Mark your calendars. As promised (many months ago) Kate Atkinson, author of the inaugural Litblog Co-op selection, Case Histories, will be stopping by the LBC blog to discuss the book with readers. If you got a chance to read the book – or if you just want to see what all the fuss is about – be sure to visit the blog on Monday, August 29th.
Kate Atkinson to visit the Litblog Co-op blog
Staying Sane: A Year in Reading (Part 5)
The unexpected pleasure and wonder of my book year is Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, which was a birthday present from dear friend Judith Schneider. I started the novel because Judith was egging me on and realized immediately that I was in for a treat. The story of the Stephanides family begins in Uludag, now Turkey’s premier skiing resort, in the city of Bursa, during the Turkish Independence War. Brother and sister Stephanides leave Bursa as the Greeks are pulling out and travel to Izmir (Smyrna) to take a ferry to France, during which the siblings get married. In the epic story that follows, Eugenides takes the reader through the struggles of this first generation Greek couple in Detroit during extraordinary times: first prohibition, then the Great Depression, and finally World War II. In the meantime, the Stephanides family grows and Eugenides moves on to the baby boomers, the hippies, and the seventies as he describes the life of the narrator and third generation granddaughter Calliope Stephanides. Calliope, or Cal for short, discovers during her teens that she is a hermaphrodite and develops an affection for a girl she names “Object of Desire.” Middlesex is a very unusual novel, and as weird as the protagonist is, it is really easy to connect with Cal and travel through the extraordinary events of the twentieth century and the psyche of a teenager, who is more at odds with her/his being than most others. Euginedes’ writing is very fluid and Middlesex is an amazing piece of work that leaves one wondering how autobiographical it is. I suggest that you find out for yourself.Previously: Part 1, 2, 3, 4
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A football book
I’ve written often of books about baseball (especially ones by Roger Angell). Baseball values words over images – I prefer listening to games on the radio to watching them on television, for example – and so lends itself well to the page. Football is a different story, entirely. If one doesn’t see these men bash each other on cold, gray Sunday afternoons, then what’s the point really? Reading about a spectacle kind of defeats the purpose. And this probably explains why there isn’t much “football literature” to speak of. The only football book I’ve ever read is George Plimpton’s Paper Lion, which, though terrific, is really more about Plimpton than football. Most of the other football books I’ve seen have been the ghostwritten memoirs of retired Hall of Famers. But the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, in his series which “reconsiders notable and/or neglected books from the past” recently wrote about a football book that deserves to sit amongst all those baseball books on the shelves of sports literature. Instant Replay was a collaboration between Jerry Kramer, a guard for the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, and Dick Schaap, a sportswriter. By unlikely but entirely happy coincidence, Kramer had been persuaded to keep a diary of his 1967 season by Dick Schaap, an uncommonly capable and convivial sports journalist. Schaap knew that Kramer was intelligent, literate, observant and thoughtful, and suspected — rightly — that he could provide a unique view of pro football from its innermost trenches: the offensive line.The book sounds like a treat for any football fan, especially at this time of year.
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Windmill News
Wow, the Venezuelan government has printed one million free copies of Don Quixote to celebrate the book’s 400th anniversary. That sure beats the “one book one city” thing we have in the states. Read about it at the BBC. (via bookglutton). Also, anyone who has endured the long wait for the Edith Grossman edition of Quixote to come out in paperback, take heart, it arrives on May 1. See also 400 Windmills.
Appearing Elsewhere
In my most recent “Year in Reading” post, I mentioned Joseph McElroy’s Women and Men, a 1200-page novel it took me six weeks to consume and six months to digest. A somewhat longer, though still woefully inadequate, consideration appears today at The Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy blog, as part of “Postmodernism Month.” If you are like me one of those odd readers for whom the conjunction of the phrases “1200-page” and “Postmodernism” whets your appetite, pop on over to Jacket Copy and check it out.
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A Book from the Underground
I haven’t mentioned any art or photography books on The Millions in a while, but the other day a book caught my eye that I thought was worth mentioning. New York Underground: The Anatomy Of A City by Julia Solis is a collection of photographs taken in the myriad of passageways and tunnels that make up New York’s unnamed subterranean sister city. You can have a look at some of the pictures here. If you’re still interested after looking at those, snoop around Dark Passages, where you’ll find lots more photos of New York’s creepy, forgotten places.
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Remembering My Parents’ Bookshelf
Did I enjoy these books? Though they don’t interest me now, I think I did enjoy them then. I was accumulating my 10,000 hours of reading practice.
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Weird Tales of the Unexplained…
Buzz Poole’s Madonna of the Toast documents the mysterious appearance of icons sacred and profane, in rock formations, housewares, and foodstuffs the world over. A potato chip shaped like Bob Hope? It’s here. Vladimir Lenin on a shower curtain? Likewise. And it wouldn’t very well be Madonna of the Toast without the titular grilled cheese, which – you guessed it – NEVER GOES BAD.Poole has launched a blog where observers of related paranormal phenomena can document their encounters. If you’ve recently run across a Charlotte Bronte-shaped underarm stain, or a puddle that looks like William Shatner, we can only suggest you head over to the blog and share your experience… Inquiring minds, after all, want to know.
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