Author Archives: bookdwarf

Smatterings

  • Great opinion piece from Harry Mount in the New York Times about the lack of Latin knowledge by today’s politicians. He notes that Thomas Jefferson’s most thumbed book is a copy of the Aeneid.
  • Interesting article in the LA Times about the future of Powells. Michael Powell, 67, is getting read to hand over the reins to his daughter, Emily, 29. She’s been working at the store in various positions for a while, trying to learn all aspects of the business. Also of interest is what it says about other independents, that we’re still facing challenges from Amazon, used sales online, and increasingly thrifty customers. You don’t know frustrating it is to hear that someone comes to the store to create lists of books to then order on Amazon.
  • Edwidge Danticat interviews Junot Diaz in the most recent issue of Bomb magazine.
  • Dzanc Books announces the inaugural Dzanc Prize – a monetary award to a writer with both a work in progress, and an interest in performing some form of literary community service. The $5000 award goes to Laura van den Berg of Boston. Selected from more than 160 applicants for her proposal to teach creative writing in area prisons and on the quality of her fiction writing, the Emerson College MFA student will begin her service in 2008 with half of the prize awarded in January and the other half awarded once the service is completed.
  • I’m not going to start listing all of the Best of Lists and Gift guides because that could take forever. I will mention the clever A Very Brainiac Gift Guide from the Globe because it mentions one of my favorite books of the year: “Forget Cormac McCarthy! The best new novels I’ve read this year are “Jamestown” (Soft Skull, $25) by Matthew Sharpe and “The Red Men” (Snowbooks, $16.51) by Matthew De Abaitua.”
  • The Millions has commenced its Year in Reading Project.

Friday Tidbit

From a review of The Deep by Claire Nouvian, a beautiful book from the University of Chicago Press on the creatures who live in the deepest parts of the ocean:

To understand the full extent of the constraints that the abyss places on life, consider the black seadevil. It’s a somber, grapefruit-sized globe of a fish–seemingly all fangs and gape–with a “fishing rod” affixed between its eyes whose luminescent bait jerks above the trap-like mouth. Clearly, food is a priority for this creature, for it can swallow a victim nearly as large as itself. But that is only half the story, for his description pertains solely to the female: the male is a minnow-like being content to feed on specks in the sea–until, that is, he encounters his sexual partner.

The first time that a black seadevil meets his much larger mate, he bites her and never lets go. Over time, his veins and arteries grow together with hers, until he becomes a fetus-like dependent who receives from his mate’s blood all the food, oxygen, and hormones he requires to exist. The cost of this utter dependence is the loss of function in all of his organs except his testicles, but even these, it seems, are stimulated to an action solely at the pleasure of the engulfing female. When she has had her way with him, the male seadevil simply vanishes, having been completely absorbed and dissipated into the flesh of his paramour, leaving her free to seek another mate. Not even Dante imagined such a fate.

Next time you are in a bookstore, go find this book. It has the most amazing photographs of these mysterious fish.

Cleveland Rocks

Or at least the Cleveland Plain Dealer does. Have I mentioned how much I loved Signed, Mata Hari, the new novel by Yannick Murphy? I was so taken with her novel Here They Come last year and that I read this new one a few months ago as soon as it appear on my desk. I was enchanted.  Read the review in the Plain Dealer.

“Murphy packs more grace and vision into these six paragraphs than most novelists manage to put into an entire book. It is poetry.”

Mystery of Mysteries

I received the Spring-Summer 2008 catalog from Harcourt today, incidentally enough whose sale to Houghton was just approved by the Justice Department. As I’m flipping through, I notice a two page spread for a book called The Calling by Inger Wolfe. It’s a mystery featuring a female detective close to retirement trying to solve a gruesome series of murders. This is a sample:

There were thirteen crime-scene pictures. Dead faces set in grimaces and shouts. Faces howling, whistling, moaning, crying, hissing. Hazel pinned them to the wall and stood back. It was a silent opera of ghosts.

What’s fascinating is the author’s bio. Inger Wolfe is the pseudonym for a prominent North American literary novelist. Who could it be? Is this some sort of Benjamin Black/John Banville split personality thing? Or just hype?

Publisher Devotion

I had the good fortune over the last week to read a whole slew of books. Ah, the luxury of time! Two of the books came from the same press, which made me start thinking about how devoted readers can become to certain presses. Certain publishers have reputations in my mind. Graywolf, Milkweed, FSG–I trust them and will read a book given to me on blind faith that it possesses some excellence. That goes for Soft Skull and Counterpoint now. I’ve been a fan of a lot of Soft Skull books over the years. This year they had the smarts to publish Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe, one of my favorite books of the year. Now Counterpoint has taken over Soft Skull and I beginning to think that my love for Soft Skull might now extend to them as well. I read two of their forthcoming books and I’ve got to say I’m very excited about them.

First I read Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison. This historical novel is so rich in details that you feel like you’re a fly on the wall observing the story. Set in colonial America, we follow Duncan McCallum as he travels aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World. Murder, suicide, and strange rituals on the journey force him into the role of investigator even as he is indentured to the land baron Lord Ramsey. Thrust into the middle of the French and Indian War, Duncan has to navigate not just the new territory but the wily ways in which those who control his destiny play with him. The New World almost seems like a character itself in this novel, the way the vastness of a land untouched by Europeans looms over the story. How scary the frontier must have been!

Next I read Lydia Millet’s How the Dead Dream, a book that follows T. a distant young real estate developer. As a child he discovers that he’s really good at making money and it provides him with relief. He becomes a developer in L.A. maintaining a lonely life. On impulse he adopts a dog that signals changes are about to happen. His mother shows up announcing that T.’s father has left her–he’s gay and moved to Florida–and promptly moves in with him. T. then meets Beth, a woman who finally understands him, but a tragedy leaves him alone again. While his mother begins to unravel, T. finds consolation breaking into zoos to spend time with endangered animals. Finally he goes to the jungle and ends up on a quest evocative of Heart of Darkness. Millet’s lyrical writing with bits of humor tossed made reading this book a dreamlike experience. I’ll try to post a few snippets of my favorite parts of the book tomorrow.

Turkey Days are Here

I’m off to the ATL tomorrow morning to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. I plan on doing only what is required of me by my mom to help make dinner over the next few days. I need to rest up for what awaits when I get back—the holiday shopping season is almost upon us.

I normally don’t work on the floor—I have my own office in which I meet with the sales reps, place orders, etc. During the holidays however it’s all hands on deck. So you can see me running up and down stairs with an armload of books, climbing ladders (and hopefully not dropping the books on people’s heads). Note: If you see a staff member with their arms full of books or up on the ladder, don’t start badgering them with questions. Let them put the books down first. Also, it helps to be as nice as possible to the staff. They’ve had to deal with so many assholes that a nice customer can make all the difference in the world. This might seem like something you’d teach a kindergartener, but each holiday season I’m taken aback again by the nastiness and rudeness of some people particularly during a season devoted to good cheer and loving thy neighbor.

Also we’ll be doing the Buyer’s Night again this year next Thursday, which means you get to see me yammer about books for a while.  Holiday Tips from the Experts is what we’re calling it. There’s free cookies I think and perhaps some sort of beverage. It’s a fine night, so come on out and introduce yourself.

On Cloud Nine

Even though I saw a flurry this morning and even though it’s about 35 degrees, I’m floating on cloud nine as I just came back from having lunch with famed Knopf editor Judith Jones! What a delightful afternoon. It was a small group, 8 people. We all chatted about books, our favorites, possible holiday sleepers, etc. Not to mention the divine food we had Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square.

Not much could top this afternoon, not even this wonderful paean in the Harvard Crimson about my store. Even this article on the NEA’s recent report about the “decline” in reading hasn’t fazed me yet.

Miscellaneous Links

  • Bostonist interviews Jonah Lehrer, who happens to be appearing at my store tomorrow evening at 7 pm. I’ve read the first few essays of his book Proust was a Neuroscientist and found them thought provoking. Much is made of how young he is (25!) but I’m more impressed with what a Renaissance man he is. Hasn’t the world become all about specialization? Where would we be without people like Da Vinci and Thomas Jefferson, people who explored everything?
  • More Shalom Auslander, this time an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle.

    I don’t think, though, that our morality comes from the Ten Commandments, and I always wonder when I hear a priest or rabbi claim that it does, that these frankly obvious rules are what guides him. I always think, “Really? Without Deuteronomy you wouldn’t know killing was wrong? You mean you’d be killing people if not for those tablets? S-, someone call the cops.”

  • Ed reviews this new guide to litblogs being published this month The Bookaholics’ Guide to Book Blogs: The New Literary Force. Wait, I’ve got the force?
  • Also, people either seem to love or hate Mailer in teh comment’s of Ed’s post on Mailer’s death. I don’t have a problem with Ed expressing his opinion on Mailer. Why so many people are pissed, I don’t know. I’ve never read Mailer, his book have never appealed to me.