So after reading over my previous post, I decided it kind of sucked. LNR’s Sean has put up his second half of the ‘Judging the Booker by the Cover’ here. It’s too funny. He’s got better pictures of the covers, as does Max a the Millions. And the Guardian has a breakdown of all 6 books today, which is great since I hadn’t heard of several. Excuse me while I find some inspiration for some interesting posts.

Sean over at the LNR Books diary has a hilarious post today on judging books by their covers and the Booker Shortlist books. It’s a two part post and in the first one he dissects the covers of The Master, Cloud Atlas, and Bitter Fruit. I thought it might be a good idea to do the same to the American versions, as they most often change the covers completely. The problem I ran into was finding pictures of all the books. I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward and The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall remain elusive still.

The Master by Colm Toibin: Some sort of Turner picture on the cover here. Nice and bland as far as I am concerned.
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst: A nice simple cover picturing a street through a gate? I don’t know. My computer here sucks. It’s a pretty picture though.
Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor: I don’t know what the hell is going on in this cover. Like I mentioned before, crappy computer, but I imagine its some sort of fruit? Bitter perhaps? Who knows. The worst of the lot so far.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: As you can see, I could only find one rather smallish picture of Cloud Atlas. The pictures are either too small or too big. The American cover is way better than the UK edition. Ours has 6 images of clouds in various colors, the 6 referencing the story I imagine. It’s nice.
So far, I think The Line of Beauty has the best cover. Any opinions? My discussion is not nearly as creative as LNR’s I realize. Sorry, it’s Friday and I am lacking wit and verve today.

Max from The Millions left this comment the other day:

People are probably going to hate what I have to say about this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love Maud’s blog and her article on blogging and its addictive qualities is right on the money, but I don’t understand why someone like Maud, who treats blogging like it’s her job and does it well enough that it should be, doesn’t try to *make it her job.* Or at least a part time job to stave off the guilt of spending so much time on it. There are a lot of great bloggers out there, and a lot of them are worried about selling out and concerned about promoting a certain behemoth internet book store, but the fact is that since thousands of people visit Maud’s blog every day, there are ways, unobtrusive ways, for her to make a little money off of that blog. And since when is it so bad to get paid for writing? We live in a world where associations with big, somewhat unsavory companies are a regular part of daily life, so would anybody really hold it against Maud, or any other blogger who delivers such outstanding daily nourishment, if he or she had an opportunistic relationship with the big A or laid a few unassuming text ads on us? I should hope not. Thoughts?

I agree with the sentiment that people like Maud provide a valuable service not to mention the entertainment. I wish she could get paid. I do this while at work as a lark. I don’t know how much my employers would appreciate the hours I spend trolling the internet, reading various blogs. Probably not much. But it does take a lot of time, posting and so forth even with such a small blog like mine. Maud’s is huge—she has an enormous amount of readers and tons of posts everyday. I wouldn’t mind a few ads or so. Most sites have them anyway. And I don’t think it would make her blog any less ‘real’ if she got some sort of financial reward for her work. Does anyone else have an opinon?

From the NYT article ‘The New Bodice Rippers Have More God and Less Sex’:

To satisfy that demand, several leading publishers, both Christian and secular romance houses, are rolling out what they call “Christian chick lit” lines. These novels typically feature Bridget Jones types looking for the right man, the right chocolate, the right friends – and the right relationship with God.

I have no problems with religion (well I do, but I don’t want to get into it here. Some people have faith and some don’t. I am in the latter category.) but I find this mix of relgion and chick lit cringe inducing. The Yada Yada Prayer Group makes me shake my head. I feel like such a snob for writing this, but I just don’t get the appeal. Since I am going to hell, it’s no wonder. Just not my cup of bourbon.

One of our favorite blog writers writes on blogging for one of our favorite magazines Maisonneuve (which has a great new issue out by the way).

I haven’t commented yet on the news that a great independent bookstore and also one of our biggest competitors has just filed for Chapter 11. Wordsworth has been in Harvard square for almost 30 years. They are our biggest competition particularly with regards to author events. It makes me sad though that they are in such financial difficulty. I hate to see any independent close. If they leave, it will just be us and the COOP! The COOP is run by Barnes & Noble, for those not familiar with Harvard square, so this is not a good thing. Retail sales have been down all over for the last month, and I know Wordsworth has been in trouble for a while. It has not been determined if they will close or not. They could still find financial backing and remain open. This is why I don’t use Amazon links on my blog (the continuing closing of good bookstores). I can’t in good conscience link books to them while I work here. I hate to give them the business. I’d rather anyone who is interested in a book I mention to buy it locally. I realize that isn’t going to happen always. (And I am not saying that you should never buy anything from Amazon. It’s more complicated than that of course.) Everyone support your local independent!

In his essay ‘The Story Behind ‘The Plot’ in this week’s NYT Book Review, Philip Roth says that he did not write The Plot Against America with today’s political climate in mind.

“Some readers are going to want to take this book as a roman à clef to the present moment in America. That would be a mistake. I set out to do exactly what I’ve done: reconstruct the years 1940-42 as they might have been if Lindbergh, instead of Roosevelt, had been elected president in the 1940 election. I am not pretending to be interested in those two years—I am interested in those two years.”

I read The Plot Against American a few weeks ago and loved it, but I couldn’t help but make the connection to today even if he didn’t intend to make it. Roth’s essay is definitely worth reading. He tells how he crafted his latest novel from its conception to crafting the characters. Plus at the end, he goes off on how unpredictable the world is. “And now Aristophanes, who surely must be God, has given us George W. Bush, a man unfit to run a hardware store let alone a nation like this one, and who has merely reaffirmed for me the maxim that informed the writing of all these books and that makes our lives as Americans as precarious as anyone else’s: all the assurances are provisional, even here in a 200-year-old democracy.” How awesome is that?
Also, as other have already pointed out, check out this lengthy interview with Roth at the Guardian. He’s a fascinating man.

I know parts of the country are suffering from hurrican after hurricane and I am not trying to rub it in their faces, but we are having the best weather here in New England. 60s and 70s and sunny. It’s perfect. So I spent much of the past weekend outside not reading. I did finish Ordinary Wolves a few days ago, though I don’t have much to say about it for some reason. The story follows Cutuk and his family who live in remote Alaska. A great deal of the novel deals with race and places in society. Cutuk’s family is white and they are looked down upon in the mostly native town. As he tries to find his place in the world and some acceptance, he moves to Fairbanks. But he finds his ‘own’ people just as mystifying. There are some beautiful passages and it is interesting to read about someone who has not experienced everyday things we take for granted, such as riding in cars and soda. The vernacular takes some getting used to, but makes the novel more interesting. That’s all I really have to say about it.

I found some great stuff in Used yesterday that I am excited about reading. I’ve been looking for some Nabokov for a while. It’s a huge gap in my education I feel that I haven’t read him before. I found both Lolita and Pale Fire. And I also grabbed a copy of DeLillo’s Underworld. Who knows when I will get around to all of these. My TBR list grows edponentially each day. Sigh.

My birthday is on Friday and I am looking forward to going out for a great meal. And doing some fun stuff this weekend. Maybe apple picking?