If the Food Issue is the highlight of the New Yorker publishing year, then the Style Issue is certainly the nadir. Crammed full of glossy ads, the too-thick-to-not-be-a-double-issue magazine dwells endlessly on profiles of fashion industry bigshots, all of whom seem to have shared the same eccentric quasi-European upbringing. (They bring to mind Dr. Evil and his famous: “My childhood was typical – summer in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we would make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really.”) And don’t get me started on those Patricia Marx shopping sprees. I do, however, note that Oliver Sacks has an article about amnesia in there, so perhaps it won’t be all bad.
Lamenting ‘Style’
Appearing Elsewhere: The Rooster Croweth
I'm excited to announce that I'll be appearing as a judge in this year's Morning News Tournament of Books. (Click through to see the other, far more distinguished, judges, as well) It's exciting to be a part of what just might be my favorite ongoing series on the web. Stayed tuned for my second-round judgment once the Tournament kicks off in a few weeks.And by all means, get your bracket (pdf) now and start handicapping.
HarperCollins Chief Says Religious Books Selling Poorly
I was looking at today's installment of the Publishers Lunch newsletter (which I highly recommend for those interested in the book business, even if you only get the free version like I do), and something jumped out at me. News Corp reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings this week, including the regular update on HarperCollins, which is owned by Murdoch and company. Publishers Lunch got some additional color on the news from HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman. It's not linkable because it's an email newsletter, but here's the quote:Segment by segment, Friedman says the general books group continued to grow sales and profits significantly in the US, as did the children's group. "There's one area where we are having a lot of problems--religious publishing is in a lot of trouble." Though religious books "have had a fantastic run for the entire 9 years I've been at this company," Friedman observed, "it is starting to see hard times. Right now we are seeing heavy returns--product that just didn't work, but more significantly, we're seeing a contraction in the CBA, which is what we went through with the ABA." Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life still sells more "than almost any other book" on the religious list, but Friedman has "concerns about the whole religious sector."Emphasis mine. I was surprised to read this because, as Friedman indicates and as book industry-watchers know, religious books have been a huge seller in recent years, growing much faster than most other types of books.As I read this, though, it occurred to me that peoples' reading tastes, taken broadly, might be a good indicator of the philosophical mood of the country. It may be that HarperCollins' religious titles were duds this year, but it's also possible that the fervent hold of religion -- and when we talk about "religious books" we're talking primarily about born-again Christian themes -- on this country is loosening. I don't want to read to much into this, but is it possible that, among the broader public, conservative Christianity was a cultural fad, with its own attendant movies, music, and books, and that people who don't have too much invested in it will move onto the next thing that promises to help them with their lives? I'd be curious to see if there's any other evidence out there that lends itself to this idea.
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New Books: Ben Ehrenreich, Jeffrey Ford, Kate Grenville
The Suitors, a debut novel by Ben Ehrenreich, draws from Homer's Odyssey and James Joyce's Ulysses. The story is another rewrite of those famous epics - there are so many, but then again it's a fertile place to start - set, as PW puts it, "in a never-never land equal parts contemporary America and classical antiquity." Ehrenreich is best-known as a widely published journalist whose work regularly appears in the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and The Believer. Ehrenreich is the son of participatory journalist, Barbara, author of the best-selling Nickel and Dimed, in which she tried to get by on minimum wage.Jeffrey Ford's excellent novel The Girl in the Glass is currently being discussed in exhaustive detail at the Litblog Co-op blog, but he's got a new book out, too. The Empire of Ice Cream is a collection of stories. Ford, as I recently had the pleasure of discovering, is like very few others writing today. Though he might be labeled as a writer of "speculative fiction," his work doesn't really need a label at all, as it is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good story told well. To see what I mean, check out a few stories from The Empire of Ice Cream: "The Annals of Eelin-Ok," "The Empire of Ice Cream," and "A Man of Light."Kate Grenville's novel, The Secret River, has already won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize and has been shortlisted for the Miles Frankin Prize awarded to the year's best Australian novel. The Secret River is a historical novel about the convict settlement of Australia and follows the story of a particular convict named William Thornhill. The Guardian writes: "There isn't much underlying moral ambiguity in this book: the costs of settlement are appalling, which makes Thornhill its villain, even while he carries its sympathetic weight." Grenville previously won the Orange Prize in 2001 for her novel The Idea of Perfection.
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Exclusive: The First Lines of Zadie Smith’s NW
There's a lot for readers to look forward to in the second-half of the year, and high up on the list is Zadie Smith's first novel in seven years, NW. Lydia covered the book in our big preview published last week, "NW follows a group of people from Caldwell–a fictional council estate in northwest London whose buildings are named for English philosophers–and documents the lives they build in adulthood. Smith (who since 2005 has become a mother, NYU professor, and Harper’s columnist) has variously called this a novel of class and a “very, very small book” (highly unlikely). Smith’s own deep roots to London, and this particular corner of London, were most recently aired in her stirring defense of London’s local libraries for the New York Review of Books blog." Smith sets the scene evocatively in the book's opening paragraph. The fat sun stalls by the phone masts. Anti-climb paint turns sulphurous on school gates and lampposts. In Willesden people go barefoot, the streets turn European, there is a mania for eating outside. She keeps to the shade. Redheaded. On the radio: I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me. A good line—write it out on the back of a magazine. In a hammock, in the garden of a basement flat. Fenced in, on all sides.
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Artists plus Novels
My recent post about the Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions has generated an interesting thread at The Comics Journal Message Board. Included is word of upcoming additions to the Penguin series as well as a great round of pairing famous comics artists with classic novels to come up with such combinations as R. Crumb doing a cover for Lolita and Tony Millionaire doing the cover for Gulliver's Travels.
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Wait, I like the Patricia Marx pieces! They're always so clever…
Yeah, but they're always the same (and a little precious), and I just can't relate to $800 sweaters and what have you. All though I can see how they might appeal to people who aren't as shopping averse as I am.
I am so glad you said this and totally agree.
The New Yorker Style issues are almost as bad as our local NPR station (Boston's WBUR) airing an hour's worth of church service every Sunday at 11:00.
That we subscribe/contribute anyway is an indication of how much we love the rest of the content.
For someone who doesn't care about the latest styles, it seems such a waste of valuable real estate.
Oh well.
I like fashion and I like the New Yorker, so the issue is a highlight for me. I especially enjoyed James Surowiecki's discussion of designer knock-offs in his Financial Page column, a phenomenom with which I am obsessed.