As Galley Cat pointed out earlier today, the NYT Book Review reveals its new format this week. It is slightly different, but still covers more non-fiction than fiction. Some columns’ names have been changed (‘Paperback Row’ instead of ‘New and Noteworthy Paperbacks’, etc. Why they felt the need to change this I don’t know) and the look is slightly different as well. What is new this week is the thorough bashing Joe Queenan gives A.J. Jacobs book The Know-It-All. “Deluded into believing that his enterprise has made him smarter, Jacobs constantly seeks to bedazzle the reader with his latest shocking discoveries, unaware that things he perceives as riveting arcana are common knowledge in many quarters.” Ow. “Far from becoming the smartest man in the world, Jacobs, at the end of his foolish enterprise, wouldn’t even be the smartest person at Entertainment Weekly.” Wow, that’s a kick in the crotch.

According to this Guardian quiz I am a literary genius.

Born to be Wilde
Congratulations. You are a literary genius. You clearly have spent far too many warm summer days indoors writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg. Go out and get some fresh air and buy a Gareth Gates record. (and if you don’t know what we’re talking about, you’re a lot less sad than us)

I have’t been updating the books I have been reading that much lately. I just keep coming across stuff that I will read too quickly to even mention. Last Friday I found a galley of a new book by Mary Doria Russell called A Thread of Grace, due out in February 2005. Honestly, it was just okay. It read a bit like a TV movie. Teh novel is set during the end of WWII in Italy. Apparently in real life Italian citizens formed a network to help save the lives of 43,000 Jews (this is from the back of the book. I do not know how they got such a specific number). She bases the book on this and creates an entire cast of characters. There are multiple people to keep track of—Clauette Blum and her father Albert Blum, refugees scrambling over the Alps, Renzo Leoni, an Italian Jew who seems like the bad boy with the good heart. And there are many others. But they seem all seem like typecast characters. The energy keeps you going through the book, but the whole time I kept wondering who they were going to cast for each character.
And yesterday I picked up a copy of Don Lee’s Country of Origin which has been sitting on my office shelf for a while. I have not finished it yet, but it’s good so far. This book follows the disappearance of Lisa Countryman, an American who came to Japan in search of herself. When she goes missing, her sister urges the U.S. Embassy and the Tokyo police into action. I will let you know when I finish what I think.

Sorry about the cheezy title, but I am very excited. On Wednesday evening, David Mitchell will be appearing at the Harvard Book Store. For those of you in the Boston/Cambridge area, come check it out. It starts at 6:30 and no tickets are needed. I can barely contain my glee about this event. Yay!

So after reading over my previous post, I decided it kind of sucked. LNR’s Sean has put up his second half of the ‘Judging the Booker by the Cover’ here. It’s too funny. He’s got better pictures of the covers, as does Max a the Millions. And the Guardian has a breakdown of all 6 books today, which is great since I hadn’t heard of several. Excuse me while I find some inspiration for some interesting posts.

Sean over at the LNR Books diary has a hilarious post today on judging books by their covers and the Booker Shortlist books. It’s a two part post and in the first one he dissects the covers of The Master, Cloud Atlas, and Bitter Fruit. I thought it might be a good idea to do the same to the American versions, as they most often change the covers completely. The problem I ran into was finding pictures of all the books. I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward and The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall remain elusive still.

The Master by Colm Toibin: Some sort of Turner picture on the cover here. Nice and bland as far as I am concerned.
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst: A nice simple cover picturing a street through a gate? I don’t know. My computer here sucks. It’s a pretty picture though.
Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor: I don’t know what the hell is going on in this cover. Like I mentioned before, crappy computer, but I imagine its some sort of fruit? Bitter perhaps? Who knows. The worst of the lot so far.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: As you can see, I could only find one rather smallish picture of Cloud Atlas. The pictures are either too small or too big. The American cover is way better than the UK edition. Ours has 6 images of clouds in various colors, the 6 referencing the story I imagine. It’s nice.
So far, I think The Line of Beauty has the best cover. Any opinions? My discussion is not nearly as creative as LNR’s I realize. Sorry, it’s Friday and I am lacking wit and verve today.

Max from The Millions left this comment the other day:

People are probably going to hate what I have to say about this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love Maud’s blog and her article on blogging and its addictive qualities is right on the money, but I don’t understand why someone like Maud, who treats blogging like it’s her job and does it well enough that it should be, doesn’t try to *make it her job.* Or at least a part time job to stave off the guilt of spending so much time on it. There are a lot of great bloggers out there, and a lot of them are worried about selling out and concerned about promoting a certain behemoth internet book store, but the fact is that since thousands of people visit Maud’s blog every day, there are ways, unobtrusive ways, for her to make a little money off of that blog. And since when is it so bad to get paid for writing? We live in a world where associations with big, somewhat unsavory companies are a regular part of daily life, so would anybody really hold it against Maud, or any other blogger who delivers such outstanding daily nourishment, if he or she had an opportunistic relationship with the big A or laid a few unassuming text ads on us? I should hope not. Thoughts?

I agree with the sentiment that people like Maud provide a valuable service not to mention the entertainment. I wish she could get paid. I do this while at work as a lark. I don’t know how much my employers would appreciate the hours I spend trolling the internet, reading various blogs. Probably not much. But it does take a lot of time, posting and so forth even with such a small blog like mine. Maud’s is huge—she has an enormous amount of readers and tons of posts everyday. I wouldn’t mind a few ads or so. Most sites have them anyway. And I don’t think it would make her blog any less ‘real’ if she got some sort of financial reward for her work. Does anyone else have an opinon?

From the NYT article ‘The New Bodice Rippers Have More God and Less Sex’:

To satisfy that demand, several leading publishers, both Christian and secular romance houses, are rolling out what they call “Christian chick lit” lines. These novels typically feature Bridget Jones types looking for the right man, the right chocolate, the right friends – and the right relationship with God.

I have no problems with religion (well I do, but I don’t want to get into it here. Some people have faith and some don’t. I am in the latter category.) but I find this mix of relgion and chick lit cringe inducing. The Yada Yada Prayer Group makes me shake my head. I feel like such a snob for writing this, but I just don’t get the appeal. Since I am going to hell, it’s no wonder. Just not my cup of bourbon.

One of our favorite blog writers writes on blogging for one of our favorite magazines Maisonneuve (which has a great new issue out by the way).

I haven’t commented yet on the news that a great independent bookstore and also one of our biggest competitors has just filed for Chapter 11. Wordsworth has been in Harvard square for almost 30 years. They are our biggest competition particularly with regards to author events. It makes me sad though that they are in such financial difficulty. I hate to see any independent close. If they leave, it will just be us and the COOP! The COOP is run by Barnes & Noble, for those not familiar with Harvard square, so this is not a good thing. Retail sales have been down all over for the last month, and I know Wordsworth has been in trouble for a while. It has not been determined if they will close or not. They could still find financial backing and remain open. This is why I don’t use Amazon links on my blog (the continuing closing of good bookstores). I can’t in good conscience link books to them while I work here. I hate to give them the business. I’d rather anyone who is interested in a book I mention to buy it locally. I realize that isn’t going to happen always. (And I am not saying that you should never buy anything from Amazon. It’s more complicated than that of course.) Everyone support your local independent!