I’m back from the Michael Gorra-James Wood Graham Greene centennial event. Very interesting. I have to figure out how to upload the audio, but I did record the whole thing. Here is a picture in the meanwhile:

Wordsworth is closing on Saturday. Dammit, I hate to see another independent go under. Everyone, support your local bookstore, if there is indeed one still in your neighborhood!

The Globe and Mail visits with David Mitchell after he lost the Booker last week. He’s working on a new book already (although he said as much when he came to the store).

When he does return to the bustle and grime of London, there are moments when the city redeems itself. “I was taking a taxi from Paddington the other day, and my taxi driver stopped to talk to this other one. My taxi driver says,” Mitchell switches to a Cockney accent, ” ‘Oi, Frank! I thought you was retired!’ And the other taxi driver says, ‘Retired? Nah. Retarded, yeah.’ ”

Publisher’s Marketplace reports this today:

On and Off Again
The NYT raised a few eyebrows last week after the unusual dispatch of two different versions of its weekly e-mail providing advance release of the bestseller lists dated October 31. The first version incorrectly listed DON’T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT, credited to Howard Dean and Don Hazen with Ballantine listed as the publisher, at No. 30 on the extended paperback nonfiction list. (Dean wrote the foreword and Hazen contributed an introduction; the author is linguist George Lakoff, and the publisher is Chelsea Green.)

At least a few eyebrows remained raised when a second, corrected version of the list dropped the title entirely, with the paperback of Thomas Cahill’s SAILING THE WINE-DARK SEA moving onto the list at No. 35.

When Chelsea Green publisher Margo Baldwin contacted the NYT, they told her the book had been recategorized for tracking on their “advice/how-to/miscellaneous” list. After challenging the recategorization multiple times (a political book, it provides “advice” in the sense of what Amazon calls “recommendations for how the progressive movement can regain semantic equity by repositioning their arguments.” Baldwin’s appeals apparently ended with NYT staffer Rich Meislen, who told Baldwin via e-mail, “Having looked through the book, I think it’s correctly categorized…. I appreciate your concern, but people of good will can disagree, and we disagree on this one.”

Don’t Think of an Elephant appeared on my store’s bestseller list weeks ago and I had no idea what the book was when I saw the title. I was familiar with George Lakoff and the publisher Chelsea Green, but had never heard of the book. A lof of students ordered it, so I assumed it was for a class (shows you what I know). But I finally went and looked at the book on the shelf (yes, I judge a lot of books without having seen them) and I am surprised that the NYT recategorized the book as “advice/how-to/miscellaneous”. Most of what appears on that list is straightforward self-help and diet stuff. The first few books this week are He’s Just Not That Into You, The South Beach Diet and The Purpose Driven Life. The Lakoff book is not any of these. It’s political commentary. I don’t know what they are thinking. And the NYT staffer’s email….I’ll be polite and not say what I am thinking here.

Everyone knows I’ve been consumed with baseball lately. How often do the Red Sox make it to the World Series? I am very nervous about tonight’s game in St. Louis. Ortiz at first base and Pedro batting? We’ll see. And I’ve been too busy at work doing work to post much. The holidays will be upon us and the other buyers and I have been picking the titles to feature. It took FOREVER. So, I’ve barely been reading. Still working on the Roth et al. But Scott of Conversational Reading (whom I’ve been meaning to add to the column on the left there) wrote a great review of Cloud Atlas for Flak magazine. Check that out. He also has a nice post on n + 1, a journal I keep meaning to buy. They provide some really interesting web only content too.
I promise I will try to come back with some interesting stuff this week. I am going to attend the Gorra-Wood event on Thursday. In fact, I purchased a micro-recorder yesterday for this. So hopefully I can post some excerpts. This assumes I get a lot of work done this week. I never knew one could be so behind. I don’t picture getting out from under this until January.

So it’s Alan Hollinghurst and The Line of Beauty. Cool. I have heard great things about this book. But now of course I have to struggle to get copies for my store as the publisher and most of the wholesalers are out. Dammit.

Not really. I am referring to the Booker prize (sorry, it’s the Man Booker prize. I just can’t say it. It sounds too silly) which will be awarded sometime tonight. Again, to remind us who the nominees are:
Achmat Dangor Bitter Fruit
Sarah Hall The Electric Michelangelo
Alan Hollinghurst The Line of Beauty
Colm Tóibín The Master
David Mitchell Cloud Atlas
Gerard Woodward I’ll go to Bed at Noon
I’ve been sitting here calculating how many hours ahead London (I just assume the ceremony is in London) is of Cambridge. But then again, I have no idea what time they are making the annoucement. So there we go. You’ll know when I know.