Posting has been light because I’m nearing the end of the quarter at school, and I am in the final stages of a very big project. And posting will probably continue to be light because I’ll be heading off on vacation as soon as school is done. I’m thinking about taking my laptop with me, but even if I do, I’m not sure how close I’ll be to the Internet. I’m excited about this vacation (we’ll be joining my family at the beach in North Carolina) not just because it’ll be a much needed break from school, but also because there’s no place I’d rather read than on vacation. On a proper vacation there are seemingly endless hours to spend with your books. I also love the way certain reading experiences become associated with certain exotic locales – and by “exotic” I mean simply “not home.” For example, last summer Mrs. Millions both read Walker Percy’s classic The Moviegoer during our honey moon in St. Maarten. The unfamiliarity of that island paradise mingled with the humidity of New Orleans where Percy’s Binx Bolling is trying to keep “despair” at bay. The book and the place where I read it combined to form a peculiar sort of dreamy memory that I love. Though I haven’t even gotten the suitcase out of the closet, I already know which four books I’ll be taking with me. I plan to finish The Count of Monte Cristo on the plane ride there. I’ve been enjoying the book immensely, by the way. After that I’m going to read Belly, a debut novel by Lisa Selin Davis that will be coming out later this summer. The publisher’s publicity compares her writing to that of Jane Smiley and Richard Russo. I’m also bringing a couple of nonfiction books: David Lipsky’s account of following a class of cadets through West Point, Absolutely American. Lipsky was originally assigned to write an article for Rolling Stone about the military academy but ended up sticking with the story for four years. I’m also bringing The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, the resident business writer at the New Yorker. The book’s premise, which is borrowed from the world of economics, is that the collective choices of large populations of people are often correct, and that it’s even possible, by setting up what amounts to a futures market for ideas, to use this effect to predict the future. A good example of this is a futures market where one can bet on who will be elected president. Such markets have been very good predictors of actual events over the years. None of these books particularly strike me as “summer reading,” but I’ll just be happy that it’s summer and that my only obligation is to read.
Vacation, n., time spent reading while away from home
Magic for Grown-Ups
Time’s book critic Lev Grossman made a splash on this week’s NYT bestseller list, debuting at number nine in the hardcover fiction category with his second novel, The Magicians. The book has gotten a healthy publicity push, but strong sales numbers also suggest that readers are responding to its hook: “a kind of Harry Potter for grown-ups.” I haven’t read The Magicians yet, but its premise – the academic and extracurricular adventures of a contemporary East Coast Wizard – puts me in mind of an unjustly neglected fictional opus: John Crowley‘s Aegypt Cycle.
After Matt Ruff chose Aegypt for our 2007 Year in Reading, I picked up the first novel in Crowley’s tetralogy and was hooked. Wands and fairies – er, faeries – were never my thing, but I probably learned more about magic, myth, and historiography than I would have from any work of nonfiction this side of Joseph Campbell. Moreover, Crowley is a beguiling stylist, a constructor of Joycean intertextual games, and (ultimately) a passionate humanist. For several years, The Solitudes, Love & Sleep, and Daemonomania were out of print, but now Overlook Press has brought them back into print, and Small Beer Press has published the concluding volume, Endless Things.
The Times points to an interview where Grossman muses about “all the things that were missing from J. K. Rowling’s Y.A. series, from sex and booze to . . . fantasy novels”; those are the very sorts of inclusions that make Aegypt so rewarding. This is not to undermine the originality of Grossman’s approach; rather, it is to demonstrate one of Crowley’s big ideas: that we make new stories, and new magic, out of the old.
Bonus Link: Michael Dirda on Aegypt in The American Scholar.
The Market Meltdown Explained
Every time the stock market crashes, someone gets famous for having predicted it. Though some will argue that there’s always somebody arguing that armageddon is right around the corner (and that even a stopped clock is right twice a day), one of the voices who predicted our current economic crisis – banker and economic historian Charles R. Morris – is getting quite a bit of praise on Wall Street and his recently released book, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash, is selling like hotcakes.Thanks to our 24-hour news cycle, newsworthy events (9/11, Katrina, elections, the Red Sox winning the World Series, etc.) often spawn books that are rushed into print so that they can be in front of readers before the next headline has taken the spotlight. Morris’ book is unique in that it’s not a rush job, he began formulating the ideas behind it back in 2005, basing his pessimistic view on the activities of hedge funds and other Wall Street firms. As a recent NPR interview put it, “He ran a company that created the software investment banks and hedge funds use to build these new, exotic credit instruments. And he saw how they used his software, and thought, ‘This is crazy,’ he says. ‘I was sure that people weren’t keeping track of the trends so they had proper margins and collateral and so forth.'”For those interested in the topic, the NPR interview linked above is good, as is The Economist’s review, which explains just how far back the roots of the crisis go, in Morris’ estimation, “Mr Morris deftly joins the dots between the Keynesian liberalism of the 1960s, the crippling stagflation of the 1970s and the free-market experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s, before entering the world of ultra-cheap money and financial innovation gone mad.”At Foreign Policy Morris has offered up an 8-step explanation for what exactly went wrong and gives some insight into what happens next. Despite some technical terminology, this article should prove quite illuminating for those bewildered by our current economic crisis.
Bubba and the High Seas
The reviews are beginning to come in for Bill Clinton’s My Life, and Michiko Kakutani, at least, wasn’t very impressed. Read the review here.In other book news, I happened to catch a reading of a very interesting book on the radio last night. Here in DC we have C-SPAN radio, and they occasionally air the audio from their “Book TV” broadcasts (Yes, radio in DC is pretty bad, and that’s why I end up listening to C-SPAN radio). The book was The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime by William Langewiesche and his account of the sinking of the ferry Estonia in the Baltic Sea was riveting. Also in the book: modern day pirates in Indonesia and the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to secure 95,000 miles of American coastline.
Exclusive First Look: Edan Lepucki’s ‘Woman No. 17’
The Millions numbers many excellent novelists among its staff. Today we reveal the cover of longtime staffer and contributing editor Edan Lepucki’s upcoming book, Woman No. 17.
Following her New York Times-bestselling dystopian novel California (and subsequent Colbert Report appearance), Woman No. 17 is a “sinister, sexy noir” about art and motherhood set in the Los Angeles hills (as evidenced by the cover’s David Hockney blues and iconic L.A. view). Look for this May 2017.
New Pete Dexter Book
I was poking around Amazon today and I came across a listing for a new book by Pete Dexter called Paper Trails: True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a Surprising Number of Which Are Not About Marriage. I’m a fan of Dexter’s (see my review of Train, my review of Brotherly Love, and my review of Paris Trout), so I’m excited to see he’s got a new book, but what has me especially thrilled is that, if the subtitle is to be believed, the book is non-fiction. I had the chance to attend one of Dexter’s signings once, and he rattled off story after story, many of them from his days as an old newspaper guy in Philadelphia; it was definitely one of the most entertaining readings I’ve ever been to. This new book is being put out by Ecco. If anyone knows anything else about the book (or can get me a copy), let me know.
Operation Homecoming Hits PBS
Millions contributor Ben penned a post in February about a documentary called Operation Homecoming about the National Endowment of the Arts’ (NEA) program of the same name which is designed to help soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan put their experiences into words. (One participant in the program was Brian Turner whose book of poetry Here, Bullet was reviewed here a few months back.)As was noted in a comment on the original post, Operation Homecoming is also going to be covered as part of a PBS package called America at a Crossroads. That series is set to air beginning this weekend. The 11-part, six-night series covers “the war on terrorism, conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan’ the experience of American troops serving abroad, the struggle for balance within the Muslim world, and global perspectives on America’s role overseas.” The Operation Homecoming installment airs Monday at 10pm (check your local listings, of course.)
Tuesday on Fourth Avenue: Francisco Goldman, Anne Landsman, and Ceridwen Dovey
Coinciding with the start of the PEN World Voices Festival, Tuesday’s installment of the Pacific Standard Fiction Series in Brooklyn features three internationally acclaimed novelists. Francisco Goldman (The Ordinary Seaman), Anne Landsman (The Rowing Lesson), and Ceridwen Dovey (Blood Kin) will read from works set in Guatemala, South Africa, and an unnamed dictatorship. In honor of Mr. Goldman’s latest, a work of nonfiction, the theme for the evening is “Art, Politics, and Murder.” The event is free. (For more information, see Time Out.)[As Mr. Goldman has blurbed two of The Millions’ favorite books, it seems fitting to offer a bonus link to his fantastic 2003 essay, “In the Shadow of the Patriarch,” featuring cameos from Gabriel García Márquez and Alvaro Mutis, as well as early praise for Roberto Bolaño. ¡Buen apetito!]
Goings on at the LBC
The winter round of the LBC is now underway. This week, Valerie Trueblood’s Seven Loves is being discussed. Trueblood herself made an appearance today. Good stuff.