Interesting Articles on Books, Authors, Reading, etc.... July/August 2009

Start linking! And happy early 4th to all the Americans in the group.

Today's San Francisco Chronicle includes a review of Percival Everett's latest book, I Am Not Sidney Poitier:

'I Am Not Sidney Poitier,' by Percival Everett

Not my usualy fair, but there is a quick fun article about Scandinavian crime novels on Slate.

Scandinavian Crime Wave: Why the most peaceful people on earth write the greatest homicide thrillers.

I took part in a live panel discussion on Radio New Zealand (NZ equivalent of NPR) today about science fiction and fantasy writing and publishing in New Zealand. The discussion also involved New Zealand authors Helen Lowe and Russell Kirkpatrick. I've linked to the podcast from http://bit.ly/3tdkk2

Thanks Tim, I was going to catch that and missed. Will listen now.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of the discussion. I enjoyed it, but wished we had had more time.

It was an interesting discussion, I know I don't read enough scifi, let alone NZ scifi. I generally read teen and children's fiction when I'm reading NZ writers as I'm trying to keep up with trends in this genre and I know local scifi for these age groups is great. NZ scifi doesn't seem to get much press or publicity though I'm sure the numbers quoted for readership are wrong.

Yes, I was completely floored by the HarperCollins publisher's claim that there were only 1500 SF & F readers in New Zealand! Library borrowing figures would certainly give the lie to this. Maybe she meant 1500 SF & F buyers - but I doubt this too. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to ask her.

It is very noticeable that NZ publishers are happy to publish children's and YA SF/F, but not to publish adult SF&F - and they would argue that this is because NZ'ers won't buy SF/F by NZ authors. A Catch-22!

Dave Eggers has a new nonfiction book out, Zeitoun, which is set in post-Katrina New Orleans. It is an account of a Syrian immigrant to the city, who stays in town to protect his property after his family leaves in advance of the storm, and touches on the Bush government's pathetic response to the disaster, post-9/11 America, and the treatment of Muslims in the US in this decade. After reading the following story that appeared in Salon magazine today, I am tempted to drop everything and pick it up ASAP.

Dave Eggers' heartbreaking work of staggering reality

In today's Guardian is an article about a new prize created by the English chapter of PEN in honor of the late Harold Pinter, the PEN/Pinter Prize. It will reward a writer who casts, in the words of Pinter, an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world, and who shows a "fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies". The first prize will be presented at the British Library on Oct 14, and the winner will receive £1,000, "with a further £1,000 to be awarded to an imprisoned writer of conscience of their choice, selected in consultation with English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee."


New award to honour 'the spirit of Harold Pinter': PEN/Pinter prize will go to British writer who shows exemplary 'engagement with the times'

From the New York Times about the "reworked" edition of A Moveable Feast:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/opinion/20hotchner.html

Jose Saramago's latest book, The Elephant's Journey, will be translated into English and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the fall of 2010:

A Saramago ‘Elephant’ Novel Coming in 2010

A fairly interesting piece on Target's book marketing:

Target Can Make Sleepy Titles Into Best Sellers

Hilarious, I think, and not only to librarians:

Librarians Go Wild For Gold Book Cart

July 13, 2009

The stereotype of the librarian — horn-rimmed glasses, hair in a bun, finger to her lips stubbornly shushing — was nowhere to be found at this year's Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships held recently in Chicago.

Five teams of librarians — dressed in costumes ranging from Vikings to Elvis Presley — competed for the coveted gold book cart. They marched in drill-team formation, equipped with metal book carts.

Gretchen Roltgen, a 62-year-old librarian with neon blue hair, says it's a long way from Baraboo, Wis., to "the big dance."

"Our carts at home don't do wheelies as well as the models we use here. These are full-competition models," she says. "Absolutely, they're built for this type of rigorous competition."

The event's emcees are Mo Willems and his fellow children's author, Jon Scieszka.

"There's a stereotype that librarians are boring. And I think they want to change that stereotype to 'librarians are crazy,' " says Willems.

In the conference hall, the competition is set to begin. Every one of the 600-plus seats is full.

One by one, the teams roll out their routines. The Des Plaines, Ill., Cart Wheels go with a Grease theme, in Pink Lady and T-Bird getups. As the music plays, they maneuver their carts into elaborate formations. They link up in long trains and turn intricate choreography.

The team from Oak Park, Ill., makes the day's most dramatic entrance. They swoop in wearing full Viking regalia, including horns, breast plates and swords.

As the dust settles after their performance, the judges tabulate the scores.

It's a tie.

The tie is broken with the old audience applause-o-meter. The room falls silent, awaiting the judges' call.

"We're going with Oak Park. Oak Park!" The Valkyries mount their winners' gold book cart in triumph.

This contest was about having a good time, but the emcees did leave the crowd with an important message: Support your local libraries and the crazy people who work there.

Gabriel Spitzer reports for Chicago Public Radio.

I cannot get the picture to show up here. It is worth clicking on the link

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106561675&sc=nl&cc=...

This week's New Yorker has an about the Kindle by Nicholson Baker that I found very interesting. It discusses appearance/ease of reading, availability of books, and problems with illustrated books, etc., as well as other issues, and also the author's preference for using the Kindle app on the iPhone instead of the Kindle itself.

Wonderful thoughtful essay by Tim O'Brien about a necessary ingredient for a good short story: imagination.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200908/tim-obrien-essay

The Observer profiles William Trevor, whose soon to be released novel Love and Summer is on the longlist for this year's Booker Prize. This is his fifth novel to be nominated for the award, which he has yet to win.

William Trevor: the keen-eyed chronicler

Today's New York Times features a glowing review of The Informers, the debut novel by the Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez, which was a finalist for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. I bought it several months ago, but haven't gotten to it yet.

In 1940s Colombia, Blacklists and ‘Enemy Aliens’

Two things...

First, a funny listing of postmodern reads:

61 essential postmodern reads: an annotated list

Second, a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell on To Kill a Mockingbird, Big Jim Folsom, and race in the South:

The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism

I was going to post the To Kill a Mockingbird link here; in fact, because I posted it on another thread and another LTer (laytonwoman3rd) pointed out that Gladwell calls the time of TKAM "mid-century" but it takes place in the 30s, I've decided to reread it (some 40 years after I first read it) so I can come to my own conclusions.

20 - I don't totally agree with his conclusions, but I found it particularly interesting because I am reading Uncle Tom's Cabin right now and wonder if in 50 years TKAM will be viewed in a similar way. I think there will always be a struggle to try to understand how progressive either was in light of the time they were written.

Interesting article on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane :

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/08/10/090810crat_atlarge_thur...

Barnes and Noble launches a new e-book store: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/personaltech/06pogue.html?

Interesting article in today's New York Times about an experimental Mexican author Mario Bellatin, largely known outside of the Spanish speaking world, whose novella Salon de Belleza (Beauty Salon) will be published by City Lights later this week:

A Mischievous Novelist With an Eye and an Ear for the Unusual

In today's New York Times is an article about the book Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser. Lispector is essentially unknown outside of Brazil, but she is considered one of the country's greatest writers, and the article talks about her books, career, and interesting life.

Writer’s Myth Looms as Large as the Many Novels She Wrote

The New York Review of Books web site has a podcast of J.M. Coetzee reading an excerpt from his latest novel, Summertime, which has been longlisted for this year's Booker Prize. It will be released in the UK early next month, and in the US in December. The page also includes links to written excerpts from the book, in the Review's July 16 and August 13 issues.


J.M. Coetzee Reads From Summertime

Thanks for the articles -- if anyone is interested in Lispector, I recommend Hour of the Star -- her last book and a haunting anti-fairytale. It's gorgeously written.

You're welcome...and thank you for the book recommendation, which I'll be on the lookout for (along with the biography).

Yesterday I bought the Atlantic Monthly Fiction 2009 Special Issue. In it there is an interesting article titled "Border Crossings," which is a collection of four essays about the meaning of national literature. I particularly liked Margaret Atwood's essay "The Beetle and the Teacup," but the other short essays by Joseph O'Neill, Monica Ali and Anne Michaels are also good. If you don't want to buy the issue, you can find it at the Atlantic's website:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200908/border-crossings

Enjoy!

Hola Nickelini. I just finished reading that magazine. Which story(ies) was your favorite? I liked the second to last one best as well as the one before that one and after it (the last three stories).

Yikes! I haven't read any yet . . . I just read the essays. I'll take it on my mini-holiday this weekend and report back next week.

Lots of good articles and reviews in today's Guardian Review, too many to post here. So, I'll just post a link to the Review's page:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/guardianreview

Tomorrow's New York Times Book Review has reviews of two books I'll be reading soon, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers and This Is How by M.J. Hyland:

After the Deluge

Heartbreak Hotels

Hola Nickelini. I picked the magazine up again last night during my reading time because I went to post which essays I liked best from "Border Crossings" and couldn't remember the authors, only the order. I don't know why I didn't just click on the link and check. I liked Monica Ali's and Margaret Atwood's.

I've been on a short story junket recently despite historically not liking the genre because I want more story at the end of them. I want to try to keep a book of them in the reading rotation for awhile. I'm currently reading Runaway by Alice Munro and think the stories will be hit-or-miss for me.

Beautiful covers...something I miss now, as a Kindler....

http://www.abebooks.com/books/antiquarian-rare-design/beautiful-19th-century-cov...

#34> Yes, fanny, I got that e-mail as well, and sat for a while in contemplation of those beautiful covers. Did you notice the prices, though?

The one I really wanted -- Eight Cousins, my favorite of Alcott's books had already been sold (not that I could have afforded it).

Today's Guardian Review has several meaty reviews of interesting books. Sebastian Barry gushes over Love and Summer by William Trevor, which is on the current Booker Prize longlist:

Sebastian Barry applauds the timeless integrity of William Trevor

Michael Faber reviews The Blue Moment by Richard Williams, an analysis of the impact that Miles Davis' 1959 album Kind of Blue has had on art, music and culture since then:

A recording from the 1950s continues to inspire modern musicians

Finally, Maya Jaggi writes about the latest book by Diana Evans, The Wonder, a novel about a troubled black Londoner who finds solace and freedom in dance:

Ever-changing London sparkles through the prism of dance

Yesterday's Observer Review has an insightful interview with Sadie Jones, author of The Outcast. Her latest novel, Small Wars, will be released on Thursday.


'Even when we do talk, we often lie': Sadie Jones's affecting second novel is about a marriage destroyed by war, as she tells Eva Wiseman

The Latin American Herald Tribune features an e-mail interview with Jose Saramago, who recently finished his latest novel, Cain, "in which he absolves that Biblical villain of the killing of his brother and puts the blame squarely on God". His two previous books, Memories of My Youth and The Elephant's Journey, have yet to be translated into English.

Saramago Takes Irreverent Aim at Old Testament in New Novel

Edward and Bella are making Wuthering Heights popular amongst Twihards - it's the Oprah effect, except as my boyfriend points out, Oprah is a real person.... Edward and Bella, thankfully, are not. Check out the cover!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/28/vampire-endorsement-bronte-bestselle...

>39 kidzdoc:,
kizdoc, the most depressing part of your the article on Saramago is that apparently no effort has been started on a translation project.

Thanks for the link, Fanny! That's, uhm, . . . interesting. I guess some of those Twilight fans will actually read Wuthering Heights and get it, though based on some of the comments, most copies will go unread beyond the first chapter.

>42 Nickelini:, I love how the readers comments on Wuthering Heights are all like "I thought this book was supposed to be romantic....it's not...." That was exactly my reaction to the book when I first read it because of the way it has been marketed in popular American culture. I think it is funny that that's how it is still being marketed.

None of the popularization of Wuthering Heights ever even mentions the second part of the story -- Catherine and Hareton's story -- they're the survivors of all the rather horrible child abuse that ruins Cathy and Heathcliff and almost the next generation as well.

#41: Right, urania. He's a pretty popular author here, I can't understand what is taking so long!

Everything takes forever here.

Today's New York Times has an article about encouraging students to read by letting them read what they want instead of requiring the entire class to read specific books.

Ah Rebecca! I could not agree with that more. Luckily my son reads without having to be pushed to it, but if it depended on the list of books the teacher assigns for the summer (for example), I am sure he would loathe reading.
I voiced my opinion once already, with one of the teachers, but nothing happened.

What about a mix? I've had too many students come up to me and tell me how grateful they were that I required works like the Odyssey or The Mysteries of Udolpho, which they would never have read on their own but which they now loved. Imagine spending years reading nothing but the Sweet Valley High series.

I saw that article too, and like Urania, I have mixed feelings -- so many books would go unread and authors undiscovered if we didn't assign some of them. I've just asked my new Novel students what are their favorite literary and escapist novels -- I've gotten a couple of Ken Kesey novels, The Color Purple and even one Jane Austen on the literary end -- and some novels they were assigned to read but found intriguing: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby. Others some considered literary included Gone with the Wind and High Bottom Drunk. The escapist end is full of Twilight, V.C. Andrews and Stephen King and various sci fi and police procedurals. Not a book beyond the American scene, except the one by Austen. Most of the literary novels, they encountered in high school classes.

I agree with a mix too. I think it's good to be pushed to read things one might not otherwise read, good to read some classics (although probably with greater geographical distribution than the ones I read in school), and good to have the whole class read the same book so the students can exchange thoughts about it and so the teacher can point out ideas, themes, etc., that can help the students read other books.

At the same time, they have to love, or at least like, to read, and if reading other books makes them lovers of reading, I think that's wonderful.

In 8th grade (the grade mentioned in the article) the books we had to read in English class included Ivanhoe, which is all I can remember. I don't know if we had no other books or just none assigned. It seems to me that we may have also read Treasure Island. Based on that I can't say I have a lot of respect for the 8th grade literary canon. To Kill a Mockingbird may have been out because it was a Southern Junior High in 1963 - 64. It was a public school, although tracked, and this was the upper track. I didn't mind those two books, but then I was a reader, so being adventures, male oriented, didn't make as much difference to me. For someone who reads less, it would be an unfortunate choice for someone with different interests, or someone who would like to see themselves in the book.

The options don't have to be bad literature, though if Stephanie Meyers is what it take to get a non reader to read then I would rather have it happen in the context of keeping a reading journal and having the ideas in it examined, than not. My daughter, who is a middle school teacher, does book talks, and they are pretty effective in interesting kids in books they might not otherwise pick up.

I think the part that I would miss about not doing a book in common is not having the whole classroom discussion. But it may be that I would have liked smaller group discussions better - actually I don't recall much discussion of Ivanhoe. There is also the possibility that some middle schoolers would choose more challenging books that the usual requirements that have been picked partly to be accessible to the general group of 8th graders.

Interesting article about the war over Scottish literature in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/aug/31/james-kelman-scottish-lite...

>53 avaland: - if it's the end of August it must be the annual end of the Book Festival spat. I like Kelman's fiction but he is an ass - he has some gall to dimiss genre fiction since he, and the Scottish writers he likes, form a literary sub-genre: Scottish miserablism (working class protagonists, dialect - with lots of use of profanity, drink and/or drugs, dark humour, etc)

I think these can be accessed worldwide. Radio 4's Front Row has interviewed William Trevor and Margaret Atwood over the last two nights.

Front Row

Here's a provocative article from the Chicago Tribune about nudity and reading:

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/sex-windy-city/2009/09/sex-stories-naked-girls-r...

Gender theorists, feminists, theorists of art and aesthetics feel free to weigh in . . . but only if you first read the article.

William Trevor and naked girls reading in the space of 2 posts -- now this is why I like librarything!

I particularly liked what Mina Mèchante said in this quote.

"This is really what Naked Girls Reading is about; showing people that women can be both fiercely intelligent as well as proud of their sexuality. When people believe that the mind and body are binaries, they have a tendency to think that all high art is confined to the realm of the intellect and don't see the role that sexuality plays in all great art. These people may think that the nudity in our shows is just a gimmick and only used to get people in the door, and while it may do that as well what keeps people enthralled is the mixture of mind and body, sex and intellect, and the fact that they do work together."

I think what these women are doing is brilliant. This breaks through sexist stereotypes and elitist ideas about what defines great literature simultaneously. It reminds us that great art is a form of very intimate communication between the artist and the audience on a profoundly personal level.

I have always thought that great art and literature belong to the people rather than in some ivory tower. Kudo's to these women for bringing great literature back to the street where it belongs.

Interesting article in today's New York Times about the apparent effect that the Oxfam bookstores are having on secondhand bookshops in the UK:

Beleaguered Bookseller Knows Whom to Blame: Oxfam

Copenhagen's Living Library
Teaching Danes to Not Judge A Book By Its Cover

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,646298,00.html

I loved that article, Andrew; that is a fabulous idea, to let individuals "read" about the lives of others told in the first person. Thanks!

compare and contrast - brit and american personals in lit. review mags
http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine_bo...

"LRB: Let's put our dentures in the same glass. I'm alive. You be too. Pacemaker a plus. Opioids even better. M, 74. "

An article from today's New York Times about The Joy of Reading in the Subway.

Thanks, Rebecca; I loved that article, and especially the accompanying photos.

Thaks from me too. The article was quite enjoyable.

Small Press Distribution
http://www.spdbooks.org/pages/about/default.aspx
I imagine there are folks here who are familiar w/ this outfit? I was tracking down a book of music essays by the American poet August Kleinzahler, and having no joy @ Amazon, just googled it and came up with it from SPD.

Darryl, the thing that amazed me about some of the pictures was how empty some of the trains were . . . why can't I find those trains?

Ha! Yes, I noticed about that too, especially the first photo of the guy on the B train, and I had meant to comment on that. Maybe the photographer urged the other passengers to congregate toward the other end of the carriage, to paint an unnaturally serene scene?

Now that I'm no longer commuting to NYC every weekday I usually find myself riding the subway on weekdays between the morning and afternoon rush hours, and I've noticed that the trains can be this empty, especially once you pass downtown Brooklyn heading to or from Manhattan. I'll often find myself on an eastbound L train (14th St & 8th Av) or a northbound V(?) train (Lower East Side/1st Ave) at terminal stations, which are near empty for a station or two.

This isn't an article, but I received an e-mail from AbeBooks, which announced the opening of its Weird Book Room, which includes such classics as Ductigami: The Art of the Tape, Is Your Dog Gay?, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, and The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America.

\err i bought "how to survive a robot uprising" as a bday present for a friend

I got that AbeBooks e-mail too. My favourite title was The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories. I didn't see The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America, but if they have a western edition, I'm definitely interested.

Bob, did your friend survive?

I especially liked The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which was written by a physician. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised that it was published, or that four LTers own a copy of it.

He has so far--he's well prepared, his daughter gave him a similar guide to surviving a zombie uprising. Forewarned is forearmed or something like that ;-)

Tomorrow's Guardian Review has a profile article on William Trevor here:

A Life in Books

And, there is an article about the alter-egos found in Coetzee's works:

The many faces of JM Coetzee

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has a nice article on the poet/spoken word artist/activist/former university professor Sonia Sanchez, who will celebrate her 75th birthday on Wednesday with a blow out bash at her home in the Germantown section of the city:

For poet Sanchez, it's life that's always knocking at the door

An interesting review of Lorrie Moore's latest book, A Gate at the Stairs, is in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, along with another glowing review of Love and Summer:

Master of the short story ranges wide, triumphs in the long form

>69 kidzdoc: hey, I gave my son Ductigami when it first came out. It was there he learned to make the Duct Tape wallet and baseball cap, I believe. However, he made the vest he wore for some event or another himself. . .

>77 avaland: kidzdoc, did you get to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival? Just wondered if you saw the Alberto Gonzalez Cantata. Here it is on YouTube if you missed it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h60swhcXHmc
It's his senate hearings set to Opera (although the genders of all the senators involved are reversed...so Diane Feinstein's part is sung by a male.

Here's my favorite piece "I don't recall" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqCzxXUD--g&feature=related

But I digress...

Every year I look forward to the Fall books preview article in the San Francisco Chronicle, as I always find at least half a dozen books to add to my collection. This year is no exception; these are the books I'll be especially interested in:

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Knopf). The Turkish author's first novel since winning the Nobel Prize concerns an impossible love.

The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). A new translation of the acclaimed 1959 novel.

Where the Wild Things Are by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's). Three whole months after publishing "Zeitoun," Eggers returns with this novelization of the Maurice Sendak story. (Eggers also co-wrote the script for the forthcoming film with director Spike Jonze.)

A Community Organizer: People and Power in San Francisco by Mike Miller (Heyday). The activist's take on the movement to protect the Mission District.

The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe (Knopf). A collection of autobiographical essays from the author of "Things Fall Apart."

Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood (Knopf). The prizefighter and the challenges he confronted, in and out of the ring.

Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley (Free Press). A biography of the great jazz composer.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy (Knopf). New translations by husband and wife Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who also breathed new life into "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina."

A Good Fall: Stories by Ha Jin (Pantheon). The author's first collection since 2001 focuses on Chinese immigrant life.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper). A man befriends the artist Frida Kahlo, and his life is forever changed; by the author of "The Poisonwood Bible."

Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing, edited by Ilan Stavans (Library of America). A mammoth work, more than 800 pages long, whose many authors include Junot Díaz, Jhumpa Lahiri and Czeslaw Milosz.

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith (Penguin). A far-ranging collection by the author of "White Teeth."

Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan's America by Gerald Nachman (UC Press). The man who came before Burnett, Letterman, Leno and all the rest; by the San Francisco author of "Raised on Radio."

Thanks for the list, DArryl -- some intriguing titles there.

#77: No, I haven't attended any of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival performances yet. For that matter, I haven't left my parents' house since I arrived here on Tuesday, as the pollen (I think) triggered the worst asthma attack I've had in several years. I'm doing much better, and will probably go into the city (by commuter rail) tomorrow and Wednesday before I head back to Atlanta on Thursday. My mother is moderately ill with bronchitis and an asthma flare up, so I may postpone these plans if she isn't doing better by tomorrow.

This is one of my favorite starred threads on LT, although I don't post ... yet.

I enjoy and appreciate the contributions of all posters and those who, like me, simply read and read and read ... you get the idea.

I could spend a whole day following the leads posted here.

Thanks and keep 'em coming, one and all.

womansheart

>kidzdoc. Yes, some interesting titles there. I'm particularly intrigued with the anthology, "Becoming Americans". Hope both you and your mom feel better.

Thank you for the list, Darryl. Like Lois, I am intrigued with Becoming Americans, but also with The Museum of Innocence.

>78 kidzdoc:, 82, 83 -

Somehow I skimmed over, Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing, the first read through your post Darryl.

I just placed a materials request for it through our Leon County Library system, here in Tallahassee and surrounding environs. Keep fingers crossed that the is money is there to purchase it! (Or, borrow it from another Library, maybe?) ... When it is released in October.

womansheart/Ruth

I've been on vacation and there were so many interesting things here when I got back!

60 – Living Library was fascinating. I hope other cities start similar programs.

63 – I saw the article on subway reading the other day. Glad someone got it up here. My one major beef with the Kindle is that I can’t tell what people on the subway are reading :).

69 – So I have Mobile Homes by Famous Architects but only Outhouses by Famous Architects made the Weird Book Room.

78 – Thanks. Becoming Americans went right on the wishlist.

81 – I’ll second that – always interesting things here I would never have found on my own.

Tomorrow's Guardian has a fascinating and insightful interview of Hilary Mantel:

'I accumulated an anger that would rip a roof off'

> Darryl -

Thanks for the lead here.

I skimmed it quickly, and promised myself that I will return tomorrow to read the article in full and using my favorite slow reading technique.

I did catch the last four lines of the excerpt from the book, however. I must say this in regard to them ... One of the clearest literary examples of "blaming the victim" I've come across. Ever.

womansheart/Ruth

There is a wonderful new journal available online.

http://www.belletrista.com/2009/issue1/index.html

And it was started by none other than the creator of Club Read, avaland/Lois, and includes articles and interviews by other familiar LT names.

For the Perec/Oulipian fans:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/perecg/thoughts.htm