Somehow I waited two months to take a look at the “best of 2003” column from my favorite book critic Jonathan Yardley. For him 17 rather interesting books make the cut, and his two picks for best of the year are The Known World by Edward P. Jones and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s memoir Living to Tell the Tale. Both of these are on the reading queue, and I’m very much looking forward to reading them. Here is Yardley’s column.
One Last Best of 2003
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A Free Book for a Volunteer
Today, while I was driving, I caught a review of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle on Fresh Air. It was a very favorable review (in fact the book has been getting great reviews in most places). I would love to read the book and comment on it here, but I can't forsee myself getting to it any time soon. And therefore, I won't get to talk about it here. The stack of books is just too high. Yet I happen to have an advance copy of Triangle, and I hate to see it gather dust. So here is my idea: whoever among you would like to read this book and put together a little review or comment or whatever on it for this site, email me and I will send you the book. Then I was thinking, I am lucky enough to have access to advance copies of books from time to time, and wouldn't it be great if I could pass them along to people so they can write a little something which I can then post on The Millions. It sounds like good fun to me. So... if you would like to review Triangle for The Millions email me and I will send you the book. (By the way Triangle is about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, an unconscionable tragedy that proved to be a watershed event in improving working conditions [and especially working conditions for women] in America.) As I get other new books, I will offer them up for review as well. Also, if you happen to have access to review copies of books, and would like to help stock my guest review program, well, that would be really sweet.
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Books Are Too Big
Books aren't too long, they're too big. They don't fit in your pocket or purse. You have to cram them into backpacks or shove them under your arm. And I'm not even talking about hardcovers (I can't afford those); I'm talking about these big paperbacks. Sure, some of them look pretty but wouldn't it be great to have a paperback stowed in my jacket pocket, ready for an idle moment? If you've ever been to a used book store, you've seen that they used to make books like this, small and pocket-sized. These books weren't limited to the mysteries, romances, and mega-bestsellers that garner "mass-media" releases these days. On my bookshelves I have editions of The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, for example. They aren't the editions you'll find by clicking the links I've provided, instead they fit very nearly in the palm of my hand. I've always been enamored by those little books, the Dells, the Bantams, the Penguins and the rest, but I've been thinking about these little books a lot more of late because I spend a lot of time on public transportation these days. And, frankly, it's a pain to maneuver a big book around on a crowded bus or train. It's no fun trying to extricate my book from my bag only to cram it back in hastily when I arrive at my destination. I can tell my fellow travelers experience the same difficulties, too. I would make a plea for publishers to bring back the pocket-sized books that I love, but I know that probably won't happen. I'm told that publishing company consolidation in the 1980s and an ever-growing concern for the bottom line have made that impossible. But if you want to relive the glory days of the paperback, take a look at these very cool sites: The Paperback Revolution (a stunning presentation of the glory days of the paperback book) and Edward Gorey's legendary covers for Anchor books (read the article and then click the link at the bottom to see the covers).
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More on Michaels
The New Yorker pays tribute to Leonard Michaels this week by printing a story of his... a terriffic story called "Cryptology." The weird timing of all this Michaels stuff has got me thinking that I really ought to read some more of his work. I will have to look around for some of his books. Scroll down a few entries to see more on Michaels. Also in the New Yorker James Wood reviews God's Secretaries by Adam Nicholson. This is a book about the creation of the King James Bible. It is not the sort of subject matter that I am necessarily drawn to, but it has been incredibly well reviewed by some rather prestegious publications and reviewers: Jonathan Yardley and Christopher Hitchens to name a couple. If any of that looks interesting check out the first chapter.
Appearing Elsewhere
Millions contributor Emily's award-winning review of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale has been posted by VQR. Check it out.
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Blurb Silliness
Ed points to a great article about silly blurbs, namely Dave Eggers' blurb for Daniel Handler's novel Adverbs: "Adverbs describes adolescence, friendship, and love with such freshness and power that you feel drunk and beaten up, but still want to leave your own world and enter the one Handler's created. Anyone who lives to read gorgeous writing will want to lick this book and sleep with it between their legs." I've noticed that a lot of Eggers' blurbs tend to draw attention to the blurber rather than the blurbee.Another notorious blurber is Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight. Here's his blurb for Apocalypse Culture II edited by Adam Parfrey: "Adam Parfrey's astonishing, un-put-downable and absolutely brilliant compilation... will blow a hole through your mind the size of JonBenet's fist. This book should be in hotel rooms." And how about this for Mall by Eric Bogosian: "Eric Bogosian writes like an M-16 ripping through the brain pan of Western civilization. A read-till-your-eyes-bleed chronicle of American appetites run amok." There's a whole bunch of them collected in this old LA Weekly piece (scroll down). Interesting note: The compiler of the aformentioned piece called the book store where I was working with the list of books, and I read the blurbs to her over the phone. Ah, the magic of journalism. At any rate, the experience inspired me to, much much later, compile some collected blurbs here, here, here, and here.
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