Likely aware that most of us are now jaded to the astronomical sales numbers that the Harry Potter books put up, Amazon has grabbed shoppers’ attention with an interesting ploy. The site is now looking to inspire further frenzies of buying by pitting town against town. “The Harry-est Town in America” is the American city or town that pre-orders the most copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and with that honor comes a $5,000 gift certificate to be donated by Amazon to a charity of the city’s choice. Unsurprisingly, suburban locales make up pretty much all of the top 100 “Harry-est” towns in America, and the D.C.-area suburbs of Northern Virginia appear to have a particular affinity for the boy wizard. Also, following up on yesterday’s “limited edition” post, a new box set of Potter books (pictured above) has been announced. It features “a collectible trunk-like box with sturdy handles and privacy lock” and “decorative stickers.”
Top Potter Town Gets Prize, Boy-Wizard Bragging Rights
HEADLINE BOOK PROMPTS POST POST!
To the panoply of guilty pleasures this world has to offer, I humbly add the New York Post. I’m a Daily News man myself, but really, stuck inside a stalled subway car somewhere under the East River with nothing to read but those creepy Dr. Z acne treatment ads, who cares which paper turns up on an empty seat?When it comes to reading, tabloid journalism is the Twinky at the tip of the food pyramid, and page one is its creamy center. When confronted with the new book assembled by the staff of the NY Post, Headless Body In Topless Bar: The Best Headlines from America’s Favorite Newspaper, I couldn’t help myself. Knowing that a bellyache would accompany such indulgence, I still stuffed my face.Of course, we are in the midst of a particularly salacious period of news in the City, which makes the book a timely read, er, leaf-through. Eliot Spitzer’s nightmare is a headline writer’s wet dream. Have a look at some recent Post fronts (March 11th’s “HO NO!” is one of our favorites). All in keeping with the paper’s motto, “All the news that’s fit to bury beneath a mountain of hooker photos.”Ah, but a good hooker story comes along but once in a while. Luckily the Post has mastered the touchstone of any good tabloid front page: the cringe-inducing pun. On the conviction of a cybersex impresario: “YOU’VE GOT JAIL!” On the closing of a Dunkin’ Donuts for rodents: “UNDER MOUSE ARREST.” On earth’s encounter with a worrisome piece of interstellar matter: “KISS YOUR ASTEROID GOODBYE!” The CIA should consider reading these headlines to prisoners as a substitute for waterboarding.Yet, like a guy with a megaphone at an otherwise urbane cocktail party, the Post does command attention. Sometimes it even gets it just right. I like the front page from June 27, 2007: a photoshopped picture of Paris Hilton hoisted aloft on the hands of a throng in Times Square with the headline “V-D DAY! PARIS LIBERATED, BIMBOS REJOICE.” Then, sometimes there’s just no need to dress up a headline, such as on July 30 1985: “EATEN ALIVE! GIANT TIGERS KILL PRETTY ZOO KEEPER WHO ‘LOVED ALL ANIMALS.'”A New York Magazine survey named April 15, 1983’s “HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR” the greatest NY Post headline of all time. As one Post editor puts it, “How do you tell a sensational story other than sensationally?” It’s ironic though, that the title of this book is its climax. Sort of like the paper itself: the cover is generally the best part.
Again, I Ask: Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray?
Filthy debut
Filthy magazine is debuting at the Los Angeles Times Book Fair this weekend. And it will also be available at the lovely internet book store First Cut Books. The hippest online book store ever. The debut issue of this pitching quarterly includes a piece by yours truly about the seaon I spent as a ghost in Little League… Sounds intriguing, eh? Believe me, this is one good looking magazine; think McSweeney’s but all about Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Barry Zito, and countless other fireballing luminaries. Also, yesterday George Plimpton was joined by Maile Meloy and Bernard Cooper at the book store to present the new Paris Review. Plimpton is fascinating, a throwback to a literary culture that has likely disappeared, both times I have seen him speak he has told stories about his sporting (and writing) youth that are as entertaining as they are valuable as artifacts of a different time. I should add that the new Paris Review book is a really fantastic collection.
New Yorker Fiction from 2003-2007: An Analysis
Recently I got a very interesting email from a reader. Frank Kovarik writes and teaches English in St. Louis. For the last five years, he has also been keeping meticulous track of the fiction that appears in the New Yorker. Not just the titles and authors, but things like gender, country of origin, and frequency of appearance.Frank has generously offered to make his spreadsheet available to download in Excel format. If you’re interested, you can get it here.Having this data allows us to dig deeper into the proclivities of New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman and whoever else has a hand in what fiction appears in the magazine’s hallowed pages.Gender: From the database we learn that, of the 257 stories in the New Yorker from 2003 through 2007, 96 or 37.4% were penned by women.Nationality: Americans account for a fairly substantial portion of the stories that appear in the New Yorker, 134 of them, or 52% (and this leaves off several writers who could be conceivably classified as both American and a native of another country). Coming in tied for second are the Brits and the Irish at 18 stories apiece.Frequency: Much of that Irish total comes from master of the short story form, William Trevor, who readers were most likely to find if they flipped through an issue these last five years. Trevor was there on nine occasions. Including, an issue that included three separate but linked stories, Canada’s Alice Munro comes in second with eight stories. 12 other writers have appeared at least five times over the last five years, meaning that 14 writers have accounted for 32% of the fiction in the magazine during that period.9 stories:William Trevor8 stories:Alice Munro7 stories:Tessa HadleyHaruki Murakami6 stories:Thomas McGuane5 stories:T. Coraghessan BoyleRoddy DoyleLouise ErdrichLara VapnyarJohn UpdikeGeorge SaundersEdward P. JonesCharles D’AmbrosioAntonya NelsonIf anybody else draws interesting conclusions from the spreadsheet, we’d love to hear about them.
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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.
Diversions and Distractions Part 1: A Reading Journal
I am back. My long hiatus was partially due to grad school applications, heavy workload, holiday binge drinking and just sheer laziness. I have been meaning write about all the books I read, some of which definitely stand out, as (I hope) you will see. The first book I want to mention is Crash by J.G. Ballard. I rarely stop reading books that I begin, even if I strongly dislike them. The only book/memoir I stopped reading in the recent years is Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy by Carlos Eire, which I found pompous, belittling and badly written. Nevertheless, that is not why I stopped reading Crash. I intend to finish Crash one of these days. That is, if I can overcome the absurdity of the main character Vaughan’s obsession with car crashes and reconstruction of scenes for erotic purposes, which did not resonate too well with me. I am an avid fan of weird and disturbing situations (e.g. Henry Miller’s Under the Roofs of Paris), but Ballard’s dry, calm style and heavy language adds another layer of complicity to an already shocking storyline. I have by no means given up on Crash, though I find it difficult to return to the read. Good luck to any and all that pick up this novel. FYI: I have not seen the movie, but I heard that it is quite weird and disturbing.Around the period that I was reading Crash, I was also studying for the GREs and took a week off from work to visit my aunt in Madison, WI to study and get away from NYC. I figured that Crash was not the best book to read while trying to study for the GREs and turned to Harry Potter for a dose of happiness, as well as to clear my mind. I had not read The Order of the Phoenix and borrowed it from my roommate Uzay. I started on the plane and by the time I landed in Madison I was, as with the previous four novels, hooked. So much for studying for the GREs. I read straight through The Order of the Phoenix and was pleasantly surprised to find that J.K. Rowling decided to reveal a darker side of Harry Potter. I was curious to see if Rowling would ever cast Potter as the not-so-perfect adolescent, which she successfully did in this installment. I enjoyed the clash between Dumbledore and the Ministry, the background stories that came with the introduction of the Order, the blackmailing campaigns that attempt to undermine evidence of Voldemort’s return and the developing relationship between Sirius Black and Potter. After a long sleepless night and not studying for the GREs, I headed straight to Borders and picked up The Half Blood Prince, which had been published very recently.The Half Blood Prince was an entertaining transition to the approaching grand finale. There were the cutesy parts of love stories and jealousies between Hermione and Ron, and Potter and Ginny Weasley, as well as the development of a closer camaraderie between Dumbledore and Potter, which I had long anticipated. The mystery surrounding the identity of the Half Blood Prince is well crafted and kept me guessing until the very end. Potter’s rival at Hogwarts Draco Malfoy has, in the meanwhile, been recruited by Voldemort to carry on mysterious activities at the school. As Dumbledore is showing Potter Voldemort’s past and preparing him for the looming battle (one book away, I dare say) Malfoy is brewing his own plans. The Half Blood Prince is a good staging book, with clever twists and turns, that left me hungry for the last novel. I am a big Harry Potter fan for a number of reasons (they’re easy to read, fun, thrilling and I feel like I’m on Prozac when I read them) but the series’ foremost quality is its continuity and how, at the end of each book, it gets me waiting for the next one. I hope it is soon.Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5See Also: Emre’s previous reading journal
Public Service Announcement
Miss Snark is the blogging pseudonym of a New York agent who has made herself available to all the aspiring writers out there who are befuddled and bewildered by the publishing process. When particularly perplexed, these writers turn to Miss Snark with their questions – despite the better than fair chance of being called a nitwit by Her Snarkiness. Aided only by her faithful poodle Killer Yapp (KY), Miss Snark has come to the rescue of hundreds of writers in the months she’s been online answering questions on protocol, procedure and not looking like a fool when trying to turn your manuscript into a published masterpiece. Her advice is refreshingly frank and entirely devoid of BS, and she has a loyal following. Why does she devote so much time to such a thankless endeavor? I can only assume she’s trying to make the world a better place (but then again she may be banking on the many pails full of gin she’s now owed by the many writers she has helped.)I had been under the assumption that all aspiring writers were avid readers of Miss Snark, but it has recently come to my attention that this is not the case. So, if you hope to have your book published one day, and you aren’t yet reading Miss Snark, I suggest you start now. And this is doubly true if you are agentless and looking. These conditions are not, however, prerequisites. I have no plans to write a book anytime soon, and I can’t help but read Miss Snark, if only for the fearful laughs she elicits.
i'm either the choir here or part the preaching team, but i nominate this post for the headline of the week award.