- From Michael Chabon’s site, an update on his forthcoming novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and a preview of The Best American Short Stories 2005, which Chabon is editing. The inclusion of “at least four” genre stories, including ones by Dennis Lehane and Tom Bissell, will surely rankle literary purists.
- Letters to Frank Conroy from his students
- The AP’s books guy, Hillel Italie, profiles FSG and highlights their penchant for publishing award-winning books.
Michael Chabon news and other weekend bits
Schlosser Scoop
Today I heard from a reliable source some very interesting info about Eric Schlosser. Yes, the same Schlosser who I derided two days ago for phoning in the follow up to his huge best seller Fast Food Nation. First of all, it turns out that Schlosser is currently hard at work on another Fast Food Nation style expose. This time he’s tearing the lid off of America’s prisons. It seems like there is wealth of material here, and there must be plenty of improprieties and outrages that the American public needs to know about. I don’t forsee such a book being quite as successful as Fast Food Nation. Everyone has eaten more than their share of fast food, but not everyone has spent a lot of time in prison. Still, I’m sure it will prove to be a very good read. There is another tidbit of info on Schlosser, as well. Apparently he and the director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life) have collaborated on a treatment for a film version of Fast Food Nation I suppose that the book does contain a number of compelling characters, and each of these characters has an interesting enough, if not completely fleshed out, story. But, it would definitely take a director as imaginative as Linklater to really pull it off.More MeloyMaile Meloy’s new book, Liars and Saints came out today. She has been widely lauded for her short stories, so it will be interesting to see how well her first novel is recieved.
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A Magazine Monster
You may have heard about this. In October an 8 DVD set containing digital images of every page of the 4,109 issues of the New Yorker from February 1925 to February 2005 will hit stores (retailing for $100 – but cheaper at Amazon and other discounters). As a huge fan of the New Yorker, my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head when I first saw the NY Times story about this, but I’m trying to restrain myself. As some of you know, I’m extremely compulsive about the New Yorker, in fact it may be the only compulsion I have. I read he magazine cover to cover every week, and if my issue is late in arriving I’ve been known to panic. My fear is that once I got my hands on this set, I would be compelled to consume every word of it at the expense of school and work and everything else, possibly even eating and sleeping. I’m may have to put myself into forced hibernation starting in October in order to keep those DVDs from falling in to my hands. Also, normally I would find the subtitle of this collection – “Eighty Years of the Nation’s Greatest Magazine” – to be somewhat presumptuous, but I happen to agree with it.
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TV book club goes farther afield
As TV book clubs fall by the wayside in terms of the public’s interest, the “Today Show” club appears willing to make some more off-beat, interesting selections. The most recent pick, chosen for the club by Walter Mosley, is Graceland by the Nigerian Chris Abani. The book, about a Nigerian Elvis impersonator trying to survive in the urban desolation of Lagos, has been out nearly a year – it was well-reviewed but not a big seller – yet it will get a second life thanks to this selection. Here’s an excerpt.
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Querying the New Yorker
If you’re a New Yorker obsessive like I am, then you’ll love the new feature at Emdashes. Emily has lined up a pair of librarians who work at the New Yorker to answer questions about the magazine, and as one might expect, they are very thorough in their responses. The first installment covers A.J. Liebling’s start at the magazine, spot illustrations, typewriters, Calvin Trillin’s food writing, movie reviews, and fact-checking cartoons. There will be more installments to come, so send in your questions.
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Music Meme
1. The person who passed the baton to you.Scott.2. Total volume of music files on your computer.At the moment I’ve got a bit more than a gig, much of it the songs that have managed to follow me through the three computers I’ve been through since the Napster heyday.3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought.Sadly, I rarely buy music anymore. I used to spend a decent chunk of my disposable income on music, but in recent years I haven’t had much disposable income, and I definitely haven’t kept up with new music with the fervor that I once did. Accordingly, I last purchased a CD in October of 2004, Flight from Echo Falls by The Vells4. Song playing at the moment of writing.I listen to more and more NPR-type stuff instead of music these days (All Things Considered at the moment). When I do feel like listening to music at my computer, I’ll often listen 3wk.com, an Internet radio station that plays lots of great, obscure stuff.5. Five songs you have been listening to of late (or all-time favorites, or particularly personally meaningful songs)See above.6. The three people to whom you will ‘pass the musical baton.’DerekCemJustin
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Books Far and Wide
Ms. Millions and I embarked upon a whirlwind trip to the East Coast this weekend for equal parts partying and wedding planning, and although Jet Blue’s inflight television distracted me from my reading, I managed to get some done, as did several other folks that I spotted in airports and on the planes. Lots of folks had their noses in the usual, low impact airport reading, but I also noticed quite a few people diverting themselves with some pretty literary fare. Off the top of my head I can remember spotting Family History by Dani Shapiro and Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds by America’s super intellectual, Harold Bloom, but there were others as well. It was good to see people getting some reading in on their way to their far flung destinations, which reminded me about an award I heard about last week that celebrates books that take place in far flung destinations. The Kiriyama Prize recognizes books “that will contribute to greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia” in two categories, fiction and non-fiction. Here’s their map of the Pacific Rim. The fiction finalists are Brick Lane by Monica Ali, My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey, The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa, and The Guru of Love by Samrat Upadhyay: five highly regarded books from last year. It’s interesting to see an award that groups books by subject matter and setting rather than the location, nationality, or gender of the author. Here are the non-fiction finalists.
Author Sighting
Today at the bookstore I had the pleasure of meeting a young author named Felicia Luna Lemus. Her debut novel, published by FSG, is titled Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. This book is about both “princess dykes” and the chicana life, a blend that could only occur in Los Angeles. She seemed almost giddy at seeing her book on the shelves, and understandably so. She is diligently at work on another novel which she foresees finishing in about five years, which is about how long the first one took. In the meantime, she is actively seeking a position teaching creative writing, which should be well within reach considering this first novel and her MFA from Cal Arts. If you want to hear more check out this review at the San Francisco Chronicle and here is a double interview with her and one of the original outlaws of queer fiction, John Rechy (City of Night is the book that made him famous), which appeared in The Advocate magazine.
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