Category Archives: The Book World

Thursday’s Links

  • That Shalom Auslander—even when he writes about sex, he’s good.
  • Somehow I’m not surprised at the books Knopf turned down publishing. They’re still one of the gold standard of publishing, quality-wise that is, so why are people shocked that they made their share of “mistakes”. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but considering how much crap is being published these days, I wish more publishing houses were as discerning as Knopf used to be. (thanks Bookslut)
  • The newest issue of the Quarterly Conversation is available, with essays by Garth Hallberg and Scott Esposito, reviews by Sarah Weinman, Callie Miller, and Matthew Cheney amongst others.
  • I’ve just discovered that Mary Beard has a blog. She’s a well-know Classicist, who’s always doing interesting things. One of the things I appreciate about her most is her desire to get everyone excited about Classics (trust me, start talking about how much fun Herodotus is at a dinner party and see how fast it takes for everyone to stop and stare at you) again. It’s not an elite academic study anymore.
  • Last November, five publishing bigwigs gathered at The New School for LWC}NYC, a literary writers conference organized by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and conceived by literary agents Judith Weber and Nat Sobel. The conference, for MFA and post-MFA writers of literature, is aimed at journeymen and women, determined craftspeople who have finished their apprenticeships but who have yet achieved master status. There’s another conference this November 8 to 10th. The Virigina Quarterly Review has helpfully put the podcast of the event and the transcript online.
  • I got the same email as Ed and The Literary Saloon regarding the embargoed information about the Heinz Awards, though I ignored it. Good for Eggers I suppose. I was more interested in that two, yes two, Cantabrigians also won: Dr. Donald M. Berwick, Cambridge, Mass., public policy award. Berwick has worked to ensure that health care institutions better coordinate patient care and implement improved quality controls; Hugh Herr, Cambridge, Mass., technology, economy and employment award. Herr, a double-amputee and researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was given the award for his advances in rehabilitation technologies that help improve quality of life.
  • I finished a book late last night which even though is not coming out until next March I wanted to go ahead and mention. Did you know that James Howard Kunstler wrote fiction? I didn’t. I know him from The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere. Our PGW (I’m still going to call them that even though Perseus has taken over. I still call Hachette Little Brown after all) rep called on me last week to sell the Winter 2008 list. Grove Atlantic has this lovely novel by Kunstler called World Made by Hand. Imagine a more personal, less post apocalyptic and dark version of The Road (sorry, the comparison will be inevitable). Set decades in the future, the oil has finally run out and catastrophe after catastrophe has broken apart the world. But it’s not full of roaming bands of catamites and Mad Max-esque thugs. Small towns have gone back to the old ways of living off the land without electricity and machines. I found it fascinating partly because the author does such a good job of keeping it realistic. Whereas The Road invokes an epic struggle ala The Odyssey, World Made by Hand brings to mind Hesiod’s Works and Days. I found it absorbing and difficult to put down.

Hear, Hear!

Reading this essay by Michael O’Donnell on the NBCC blog today, I thought to myself, here is someone writing in a more clear way almost exactly what I feel about book review pages. I haven’t had a chance to wade through Steve Wasserman’s lengthy article on the death of book reviews. I’ll try to write some more after I finish reading it.

Who knows when that will be. Work is crazy, what with students coming back to town and our event season getting underway. My job is full of keeping on top of tiny little details. I constantly read reviews to see what the demands might be. I call the publishers to track down shipments or to double check publication dates. I create lists of books for the various rotating displays in the store. I’m in the middle of creating a brand new section for the store. Plus we re-carpeted last week, which meant someone had to stay over night. I was here from ten on Thursday night until 5 am Friday morning. All of this is to say that though I may not be posting a lot these days, I’m still reading, still amongst the books everyday. I’ll tell you one book right now that I loved that I haven’t seen in any of those Best Books of the Fall lists—Yannick Murphy’s Signed, Mata Hari. Who knew a book could make you rethink Mata Hari? The entire time you’re reading, you feel bad for her as she goes back and forth in time telling her story. I know there’s so many good books coming over the next few months—I haven’t seen as rich a season in many years—but read this one too.

Junot Diaz

Bostonist has a nice interview with local favorite Junot Diaz. I had no idea that there were so many Diaz fans out there. I thought I would have to work pretty hard to get his book out there, but people seem to be clamoring. The reviews started rolling in this weekend, most reviewers commenting on the length of time between Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. We’re lucky enough to have a reading with Diaz this Wednesday, September 12th. He’s certainly getting himself out there. He deserves all of the accolades—this is truly a wonderful book, one of the best I’ve read this year.

Long Weekends Rule

I’m back at work, slightly rested from my trip to Atlanta. Luckily, it was not too hot, rather it was pleasant and warm. I savagely consumed Benjamin Percy’s Refresh, Refresh. I started it as the plane took off and didn’t put it down until I finished the last page, even forgoing the paltry snack the flight attendant handed me. The strongest stories in the collection for me were ‘Meltdown’, a post apocalyptic tale about a man returning to the wasteland surrounding the nuclear power plant, and ‘The Woods’, a story about a father and son hunting in the woods. I normally don’t read that many short story collections. I read very fast and I find it hard to get into something that’s only 10 pages (this sounds silly I know, but it’s true for me). But this collection grabbed me. Maybe it’s how Percy writes about ordinary, worn down men (all of the main characters in the stories are men) being pushed out of their ordinary ruts by events or other people. I found it quite exhilarating.
On Sunday, I went with my family to the impressive Decatur Book Festival. I’ve never been to Decatur, which is near downtown Atlanta. They just finished major renovations to the town square and there’s lots of small stores and restaurants, including four independent book stores! I didn’t get a chance to visit any of them unfortunately. I can only find one online–Wordsmiths Books, which opened just last year. They’re housed in a rather neat old bank building post office. Anyway, we missed most of the authors and events, but it was nice to see such a large crowd even on the last day of the festival.

Hot-lanta Here I Come

I’m off tomorrow to visit my parents in Atlanta for the holiday weekend. It promises to be both sweaty and relaxing. Not sure what books I’m brining with me yet. I’ve got a lot of good looking galleys sitting next to me. And of course, I’m already getting lots of stuff for the Winter—I haven’t even finished reading the Fall stuff yet. Maybe I’ll bring Denis Johnson’s new book Tree of Smoke. It’s got a rave front page review in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. Or I could bring Benjamin Percy’s short story collection Refresh, Refresh and The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Love Story by David Treuer. Both look like excellent books from Graywolf. The possibilities seem endless.

Also, I wanted to mention how much I loved Diane Ackerman’s new book The Zookeeper’s Wife. You’re probably thinking, great, another World War II biography. People behaving heroically and all that. This is much better than that. It’s the story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw zoo, and his wife Antonina, who used the zoo as a refuge for Jews during the occupation. It reads like a novel and paints a harrowing portrait of what Warsaw must have been like during the war. I really enjoyed it and am looking foward to the her reading at my store on September 19th.

I should mention that we’ve announced our September events. It’s a stellar season. I’m most excited about Junot Diaz on September 12th and David Leavitt on September 24th. I know Mark really likes his new book Indian Summer. Perhaps I’ll bring that with me on the plane. October will bring even more great authors here to Cambridge, including Orhan Pamuk, Jim Shepard, Paul Krugman, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. It’s an amazing Fall for books.

Bloggers on the Radio

Max of the Millions was on the Weekend Edition this past Sunday recommending some excellent books:

I’ve read three of the five recommended. I’ve never read any Doctorow and have been wanting to read the Mutis for a while. I even sat and read the first 40 pages at City Lights back in May, but for some reason put it back on the shelf. I can’t remember why I put it back. Seems so stupid to me now.

Jamestown Week

We’re kicking off Jamestown week at the LBC. I’m pretty excited, since I’m the one who nominated this book (this means my reading taste rules). I posted about reading this book back in March. I had said that it was one of the best books I’ve read this year—and it still is, months later. I’ve read a lot of books since then (look here), but not many books have Sharpe’s inventiveness and skill.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what about this book I liked so much. I find it really hard to describe coherently what I enjoy when I read. It’s almost as if I lack the right language. There are many things to appreciate about this book—the language, the pathos, the various characters—but I suppose it all came down to it’s believability. Yes, everything felt real to me when I read this book. I know it’s a fantastical novel, but I could imagine it.
Antoher thing I respect about Sharpe is that he stuck with Soft Skull for Jamestown. Many authors, after some success with smaller publishers, jump ship to the larger houses. I understand their reasoning, but I appreciate loyaltly to a small, but great press. So Sharpe rates high in my book.

This week we’ll be hearing from various folks, including Richard Nash of Soft Skull and Matthew Sharpe himself. I hope people check in daily and are encouraged enough to go read this book.