Category: Reading and Books

So I’ve been tagged twice in the Book Meme. Here goes…

1.Grab the book closest to you

Ok. I’m at my writing group so lucky I’ve got something in my laptop bag.

2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence

Done.

3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog

“‘Suddenly, Jewishness became virtually synonymous with Judaism, defying the fundamentally secular secular character of Jewish immigrant communal leadership within unions, also eclipsing the left-leaning political or fraternal movements and coorperative housing that largely dominated the thought of previous immigrant generations.”

4. Name the book and the author

From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture by Paul Buhle

5. Tag three people

Dave, Josh and JT.

Dan Wolf, an artist I respect a great deal recently pointed me to the 33 1/3 series of small-format books, published by Continuum Press. The 33 1/3 series takes legendary albums of the last 50 years and brings in a variety of journalists, writers and academics to disect them song by song. Newly released titles include Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisted, Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark and Nirvana’s In Utero.

This couldn’t have come at a better time. Inspired by my friend Willo, I recently converted my entire CD collection to plastic sleeves and will be disposing of the jewel cases soon. That process reacquainted me with albums I hadn’t thought about in years. Also I’ve decided to get in the habit of reading, listening and watching everything I do much slower and more deliberately. Reading a disection of a great album, listening and listening to it again sounds plain heavenly.

Update: I just ordered the Born in the USA volume. It begins.

Today is the birthday of Ann Patchett, George Saunders and T.C. Boyle, three of my all-time favorite writers (via The Writer’s Alamanac).

A rather disturbing post from my friend Carolyn about what her fellow MFA in fiction classmates are reading. You know reading, right? Its what you do with the stuff that people write…

So we’re sitting in class tonight and our teacher asks something like, How do you find the fiction that you read?

First, the class says _nothing_. This isn’t unusual, though. The dozen of us in class have been little more than bumps on our chairs tonight. Eventually, someone speaks up.

– I read what my teachers tell me to read.

and then

– I find books I like on Amazon and see what other people have bought.

No one says “I read the Sunday book review from the newspaper.”
No one says “I read litblogs.”
No one says “I read award-winners and nominees.”
No one says “I read the New Yorker.”
No one says “I read literary magazines.”

When I snuck into AWP last year a couple of the literary magazine folks said that MFA students wanted them to run their stories, but they didn’t want to subscribe, even read the magazines. I said bosh and poppycock. I was wrong. Sigh.

Last week, author Zadie Smith gave a fantastic interview on KCRW’s Bookworm which has been on my mind since…

"I think of reading as a skill and an art. The model of a reader we’re given is a person watching a film or watching television so the greatest principle is ‘I should sit here and be entertained’ and the more classical model is something that’s been completely taken away, the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician sits at the piano with a piece of music which is the work made by somebody they don’t know, or probably couldn’t comprehend entirely and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift you give the artist and the artist gives you. That’s an incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you pracitce reading and work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it."

In principle I love this idea. I’m drawn to people who can dig deep into an author’s bibliography and look up to writers (Cynthia Ozick, A.S. Byatt, John Barth) who have based some part of their career on this digging. Part of my attraction comes from how inadequate I feel next to this kind of reader.

Ms. Smith’s remarks leave me though with two difficulties:

I. How do we as readers determine who is worth reading deeply and who is not without becoming slaves to some crusty idea of canonical literature? Do we give Curtis Sittenfeld the same deep read we give Edith Wharton? Or do we create a literary apartheid by with older, deader authors get better treatment that younger living ones?

II. Should we commit ourselves to reading deeply, what are we willing to sacrifice? Television, movies and video games may seem easy to dispose of but how about time with friends and family? Exercise and health? Spiritual development? Working for a living? I’m saddened that the very people who argue for "reading deeply" are people whose lifestyles or social economic standing have granted them the privilege.

Question then: Where is the place of "reading deeply" in a modern busy life?

I have no answers yet to these questions. I ask to hear what you think.

Title: “Joe College”

Author: Tom Perrotta.

Synopsis: Danny is a sophomore at Yale in 1982. Has girl trouble, torn between roommates and hometown friends, drives father’s lunch truck over spring break. Hilarity insues.

Backstory: College, the 80s, the
author of “Little Children” which I loved. Do I need another reason?

Notes: Quick, painless read. No fiber in this meal. Think Fruit Roll-Ups.

Verdict: Perrotta hasn’t matured quite yet. The whoel novel is loveable in an old blanket sort of way but doesn’t really justify why we should be reading. Danny is really hapless schlub, a financial aid package away from Fuck Head in Jesus’ Son. Perrotta overwrites him giving him phrases no 19-year-old would use even the kind who hyperanalyzes nothings like I did at that age. The supporting cast is colorful yet flatly so.

This is a pleasant read. But not much more.

Sometimes I’m amazed people still read this thing looking for book recommendations because lately I’ve sucked at posted about what I’ve read. Like really sucked up the joint.

Here’s the catchup, all in one place…

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

A lovely sad, poetic character study. Makes you want to cry and sigh deeply. Then call your best friends because life is too short not to.

Instant Love by Jamie Attenberg

Quick read, debut novel. Seems like chick lit at first sight but is really quite sad and tragic by the end. More about how expectations and fantasy can blind us to our own happiness.

Post-Soul Nation by Nelson George

1980s, black culture, the topic’s like friggin catnip to me. I also liked George’s use of a calander as an organizing principle. Not as intellectually rigorous as hist seminal “Hip Hop America” and but if you look past the bluster and bragadoccio, there’s a solid document of a decade there.

“Talking Right” by Geoffrey Nunberg

Perhaps the densest book I’ve read this year. Nunberg has done maybe 15 years worth of research for this barely 250 pages volume and dragged in a bibliography that would humble Harold Bloom. It’s great stuff that bears multiple rereadings, especially since Nunberg tries to outfancy his subjects at times, much to books detriment. Overall, though, it’s a juicy, thoughtful look at where the Democrats stumble on framing political debate, where Republicans succeed and how that imbalance can be corrected.

All caught up now….

Andrew Wylie, one of the world’s most prestigous literary agents (Philip Roth, Martin Amis and the late I.F. Stone are clients) gave a rare interview to the French newspaper Le Monde. Since we here dont’ speak French, the link is to The Elegant Variation’s helpful translation. Thank you to proprietor Mark Sarvas for his labors.

This was my favorite part…

Q: You had thirty authors when you began and, with your principles, it must have been difficult to make much money. Today you have the most prestigious client list – some say the most snobbish.

A: Undoubtedly the most snobbish!

I’ve lost some money over the years. I gave up 50% of my agency to the British. Then I bought back the shares. I opened my own office in London. Then an office in Madrid, which I closed after three years in order to concentrate on London, where I spend one week per month, and New York. I fight for the authors I love. I believe in the future of publishing. I believe that the fight, such as it is, between literature and commerce is going to continue. I understand how some editors can sometimes be pessimistic when 70 percent of the people in the business are trying to convince the world that The DaVinci Code is something interesting. Whereas it’s completely uninteresting.

I followed everything that took place in France concerning the sale of Vivendi Universal Publishing, which is a case in point, the concentration on playing the commercial card. But I’m not at all pessimistic, I’m actually utterly optimistic about literary publishing’s capacity to survive. And it’s not merely wishful thinking – that wouldn’t fit my reputation at all.

Brilliant article by Kevin Sampsell, one of the events managers at Powells Books in Portland, on how to not make an ass of yourself (authors and audiences) at bookstore events. My favorites…

Author:

Don’t go on forever. This is one the most common mistakes of the author and probably one of the reasons why more people don’t go to literary events. Listening to someone read for longer than 15 minutes can be like watching C-SPAN. There are only a handful of folks who are capable of entertaining an audience for that long.

Sometimes it’s best to get the Q&A going before folks start dozing. Be mindful of when the store is When it gets to the book signing part, don’t gab to every fan for five minutes.

Audience:

Don’t bring weird gifts. A few years back, a fan gave David Sedaris a hideous sculpture of a naked person. How he was going to take this on an airplane was probably not considered. After the reading, Mr. Sedaris kindly asked me to dispose of the statue and some of the other “gifts” he had received, including home-baked foods (suspicious), vanity press books (sad) and a T-shirt (I’ve noticed that people who give authors T-shirts are usually affiliated with some kooky political group).

When we hosted Jane Fonda last year, one man gave her snapshots of himself standing next to her, posed with a shy but excited grin. (In the photo, Fonda doesn’t seem to know he’s there, she’s looking off in a totally different direction). Those photos were left behind, along with a postcard from someone who wrote, “I apologize for my offensive behavior. Please forgive me.”

(via Readerville)

Feels exactly like this. I had to move a stack of “to be reads” out of bedroom because I was tripping over them in the middle of the night. It’s now in my office and well over six feet high.