When I asked people earlier this month to tell me about the best book they read this year, several wrote back to say that they honestly couldn’t because, over the course of a long and busy year, they had forgotten many of the books that they had read. Now I’m sure that they could have reconstructed their year of reading by combing through old reciepts and library records and interviewing the local barristas: “I’ll have a tall latte, and do you happen to remember what book I was reading during the last week of March?” But who wants to do that. So, if you are looking for a New Year’s resolution, I would like to propose one. It’s easy: make a list of all the books you read this year. If you want to do something a little more rigorous, commit yourself to putting some words down about every book you read (And if you deem these words ready for public consumption, I’ll happily post them here.) Somehow, this sort of casual reflection makes the reading experience that much more fun. Have a great New Year. Things will be slowly returning to full speed around here, so stay tuned.
New Year’s Resolution
On the way to Philadelphia
After a long lazy summer living in a temporary arrangement (with my generous parents) in the Maryland suburbs, Mrs. Millions and I are picking up and moving again, this time to Philadelphia and this time (hopefully) we’ll be there for a while.After spending our post-college years soaking it up in LA, we left for Chicago where I went to grad school. We found it considerably colder than Southern California, as you might expect, and the whole time we were there we felt halfway home, which makes sense considering that we’re East Coasters by birth. While in Chicago, we discovered that it’s hard to really settle in and get to know a place if you feel like you’re just stopping over, even if that stopover is nearly two years long.But now we’re moving Philadelphia with the idea that we could be there a while, “indefinitely,” a word we’re happy to be able to say after living out of boxes for months. We’re excited about this move because it’s situated nearly evenly between Washington, DC and New York, our two childhood homes, yet it is almost unknown to us. After a few visits there in the last few months to find an apartment, we’ve already taken a liking to the place. We’re living near South Street in “Center City” as they call it. Though we’ve lived in cities before, we’ve never lived in a setting this urban, usually ending up in the grittier, cheaper outskirts of downtown areas. But Philly is small and compact, and we’re a little tired of almost living in cities, so we’ll be in the middle of it all, with dozens things to do just steps from our door.The fact remains, however, that despite our being thrilled about our new city, we know almost nothing about it, and we know only a couple of people who live there, so, with that in mind, I’d love some suggestions from current or former Philadelphians. I’d especially love to hear about the city’s best bookstores and good books that are about or based in the city, but I’ll happily take recommendations on restaurants, cultural venues, and any other “must see” stuff in Philly. Any ideas?
Cops and Doctors and Critics
One of the guests on Fresh Air today was former cop named Edward Conlon, a Harvard grad and fourth generation NYPD officer who used to pen an anonymous column in the New Yorker. Now he has a new book called Blue Blood in which he recounts his life as a beat cop. It looks to be a literary take on macabre subject matter. Speaking of which, Ian McEwan, most recently the author of Atonement, a book adored by both readers and critics, has revealed some details about his forthcoming book. According to this Reuters story, it appears as though McEwan will return to the more visceral subject matter of his earlier novels with a book that centers on the life of a brain surgeon. He will finish it “within months.” This new McEwan book will almost certainly be reviewed by the New York Times Book Review, where, after much skeptical anticipation, Sam Tanenhaus has been appointed as editor. As beatrice.com pointed out yesterday, some in the literary world are skipping the grace period and sticking with the skepticism, cf. David Kipen’s San Francisco Chronicle piece. This changing of the guard, you may remember, was a topic a few months back here at The Millions.
Trying to buy books
I’ve had gift cards for some chain stores lying around for months now – gifts from Christmas and my birthday – and yesterday I decided to use them. It was strange though, despite having quite a bit of free money at my disposal, I found it very difficult to buy myself books. Over the last several years I’ve grown so accustomed to buying books very cheaply that I couldn’t rationalize paying full price, even with the gift card. I felt pretty bad about it, too. I know that authors get their paychecks when we buy their books new, but they don’t see any of my money if I buy a book at a used bookstore or a yardsale. I also feel bad because most independent bookstores can’t afford to mark their books down, and even the chain stores only put a handful of titles on sale, but I know that Amazon will have the book I want at 30 percent off, or more. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to get mad at the publishers. Why does a book have to be a luxury good? I won’t pretend to know the economics of bookselling, though I know that it requires many people – all of whom need to be compensated – to put out a book, but does it really make sense to charge 25 bucks or more for a new book? There are probably a lot of people who occupy a grey area as book customers. They enjoy reading but not enough to spend 25 bucks on it or even the 15 they now want for a paperback. Instead they buy a magazine or see a movie or go out to lunch, all equally entertaining in their minds. I don’t know where the money gets squeezed out of the book creation and selling process, but if books get cheaper people will read more and I won’t stand with my nose pressed up to the window of the bookstore staring at new releases that are beyond my means.Nonetheless with all this cash in hand, I had to buy something, so instead of spending it all on handful of paperbacks or a smaller handful of hardcovers, I decided to buy a truly expensive book, this time for Mrs. Millions who deserves such things. I bought Modern House Three, a Phaidon architecture book of considerable heft filled with glossy pictures of space age homes (she’s an architect). I got a couple of books for myself, too, a couple of novels I’ve been curious about for a long time: Donald Antrim’s The Verificationist and English Passengers by Matthew Kneale. I actually still have some more left on these cards, so maybe I’ll take another stab at the whole chain bookstore thing soon.
Bull Sessions: Music and Film
Most of you have probably read it, or at least heard about it: Sasha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker posits that the cultural inter-borrowing that long underpinned the vibrancy of American music has fallen by the wayside in the current era of mopey indie rock (I mostly agree). The essay is good – though-provoking – but what has really rounded it out has been his series of responses, on his blog, to the various letters he received – 1, 2, 3, 4 – which have turned his effort into the sort of bull session that regularly happens among music fans.In a similar vein, in this case in the world a film, One-Way Street posits that we have a problem we never expected: “an American cinema that’s too good.” The argument is fairly convincing. But I can’t help but think that some arguments to the contrary might turn the post into a bull session as intriguing as the one Frere-Jones has curated at the New Yorker.
Oprah picks a real memoir
Still in the throes of controversy surrounding James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, Oprah has selected Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night as the next selection for her book club. While this selection was no doubt in the works long before the Frey controversy, the juxtaposition is still remarkable. Frey’s confessional, sensationalized addiction memoir, the credibility of which seems to crumble further with every passing day, looks awfully silly next to the beloved memoir of a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor whose character is unassailable as far as I know. In the New York Times, Wiesel says he hasn’t read Frey’s book (big surprise), but then goes on to make some comments that seem to me to be directed at Frey’s fast and loose treatment of the truth (emphasis mine):He acknowledged that some people and institutions, including on occasion The New York Times, have referred to Night as a novel, “mainly because of its literary style.””But it is not a novel at all,” he said. “I know the difference,” he added, noting that Night is the first of his 47 books, several of which are novels. “I make a distinction between what I lived through and what I imagined others to have lived through.”As it is a memoir, he said, “my experiences in the book – A to Z – must be true.” He continued: “All the people I describe were with me there. I object angrily if someone mentions it as a novel.”Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Amazon is changing the classification of Night from fiction to memoir. As of this writing, Night is number one on Amazon, bumping Pieces to number two.
New and upcoming books
John Burdett’s sequel to Bangkok 8, his mystery set in Thailand, has come out. It’s called Bangkok Tattoo. Here’s my review of Bangkok 8 (scroll down). Here’s EW’s review of Bangkok Tattoo. And here’s an excerpt.I noticed that Penguin has put out a smart-looking new edition of John Keegan’s essential history book, The Second World War. The new edition includes a new foreword by Keegan.It looks like T.C. Boyle will have a new collection of short stories out this fall called Tooth and Claw.