First, fiction. It almost goes without saying that people are still reading The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, but last week I noticed some other new fiction making inroads among the reading public. Mailman the fourth novel by J. Robert Lennon takes its title from the occupation of the main character, Albert Lippencott, “a loner who reads the mail before delivering it.” Ever since I read Thomas Pynchon’s paranoiac masterpiece, The Crying of Lot 49, I’ve thought that there is a wealth of material that might be mined from the machinations of the Postal Service. When you look at it in a certain way, mail is a pretty crazy thing; billions of pieces of paper crisscrossing one another invisibly from one end of the world to the other and so many stories in those letters. Also proving popular, due at least in part to impeccable reviews, is The Known World by Edward P. Jones. And lastly, lots of people are looking to read Charles Baxter’s latest, Saul and Patsy. Like his previous novels, Baxter’s latest is thoughtful, reflective and “quietly triumphant.” Several of my trusted fellow readers have singled out Saul and Patsy as a book they are dying to read.
What People Are Reading (Part 1)
Short Story Week at The Millions: A Brief Introduction
Recently, the innovative literary magazine One-Story launched a campaign to “Save the Short Story.” As the essay below suggests, we at The Millions found this effort admirable, and also puzzling. Is “the short story” even a single thing? And, if so, does it need saving? On both questions, the evidence seems mixed. We can agree, however, that short stories seem to have lost some of their prominence in the popular imagination. Mainstream book coverage tends to track the agendas of the publishing industry; those agendas, in turn, tend to be driven by coverage. With our “Short Story Week,” we aim to subvert the cycle. Between now and Friday, we hopeto revisit the work of living masters,to celebrate the writers who paved their way,to talk a bit about teaching the short story, and writing it,to link to interesting short-story sites and periodicalsto provide a selective bibliography of our favorite story collections,and, as always, to hear from you.In short: we hope you enjoy it. We’ll be linking to the week’s installments below.Inter Alia #8: Whither the Short Story?On BrevityExpat Laureate: Paul Bowles’s Too Far From HomeThe Elusive Thread of Memory: The Displaced World of Mavis GallantAdventures in Consciousness: A Review of Deborah Eisenberg’s Under the 82nd AirborneSome Recommended Short FictionAnthologies EvolvedAnd May We Also RecommendShort Story Week LinksOn Our Shelves: 45 Favorite Short Story Collections
Too Many Viggos
Hunky Viggo Mortenson (of Lord of the Rings fame) was a big draw when he made appearances at the bookstore where I used to work. He’s got some dedicated fans who love the fact that he’s an actor and a poet and an artist. If you look at an Amazon search for his name, his many books of poetry and art come up. But, as the New York Times recently noted, there’s another Viggo Mortenson, a Danish professor who has written a book about theology, much to the chagrin of wayward Viggo fans who end up picking up his book, Theology and the Religions: A Dialogue (note the angry customer reviews.)BookFinder.com Journal notes the article and discusses the frustration of running an online book database and dealing with multiple authors who share the same name.
World Traveling
As some of you may know, my very good friend Cem has been travelling through some remote parts of the world. The other day, in a very long email, he asked me whether or not I thought he should stay in northern Thailand or keep on moving toward the Middle East which is, ostensibly, his final destination… here is my advice (plus a little plug for the record label, which he had asked about): Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner, your email took me 4 days to read. Seriously though, what I wouldn’t give to be in your place with your dilemma… should I go to this frighteningly exotic place or this other one? My jealousy aside, I’m not sure I can make this decision for you, but I might be able to give you a little insight. First, you have to decide, irrespective of the girl or whatever gig you have set up in Thailand, whether this adventure is all about getting to the destination (i.e. Cairo and the Middle East) or allowing yourself to be follow the whims of the world and just be wherever you end up… like Maqroll. I think both are perfectly admirable plans, but you have to pick one or the other. Secondly, I don’t know how tuned in you are to world events right now given your isolation, but American soldiers are dying every couple of days in Iraq, and the situation seems, to me anyway, to still be very much up in the air, with a guerilla war still a possibility, however remote. I’m sure that Cairo and Istanbul and Amman are all plenty safe, but I guess you should figure out if you prefer to be in the Middle East soon (while there is still uncertainty) or later when things have calmed down. So there you have it… no easy answers just more dilemmas. I love what you’re doing, and if and when you get settled somewhere, I am coming to visit. In other news, the website for my record label is www.realisticrecords.net so tell all your indie friends to check it out. There are mp3s up and pictures of the recoys reunion show/record release party. You can also buy the album there (It’s called Recoys Rekoys) and it’s a vinyl only run of 1000. Since that is almost sold out though, we’ll probably get a cd together soon enough.Now if there are any world travellers out there who are aspiring to do the sort of thing that my friend Cem is doing, I suggest you pick up The World’s Most Dangerous Places by Robert Young Pelton. It’s a very informative and wildly entertain look at some of the more hazardous corners of the planet. As if to underline his fealty for sticky situations, Pelton himself was kidnapped by leftist rebels in Columbia earlier this year. He was later released.
Even childrens books are going smoke-free
The Using Books blog points to a Kansas City childrens’ book store, Reading Reptile, that is taking HarperCollins to task for allegedly doctoring the photo of Clement Hurd, illustrator of the childrens’ classic Goodnight Moon, on a recent edition of the book. It seems that Hurd was once pictured holding a barely visable cigarette and now the cigarette has disappeared. The Reading Reptile folks have put together Goodnight Reality, a Web site to protest the “censorship.” Though the comparisons to Stalin may be a bit over the top, I suppose you have to fight for what you believe in.And lest I be accused of taking things too seriously, the Reading Reptile folks are probably being a little tongue in cheek about this. Judging from their “About Us” page, they’ve got a sense of humor.Update: The New York Times looks at the Goodnight Moon cigarette controversy. HarperCollins plans to find a completely different photo of Clement Hurd for future printings of the book, so that no doctoring will be required.
Money saving Amazon Tips
Amazon shoppers: I recently discovered a couple of nifty ways to save a little money at Amazon. First, as this article explains, if an item is marked down within 30 days of your purchase, you can use a refund request form to ask that the difference be refunded. Since prices are constantly fluctuating at Amazon, this seems like a great way to get the best price on whatever you’re buying. Second, users of Amazon’s search engine A9 can get an extra 1.57% off of all their purchases. It’s not a huge discount, but it can add up, especially on those big ticket items. Here’s how to qualify.
Adam Langer: What’s in a title?
Adam Langer has an entertaining essay at The Book Standard which is full of discarded titles for classic books and films. But the fact is that Thomas Wolfe’s original title O, Lost doesn’t have quite the same ring as Look Homeward, Angel, nor does Margaret Mitchell’s Fontenoy Hall, which became Gone with the Wind. If F. Scott Fitzgerald had gone with Trimalchio in West Egg, one of his working titles for The Great Gatsby, God knows what we’d have studied in high school.In the essay, Langer also reveals that his next book is tentatively titled The Washington Story.
Following Up
In yesterday’s post I mentioned that Elaine Pagels’ books were getting a boost from The Da Vinci Code and The Passion. Now, David Remnick gets her reaction to Mel Gibson’s film (negative) in the New Yorker. Hurry and read it before it disappears.A Remarkable BookOne of the best books I own has just come out in paperback. Thomas Pakenham is a British historian and lover of trees. A couple of years ago he collected his photographs of and stories about remarkable trees and titled it, appropriately, Remarkable Trees of the World (which is actually a companion volume to his first tree book, Meetings with Remarkable Trees). Click here to see some remarkable trees.