Author Archives: bookdwarf

Impressions From Last Night’s Event with BHL

At last night’s event, Bernard-Henri Levy calmly walked out of the back room, stood in front of the audience for a few moments, soaking up the applause and advanced to the podium. He used no notes and spoke for over an hour, relating several anecdotes from memory. BHL waves his hands around a lot when he speaks, which makes his words seem more alive. He wore a very elegant black suit, with a white button down, but no cuff-links. At the end of the evening, the marketing director of my store and I were chatting, while got ready to leave. BHL approached to shake her hand, and of course, with his good manners, shook mine. I think my exact words were, “We haven’t met, but good night.” Overall, I found him to be quite a charismatic and energetic speaker.
Due to technical difficulties, it may take me a few days to get the audio of BHL up and running. I might be getting a better audio file from some other folks who were there recording. Regardless, tonight I am off to see Low play conveniently nearby my house, and I am off to Woodstock, NY tomorrow (no, not to be a hippie) for the weekend. I will try to have some reviews for early next week.

Wednesday Tidbits

I’ll be attending tonight’s event with Bernard-Henri Levy at the First Parish Church here in Harvard Square (and hopefully recording it). I’ll at least have a report, if not the entire recorded event. I have to confess that I am only one quarter of the way through the book. Meanwhile, here are some links to keep you busy for the rest of the day:

  • The Morning News has announced its list of books for the 2006 Tournament of Books. It’s an interesting if not predictable list.
  • Ed Champion has made the new Bat Segundo podcast available for your listening pleasure. This time Bat takes on Jay Ryan. I know for a fact that Mr. Segundo has many more illustrious authors in the pipeline.
  • Scott Esposito was lucky enough to attend City Arts & Lectures series a few days ago, where Lawrence Weschler spoke with Ricky Jay. Scott posted a nice recap of the evening.
  • Boldtype #28 ‘The Film Issue‘ went up today.
  • I enjoyed this article from the Guardian, where several people made a list of the must read books for children, including Philip Pullman and JK Rowling.
  • Speaking of controversy (okay, I know I wasn’t, but I couldn’t think of a good segue), I’ve refrained from commenting on the whole James Frey affair, mostly because I thought the book was crap to begin with, but I loved Scott McLemee’s article on it in Inside Higher Ed.
  • Robert Birnbaum spoke with both Bret Easton Ellis and Chip Kidd recently. Apparently Chip Kidd likes ballroom dancing. Who knew?
  • Has everyone gone and checked out the LBC’s website? It’s full of book discussions, podcasts, interviews. Hell, we’ve even got the authors blogging (I am so hoping that Rupert Thomson agrees to blog).

Updates

I’m like the boyfriend/girlfriend who comes up to the bedroom but just wants to snuggle. I’ll have content soon. I am finishing up Michael Ruhlman’s delicious The Making of a Chef, which I am reading in preparation for his forthcoming book The Reach of a Chef. Ed and I are preparing something to do with David Mitchell’s coming of age tale Black Swan Green (it’s my fault we haven’t had anything sooner). Mitchell will be visiting my store in Cambridge and I hope to have audio of that reading as well as a short interview.
Next week, we will be hosting Bernard-Henri Lévy at the First Parish Church and again, I hope to have audio of that to post soon.

To keep you busy, why don’t you check out some of Robert Birnbaum’s stellar interviews with Chip Kidd or Bret Easton Ellis? If that doesn’t fill you up, check out Tito Perez’s nice rundown of an event with Stephen Elliot and Paul Auster. And if you’re still not full, have some laughs with Jonathan Ames’ reminiscence on cleaning out his refrigerator.

Diorama-Rama!

Did anyone else make dioramas for school projects when they were a kid? I loved making dioramas. I got to combine my love of books with my love for cutting things outand assmbling them. I remember making one for a book report on one of the Moominland books by Tove Jansson (have forgotten which one). It turns out they have a pretty awesome website. Even better Drawn & Quarterly, one of my favorite publishers (they are very nice and publish some of the most beautiful books these days. It’s all quality. They let the authors determine how they want their books to look), will be reprinting the comic strip Jansson did in 1954 in 5 volumes. I had to get the Moomins just right. They look like hippos, but are definitely not hippos. I even gathered real leaves and twigs to make a forest for them (yes, I was a perfectionist even back then). I was a devoted diorama maker, though not as obsessive as Lisa Simpson—no moving parts.

(Thanks Bookslut for the link)

Quick Reminder

Monday January 16th, the LBC will be announcing the Winter 2005 Read This! pick. It’s an exciting group this round. I can’t reveal it yet, but it will be a surprise. This round we’ll be having podcasts of interviews with all of the authors of the 5 nominated books. So stay tuned. And I will resume regular posting next week. Okay, so I’ve never been a “regular” poster, but I am taking some literary Metamucil, so all things should resume.

Bookdwarf on Television!

I am under the weather this week, damn sinuses, but that did not prevent me from being interviewed for a local news station about this whole James Frey debacle. They contacted my store and as one of the only people who had read the book, they wanted my opinion. So watch WB56 news at 10 tonight, those in the area. I will be the one who looks like she’s stoned (all that sudafed).

UPDATE: I got cut. I suppose I shouldn’t have admitted that I didn’t care for the book in the first place.

It’s All Who You Know or Are Married To

Do you think that if Nick Laird weren’t married to Zadie Smith, his new book Utterly Monkey would be reviewed in the NYT today by Kakutani? I don’t mean to disparage his writing, which I haven’t read, but they seem to reserve Kakutani for the big, writers of renown. I’m sceptical of course that they would have bothered with the review otherwise. A review might be included in the Sunday supplement, maybe in the Fiction Chronicle, but a full review from Kakutani? Forget it. But good for Laird. Kakutani likes it, though she can’t resist from mentioning his wife. “Instead, Mr. Laird – who is married to the novelist Zadie Smith – uses his radar-sharp eye for detail and ear for how regular people talk to give us an ebullient cast of characters, rendered with an idiosyncratic mixture of sympathy and wry humor.”