I think Mr. Bookdwarf expects to die under a pile of the many many books I bring home each week. I can see it now, coming home to find him under that pile of fiction that I swear I’m going to get to read one of these days. Or perhaps it will be one of the cats, swerving too close to the piles during their daily prancing. You would think that reading this article in the NYT about purging your book collection would inspire me. Not so! My collection does not need to lose 50 pounds, rather it needs to tone itself some more (excuse the weight analogy, but it sprang to mind). For every book I get remove, I probably add back two or three. It’s getting to be a dangerous habit. Mr. Bookdwarf says that we will have to add some support to the floor of our second floor apartment if we keep going this way—okay, if I keep going this way. One day perhaps I will do a large purge, but for now, I’ll just keep being creative, getting new bookcases and dreaming of a world where I can actually find the time to read all these books.

I’m excited that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won the Orange Prize last week for Half of a Yellow Sun. She’s one of my favorite novelist. I was lucky enough to meet her when she came to my store for a reading last year—she’s as lovely a person as she comes across in the media. I love that she’s so opinionated and is not afraid to tell you how she feels about topics:

Would she ever consider writing in anything other than English? The question irks her: “Every time I do an event outside Nigeria, the question invariably arises. I grew up speaking both English and Igbo and learnt both at the same time. But to be an ‘authentic’ African it seems that you must write in an African language.”

Read this interview for more (thanks Callie for the link).

Now would-be writers are to get the reality TV show treatment in an attempt to find a new Dan Brown or JK Rowling.Aspiring authors will be invited to pitch their ideas for a blockbuster novel to a panel of judges headed by Tony Cowell, big brother of The X Factor’s Simon Cowell.

Bestseller is billed as a literary version of Dragons’ Den, the BBC show in which budding entrepreneurs try to persuade investors to back them.

Winners will receive a six-figure advance and a deal with a major publisher in Britain and America. Contestants who survive the first round will be ‘mentored’ by a line-up of authors expected to include Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer.

I know I tend to go on and on about the importance of shopping locally, especially with regards to local book stores, but here’s an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about why it’s so important. Here are the important bits:

But the [San Francisco Locally Owned Merchant Alliance] is interested in more than a look at the retail world. It believes that nurturing this small-business backbone can bring more economic rewards than attracting an outside chain, which often hires fewer people and spreads less money around the city. Small business may be the best kind in many ways.

The city can often seem a war zone in the battle between big and little, with smaller retailers losing out. Storefront video stores, small pharmacies or one-screen movie houses are increasingly rare. Added costs hit small operators harder and low-price chains are tough competitors.

Yet the study found that San Francisco residents and visitors savor the city’s small-scale character. One example: local bookstores reap 55 percent of sales compared to 10 percent elsewhere in the country.

The study comes with a reasonable message. If San Francisco likes its local retailers, it should spend more at these favorite neighborhood stores and less with big operations.

Spending another 10 percent of your wallet at a sandwich shop, running-shoe store or florist could mean 1,295 more jobs and another $191 million in economic activity. Side businesses — lawyers, insurance companies, printers and ad firms — all benefit more with local businesses than chains operated from afar. The message is clear: It’s time to shop local.

This article in Bookselling This Week has more numbers about how much money spent locally stays in the local economy. The data really makes you stop and think.

Maybe there was not so much a smackdown in this LA Times article on the recent brouhaha between traditional media and the litbloggers. It’s about the side argument that got started when the NBCC started a campaign to save the book review pages. Several critics made statements that made litbloggers seem like piddling book entertainment. The litbloggers got angry, understandably. This article seems to be trying to calm things down and make the book review editors feel like their sections still matter, while also validating the work of the litbloggers. I see us at somewhat of an impasse. The mainstream media claim that blogs lack true criticism, but where is the true criticism in the New York Times Book Review each week? Are reviews really criticism? I’m really asking the question here. What is it that the papers do that we don’t? My reviews are brief for the most part and probably fall short of being literary criticism, but is it better that I discuss books here that won’t get mentioned in the mainstream media? What do they want us to do?

Taking this English class has made me think about the importance of literary criticism more and more. Cynthia Ozick’s cranky essay ‘Literary Entrails‘ in April’s Harper’s about today’s lack of true literary critics also sparked some thoughts in my brain. Questions like ‘what does my site provide readers’ have been zinging around my brain ever since I read that essay. Am I providing anything of value? I don’t consider myself a “critic”. I am a professional book buyer though and probably see more books each day than most people do in a month. Does that help? If I had an English degree would that lend more legitimacy to what I write on this blog? I’m mostly musing here, sharing some of the thoughts I’ve been having recently. I liked Callie’s response to the article as well. She offers that the litblogs can do things that the newspapers can’t, offer MP3s, podcasts, cover author readings, etc. All of these things are important and open up a broader dialogue about books, something truly important in this day.
Perhaps you’ll read this and wonder how I segued from the bloggers vs. mainstream media topic to the value of this particular site. All of this controversy has been making me think, that’s all, about my role in it, if any. So thanks for listening.

From a moving address David Grossman gave at the PEN’s World Voices  Festival:

And I write also about that which cannot be brought back. And about that which is inconsolable. Then, too, in a manner I still find inexplicable, the circumstances of my life do not close in on me in a way that would leave me paralyzed. Many times every day, as I sit at my desk, I touch on grief and loss like one touching electricity with his bare hands, and yet I do not die. I cannot grasp how this miracle works. Maybe once I finish writing this novel, I will try to understand. Not now. It is too early.

I’m off to San Francisco on Wednesday morning to visit my sister for a few days. What shall I bring to read? My idea of hell is being stuck on some sort of transit with absolutely nothing to read. I’m serious. I always have a book on me. This is something my friends tease me about, but I’ll never stop doing it. I find there are always a few minutes each day in between things—riding the train to work, waiting at the doctors office, sitting outside for a few minutes while getting coffee—when a book comes in handy.
I’ve already started compiling a list of possibilities: The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolano, Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon, The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Broken Estate by James Wood. That’s what I have so far. Am I missing something obvious? Any suggestions?

Time Out New York (or TONY as they call themselves wittily) has an interview with Tao Lin, whose books Eeeee Eee Eeee and Bed just arrived on my desk.  He also blogs at Reader of Depressing Books. He seems like an interesting person. Has anyone read either of his books yet?