other booksellers to recommend books to particular people. It ran in last Friday’s paper. There’s sort of a link, but you can’t see the cool graph they printed!
  • The Millions has started their annual Year in Reading lists!
  • There’s a new Ian McEwan story in this week’s New Yorker.