In his essay ‘The Story Behind ‘The Plot’ in this week’s NYT Book Review, Philip Roth says that he did not write The Plot Against America with today’s political climate in mind.

“Some readers are going to want to take this book as a roman à clef to the present moment in America. That would be a mistake. I set out to do exactly what I’ve done: reconstruct the years 1940-42 as they might have been if Lindbergh, instead of Roosevelt, had been elected president in the 1940 election. I am not pretending to be interested in those two years—I am interested in those two years.”

I read The Plot Against American a few weeks ago and loved it, but I couldn’t help but make the connection to today even if he didn’t intend to make it. Roth’s essay is definitely worth reading. He tells how he crafted his latest novel from its conception to crafting the characters. Plus at the end, he goes off on how unpredictable the world is. “And now Aristophanes, who surely must be God, has given us George W. Bush, a man unfit to run a hardware store let alone a nation like this one, and who has merely reaffirmed for me the maxim that informed the writing of all these books and that makes our lives as Americans as precarious as anyone else’s: all the assurances are provisional, even here in a 200-year-old democracy.” How awesome is that?
Also, as other have already pointed out, check out this lengthy interview with Roth at the Guardian. He’s a fascinating man.

I know parts of the country are suffering from hurrican after hurricane and I am not trying to rub it in their faces, but we are having the best weather here in New England. 60s and 70s and sunny. It’s perfect. So I spent much of the past weekend outside not reading. I did finish Ordinary Wolves a few days ago, though I don’t have much to say about it for some reason. The story follows Cutuk and his family who live in remote Alaska. A great deal of the novel deals with race and places in society. Cutuk’s family is white and they are looked down upon in the mostly native town. As he tries to find his place in the world and some acceptance, he moves to Fairbanks. But he finds his ‘own’ people just as mystifying. There are some beautiful passages and it is interesting to read about someone who has not experienced everyday things we take for granted, such as riding in cars and soda. The vernacular takes some getting used to, but makes the novel more interesting. That’s all I really have to say about it.

I found some great stuff in Used yesterday that I am excited about reading. I’ve been looking for some Nabokov for a while. It’s a huge gap in my education I feel that I haven’t read him before. I found both Lolita and Pale Fire. And I also grabbed a copy of DeLillo’s Underworld. Who knows when I will get around to all of these. My TBR list grows edponentially each day. Sigh.

My birthday is on Friday and I am looking forward to going out for a great meal. And doing some fun stuff this weekend. Maybe apple picking?

I know others have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Book Babes, the Poynter Institute’s answer to Dear Abby. I find them especially irritating for some reason. Today’s column focuses on Jenna Jameson’s newly published bio How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale. The book has generated some publicity, getting lots of reviews even from the exalted NYT Book Review (there is much sarcasm in this sentence). Ellen is the Babe that annoys me the most. Margo seems sensible and even has some good opinions. Ellen, on the other hand, seems like she is way behind the times and has an very high opinion of herself. She spends a paragraph explaining how ‘normal’ ‘intelligent’ people such as herself know nothing about porn:

I should have seen this one coming. In June, at a BookExpo panel spotlighting the hottest titles for fall, the ReganBooks rep dropped one of his company’s autumn bombshells: Stop the presses! We’re publishing the autobiography of Jenna Jameson! Like me, however, most in the crowd looked decidedly underwhelmed. Who? It was the best confirmation I’ve ever had that book people aren’t just talking when they say theirs is the life of the mind.

And then she has the gall to start the next paragraph with this doozy: “By now, of course, we thoughtier types get the picture. Jameson, it turns out, is the queen of porn, a woman who has become rich and famous by doing on screen what most people reserve for the privacy of their bedrooms.” I am picturing her saying something along the lines of “well, I never!”. Of course you haven’t dear. You’re a Book Babe. You probably haven’t gotten laid since the Carter administration. Granted, this all her opinion. Margo at least has a more sensible answer—moral outrage aside, is the book any good? It’s the ‘thoughtier types’ bit that really gets me. What does she mean? It just seems so elitist. I feel bad almost, since most of my scorn is for Ellen, but somehow Margo takes some of it just by writing a column with her. She should break away and start her own gig.

TEV brought up an interesting topic yesterday. He’s noticed that reviewers and bloggers tend to flock to a few new titles each month or so. You can’t throw a stick (metaphorically of course) without hitting a review of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell these days. The same for Colm Toibin’s The Master when it came out.
Its hard not to notice this trend. And I definitely will fall into this pattern myself. I read all of these reviews of a new big book and feel the urge to run out and read it and write about it. I think of how I used to read BBS (that’s before book store). I’d spend hours trolling the aisles for something to read. Randomly grabbing a title off the shelf , attracted to a colorful spine, reading the back and the first few pages. That’s how I came across Murakami.
Now I usually head to the shelves with books in mind already. I have lists of things I want to read. Sometimes I will come across titles that interest me from looking through a season’s catalogs. Sometimes from reviews. And sometimes I will grab books based on the recommendations from other bloggers, e.g. John Banville, whom TEV loves.
I miss the days of browsing. When I go to other cities now, I always am drawn to bookstores. There I can browse without fear of being interrupted by a customer or co-worker. There I can browse without commentary by others (I am a private reader most of the time. I don’t want to have to discuss what I am buying and reading with co-workers). While in Virginia over the long weekend, I came across 2 great used bookstores in Charlottesville. And I went into each of them (partly to try and find some Nabokov whom I embarassingly enough I have never read. Nabokov is almost impossible to find used. I don’t know why.) and every time my boyfriend rolled his eyes. Not because he doesn’t like bookstores or browsing, but because he can’t imagine why I would want to browse in another store when I work in a perfectly good (let’s be honest, it’s one of the best bookstores in New England) store and can browse all day if I like.
So, now that I have rambled for several paragraphs, I suppose what I am trying to say is, how do you decide what to read? I want to support smaller, unheard of books, ones which might not get a review in the NYT or any place else. I want to give them a chance because there are some great books out there. But I also want to read the big popular stuff too. I guess its a matter of balancing. Any opinions out there?

Well, you won’t be hearing from me for a few days as I am leaving what is now beautiful New England weather (yes, it was I who just 4 days ago was complaining about the weather.) to go to Virginia to visit Mr. Bookdwarf’s parents. I have been wanting to call my boyfriend Mr. Bookdwarf for a while. I don’t know if it is appropriate since we are not married and he blogs under another name. But whatever. I am going to Charlottesville until Sunday. I am bringing a copy of Purple Hibiscus, which is on the Booker long list and possibly Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. It’s either that one or Birds Without Wings. Can’t decide. I will only be gone for 3 days, but I hate to be without a good book. These are the things that drive me crazy.
Speaking of the Booker, there is much speculation about the winner. I am curious about who is going to make the short list myself. The list seems full of good books. Carrie has some good stuff over at Tingle Alley and also check out 3 A.M.’s Booker Blog. All Booker all the time! God I am a nerd.
Anyway, I was going to write up a thing on Susannah Clarke’s excellent book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I have not had the time. Here are a few reviews though.
Good reading!

(I am not going to mention the Red Sox because I don’t want to jinx them. They are only 3 1/2 games behind the Yankees! But they are the Red Sox, thus they can screw it up. So I am not going to mention it.)

Lindsay Waters has an essay in this week’s Village Voice which he adapted from his book Enemies of Promise. I had occasion to here hm read from his book at the Harvard Press Display Room (hey Bross!) several months ago. Maybe it was the many glasses of wine I had drunk, but he made sense. Now, I believe much of what he says is more relevant to the academic publishing world, but it is important nonetheless. Look at what happened to Northeastern University Press—they had some great books, but the University claimed it lost them too much money and they must close it. “It was always considered a feather in the cap of Northeastern,” said editor in chief Robert Gormley. “They somehow figured its no longer a feather in their cap.” I am not sure what all this means. Its more that I have noticed the trend while working with the backlist here. With the economy being so shitty for the past few years, more and more university and academic presses are forced to raise prices and lower discounts. But the retail stores have been hit hard too and cannot order the more expensive books, so we order less from them each year.
I have no solutions here. That’s more along the lines of something Dan over at the Reading Experience should handle (he is much better at long articles than I am). My experience with the humanities makes me think that something is wrong with the system. Being made to specialize and at the same time to publish in order to have a “successful” career don’t seem to go hand in hand necessarilly. My graduate program adviser in the Classics department (which I have since dropped out of) told me that everything in Classics has been studied already. Just pick an obscure author and research, translate and write articles for journals. Heartening words to a student, no?

Here is an interview with one of my sister’s college roommates Jardine Libaire, who’s debut novel Here Kitty Kitty has been published recently by Little Brown. I have not read the book, but the Publisher’s Weekly review certainly makes it sound good.

The longlist for the Booker prize was announced yesterday and already some people are in a tizzy over authors left off the list. The favorites so far are David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (yay!) and Allan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty. Frankly, I am not sure if the Booker carries as much weight as it once did. There are so many literary prizes out there and last year’s winner DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little was sort of shocking. Are they turning into the Oscar’s, where it is less the movie movie, more of who the actor is and have they won before or been slighted in previous years, i.e. Ron Howard or Denzel Washington? We shall see I guess when the shortlist is announced on the September 21st and the winner on October 19th.
(Thanks to Bookslut for the links!)

Its nice to see Cloud Atlas, which arrived in stores last week, receive a nice review in the Washington Post. It also includes a nice short interview with David Mitchell. Your Pal the Rake also has a nice roundup of other reviews.

The first thing I have to say about Dan Chaon’s book is wow. I finished reading this on the subway last night and I almost missed my stop as I was in a sort of stupor having just finished it. The most prevalent themes in the book are identity and fate and how they all come about and this is probably what hit me the most. The final paragraph alone sent me into a tailspin (it reveals nothing to print it here):

She just wants a second chance, she thinks. She just wants to be able to think a moment before she takes another step into her life, to pause and trace along the edges of the people that she might become, but already they are putting a plastic mask over her face, already they are talking to her about breathing and bearing down, and she doesn’t know what she wants yet. She doesn’t know.

Chaon’s story follows 3 characters bound through blood, chance and their search for something more. Nora, spiraling into mental illness, deals with the pain of giving away her illegitimate baby. Her second son Jonah instead receives both his mother’s love and bitterness. After the family dog attacks him, Jonah is scarred forever with wounds on the outside and inside. When his mother commits suicide, he leaves in search of his half-brother. The older sibling Troy Timmens, a bartender and sometime drug dealer, has a son of his own, Loomis. Troy means well and always seems to be contemplating another life. Alas, he lacks the will to change his fate. His brother’s sudden appearance in his life will however change things.
Chaon tells the story through flashbacks and flashforwards, raising the tension as you puzzle through the various relationships. He has a real gift for creating characters searching for something else, though what the ‘else’ is never seems tangible.