Hustler of Culture
Mad props across the water to Click Clack Moo!, the best children’s book I’ve read in a long time. Get this for a premise: A group of cows procures a typewriter and starts sending the farmer requests for improved barn conditions. Like electric blankets. It’s downright hysterical and the pictures are great, like a slightly demented Amelia Bedelia.
An article in the Guardian UK laments the sinking intelligence of bookstore employees. While I happen to agree and have my own stories (“No, E. Annie Proulx’s last name is not pronounced “Pro-Locks”), pieces of this sort usually wear their snottiness on their sleeve, as if to say “Look at all these morons who don’t know as much as I do.”
Or it may not. We’re doing something over in the Central Booking forums where you post a link to your Amazon wish list, pick an item and explain why it’s there. And maybe a nice person out there in Web-a-ville will get it for you. So I thought I’d give it a try over here too for those of you less forum-inclined.
Second item down is Let it Blurt, a biography of rock critic Lester Bangs whom I became interested in after seeing Almost Famous.
Now you go…
If you’re in to quality contemporary fiction as I am, look no further than books published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. I was lucky to hear three of their authors read tonight and converse briefly with their editor, Sean MacDonald whom I’m honored to have as a supporter of my own project. While no publisher is perfect, my experience tells me that pretty much any book bearing their half-tree logo will be a strongly written, well-told tale and entirely worth your time.
It looks like Stephen King is retiring from writing. I’m not a huge fan but boy, what a run.
I glanced over at this publicity photo of Peter Rock that came with his book The Ambidextrist as I reviewed it today for The Chronicle. Every once in a while I get jolted from my critical self and think "Jeez man, someone spent years of their life writing this thing and you’re passing judgement in a few hours. Then I remember that I’m not hired to be a nice guy.
I’ve never liked the expression that critics are frustrated artists. Legendary film critic Pauline Kael may have said it best when she insisted that she never wanted be more than a really great critic. When I’m not obsessing over getting a phrase right or turning the piece in on time, I believe that critics are there to present informed opinions, to add a dimension of discourse between artist and audience. Fairness and clarity is key. For me, I assume the author’s motives are geniune, that they intended what they wrote and I am to say, without reserve, whether I think they succeeded or not.
Every now and then, I feel like I succeed.