I’m a map person. There are random maps all over the walls of my house, mostly freebies that my coworkers at the book store, knowing my interest, have passed along to me. Looking around right now I can see a “Rail Map of Europe,” “World Terrorism: a Reference Map,” and this odd, black and white, line drawing map of Illinois, among several others. When I live somewhere with enough room, I intend to have several atlases. Thus, I was excited to find today a book called You Are Here by Katharine Harmon. It’s sort of a popular history of maps with heavy focus on amateur maps, folk art maps, and maps that are related to popular culture. She is especially interested in what maps can tell us about the way we see the world. I’m looking forward to getting this one.
Mapping
Cooking up a Bestseller
The hot memoir on shelves right now is that of former crack dealer and current big-time chef Jeff Henderson, whose book Cooked tells the story of how learning to cook in a prison kitchen changed his life. I heard Henderson on the radio a week or two ago and was definitely intrigued by his story which provides an inside look at dealing drugs, prison, and the kitchens of top-tier restaurants. A recent post at the Freakonomics blog shares a couple of brief excerpts which only made me more curious about the book. There’s also a pdf excerpt at Henderson’s Web site, and an interview with Henderson at Gothamist.
Help Rodger Jacobs commemorate Fitzgerald in the City of Angels
Here is his press release:It’s been done for such entertainment luminaries as Bob Hope and George Burns, and now author and journalist Rodger Jacobs hopes to convince the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to change the name of a street corner to honor F. Scott Fitzgerald on the 65th anniversary of the author’s death.”F. Scott Fitzgerald is an American icon.” says Jacobs. “Some would even argue that he’s one of the greatest authors this country produced in the 20th Century.”When the author of The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night succumbed to a fatal heart attack on December 21, 1940 he was living with gossip columnist Shelia Graham at her luxury apartment on North Hayworth Avenue in Hollywood.”Fitzgerald spent his last years here in Los Angeles,” Jacobs explains. “I don’t think a lot of Angelenos know or appreciate that fact. He wrote extensively about L.A. in his unfinished novel The Last Tycoon and in the Pat Hobby stories he wrote for Esquire.”Renaming the intersection of Hayworth Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, Jacobs hopes, will encourage locals to explore the literary world of F. Scott Fitzgerald.”I would be happy if this attempt to keep Scott’s name in the public eye would bring just one curious person to pick up a book of his that they might otherwise not have read. According to census data, the number of literate Americans who are no longer reading books at all is growing in leaps and bounds ever year.”The entire petition can be viewed and electronically signed here.
Disappearing Bookstores
Scott’s Friday Column is a thoughtful look at why independent bookstores in the Bay Area, and everywhere else, seem to be disappearing.All this has taken a toll on me, the book shopper. Whereas I once aimlessly browsed through local bookstores thinking of nothing other than a new book, I now keep an eye out for warning signs, wondering which one will be the next to fall.
Exclusive: The First Lines of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84
Staying Sane: A Year in Reading (Part 1)
I started 2004 with Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn. It surprised me greatly as I had finished Tropic of Cancer only about a month prior and expected more of what I imagined to be crazy real life accounts – starvation, the artists’ world in 1930s Paris, heavy boozing, sex, sex, and more sex. There’s a glimpse of this, but instead of more scandalous stories, I found in Tropic of Capricorn Miller’s inspiration for Tropic of Cancer. In this heavy, philosophical work, Miller puts forth his disgust for New York and everything it represents, draws a great picture of Brooklyn during the 1920s, and shows the first signs of his status as a misfit. Tropic of Capricorn is greatly revealing as the source of Miller’s genius, and it is by no means the easy going, fun, weird read that Tropic of Cancer is.Next came two Turkish novels by Tuna Kiremitci, both of which moved me deeply. Both Git Kendini Cok Sevdirmeden and Bu Iste Bir Yanlizlik Var are pop culture page turners that also managed in depth character studies. Unfortunately, the novels are not available in English, hence I shall cut the description short.A Confederacy of Dunces was the second English language novel I read in 2005, and a mighty one at that. The genius of this novel is even quoted in the coolest movie of late, Sideways. It is rather unfortunate that John Kennedy Toole committed suicide and left us with only one piece, because after reading about the funny, and brilliantly lazy Ignatius, I am left to wonder what else Toole was capable of. Ignatius’ addiction to hot dogs, the costumes, the literary efforts, the complicated love affair, a disgruntled mother, and finally, the closing of the valves make for an amazing, laugh-out-loud read.