Author Archives: bookdwarf

Shelfari

I’m soliciting opinions here on a newer website called Shelfari. Has anyone used it? They emailed (and many others I assume) about their website ages ago. It’s a social networking/cataloging site where one can go and create a virtual bookshelf. They’re sort of like Library Thing, but seem more about sharing with other people. In theory that’s great. My concern with the site is that when you click on a book that is on someone’s shelf, a little blue flag pops up with selections like opinions, details,etc. At the very bottom, however, is a little green flag that says Buy From Amazon. I’m not going to go on a diatribe here about Amazon, but I’m discouraged by all these sites that heavily promote Amazon as opposed to independents. And today I learned that Amazon has invested $1 million in Shelfari. I’m not trying to knock what all these sites are trying to do, but they’re obviously in it to make money and Amazon is who you try to impress to get some of that money. I suppose what I am trying to say is that although a great idea, I’m not sure I’m comfortable getting involved in a place that’s basically taking away business from my livelihood and I want to know, am I missing anything? Has anyone had a great experience with any of these sites?

Tuesday Links

Wednesday Musings

Has it already been almost a week since I posted? How time flies! I’m taking an English class over at the Harvard Extension School called Major British Writers II (I missed part I). We meet each Thursday night for two hours and the syllabus is a little intense. Last week we read selections from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence & Experience and The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. I’ve never read any Blake before and was surprised to learn what a radical he was. This week we’re discussing Pride & Prejudice, which I last read years ago. I reread it over the weekend—it’s still a great book! I’m eager to see how the discussion will go. My memory of the story is mainly from all the movies. I’ve seen them all, even went as far as renting the latest version on Sunday to watch again. The book adds so much nuance that the movie’s can never muster. The extra stuff on the Kiera Knightly version had the actors commenting on the various characters and stories and Blenda Blethyn said that Mrs. Bennet was a hero. That her main concern was getting her five daughters married and that she would walk through fire for them. Reading the book at the same time, I found it hard to agree with her assessment of the character. Perhaps in that movie version, but in the book, Mrs. Bennet seems silly and airheaded. We’ll see what my class has to say.

Thursday Links

  • This week on www.fivechapters.com, they’re serializing Elizabeth Crane’s “What Happens When the Mipods Leave Their Milleu,” the story of an award-winning graphic novelist who stumbles into a visiting professorship, only to be accused of practicing irony.
  • Bat Segundo has three new installments available. He spoke about snarkiness with Heidi Julavits, editor of The Believer, about fatherhood with Neal Pollack, and about writing in Kukuyu with both Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Carolyn of Pinky’s.
  • Void Magazine is holding the Worst Ever Love Poem contest.
  • Many good literary journals have new issues out including n + 1, A Public Space, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.
  • I’ve only just dipped my toe into Aline Kominsky Crumb’s new graphic memoir and it’s intense. Titling her book Need More Love, she promises that it’s packed with sordid details from her life.
  • I want to congratulate Dan Wickett adn Steve Gillis at Dzanc Books for their recent acquisition of Yannick Murphy’s second short story collection In a Bear’s Eye, due for publication in February 2008. I loved Murphy’s novel Here They Come and I’m quite eager to read this collection. Has anyone read her first story collection and have an opinion?

Miami Reading Report

As I headed off to Miami last Thursday, I thought to myself “This is a chance to get so much reading done.” Well, I spent most of my time there eating, drinking, people watching (I counted 56 Humvees) and enjoying the 75 degree weather. I did get two books read however.

The first book was a fun, light first novel by Lisa Lutz called The Spellman Files. Imagine growing up in a family of private investigators. By the time she was 12 years old, Izzy Spellman was tailing people for her parents’ cases. At 28, she works full time investigating people for her parents’ firm Spellman Investigations. The Spellmans also spend a lot of time investigating each other. The main plot is not important. What makes this book enjoyable are the characters and the way they interact. Lutz has begun a smart and funny new series that both Mr. Bookdwarf and I enjoyed.

I picked the next book because the author, Mischa Berlinksi, also studied Classics. His debut novel Fieldwork, however, has nothing to do with the subject. Rather it’s a book that moves across several genres: travelogue, historical novel, thriller. set in Thailand, the narrator, also named Mischa Berlinski, works as a freelance writer while living with his school teacher girlfriend Rachel. He hears from his friend Josh about the suicide of Martiya van der Leun, an American anthropologist, in a Thai jail, where she was serving 50 years for murder. Intrigued, Berlinski takes up the story and spends the rest of the book investigating the story. Who did she murder and why? He explores both van der Leun’s family and the family of the victim. While they use the word thriller to describe the book, I didn’t find it a traditional “thriller”. Berlinski excels at painting a portrait of a person in a specific time and place, but staggers a bit at moving the plot along. I enjoyed the amount of detail he uses to describe some of the more rural parts of Thailand.

Save the Strip

The Strip is a piece of property just off the campus of the University of Alabama that contains a lot of small businesses. The University has begun buying up the property in an effort to “diversify” and now they want to raze the building housing the Alabama Book Store, a 42-year-old family business with a staff of 32, to put up a parking lot. Some claim it’s to effort to remove competition for the University’s campus store The Supply Store. Owner David Jones Jr. (who runs the store with his father David Jones Senior) has put together a website SavetheStrip.com to open keep the public abreast of the situation.

Portland Reading Report Part Two: The Return Trip

I had finished the Haig by the time I got to Dallas and I found myself purchasing Edward Jones’s The Known World for the next flight (the choices at the bookshop were minimal–it was either this or Sophie’s Choice). Edward Jones is a true master. He is one of the best American writers around today—I know I say this after reading only one book, but I really mean this. Clearly I loved the book and I’ve now moved his most recent story collection All Aunt Hagar’s Children to the top of my TBR queue. Jones weaves together stories of the residents of the made-up Manchester County, Virginia. Moving back and forth in time, you read about Henry Townsend, a black slaveowner and the people who surround him. It’s complex and beautifully written.

Once I finished the Jones, I moved onto Steven Hall’s debut novel The Raw Shark Texts. I met him at a Grove dinner while in Portland—he’s charming—but didn’t get to talk with him at length unfortunately. I had been worried about his use of textual play, but it worked pretty well in the novel. The main character Eric Anderson wakes up one day not remembering who he is. He finds a note telling him to call a Dr. Randle who informs him he is going through yet another memory lapse.  For the last two years he has been suffering from an acute dissociative disorder after the death of his fiance Chloe. But then he begins to get notes from “The First Eric Anderson” and he embarks on a journey to reconstruct what has happened to him. It involves a conceptual shark that is eating away at Eric Anderson. Not sure how else to describe it without giving a lot away. It’s fast paced and very focused. By that I mean, I had no sense of what was going on in the world around Eric Anderson, the story involves only what he’s thinking and feeling. It also feels like a very male novel, not that I didn’t enjoy it. The plane made a great place to read this book with that focused light above my chair for the four hour flight.

Pandemonium at Pandemonium

I learned today that local independent bookstore Pandemonium Books & Games, who specialize in Science Fiction & Fantasy, are having a lot of financial trouble. They used to be located in The Garage (sort of a small mall) here in Harvard Square but relocated to a larger space in Central square last year. I had hoped this would mean they would thrive. They’re a great store with wonderful booksellers. Owner Tyler Stewart was visited by the tax man and has launched a plea to help keep the store open. They planning on producing a new t-shirt each month. If 1000 people pre-order their new shirts, Pandemonium can pay their back taxes. I hope they make it, I really do.