Tonight at Housing Works Bookstore & Cafe, I’ll be competing in the sixth NYC Literary Death Match, sponsored by Opium Magazine. I’ll be reading a ten-minute story representing Canteen, three readers will do the same on behalf of three other publications, and then an illustrious panel of judges – including The New Yorker’s Ben Greenman – will evaluate us, “American Idol” style. Intrigued? Me, too. The $10 cover includes a free copy of Opium’s latest issue. Hope to see you there.
Appearing Elsewhere
Appearing Elsewhere
To celebrate the release of Issue 5 of the Los Angeles Review, published by Red Hen Press, I will be reading tomorrow (Tuesday) night at Skylight Books, along with fellow contributors Eloise Klein Healy, Stephanie Eve Halpern, Jamey Hecht, and Timothy Green. If you're in the L.A. area, come on by!
LBC Week Begins
If you're not there, you're missing out on the latest LitBlog Co-op Read This! pick.
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A New, Old Trend: ‘Assistant Lit’
Skimming through the CS Monitor book section I came upon a capsule review describing Because She Can by Bridie Clark as the latest example of "assistant lit." I assume that this trend hit the big time with the success of The Devil Wears Prada, and the subsequent movie version. But just as some see Jane Austen as a precursor to so-called "chick lit," I wonder if "assistant lit" has some historical antecedents.One fairly obvious example that comes to mind is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, perhaps the ur-assitant lit, in which the sympathetic Bob Cratchit is put upon by his terrible boss Ebenezer Scrooge, who has become something of a model for penny-pinching bosses ever since. But in that case, the action focuses on the boss, and we don't get much of Cratchit being forced to do Scrooge's laundry.Another, much more recent example - which actually came out after Prada - might be Rick Moody's ambitious novel The Diviners, which offers a bleak (and not altogether successful) take on the humiliating plight of the assistant, while also, more or less, attempting to chronicle the downfall of our vacuous, celebrity-obsessed civilization.Then again, it might just be that the book that many consider to be the father of the novel, Don Quixote, also happens to be the very first example of "assistant lit." Sancho Panza fits the bill as he is endlessly put upon by a boss who manages to both domineering and moronic. For those who have been assistants, as I once was, Don Quixote and his maddening whims will likely call up memories of capricious bosses.But certainly there must be other examples of assistant lit that long predate the current trend, or like The Diviners turn it on its head. Can anyone think of some other good examples? Share in the comments.
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The Millions is a Little Irritating
I was looking at the list of "Top 10 Most Irritating Expressions in the English language," which was linked to in our recent Curiosities installment (and which is culled from a new book, A Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare), and a thought occurred to me. The Millions has been around for nearly six years. Over our exactly 1,800 posts (not including this one), just how annoying have we been?Hoping for the best, but fearing the worst, I performed some searches. Here's what I found:At the end of the day - We've used this clunker just three times, including way back in 2004 when it crept into a post called "Books of the Boom". In my defense, I was referring to an actual day, and not the hypothetical one that is the target of those Oxford wordsmiths' ire.Fairly unique - I'd never thought about it, but that is a fairly silly phrase. Thankfully, we've never used it at The Millions.I personally - Another redundancy, and this time I am guilty. I've used it twice, though not since 2004 when it crept into this roundup. I blame Kakutani.At this moment in time - That one hurts my ears, and indeed it has thankfully never made it into print at The Millions.With all due respect - A classic, used but once in 1,800 posts. The guilty party is Garth who was clearly struck briefly mad by a slight against his beloved Bolaño.Absolutely - This one, in that it is not a phrase, strikes me as a bit unfair, pernicious as this adverb may be. We've used it 41 times over the years, and I feel absolutely no guilt about that.It's a nightmare - No nightmares here.Shouldn't of - That's just bad grammar, and we've never used it. Phrases like that keep us up at night.24/7 - We've used this one twice. Contributor emeritus Patrick gets a pass because he used it as part of this phrase: "24/7 mingle mode." I can think of no better way to describe BEA in LA.It's not rocket science - we've never used this one, but "rocket science" was used in one of my all-time favorite Millions posts, Andrew's "Distinguished in a David Niven Mustache."
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Foer Excerpt Up
Houghton Mifflin has posted a long excerpt of Jonathan Safran Foer's forthcoming book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Amazon also has the excerpt up.) And, well, I don't quite know what to say about it. Have a look. You'll see. It's a long, furious stream of consciousness - the warp speed thought process of the 8-year-old, genius protagonist, Oskar - with a punch in the gut finale. It seems that this book is sure to produce a frenzy among critics and readers when it comes out in April, but it's too early to know whether that frenzy will be positive or negative. On Neal Pollack's blog, the quality of the excerpt and the book's use of 9/11 as a plot point are already being debated.
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Going the Distance
In Elmira, NY, six high school students banded together to break the Guinness Book of Records marathon reading record. Says the AP:They whizzed through more than 20 beloved children's books, including the six-volume Harry Potter series, seven Goosebumps thrillers and Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia. They wrapped up their epic, 128-hour performance on the school auditorium stage with Oh, the Places You'll Go, a Dr. Seuss classic.Meanwhile, in Albany, other long-distance readers, among them William Kennedy and Andy Rooney, joined forces for a 24-hour reading of Moby Dick, as part of "Why Melville Matters Now" weekend at the Albany Academies school.
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