Author Archives: bookdwarf

Summer Reading: Don’t Forget Literary Journals

I’ve become a big reader of literary journals over the past year or so. On top of all the magazines, it can be difficult to find the time to keep with all of them, but the quality has been so good lately. Here are a few that I’ve been reading.

The new Virginia Review Quarterly devoted almost their entire Spring 2006 issue to Darwin and Evolution. I’ve just read David Quammen’s essay “Mr. Darwin’s Abominable Volume”—completely fascinating. He writes about the actual writing of Origin of the Species. How Alfred Russell Wallace was on the same track as Darwin and that finally spurred Darwin on to write his book. Their Summer issue, which I haven’t received yet, contains a short story by Alice Munro from her forthcoming collection as well as a slew of authors writing about appreciating Munro.

The newest Granta called On the Road Again explores travel writing and whether it can be more than just literary entertainment. It contains imaginative essays by John Burnside, Tim Parks, Tia Wallman to name a few.

Wednesday Links

It’s a bit quiet right now in the book world. I’m taking the afternoon off to spend it with my mother (hi Mom!) and hopefully visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

  • The Globe Book Review started a blog a few months back. They post some tidbit pretty much everyday. They still can’t seem to be with the times: “A tip from eagle-eyed reporter Carol Beggy leads us to a surprising addition to what Public Radio’s Chris Lydon likes to call the blogosphere.” Wow, the blogosphere—what a good word to describe the world of blogs!
  • There’s a wonderful interview with Francine Prose in the Atlantic Monthly that’s actually available online (for who knows how much longer). Prose’s new book Reading Like a Writer is due out this September and promises to be “a guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them”. I’ve flipped through the advance copy I have and it certainly is filled with some gems. Also, remind me to tell my Francine Prose anecdote sometime.
  • Over at the LBC blog, we’re discussing Crawl Space by Edie Meidav. While I found the book hard to get into, it’s worth reading if only because of the fine writing. In the tradition of Lolita, the main character is impossible to like.
  • Ed has posted something on author reading’s in response to Jessa Crispin’s article (which itself is a response to another article) on the downfall of the “traditional” book tour. From my experience here, I know book tours can be difficult. The whole process is difficult. We get many authors who want to come and read here, but we can’t possibly accommodate them all. Plus we have to keep in mind who shops here and what authors they might want to see read, etc. And you always have to keep it interesting. I think Jessa might be right—the traditional book tour no longer draws in the crowds the way it used to years ago.
  • Kirkus Reviews has their Fall preview issue online (in PDF format). What books are you looking forward to reading? (thanks Michael Schaub for the link)

More Summer Reading

It’s hard to live in Boston and not have heard of Michael Patrick MacDonald. He wrote All Soul’s: A Family Story from Southie back in 1999, which told his story of growing up in Old Colony housing project. He lost four brothers to drugs, poverty and violence and watched firsthand the riots around the busing crisis. His second memoir Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under , coming at the end of September, tells of how he got out of Southie. More than that, however, it’s a wonderful portrait of Boston in the 1980s as he ventures outside the walls of Old Colony into the punk scene. He writes about hearing the Sex Pistols for the first time, seeing Mission of Burma, shows at the Rat. His reputation as the quiet one in his large Irish family extend into his social life. While his friends get into drugs and alcohol, he stays sober somehow.

Family tragedies keep sucking him back to what he considers at the time a prison. MacDonald even writes about meeting his father for the first time at his wake. There are some moments of levity in the book, especially the scene where his grandfather accuses him of “worshipping the devil with the punk rocks” and gives him holy water. It’s also his grandfather who convinces him to visit Ireland while he’s in Europe bumming around and it’s there that MacDonald comes to terms with his Irish roots for the first time. It’s an energizing read and MacDonald avoids the cheesy sentiment that you might expect.

Another book I enjoyed recently was Nell Freudenberger’s The Dissident. I liked her story collection Lucky Girls from 2003 and wondered how her writing would translate to a novel. In this new book, the chapters go back and forth between Yuan Zhao, a Chinese performance artist and political dissident, to the Travers, a wealthy family in Los Angeles who host the artist during his residency in America. Zhao’s chapters reminisce on his unrequited love in Beijing back in earlier days during a time of artistic revolution and his growing obsession with a student in Los Angeles. The Traver’s chapters deal with the disintegration of the family as the various family members stumble along. I found Zhao’s story more interesting, perhaps because so many books these days document the dysfunctional family falling apart at the seams. But I think Freudenberger’s book also deals with larger themes. She spends a lot of time on artists and the concept of art. Her attention to detail and ability to probe the sometimes uncomfortable depths of the characters make this book a great first novel.

Al Gore Update

Everything went well earlier today. There was quite a crowd, maybe 600 or more people? Most seemed in good spirits, despite the heat and the length of the line. Al Gore was only here for a limited amount of time. He came, he signed, he left. A very charming man, he made it seem easy to greet and sign so many books. My job was to slide the books in front of him to sign—my arm is very sore actually. Being who he is, Al Gore manages to attract his fair share of crazies and he handled them all gracefully.

I still can’t believe I spent two hours with the man who should have been president.

Commentary with a Tangent

I came across this article by Lev Grossman from Time magazine somewhere on the internet. In it, he questions if there are any writers who can be considered the voice of this generation:

David Foster Wallace is 44 years old. Jonathan Franzen is 46. Jonathan Lethem, 42. Michael Chabon, 43.

I point that out not to be rude–although I admit it is kind of rude–but because those are the writers that people–people who think about such things, anyway–think of as the young American novelists. And even by the notoriously elastic standards of the literary world–the only place on earth where you can still be a wunderkind at the age of 30–42 is not especially youthful. Wallace, Franzen, Lethem and Chabon may be great writers, but one thing they are not is young writers.

He goes on to discuss the changes in novels over the decades. They’re getting shorter apparently. He also throws down some names: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Salinger, Kerouac, etc. He wonders if the voice might be still ripening or if this is a time where there may not be a voice that can speak for everyone. Or are the MFA programs actually retarding the progress of literature?

At first, I the article annoyed me, but having gone back and read it several times, I think he might have a few good points or at least a few good questions. Do I think there is a “Voice of Our Generation” right now? No idea. Will one come along? Sure. I think it’s more complex than just naming a few authors (who are all men by the way) and seeing if the label sticks. Who’s being published these days? How has the changing nature of publishing affected these voices over the years? There are a great number of talented writers out there, some struggling to get their voices heard, some already being heard.

One such author is Sarah Hall. She’s not American—she’s English. I read her second novel The Electric Michelangelo last year and it was one of the best things I read all year. The writing, the story, everything came together beautifully. You can imagine my excitement when I received a galley of her first novel Haweswater, which Harper Perennial will be publishing in October for the first time in the US. Here comes my tangent from this title’s post. In an interview in the back of the book, Hall tells how lightning hit the roof on which she was standing and coursed through her body. And she’s almost been hit twice since then. I almost dropped the book—it’s very similar to what’s happened to me—I’ve almost been hit by lightning several times. It’s been close, two feet away close. Now I feel this connection to her (and now everyone thinks I’m nuts) and that is my tangent.

Feel free to chime in with an opinion here. Maybe we do have a voice of the generation and I’m just not aware of it yet.

Call for Ideas

We’re throwing around ideas for some store displays. One of them is adult books that kids should read and kid books that adults should read. Any ideas? Philip Pullman is obvious as are some others, but what do you think? Did you read anything good as a kid that you think you should go back and reread?

Summer Reading

Ah, nothing brings back the school days more than the phrase Summer Reading. I remember having to read a slew of books and take notes on them all before the school year began. I couldn’t stand it. Not the books, I’ve always loved reading, but the being forced part of the equation. Of course looking back on it, they made me read some great books: Brothers Karamazov, Dandelion Wine, even Dune.
This summer, I’ve been trying to find more time to read and now that my buying season appointments are at an end, I’ll hopefully have more time to blog.
So far this summer, I’ve read Charity Girl by local author Michael Lowenthal (and not due out until next January). Did you know that during WWI, the government quarantined and incarcerated young women who were thought to have venereal diseases? And they did this in the Boston area! Charity Girl is the story of 17 year old Frieda Mintz, a bundle wrapper at Jordan Marsh. She’s fled her horrible home and tries to set up a life for herself, which isn’t easy on her pay. She makes the mistake of spending a night with a soldier and gets sent to a makeshift quarantine camp. Besides being a historical novel, Lowenthal infuses Frieda with enough character to make you want to survive her experiences.

I jumped for joy when I got my hands on a copy of William Boyd’s upcoming novel Restless at BEA in May—Any Human Heart is one of my favorite books. I must say that I was disappointed with this book. Boyd, like Banville, takes a leap into the espionage genre with Restless. In the summer of 1976, Sally Gilmartin thinks someone is trying to kill her. She finally tells her daughter Ruth, a young single mother, her true history. Sally is really Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian emigre recruited by the British Secret Service during WWII after her much beloved older brother’s murder (also a spy). Going back and forth between present day and the war, the story details Eva’s secret history as well as why someone might be trying to kill her now. The story, while interesting, lacked the nuances of Boyd’s previous works.

Chimamanda Adichie’s new novel Half of a Yellow Sun, coming from Knopf in September, more than lives up to her previous book Purple Hibiscus (one of the few books to make me cry). Her new book follows several characters during Biafra’s struggle to establish independence from Nigeria in the 1960’s. Thirteen year old Ugwu works as a houseboy for a revolutionary university professor Odenigbo. Olanna, the professor’s mistress and later his wife, has abandoned her more luxurious life in Lagos to live with her lover in a small town. Her estranged twin sister Kainene takes up as her lover an English author Richard. The vivid writing deftly combines the political and the personal in this provocative novel. This is definitely a book to watch out for in the Fall.

Right now I am enjoying Elizabeth Gilbert’s earlier book The Last American Man. I am also excited about reading Richard Power’s upcoming novel The Echo Maker coming from FSG in October. Also Da Chen’s first novel Brothers is high on my list as well as Them by Francine du Plessix Gray.

What are you reading this summer? Read anything good or do you have any suggestions?