Author Archives: bookdwarf

Wha…..?

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From today’s Shelf Awareness:

The much-anticipated film adaptation of Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates will not be finished in time to debut at film festivals in Telluride, Toronto or New York “because [director Sam] Mendes has been shooting the Focus Features comedy Farlanders this summer, a road movie set for 2009 release co-written by Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida,” according to Variety.

Mendes will reportedly “return to the editing bay around Labor Day to do the final mix” on Revolutionary Road in preparation for an opening later this year.

Mendes’s next movie is a film version of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Variety noted.

Set aside the fact that they made a movie of Revolutionary Road starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet, what’s this about a film of Middlemarch?  How on earth are they going to do it? This book, probably my favorite book which is saying a lot, is so nuanced and lovely. They’ve made miniseries of it, but a two hour film? Wow. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

A Non-Offensive Post

Since I manage to be offending people left and right with my potty mouth and insults to Worcester (I really have no bad feelings toward the town), I’ll stick to books here. I finished a novel by Amitav Ghosh last night called Sea of Poppies, due out this Fall. I’ve never read him before, but now I want to visit his older works. Has anyone read him and recommend a particular book? I thought Sea of Poppies quite brilliant. It’s a historical novel set right before the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century. During a time of colonial upheaval, a cast of characters varying from opium farmers to a French orphan to a bankrupt raja find themselves aboard the ship called The Ibis. It’s full of collolquialisms that I’m not even sure I understand now but gives a particular flavor to the book. Great read.

For something far different, I turned to The Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. I’m not sure I love the jacket on the book (you can see it on the right), but it’s pretty entertaining so far. It kept me patient while waiting at the doctor’s office anyway. After this, I might read Stoner by John Williams, based on Matthew Cheney’s post. Like Matthew, I’ve been hearing about that book here and there for some time now, sort of like The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis, another NYRB Classics book. I keep meaning to read them. Now I’m determined to get my hands on copies.

Worcester Rules

I’m stealing this post from Mr. Bookdwarf because he’s written a better version of our Friday night than I could have:

Despite the looks my co-workers gave me when I told them my Friday night plans last week, there are plenty of valid reasons to want to go out to a shooting range. I feel that I can’t really have a solid opinion about gun control without at least knowing how to work one, without appreciating the people who use them for sport and competition. Plus, it hardly seems fair to let the political right in the US be the only people who know how to work firearms. I don’t want to be the only liberal in the shelter when the zombie apocalypse happens, right?

Anyway, it seemed like a good idea. Megan and I determined that we should go out to a shooting range and spend an evening firing some weapons with a couple of her co-workers. Google suggested the misleadingly-named Boston Gun Range in Worcester (pardon me, I’d been spelling it with an H, as Worchester, which is a terrible slight) where Fridays are “Jack And Jill” nights, involving free gun time for the ladies.

Or rather, Fridays were Jack and Jill nights.

It turns out that they got shut down months and months ago after an alarming string of suicides. Of course, while fighting the police-ordered injunction, the Gun Range hasn’t updated its web page. Or its phone message.

We didn’t find any of this out until we got to Worcester on Friday night and found the range locked and shuttered, without even a “CLOSED” sign out front. So, then what? Obviously, the four of us drove around past the nudie bars and automotive spring repair shops on the outskirts of town until we hit Worcester Center. We briefly got lost in the Abandoned Warehouse district, and then stumbled upon the Gentrified Abandoned Warehouse district, featuring loft condos (natch), a discount meat store (”We Towed You So” emblazoned cheerfully across the parking lot), and a tapas bar called Bocado.

Inside, we found mediocre tapas, moderately priced wine, girls with low-cut dresses and boys with over-gelled hair and french-cuff shirts. It had the promise of a decent evening, despite the presence of mango salsa on the menu. Authenticity in food is certainly overrated, but mango salsa on tapas, especially in a place that prides itself on a Spain-only wine list, indicates an unfortunate confusion of Spain and Latin America.

Still, I was more or less satisfied with my meal until a band set up and started playing Buena Vista Social Club-ified covers of American pop standards. That pretty much topped it. I will say no more of the evening or of the fair city of Worcester, which I am sure has some lovely people in it somewhere.

Now you know what I do on the weekends. Also, the “We Towed You So” still makes me giggle.

WTF, or in which I call Bullshit on the Wall Street Journal

Would you look at how great Amazon is, promoting the hell out of the debut novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which they discovered. You can’t hear me saying this out loud, so you might not detect the sarcasm. According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, “driving that unexpectedly heavy demand has been strong reviews and promotional support from Amazon.com. ” I’m not doubting their numbers or the strength of Costco, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon’s buying power, but no where do they mention the fact that independents have been on the Sawtelle bandwagon from the beginning. I read it months and months ago and forced others at my store to read it as well. I recommended it heavily in January at the ABA Winter Institute and I wasn’t the only one. We’ve been behind this book from the moment the galleys hit our desks. I resent the WSJ ignoring that fact. Who made The Story of Edgar Sawtelle one of their Signed First Edition Club picks, the first debut novelist chosen for the program? Who asked to have David Wroblewski come to our store for a reading back in January? Who has had to ask our poor sales rep for more galleys each week? Excuse me while I take a time out.

Postscript: The first comment I got made me see that I’m not being clear here. I’m not angry that all these large chains are being Sawtelle. I think it speaks to the greatness of the book. I’m annoyed that they only spoke with B&N, Costco, and Amazon as if the independents had nothing to do with the book’s success. Basically, they’re getting all the glory and we’re getting none. It would be nice if we were recognized too.

Linkarama

  • The 2008 Million Writers Award top ten online short stories have now been selected and voting on the top story of the year has begun. Voting will run through the end of the day on July 17. The stories are available here.
  • Robert Birnbaum has thrilling interview with Dagoberto Gilb, author of The Flowers.
  • Norton is bypassing the whole blog thing and going with Twitter. So far, so good since it’s run by Steve, who is cool.
  • Jenny Shank of New West conducted an interview with David Wroblewski. Whoo.
  • Check out the Harvard Review online. They’re right across the street from me, but it took someone emailing me to check out their publication.
  • This isn’t literary, but a collection of photos taken of people driving in their cars.
  • You might notice that I’m reading another book by Kim Stanley Robinson. I’ve become obsessed I guess. This is another dystopian novel, set in California years after the US has succumbed to nuclear annihilation. What is it about these kinds of books that draw us to them?

Gil Adamson and David Wroblewski in Conversation with Dave Weich

Powell’s has posted this great conversation between Gil Adamson, David Wroblewski, and Dave Weich. I’m on record for having loved both Adamson’s Outlander and Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Sawtelle made me cry in fact. It’s the kind of book that makes you irritate your friends when you won’t shut up about it. I’m looking forward to David Wroblewski’s appearance at my store on Monday June 23rd–he’s extremely nice.