Mike pointed his baton (that sounds dirty) and here’s the results.

1.) How much music on the hard drive? I have no idea. 20 Gigs? I put about 3 quarters of my cd collection on my iPod. And I keep adding.

2.) What’s the last CD you bought? Architecture in Helsinki’s In Case We Die. Meh. I don’t love it. I’ve had more luck with the new Fourtet record that I technically didn’t buy.

3.) Song playing right now: Night of the Living Dead Misfits. Like I said, most of my music is on my iPod which I like to keep on shuffle.

4.) Five songs that I listen to a lot, or mean a lot to me:

Hüsker Dü’s Read World from Metal Circus–In high school this was one of the first SST records I bought.

Dinosaur Jr.’s In a Jar from You’re Living All Over Me–Again, another high school choice. I loved this band. Loved. After Green Mind it was all downhill.

Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song from Led Zeppelin III–one of my all time favorite band. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’ve been listening to them since 7th grade and probably makes fun of me.

Palace Music’s Cat’s Blues from Viva Last Blues–My first Will Oldham record. Took me almost 3 months to get it out of my CD player.

Crap, I can’t think of a fifth song. I already said a Led Zeppelin song. How about Black Star by Radiohead off The Bends? I hated them for a while. Then I was forced to listen to them repeatedly. They grew on me. I now count them as one of my favorite bands.

5. Where does the baton go next? Uhm, I bet this thing has already lost some steam. Anyone want to volunteer?

Robert Birnbaum interviews Alma Guillermoprieto, author if Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution. I love his interviews because he really seems to know each subject and asks all the right questions. Check out his older interviews, listed at the bottom of the page and you’ll see what I am talking about.

Popmatters has a new columnist Erik Wennermark (this is his second column, I know. I forgot to mention it last month) who calls himself the Bad Librarian. It’s observations on life from behind the desk, aka some nice rants. My cup of tea.

Have I ever mentioned Largehearted Boy, a fellow Alabamian? He’s got a great website, mostly devoted to music (music that I like!) with free downloads. And recently he began a feature called ‘Book Notes’ in which he asks authors whose work he likes to create mix CD’s based on their latest book. Today’s ‘Book Notes‘ creator is Lee Martin, who has recently found Neko Case.

From today’s book deals on Publisher’s Lunch:

THIS IS NOT CHICK LIT: A Collection of Original Stories by America’s Best Women Writers, selected and introduced by Elizabeth Merrick, founder of the Cupcake Reading Series and blog, created to support women writers of literary fiction, including stories by Francine Prose, Myla Goldberg, Vendela Vida, Aimee Bender, Curtis Sittenfeld, Jennifer Eagan, and Samantha Hunt, to Julia Cheiffetz at the Random House publishing group (NA).

The Cupcake Reading Series is a great idea, something I wish were in Boston too.

My pal Red aka Robert Birnbaum spoke with novelist Jonathan Safran Foer recently and posted the result over at the Morning News.

I’ve been invited to participate in The Litblog Co-op to help select a book for Read This! Check out the nice looking website for more information about this. I’ll post information as I learn mroe about it. But I am looking forward to some good discussions on books! Maybe I should just rename the site Bookdork.

Patricia Storms of Booklust has her first review up at Popmatters. It’s a great review of The Geographer’s Library, the first novel from John Fasman. I completely agree with her assessment: “And really, The Geographer’s Library isn’t a horrible book. It’s just not a great book, either, especially given Fasman’s credentials.”

As I’ve remarked before, I have been out of the loop. Luckily, Scott at Conversational Reading posted about this article by Allen M. West of New West the ‘Voice of the Rocky Mountains’. He responds to Sarah Boxer’s article on bloggers from last week where yours truly was mentioned along with many other fine writers. Some have bristled at West’s article. It’s sort of a mixed article. On the one hand, he says that “the notion of a fresh community, a network of discussion that adds just a little note of vibrancy to a staid and stale industry.” But on the other hand, he thinks none of us has any credentials. What kind of credentials does one need to review books? I am not some crackpot throwing opinions around (okay, a bit of a crackpot). Not only do I read a lot, but I also work in the buying office of one of the best bookstores in New England (in my opinion). Those are my credentials. Do I need a degree or something? And some of the other bloggers mentioned are real writers!
And I am not sure if I like this part: “The left margin is chock full of literary journals, blogs, and the nice little expected idiosyncratic links of a creative mind left to its own devices (IE: “bitchiness”; “the world according to me”; etc.).” Yes, my categories have dumb names, I am the first to admit it. He also seems a little too snide in places. But I do love the last 2 lines: “Give it a few years, let the less legitimate drop away for lack of attention, wait for the cream to rise, and we’ll soon be noticing how the careers of various reviewers are built or leveled based on a few well chosen words from Beatrix or Bookdwarf. Won’t that be the day.”
Hahahahah, as if one word from me could ever accomplish so much. I can’t even get my cat to stay off the fucking counter.

As an Easter treat, I am providing a link I stole from Ron who took it from Ed who got it from somewhere else I imagine. Stephanie Perry reviewed a book called Leah’s Way from a small independent press and is now receiving a lot of flack from said press because she didn’t like the book and had the nerve to say so. I started getting review requests months ago from small presses that frankly I’ve never heard of before. I am nervous about agreeing to review their books for this very reason. The woman from the press who wrote to Stephanie just sounds terrible.

Hi, Did it ever occur to you that the other 100 or so positive reviews of Leah’s Way are right and that you might be wrong? Or are you the typical Gen-X whiner who is completely self-absorbed and sees herself as always picked on, a perpetual victim? Look at yourself. You pride yourself on being a critical bitch, pampered, on a college scholarship that obviously led to nowheresville, you’re a failure in life, you judge books not on their merit but on your own prejudicial beliefs, and like a typical liberal you are only tolerant of people who think like you do. Liberals are the most intolerant people on the planet, all the while “preaching” tolerance.

Everyone, I would restrain myself from buying anything from Windstream Press until they apologize to Stephanie. Maybe this is just one bitter woman working amongst a great group of people. I don’t know. But until I do know, I am not planning on doing any business with them. I appreciate that small presses have a lot of trouble. They have small budgets and a harder time getting mainstream coverage of their books. But that does not justify what this woman has written to Stephanie. Not much does.

Now I have a question for everyone—-If a small press, or any press for that matter, asks you to review one of their books and you don’t like it, do you write a review or just decline to review it period?