No the Times isn’t getting comics, but they are taking a cue from the New Yorker by adding a graphic novel-type comics section to the Sunday magazine. Everybody’s been saying for years that “graphic novels” are on the cusp of taking the book world by storm. Is this a step in that direction? The first artist to appear will be, you guessed it, Chris Ware. Get the gory details here.
The New York Times ‘Funny Pages’
Quality Issue: Last Week’s New Yorker
This week’s New Yorker is already on newsstands, but before last week’s issue is a distant memory, I wanted to praise it for being one of the best issues I’ve read in a while. Calvin Trillin’s piece on an episode of vigilante justice in Canada was engaging and well reported and David Owen’s profile of the Arup structural engineering firm was an interesting departure from the magazine’s usual coverage of cultural luminaries in the architecture field (neither article is available online.)The issue was anchored by Seymour Hersh’s most important article since he helped break the Abu Ghraib story in 2004. In this follow up, Hersh delivers compelling evidence that responsibility for Abu Ghraib goes well beyond the handful of soldiers who were said to have acted on their own.But what really capped off the issue for me was Helen Simpson’s refreshing story “Homework,” which had a startlingly different tone from the typical New Yorker short story. Instead of brooding and cereberal, the story is almost joyful from start to finish, augmented by a wry undercurrent of second meaning. Whereas many contemporary stories are played in a minor key, thriving on disfunction, “Homework” is built on a healthy relationship between mother and son as she helps him complete an assignment to describe a “life-changing event.” Rolling her eyes at the silly assignment, the first person narrator mother dictates a made up life to her son, one that includes divorced parents and in particular a globe trotting, carefree mother. There are a few subtexts below the surface as she crafts the story for her son: her own difficult childhood, her desire for a more exciting, less domestic life. But the story is also about imagination and being a kid. I thoroughly enjoyed it.I hadn’t read Simpson’s work before, but I’ll keep an eye out for it now. She’s penned several short story collections over the years, including In the Driver’s Seat, which came out last month.
Save the Bloggers
We all work very hard at The Millions. But writing about books, despite being, uh, serious business, is not necessarily life threatening. Blogging for the 24/7 news cycle is, apparently.Sticking with journalism’s good-old “three is a trend” praxis and using three bloggers who suffered heart attacks, two of them fatal, the New York Times published a front-page story Sunday, highlighting the strains and risks of strenuous blogging for Web sites like TechCrunch, Gizmodo, and Gawker, among others.I am beginning to suspect that the Gray Lady is attracted to this hot young thing. A month ago on Sunday the paper published a story about politicos blogging from DC. In what read like a oh-look-at-my-fabulous-blogging-life article, the Times described life in assorted “flophouses” where 20-somethings all cohabitated and blogged together, having parties on Super Tuesday to celebrate – and, of course, write about – the primaries. OK, there’s only one flophouse, but the assorted houses do exist.And while DC bloggers help shape the political landscape, their Wall Street cousins are said to be moving markets, according to this academic study. Tip of the day: following financial blogs and short selling stocks accordingly may make you a quick buck – not a bad deal in this economy.Alternatively, you can tune in to The Millions, where we shun heart attacks and continue to post at our leisurely – and hopefully satisfactory – pace.
Trending away from hardcovers
There was lots of discussion late last week about Ed Wyatt’s NY Times article talking about publishers “offering books by lesser-known authors only as ‘paperback originals,’ forgoing the higher profits afforded by publishing a book in hardcover for a chance at attracting more buyers and a more sustained shelf life.” I’m all for this development as are many other folks. Sarah at GalleyCat commented, as did Miss Snark, who led me to Levi Asher making some very good points at LitKicks. I’m not a big fan of hardcovers, either. Personally, I prefer pocket paperbacks when I can get them.
The Schizophrenic David Brooks
What to call David Brooks’ column in the New York Times this morning? “Appalling” is the word that comes most readily to mind, but that is not quite what I mean. It is a hard piece of writing to classify. I think it was intended to be a parody of Obama’s speech, but what it seems more like is a free-writing exercise performed by a hardened misanthrope under the influence of 15 martinis or some kind of psychotropic substance. In short, it seems like it was written by a crazy person. This possibly dangerous crazy alter-ego also wrote – interestingly, tellingly – an equally crazy column some time ago called something like “The Two Obamas” in which frequent references were made to “Fast Eddie Obama,” a man who was fond of throwing people under trucks. If you happened to read Brooks’ column of the day before Obama nominated Biden, this impression of madness is heightened: that piece was a matter-of-fact political analysis that might well have been written by someone of no party affiliation.Dear Millions readers, do you have any insights into the mystery of the two faces of David Brooks? I find his duplicity fascinating and genuinely troubling and would be delighted to have it illuminated.
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Parched? Use my Canteen.
“Is starting a literary magazine a gamble?” editor Sean Finney asked a crowd of inebriated sophisticates and sophisticated inebriates at the NYC launch party for Canteen. The answer was lost in a wash of drink orders. Even if it turns out to be “yes,” though, Canteen seems well positioned to walk away with a few chips. I’m not just saying that because publisher Stephen Pierson is funding this operation with his winnings as a poker pro, or because I contributed a story to the debut issue. Or okay, probably I am, at least partly. Still, Canteen offers readers an unusual mix of personal essays, fiction, poetry, and contemporary art.Andrew Sean Greer’s remembrance of failed novels past and chef Dennis Leary’s truly weird manifesto about the Restaurant of the Future are both funny and original. But careful attention to the visual is what strikes me as most promising about Canteen. Few literary magazines lavish such attention on full-color photography, painting, and illustration. Often, this is because editors want to focus attention on the text… and more power to them. But visual art and literature should have as much to say to one another today as they did in the heyday of Gertrude Stein. Finlay Printing, which used to print the late, lamented Grand Street, has produced a handsome successor. For more information, check out www.canteenmag.com.
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High Praise for Edward P. Jones
In the Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley writes a glowing review of Edward P. Jones’ All Aunt Hagar’s Children and has high praise for Jones as well:Now there can be no doubt about it: Edward P. Jones belongs in the first rank of American letters. With the publication of All Aunt Hagar’s Children, his third book and second collection of short stories, Jones has established himself as one of the most important writers of his own generation — he is 55 years old — and of the present day. Not merely that, but he is one of the few contemporary American writers of literary fiction who is more interested in the world around him than he is in himself, with the happy result that he has much to tell us about ourselves and how we live now.Perhaps Yardley (and I) are just rooting for a hometown hero. (I grew up in the DC area.) But after reading The Known World and many of Jones’ short stories, it’s hard to deny that he’s one of the best writers working today.In the NY Times, Dave Eggers is similarly admiring of Jones’ work. He writes that The Known World “is considered by many (including this reviewer) to be one of the best American novels of the last 20 years. It’s difficult to think of a contemporary novel that rivals its sweep, its humanity, the unvarnished perfection of its prose and its ultimately crushing power. The book’s narrative force is so steady and unerring that it reads as though it was not so much written as engraved in stone. It became a classic the moment it was finished.””Bad Neighbors” is a story by Jones that recently appeared in the New Yorker.
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Now You Know: The Mysteries of NYT’s Best-Seller List (or Not)
It is a ubiquitous feature in bookstores – especially at airports: The New York Times Best Seller List. The words “From The New York Times Best-Selling Author” flash at a reader from the top of a book cover, capturing interst and, well, dollars.The Times’ Public Editor Clark Hoyt explains the selection process, why the list is more widely followed and valued than other, competing “best seller” compilations – from USA Today and Rupert Murdoch’s (ouch) Wall Street Journal – in an informative column.Apparently an NYT Best Seller sticker can drive up sales by as much as 57 percent for a first-time author. Publishers are, naturally, conscious of this priceless marketing tool and accordingly try to rig the market, Hoyt writes. Not to worry, the editors at the Times safeguard readers against such shams.But Times editors too might not fully understand the procedure, according to Hoyt. And while the Times might make sure that “evergreens” like Catcher in the Rye or an SAT study guide don’t stay on the list forever, Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point – which came out in paperback in 2002 – has been on it for a stunning 164 weeks.The column might leave you a tad confused, but at least you won’t ask yourself what the heck an “NYT Best Seller” is next time you are idling at an airport bookstore.
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