The LBC gets another writeup, this time from the AP. Check it out, they lead with the “Oprah angle.” Oh, and since my dad didn’t understand my previous post about the LBC, I should clarify: yes, I am a member.
More Litblog Co-op Pub
Davy Rothbart is a blogging maniac
Davy Rothbart has taken the Powell's blog by storm. He's putting together the next FOUND magazine book (a sequel to the first one), and he's taken to posting late at night, occasionally whilst drunk. He's discussed "found" stuff, Scrabble and writing to inmates as well as a number of other topics.
Vonnegut’s late in life success
Kurt Vonnegut's A Man without a Country is turning into something of a surprise success thanks to prominent TV appearances and the fact that his essays appear to strike a chord with many Americans. From today's AP story: "The book has reached the top 10 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, and publisher Seven Stories Press has already more than doubled its first printing, from 50,000 copies to 110,000." Vonnegut has also taken the opportunity to remark on the onset of old age: "He jokes, sort of, that he has 'lived too long' and wishes he had been finished off by a fire at his home a few years ago, from which he escaped unharmed. 'When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon,' Vonnegut said with a wheezy laugh worthy of a long-term chain smoker."Previously: New Kurt VonnegutSee also: Vonnegut talks about the new book on NPR.
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Appearing Elsewhere
Los Angeles-based readers are invited to attend Rhapsodomancy on Sunday night, a reading series at the Good Luck Bar in Los Feliz. I will be reading, along with poets Jericho Brown and Ching-In Chen, and comic book and prose writer Sina Grace.Here are the other details:Sunday, April 19, 2009Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pmThe Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 9002721 and over only $3 suggested donation at doorThere will be a cash barYou can RSVP at [email protected] (not required, but appreciated). I hope to see you there!
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Oscar Wao Author Helps Inaugurate New Online Series
Pulitzer winner Junot Díaz talks with his fellow "Year in Reading" contributor Meghan O'Rourke in the debut episode of the online video series Open Book, co-sponsored by Slate and my alma mater. I'm thrilled that the producers elected to keep the same zany voice-over guy who reads Slate's audio podcasts. Future interviews, we're told, will include John Ashbery, Charles Simic, and Jonathan Safran Foer.
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The LBC Blog, featuring me
This week at the LBC blog, we'll be discussing my nominee for this round of books, All This Heavenly Glory by Elizabeth Crane. Ed has done a very entertaining podcast with Crane, and I can be heard at the beginning introducing the book (Ed decided to portray me as some sort of bionic man. I'm not sure I get the reference, but I like it!). Also up is a dialog about the book, featuring me and Kassia (of Booksquare). Tomorrow the dialog will continue with help from Sam (of Golden Rule Jones).
Plagiarism in the News
My friend Nancy sent this story my way the other day. Apparently, back in 1998 a woman posted on her weblog an interesting discovery. She realized after reading the Robert Graves historical novel I, Claudius and the Richard Condon cult classic The Manchurian Candidate back to back that Condon borrowed passages from Graves' book. There has been a little bit of hype surrounding The Manchurian Candidate lately due to an impending remake of the movie and a new edition of the book with a forward by Louis Menand, so perhaps that is what caused this revalation to come to light so long after its original discovery. Menand himself notes the bizarre patchwork of styles in Condon's work and now experts are positing that Condon may have borrowed from a number of different books when writing his novel. What strikes me when reading this is that neither the author of the article nor the experts consulted seem to think this charge is particularly damning. I think maybe this stems from the fact that Condon has never been considered much more than a pulp writer anyway. Here's the full article if you want to read more.More Than Just BaseballWhere have I been? It seems that during the nearly twenty years that have passed since he penned one of the best books ever written about baseball, Nine Innings, sportswriter Daniel Okrent went on to become an editor of Life Magazine and then an editor of Time Magazine. Now he has a new book out that is in keeping with his more recent journalistic pursuits. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center chronicles the interesting story of a landmark of entertainment in New York City. Here's what the New York Times has to say about the book, and here's an excerpt.
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Dissing Doctorow
The New York Times' Michiko Kakutani shows her extreme distaste for E. L. Doctorow's new collection, Sweet Land Stories, as well as movies based on Doctorow's books. (LINK) "Several of E. L. Doctorow's novels - Ragtime, Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel and Billy Bathgate - have been turned into plodding, overproduced movies. Here, in his latest collection of short fiction, "Sweet Land Stories," he seems to be trying to turn old movie ideas into stories with equally little success at recycling," Kakutani says. I personally enjoyed both of the stories from this collection that originally appeared in the New Yorker, "A House on the Plains" and "Jolene: A Life," so I will probably get some more opinions on this one before I declare it a dud.A New LunchI noticed that Kevin over at LA Observed occasionally reports on publishing industry deals listed in something called "Publisher's Lunch." Intrigued, I used my book industry credentials to sign up for these weekly newsletters, and so now, from time to time, I will pass along to you publishing industry news that may be of interest to you. For example, Dave Eggers' new collection of stories, entitled Visitants, will be published by McSweeney's (of course) this fall, and J. Robert Lennon's next book will be called Happyland and will be put out by Norton.
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