I’ve got a post up about LBC nominee Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam up over at the LBC blog.
At the LBC blog
Gay Penguins Cause Trouble in North Carolina
Book bannings at elementary school libraries are so commonplace as to barely be newsworthy it seems, but I did find the furor over gay penguins in North Carolina to be amusing. The fuss is over a book called And Tango Makes Three about a pair of male penguins at a zoo in (where else) New York City, who adopt a baby penguin.”My Two Dads” this is not, however, as some felt it promoted homosexuality. So much so, according to the AP story, that school officials jumped the gun and removed the book from shelves without putting it through the formal review process, which must be triggered by parents actually requesting that the book be removed. I can just imagine school officials checking their watches glumly, wondering when the parents will finally arrive with their pitchforks and torches. My favorite part of the story, though, is that the AP calls the tale of this penguin family a “controversial but true story,” as if it’s so outrageous (gay penguins!?) that some nefarious person must have made it up.
Two Quick Links
Check out an excerpt of the Art of Fiction with Haruki Murakami from The Paris Review. If you are a Murakami fan like me, you should buy the issue and read the complete interview. If you do, you will find a discussion of Murakami’s upcoming novel Kafka on the Shore, which is due out in January. And from the British Library: “On this site you will find the British Library’s 93 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the theatres were closed in 1642.” (LINK)
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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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Man Down
Ed Rants and his Return of the Reluctant blog – a favorite of mine – is down because, in his efforts to publicize the wrongdoings of some racist local DJs, his site was bombarded by visitors looking for the attendant mp3s of the offending DJs. It appears as though some uncharitable linking by the India Times used up all his bandwidth and then some. Here’s hoping that Ed can get things up and running some time soon.
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A Good, New Book!
Ten Little Indians, a new collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie, came in today. I have read a few Alexie stories here and there as he appears often in anthologies and literary magazines, but until recently I had not been an avid fan. A month or so ago, however, a story of his “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” appeared in the New Yorker. It is a tremendous story, and the price of the book is worth that story alone. It has been exciting to hear that the rest of the stories meet that standard. I see this as, possibly, a breakthrough collection for him.Baseball: A Summer DiversionI was very pleased and a bit surprised to see that this week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review is devoted to baseball, leading off with a review of Game Time, collection of baseball writing by one of my favorites, Roger Angell. Game Time is sitting on my shelf right now, and a fully intend to read and savor it before the season is out. Also, reviewed is the baseball book of the moment, if not THE book of the moment: Moneyball. There are some other less well know books covered, as well as books by a couple of the country’s favorite chroniclers of our pastime: Roger Kahn and David Halberstam. I will probably talk about them more once the Times puts the new Book Review up on the website, and I can read the reviews at my leisure.
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