Kate Atkinson has begun tentatively posting at the LBC blog. She’ll be discussing her book Case Histories and answering questions from readers. Feel free to join in.
Kate Atkinson at the LBC blog
Kapuscinski on Canadian radio
Millions contributor and ardent Canadian, Andrew Saikali, dropped me a line to let me know that Ryszard Kapuscinski, the Polish journalist and one of my favorite writers will be on the CBC Radio program Writers and Company this Sunday, June 5th. If you’re interested, you can listen live by clicking through from here. (Check that page to see when it will air in your time zone.) It appears as though the show will also be available here for download for a week after it airs on Sunday.
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Short Story Week: Some Recommended Short Fiction
“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane (from Open Boat and Other Stories)This 1898 story, about the last survivors of a shipwreck as they fight for the safety of land on a soaked and cold dinghy, contains one of my favorite sentences in all of short fiction: “It was probably splendid, it was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of emerald and white and amber.” That repetition of “probably” gets me every time.“Merry-Go-Sorry” by Carry Holladay (from Prize Stories 1999: The O. Henry Award)It’s a shame that Holladay hasn’t yet published a collection, for This tale of a town affected by the killing of three young boys, told in a fluid omniscient narration, is strange, ambitious, and beautiful. We venture into the minds of the accused killer, of the girl who writes him letters, of the cops investigating the murders, and so on and on, until a complicated world has emerged on the page.“Do Not Disturb” by A.M. Homes (from Things You Should Know)This story concerns a wimp of a husband and a bitch of a wife. She gets cancer, and she gets meaner. What now?“Stone Animals” by Kelly Link (from Magic for Beginners)In this wild story, a family moves from a cramped Manhattan apartment to a big haunted house outside the city. Objects start to feel “wrong” and must be discarded; there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rabbits on the front lawn; the wife cannot stop painting the rooms; the daughter sleepwalks; the husband won’t return home from work. Just as the story begins to create a coherent universe, the narrative embraces something new and strange, and the reader must remake meaning once again. It’s a big, messy, playful collision of a story.Stay tuned for more recommended stories from The Millions later this week.
A Music Note
I’m going to pretend to be a music blog for a second — The new Walkmen album, Bows & Arrows, is coming out on February 3rd. They played some of their new songs at the last show I went to, and I have been looking forward to this cd for a while now. Here’s the tracklist:Track List:What’s In It For MeLittle House of SavagesMy Old ManNo Christmas While I’m TalkingThe Rat138th St.The North PoleHang On, SiobhanNew Year’s EveThinking of a Dream I HadBows & Arrows
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Watching New Orleans
It’s been hard to watch the news the last couple of days. I’ve been interning with chicagotribune.com this summer, so, since Monday, I’ve been pretty immersed in what’s been happening on the Gulf coast – as immersed as one can be, I suppose, with out being actually immersed. Judging from the light traffic this blog has gotten over the past few days, I’m guessing most folks have been spending their online time reading the news, as I have. Aside from the major news sources – CNN, etc. – here’s what I’ve been refreshing many times a day: the WWLTV blog, the Times Picayune Breaking News Weblog, The Irish Trojan’s blog, and The Interdictor. It’s amazing how much all the blogs out there have enriched the coverage of this catastrophe. It’s a great time to be a news consumer.But you may, like me, also need a diversion from the news. Luckily, my favorite New Yorker of the year has just arrived at my doorstep: The Food Issue. I can’t wait to start reading it. Other diversions:The Chicagoist is giving away three books to promote Picador USA’s 10th anniversary event at the Harold Washington Library in ChicagoI might have to try this: Library Thing is a Web site where you can catalog your library. You can tag the books by subject, and the system pulls in Library of Congress cataloging data. Free for the first 200 books and 10 dollars for a 20,000 book limit. (via H2O)Bookfinder.com, the ultimate Web site for tracking down hard to find books, has released their latest list “of the most sought after out of print titles in America.”
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Professor Trelawney Examines Her Tea Leaves
On the eve of the release of the final Harry Potter, I offer Millions readers a few brief intuitions – alas, grounded more in literary convention than in second sight – about the events to come in The Deathly Hallows.My chief intuition, based largely on the over-determined association of Dumbledore with the phoenix throughout the series, is that everyone’s favorite headmaster is not dead (X-Men, anyone?). Recall that Harry “thinks he sees” a phoenix emerge from the smoke of Dumbledore’s funeral pyre. Based on this intuition, I also maintain that Snape is not, in fact, a Death Eater, and that he and Dumbledore staged a fake murder with Harry as witness. This will allow Snape to become more deeply embedded in Voldemort’s ranks. Dumbledore’s wisdom would be too seriously undermined if Snape really and truly betrayed him. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of this particular tea-leaf vision, more must emerge about how Snape gained Dumbledore’s trust. This will be one of the central revelations of the new book.Of lesser intuitions:R.A.B., the initials on the note found in the locket that was supposed to be a horcrux, belong to Sirius’ brother, Regulus Black, whom we have heard vaguely was a follower of Voldemort and then attempted to leave the ranks of the Death Eaters, only to be killed by them for his betrayal. This may mean that Slytherin’s locket is concealed somewhere in the Black family house that Sirius left to Harry.As to whether Hogwarts will remain open during this seventh year with Harry, I suspect that it will remain open in some capacity – if only as a larger and better fortified headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix and their allies.I hope that, in the less than illustrious cooking-sherry-drinking tradition of Professor Trelawney, I am wrong about all of these things. I think The Deathly Hallows would be a better book for it.
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A New Feature
I know that some folks out there are interested in the travels of our friend Cem. But because he is currently somewhere near the border of Thailand and Burma, it has become difficult for him to update as often as he (or we) would like. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to excerpt some of the emails that we have been exchanging. I do this partly because it’s another way to keep track of this wily character but also partly because I always find talk of travels to be a good igniter of interesting discussion. So, lets leave it at that for now. His last email bore some good news for Realistic Records (from halfway around the world no less!!) as well as the sort of scheming that would make Maqroll and Bashur proud ( You should really read this book! Gabriel Garcia Marquez loves it. And frankly, I think it might be the best book I’ve ever read. I gave it to Cem to read while he travels around the world. You can see how it has already attached itself to his psyche):max,couple things.1.a qoute from my friend kevin, a serious music junkie and collector, whose taste in music i respect more than anyone i know. this email was sent to me before i told him to buy your record:”music-wise, soulseek is still saving my life. i’m watching out for the RIAA these days, though. $150,000 a song! http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/01/download.music.ap/index.htmlmy top 8 albums in 2003 so far: (no particular order)junior senior : d-d-d-don’t stop the beatdelgados : haterecoys : rekoysdat politics : plugs pluspostal service : give uporanges band : all arounderlend oye : unrestbroken social scene : you forgot it in people”thats right fooo! realistic up an runnin![2 is of little interest to you, faithful reader, so let’s move on to 3.]3.i think that ill be following maqroll, thanks very much. as you know and i now fear, this will mean going dead broke and having to figure a way out of it. i have already begun the most basic level of planning for a small import venture involving Burmese laquerware from Mandalay and/or ethnic textiles for sale in small markets and possibly wholesale to shops. i need to speak with Thibault. i am not kidding max – the stuff is beautiful, cheap, pleantiful, and there is noone selling it that i can find in the US. you will hear more on this later – i really think that it might work.. if it aroused your interests, Mr Bashur, we could both perhaps share in the success.all for now,cem.Indie Rockers kan rede 2Cem’s friend Kevin and his fantastic list of this year’s best indie rock reminded me of, what else, a book. If you walk down the music aisle in any bookstore you will see shelves and shelves of books about the Beatles and the Stones and their compatriots in classic rock. There will also be bulging shelves of books on jazz, blues, and even world music. Punk rock, once the vanguard of the antiestablishment even warrants it’s own chunck of shelf space (Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil is by far the best book on punk, by the way). But what about indie rock? Should a fan of this lowly but noble genre of music go without adequate reading material? No longer. A couple of years ago music journalist Michael Azerrad put together a book called Our Band Could Be Your Life that chronicles the rise and fall of thirteen seminal indie rock bands. Detailed chapters on Black Flag, The Minutemen (whose line from Double Nickels on the Dime supplies the title of the book), Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Husker Du, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Fugazi Mudhoney, and Beat Happening, effectively constitute the history of rock and roll for a generation of music fans.Hey Hey L. A.I’ve been in LA for almost 3 years now, and it long ago lost it’s shiny newness for me, but it’s still a big enough place that it continues to reveal itself to me bit by bit. The other day I was driving home from work and something I heard on the radio reminded me of the way radio stations in other towns that I’ve lived in used to do spoof versions of popular songs to make them refer to something going on in that city; like when I was growing up Washington DC and the morning drive guys were always playing Aerosmith songs that had been turned into spoofs of Mayor (for life) Marion Barry and his crack habit. For a second, whatever I was hearing on the radio made me think that they were playing a goofy made up song about LA. Then I realized that I wasn’t listing to a spoof song, but a real song, probably a song that’s very popular among the kids right now. It just so happened that this song, subconsciously almost, heavily references Los Angeles. The more I thought about this and the more I let it inform my music listening and TV watching and movie viewing, the more I realized that a huge portion of American pop entertainment consciously or, more frequently, subconsciously references Los Angeles in such a way that you could only really be aware of it if you have spent a decent chunk of time in this odd city. The implications of all this are somewhat startling. Many folks get upset that America’s monopoly on popular entertainment results in a monopoly of American values and beliefs. The reality, though, is that America’s popular effluvia is simply the values of Los Angeles and its accompanying entertainment culture masquerading as American culture. It’s possible that because I am simultaineously a Los Angeles insider and a Los Angeles outsider I am particularly apt to find this disturbing. Nonetheless, I can’t shake the feeling that this is not a particularily good thing.A couple more quick notesYesterday when I was out driving, I saw a car with this vanity plate: FAKE TAG. I gave a chuckle and then decided that it’s only funny if the plates really are fake.
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Spring Break
You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a few days. I’m busy finishing up my work for the quarter, and I still have some more to go. But when I’m finished, I promise to share my spring break – via this blog – with all of you. See you then!
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Flood book fascination
It’s always interesting, to me anyway, to see how current events drive books sales. Everybody is interested in Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath right now, but it will likely be at least a month or two before the first books on the storm are published – and those will be the rush jobs with lots of photographs and not much text. So for now, the vaccuum must be filled by other books. One of these, apparently, is Rising Tide a book from 1997, which according to the AP, has gotten a big boost in sales since the storm. The book by John M. Barry is subtitled “The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America,” and I’m guessing that people are reading it in order to see how a natural disaster might cause America to change once again. Barry spoke about Rising Tide on NPR’s Weekend Edition. And here’s an excerpt from the book. Another book seeing increased sales – judging by its Amazon ranking – is Isaac’s Storm, Erik Larsen’s 1999 book about the 1900 Galveston hurricane (which may be surpassed by Katrina as the deadliest storm in American history.) Here’s an excerpt from that book.