If you like the New York Giants,
Or just happen to live in New York and listen to sports radio;
If you have heard how fickle Giants fans have treated their quarterback,
Doubting his abilities with every unkind bounce of the ball;
If you were subjected to any amount of Superbowl hype
In which Eli Manning was measured without end against Tom Brady,
never favorably;
If you are a little brother, an upstart, or an underdog of any ilk;
If you harbor any trace of a belief in the power of sports to thrill and inspire,
Or have yourself been doubted and maligned;
You will recognize these words of Rudyard Kipling
Have uncanny meaning in the context of Sunday’s big game,
In which young Eli became a Man(ning)
If…
What People are Reading
In case you haven't been to your local drugstore and noticed that they removed all of the useful items to make way for Christmas decorations, the holidays are here. Here at The Millions headquarters we've got our turkey pan ready for a Thanksgiving feast. In fact, I see a lot of good food in my future... and of course the cruel flipside to all that eating is the horror of holiday shopping. There are articles coming out everywhere saying that this year's holiday season will be big, which must make retailers happy, but there probably won't be any rejoicing until they have the cash in hand. From my own limited observations, people already seem to be shopping for books this year, and with no clear "hot book gift" out there folks seem to be spreading the joy around, at least so far. So here's what I've spotted lately in the hands of eager book buyers:In fiction Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code continues to sell at an ever-increasing rate. This sort of thing happens every couple of years, and it is pretty interesting to watch a new super-seller burst onto the scene backed by savvy marketing and a steamroller of word of mouth. Brown has now assuredly joined the ranks of John Grisham, Tom Clancy and the rest, and true to form his once forgotten backlist (Angels & Demons, for example, originally released in 2000 to no acclaim) has now hit bestseller lists. Almost like hitting the lottery. People also continue to buy some of the more bookish titles out there. I've already mentioned DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little which continues to sell well on the strength of its Booker Prize win, and Train an LA noir novel by Pete Dexter (which I really dug) is doing quite well also. The big newcomer, to my eyes, is Tobias Wolff whose first novel Old School (no relation) has hit shelves. There was an excerpt of this in the New Yorker way back a few months ago which I enjoyed, and people who have read a lot of his other work (the memoir and short stories) seem excited to read this new book. What is astonishing to me, though, is how big a literary name Wolff has become without, until now, having written a novel (in a day and age when readers supposedly only care about novels). I suppose this is a testament to the quality of his PEN/Faulkner Award-winning memoir This Boy's Life and his various short story collections (Back in the World for example).Fiction is all well and good, but when people buy books as gifts, four times out of five they buy non-fiction. The reason: you don't have to have read the book to know what you're getting; Madeleine Albright's memoir is Madeleine Albright's memoir, but who knows what sordid scenes lurk in the middle of The World According to Garp. Of course one of the current big sellers, The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1970-1980, is full of sordid middle parts, but I think the folks giving and receiving that one know what they're getting into. Meanwhile, in less sordid waters, the ranting Left continues to redouble its efforts against the ranting Right with Michael Moore's sure-fire bestseller Dude, Where's My Country?. Another big seller right now is a book that I can't wait to read, Living to Tell the Tale the first volume of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' memoirs. Once I get to it, I'm sure I'll talk about it a lot here. Artist David Hockney's new book Hockney's People is also selling well. It's a collection of his portraits, both of himself and of his various friends and lovers. I'm not a huge fan of Hockney, but I like his portraits; they tend to be warm and interesting.Paperbacks, meanwhile, are not big sellers during the holidays, which is why I don't have much to report on this front. The only serious paperback that has been selling really well of late is Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays, which is probably piggy-backing the success of her recent memoir/family history Where I Was From. The other big selling paperbacks are destined for stocking stuffer status, which I'm sure is just what their authors hoped for. Try Russ Kick's 50 Things You're Not Supposed to Know for your paranoid relatives and Michael Flocker's The Metrosexual Guide to Style for the trendy, sexually ambiguous ones.Extravagant Gift Alert: Have you seen this!?!?! How can something so silly be so expensive and.... huge (it weighs 20 lbs.!). Now if that isn't nearly expensive or heavy enough, try this one... Still not enough? Try the "Champion's Edition". These heavyweights weigh in at 75lbs, by the way.
Tracking Amazon Rankings
Those oft-quoted Amazon sales rankings don't really tell you much. They just give a snapshot of how a book is selling at a particular moment. TitleZ can track how a book's ranking moves over time. There's some debate about how much those rankings really tell you, but this is a fun toy nonetheless. (via)
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Bloody Mary Rules
We are leaving for Chicago very soon, and with no place to live as of yet, I do not know when I will be blogging again... not for a couple of weeks, probably. So, I will leave you with something, though not book-related in any way, that you may find quite useful:One of my favorite beverages is the Bloody Mary: vodka and spicy, peppery tomato juice poured over some ice cubes and garnished with celery and maybe a wedge of lime. It kind of makes you thirsty just thinking about it, doesn't it? Me too. It reminds me of college, in fact. At the University of Virginia daytime cocktail parties (especially on football weekends) are a mainstay. It was at these parties where I discovered my taste for the Bloody Mary. I also discovered that of the many adult beverages available to us, the Bloody Mary is one of the few that can't just be consumed anywhere, at any time. You will look silly if you order a Bloody Mary at your local pub on a Friday night and you probably won't enjoy it very much either. The peculiar thing about the Bloody Mary is that there is most certainly a time and place for them. Over the years, I set out to determine exactly what those times and places are. If you have been nearby while I've been drinking a Bloody Mary, you have probably heard my set of rules. Still, I worry that I might forget them one day, so I've decided to immortality them in this here blog. I submit now, for your consideration, The Bloody Mary Rules. Enjoy!The Rule of Thumb: No matter where you are, you may drink as many Bloody Marys as you like between dawn and noon. After noon, you may have Bloody Mary as your first drink of the day, but afterwards you must move on to other adult beverages. After sunset, you may not drink any Blood Marys.The Codicils (Or exceptions to The Rule of Thumb, if you like. At any rate, this is where things get interesting): Irrespective of the time of day, you MAY drink Bloody Marys (as many as you like):1. On airplanes1a. At the airport bar, but ONLY if your plane has been delayed2. At wedding receptions3. At horse races4. While bowling5. And, finally, on boats
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Noah…I'm glad someone made the point that the giants fans had lost their faith and only until the game was won did they come back to say they were true fans. I believed the Giants were going to give the Patriots hell and had said it for the weeks leading up to this final game.
Very nicely done! I really like the way you write. And that Rudyard Kipling poem is wonderful as well.
xo
Lucia