East of Eden: An Appreciation

I've crossed another classic off of my "to read" list, and boy am I happy I read this one. This was pure satisfaction from start to finish. John Steinbeck's East of Eden is an amazing book that embodies the intersection of literary weightiness and readability. There are plenty of epics out there that span generations: Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds or Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, for example. Those books are a joy to read and you can luxuriate in the authors' virtuosity as characters are added to weaving storylines, but East of Eden seemed to have more weight to it. Unlike many epics, which seem to thrive on love, unrequited or forbidden, Steinbeck's book focuses on the struggles of brothers seeking their father's admirmation. From the title alone, it is obvious that this notion is Biblical, and the book's Biblical quality becomes its center. For the first time in a very long time, I did not rush through the book's last chapters, eager to get to my next conquest. I felt that pang that you sometimes get when you finish a truly magnificent book, the pang that is part sadness at the experience of reading the book being over and part a feeling of that book permanently lodging itself in your memory to be drawn from and remembered with reverence. There are, I think, very few books that can produce this sublime reading experience, but East of Eden is on that short list.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:44 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Two More Things

The CS Monitor gives us some tidy capsule reviews of the finalists for the National Book Award in the fiction category. These should get us all up to speed. And also check out Dan Wickett's interview with the book bloggers, and not just because I'm one of the interviewees. There's some good stuff in there. Have a good weekend.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Keeping up Appearances

The bad news is that the intensity of my grad school program is forcing me to post links in lieu of more substantial efforts. The good news is that I have really good links to tell you about.

• Some of you may see yourselves in "Thomas H. Benton" an assistant professor whose book collecting is "more than a gentle madness."
• A remarkable collection of the top 100 American speeches of all time. There's a transcript available for each one, and, in many cases an mp3 of the audio.
• Do you remember diagramming sentences in elementary school grammar class? I sure do. If only there had been a computer to do it for me. (use "guest" for login and password so you don't have to register.)

As I was mentioning before, grad school is getting to be very time-consuming, and, since I want to keep The Millions viable, I am currently soliciting the services of guest posters. It could be a one time thing or you could be a regular. If you're interested, email me and we'll discuss.

- C. Max Magee @ 1:33 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Books Are Too Big

Books aren't too long, they're too big. They don't fit in your pocket or purse. You have to cram them into backpacks or shove them under your arm. And I'm not even talking about hardcovers (I can't afford those); I'm talking about these big paperbacks. Sure, some of them look pretty but wouldn't it be great to have a paperback stowed in my jacket pocket, ready for an idle moment? If you've ever been to a used book store, you've seen that they used to make books like this, small and pocket-sized. These books weren't limited to the mysteries, romances, and mega-bestsellers that garner "mass-media" releases these days. On my bookshelves I have editions of The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, for example. They aren't the editions you'll find by clicking the links I've provided, instead they fit very nearly in the palm of my hand. I've always been enamored by those little books, the Dells, the Bantams, the Penguins and the rest, but I've been thinking about these little books a lot more of late because I spend a lot of time on public transportation these days. And, frankly, it's a pain to maneuver a big book around on a crowded bus or train. It's no fun trying to extricate my book from my bag only to cram it back in hastily when I arrive at my destination. I can tell my fellow travelers experience the same difficulties, too. I would make a plea for publishers to bring back the pocket-sized books that I love, but I know that probably won't happen. I'm told that publishing company consolidation in the 1980s and an ever-growing concern for the bottom line have made that impossible. But if you want to relive the glory days of the paperback, take a look at these very cool sites: The Paperback Revolution (a stunning presentation of the glory days of the paperback book) and Edward Gorey's legendary covers for Anchor books (read the article and then click the link at the bottom to see the covers).

- C. Max Magee @ 10:02 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Monday Linkday

The Guardian gives us Booker-winner Line of Beauty "condensed in the style of the original."

Some of you may have already seen this one: The 100 Greatest Books of all Time, also from the Guardian. How many have you read? I'm at 24, and I love that Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim makes the list. To anyone who is looking for a recommendation on what to read right now: get Lucky Jim, you'll love it.

Weren't we talking about ISBNs the other day? Here's a new blog about ISBNs and "book information" by a former Amazon employee and the creator of isbn.nu.

Steve Landsburg asks: Too many books? I'm not completely sure I see his point. He seems to be implying that people only read one book a year. Furthermore, publishers fall all over themselves trying to create a blockbuster book; it's far more cost-effective to promote a few guaranteed big sellers than a lot of risky titles. Sad but true. Perhaps the better thing to do is not to bemoan the inevitable Da Vinci Codes but to instead look for creative, cost-effective ways to promote riskier books.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the trendsetting book about trendsetting, The Tipping Point, has new book coming out called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, in which he "reveals that what we think of as decisions made in the blink of an eye are much more complicated than assumed."

- C. Max Magee @ 1:14 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Crazy Insane ISBN News

This will probably be of little interest to anyone who is not a book industry professional, but I couldn't help myself. I happened to notice the other day a mention of the impending adoption of the 13-digit ISBN. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, and it's the 10-digit number typically found on the back of your books near the barcode. Every new edition of every book has its own ISBN, making it a unique identifier that can be used when organizing books in a computer library system. By 2007 all new books will be assigned 13-digit ISBNs. This is being done so that books conform with other products, which are all identified by a 13-digit number (usually next to the barcode.) I'm sure there are good reasons for doing this. Standardizing these numbers will probably streamline the business and make books easier to integrate with other products in stores. But I felt compelled to bring this up because I suspect the change might be detrimental to independent bookstores for two reasons. First, anything that makes it easier for books to be sold at the Walmart, Target, and the other "big box" stores is bad for independent bookstores (and chain bookstores, for that matter). Secondly, due to the expense, many independent bookstores do not have great inventory systems. Typically they have some sort of makeshift system, or they use an antiquated inventory system with poor tech support and little or no adaptability (the latter was certainly the case at the bookstore where I worked). Books are organized in these systems by ISBN, and I doubt that they are designed to handle an ISBN longer than 10 digits. While the chain stores probably have more robust systems and staff dedicated to the upkeep of their inventory programs, I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of independent bookstores scrambling to adapt when the 13-digit ISBN comes along. Then again, this could be another Y2K situation, which I'm blowing out of proportion. We'll see, I suppose. If you are really intrigued by this, you can learn all about it here.

In other news, the New York Times has named one-time restaurant reviewer William Grimes its new book reviewer. He joins Janet Maslin and Madame Kakutani. It will be interesting to see how this changes the overall persona of the Times' book coverage. I should also note here that an inordinate number of people come to this website by searching for "Michiko Kakutani." She is the object of much fascination, I think.

The Publisher's Lunch email newsletter mentions an upcoming book by one of my favorite writers, the inventor of rotisserie baseball and current New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent. "Daniel Okrent's new book will also form the basis of a Ken Burns documentary, an illustrated biography of Einstein."

- C. Max Magee @ 9:02 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 30th in a Series (Lists of Books)

Jason writes in with this question:

Is there a single site just listing new releases from a wide range of publishers?

Oh, how I wish there were. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why no one seems to keep lists like this. There are scads of places you can find new music releases, but websites that do this for books are basically non-existent. After I started working at the book store I realized why, 99.9 percent of new books do not have a "hard" release date. That is, publishers do not tell everyone in advance that a book will be out on a certain date. Instead, they just ship them out when they're ready. Usually the best information you can get is that a book will be out some time during a certain month. Sometimes you can go to Amazon and see this in action. They might list a release date a couple of weeks from now, but you will see that the book is already in stock. This is because Amazon.com sets the release date towards the end of the expected release window so that customers will not be disappointed by a book that is past its release date and still unavailable. At the brick and mortar stores, you will sometimes find that one store has gotten a given book in before another store because the publisher takes its time getting the shipments out. There are, of course, exceptions to all of this. Any major book, say something by a bestselling author or an ex-President or maybe the next Oprah book, will have a "street date" dictated by the publisher. Bookstores often receive the books prior to the street date, but they can get in trouble for selling them too early. The big books are released on a specific day so that publishers can get the most out of the highly concentrated media blitz that they orchestrate for them. Because of these irregularities it's impossible to put together a weekly list and very difficult to put together a monthly list. When you consider that 175,000 books were released in 2003 (according to Bowker), the possibility of any sort of comprehensive list is daunting. Having said all that, there is one website that manages to produce a decent list, which I use from time to time. You'll find that it only lists the most prominent couple of hundred fiction books in a given year. But it gives you a good idea of what's on tap. It's called Overbooked.org. If anyone has come across a better site please enlighten us. Thanks for the question, Jason!

- C. Max Magee @ 8:15 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Bits

Millions reader Lisa found Booker winner Line of Beauty to be "a more intellectualized, less satirical version of Stephen Fry's The Liar." I'm sure Lisa won't mind if you borrow that line at the next cocktail party.

The new Gabriel Garcia Marquez book (Memories of My Melancholy Whores, they're calling it now) continues to generate headlines. This time Gabo foils the pirates. Go Gabo!

At Amazon you can watch Jon Stewart make an ISBN joke whilst hawking his book America. Just click on the link and then check out the "Amazon.com Exclusives."

Spotted on the El: Truman Capote's "unfinished novel" Answered Prayers.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:39 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Booker Surprise

You may have heard. In a surprise upset, the Booker Prize was awarded to Alan Hollinghurst for Line of Beauty. Oddsmakers, literary professionals, and speculating bloggers all considered David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to be a lock, but the Booker, as is so often the case, proved too wily to predict. The award will lead to many newspaper write-ups (NYT reg req'd), and a big boost in sales, although, from the looks of things, I would expect relatively modest Vernon God Little numbers rather than blockbuster best seller list Life of Pi numbers. With the Booker overwith, all eyes turn towards the National Book Awards, which will be announced on November 17th. A look at the non-fiction finalists.

Bookspotting on the El

I meant to link to this post from Conversational Reading a while ago as it really captures the particular afflictions of many book lovers. His first question caught my eye: "Do you surreptitiously observe what people are reading on public transit?" Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that I have the odd habit of posting about the books I spot people reading during the course of my day. (Bookspotting I call it.) Some might find this odd, but I think it's fascinating, and better than any newspaper article or bestseller list at seeing what books people are interested in. Sure you lots of people reading the bestsellers, but you also see a delightfully random sampling of the books that our fellow citizens bury their noses in each day. Some my find this to be an odd hobby, but I it manages to affirm my faith in civilization. Here are the three books that I noticed from my seat on the Red Line today: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (Morrison is an essential of American lit), The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (I'd wager that this book has been a huge seller here in Chicago), and Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (I love seeing people casually reading Shakespeare on their way to work).

- C. Max Magee @ 10:47 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Books That Help Us Write

A few posts back I touched upon the idea of the "style guide." As a newly minted journalism student, I have been taught that these guides are essential for creating the "clean copy" that my editors will want to see. They are fascinating books in a way. In my AP Stylebook some entries are brief, just one word: tiptop says one, instructing me not hyphenate. Other entries go on for a few pages like the one for possessives, which explains how to deal with "nouns the same in singular and plural," "special expressions," and "quasi possessives." I know, exciting. One of the undercurrents of journalism school seems to be that writing is a lot more than just putting words on paper. There are rules to be followed and facts to be vetted. The rules are covered by the Stylebook, but vetting the facts can often be done with The World Almanac and Book of Facts, where one might discover a daily astronomy calendar, a list of popes, and the name of every town in Alabama with more than 5,000 people. Armed with these two books, I ought to have much of the guidance I need, but I have also been known to refer to a couple of my favorite writing reference books when necessary. The Elements of Style is a thin, little book that is so elegant and efficient in teaching proper usage it supersedes many of the fatter, drier grammar books you may have encountered in your studies. I also love my The Synonym Finder, which I bought when I worked at the book store after a customer became misty when describing her devotion to it. I'm glad I bought it. Every time I go looking for a synonym, I find one so good that it feels like I'm cheating somehow. My reference library is by no means complete, however. I'm still looking for that perfect dictionary (any recommendations?). And though I'm always dropping hints that I'd love to get a nice hefty atlas for a gift, I still haven't received one.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:54 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

More Awards

Lisa pointed out in a comment on yesterday's post that I neglected to mention the finalists in the Young People's Literature Category of the National Book Award. That'll teach me to cut corners. So here they are (and the poetry nominees as well... they need the love, too):

Young People's Literature

• Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti -- excerpt
• Godless by Pete Hautman -- excerpt
• Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance by Laban Carrick Hill -- Hill on the novel
• The Legend of Buddy Bush by Shelia P. Moses -- excerpt
• Luna by Julie Anne Peters -- excerpt

Poetry

• Shoah Train by William Heyen -- a poem
• Collected Poems by Donald Justice (posthumous) -- obit
• The Rest of Love by Carl Phillips -- some poems
• Goest by Cole Swensen -- poems
• Door In The Mountain: New And Collected Poems, 1965-2003 by Jean Valentine -- poems (cool website)

A Visit from Doctorow

E.L. Doctorow described writers as prophets and the act of using a library as a sacrament in an obliquely political and densely literary talk at Northwestern on Wednesday. He decried President Bush, describing his "dismal public conduct so shot through with piety." In his talk, entitled "Apprehending Reality," he used the Bible as a jumping off point citing it as the first appearance of many literary techniques: adaptation, driving a plot with characters and working backwards from conclusion to motivation as a mystery writer might. From his Biblical introduction, he made the leap to the present day divide in America "between the old stories and the new, between the writers of the old and the impertinent writers of the new." The talk was adapted from an essay in Doctorow's book, Reporting the Universe. Doctorow's most recent work of fiction is Sweet Land Stories.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:42 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Award Season

If there is an award season for the book industry, it's probably right around now. The Booker will be announced in a couple of days, the Nobel Prize was just announced, and now the finalists for the National Book Award have been announced. (The Pulitzer doesn't happen until the spring, though.) The big news this year is that the 9/11 Commission Report has been nominated in the non-fiction category. It's an unprecedented development, and I can't help but think that a message is being sent. And it is a rather clever way of getting publicity for the award. It also, however, reflects the important place in history that 9/11 will hold. On the fiction side, the nominees are an interesting bunch, all of the women and none of them big, well-known names. Below you can find the nominees for the fiction and non-fiction categories, and some excerpts or whatever else I could find.

Fiction

• Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum -- profile
• Florida by Christine Schutt -- interview
• Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories by Joan Silber -- excerpt
• The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck -- excerpt
• Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Kate Walbert -- excerpt

Non-Fiction

• Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle -- review
• Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer -- excerpt
• Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett by Jennifer Gonnerman -- excerpt (this is a good one)
• Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt -- excerpt
• 9/11 Commission Report -- read it here

- C. Max Magee @ 7:39 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Books Online

You may have heard. Google has just launched a service called Google Print. Like Amazon, Google's service allows people to search through books. Google announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair that are adding a lot of major publishers and they will be adding many titles. As with Amazon, there is a limit to how many pages you can view. And, at this stage anyway, it's not possible to search the book database exclusively. I've found that the best way to get a Google Print result to show up is to type the word "book" and then whatever it is you're searching for. It'll be interesting to see if this develops further.

- C. Max Magee @ 10:57 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 29th in a Series (I Coulda Been a Contendah)

Christian writes in to ask about a Hollywood star crossing over into the literary world:

What's this talk about a novel (co)written by the late Marlon Brando soon to be published?

This is a story that has surfaced because of developments at last week's Frankfurt Book Fair. Apparently years ago Brando toyed with the idea of turning a film treatment of his into a novel. He and a co-writer, Donald Cammell, worked on it, but the project was shelved. Sonny Mehta, the editor at Knopf, recently discovered that the project was still viable and, after discussing it with the interested parties, has pushed forward with the project. The novel is about pirates (natch), and it will be called Fan-tan. Look for it a year from now. Here's the full story at the NY Post. The late Brando's novel won't be the first by someone better known for their work in Hollywood. Ethan Hawke has been penning novels for a while now as has Steve Martin. There are probably many others as well. I think that when one becomes famous enough, fame that's limited to one area of creative endeavor becomes insufficient. Hence actors become directors, singers become actors, politicians become novelists, and so on. Call it extending the brand.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:38 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The Nobel

Confirming speculation that it would be given to a woman, the 2004 Nobel Prize has been awarded to Elfriede Jelinek, an Austrian author who is probably unknown to most American readers. Her books are dark and often disturbing. She is best known for her book, The Piano Teacher, which was made into an award-winning film. Her other books available in English are: Women As Lovers, Lust, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

- C. Max Magee @ 8:15 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

An Improvement

You may have noticed that a few days ago I added another newsfeed to the sidebar. This one provides book headlines from the Christian Science Monitor. I'm pretty excited about this because the Monitor happens to be one of my favorite newspapers. The paper's interesting history sets it apart from most dailies. Despite its name, the Monitor is not a religious paper. It was founded by Mary Baker Eddy, a devotee of the Christian Science religion, in 1908, but it was not meant to be a religious organ. Eddy was a prominent Boston citizen, and she had been getting a lot of grief from Joseph Pulitzer and his newspaper the New York World. She created the paper because she was convinced that newspapers should do more than attack people. She wanted her paper "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind." The result is consistently excellent journalism with a great international focus and a deeper insight into the news than most daily papers provide. Have a look at the paper here.

Tomorrow is one of the biggest literary days of the year: the announcement of the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. Speculation abounds.

- C. Max Magee @ 11:31 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Ask a Book Question: The 28th in a Series (The Spanish Grammarian)

My good and old friend Emre writes in with this somewhat obscure question that was nonetheless enjoyable to research.

Have you read anything by Alex Grijelmo, and would you by any chance know of his La Seduccion de las Palabras and if it is translated to English yet?

I have not read anything by Alex Grijelmo, and, in fact, I had not even heard of him until I received this email. But a little research revealed that he is the editor of El Pais, one of Spain's more popular newspapers. In fact, I remember seeing it all over Barcelona when I was there in 2003. Not only is Grijelmo an editor, he is also the author of El Pais' style guide. Now that I am a journalism student, I have quickly become acquainted with the notion of the "style guide." Such guides are essential for keeping the grammar, punctuation and usage consistent in a given publication, and many publications have their own in house versions. The New York Times has one, but the most popular is the AP Style Guide (I'm pretty much required to keep this one on my person at all times these days). But Grijelmo isn't just a grammar nut. He has also written books about language that go beyond the rules and regulations. For example, the title of the book you mention can be loosely translated as The Seduction of Words, and it appears as though Grijelmo, aside from being a well-known journalist, is something of a Spanish William Safire; that is, a writer who discusses language not just codifies it. Sadly, none of his books have been translated into English, and since his books seem to be about the Spanish language itself, it would seem unlikely that they could successfully be translated into English. If anyone else out there knows anything about Grijelmo, please comment, for Emre's sake!

(Speaking of Safire, have a look at his op-ed about the government's no-holds-barred hunt for unnamed sources.)

- C. Max Magee @ 11:54 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Anne Garrels

I had the opportunity today, along with a small group of fellow grad students, to meet NPR reporter Anne Garrels. Garrels has become famous over the last couple of years for being one of the 16 American journalists to remain in Baghdad during the war. Her sometimes harrowing reports from the Palestine Hotel seared her voice into the memories of many Americans. She's been back to Baghdad since that initial period, and she'll be going back again soon. She exudes an interesting mix of enthusiasm and fatalism about reporting in such a precarious situation -- there was much mention of kidnappings and beheadings. She is quite pessimistic about the situation in Iraq, and she seemed genuinely astonished by the way she has seen the Americans handle the reconstruction. The logistics of reporting in that part of the world were perhaps the most fascinating part of the conversation. There is seemingly endless second- guessing about at what point it becomes too dangerous for reporters to be there, and in the meantime much of the time and budget seems to be taken up by solving security issues. There was, in the room, an almost palpable sense of concern for Garrels' well-being. Certainly she is more than capable of handling the situation, but even so, after meeting her in person, we began to worry about her impending return to Iraq. After her time was up in the classroom we all sort of followed her out of the building -- she had kept up the conversation even though it was time for her to go -- and outside where she smoked a cigarette and we huddled around her, telling her about ourselves. When she was done, she wished us all good luck, and we all wished her good luck back, and we meant it.

Side notes: Garrels mentioned that Anthony Shadid, the Washington Post reporter who won the Pulitzer for his Iraq coverage, is working on a book. She said that his deep understanding of the situation over there should make the book very good. She also mentioned the Committee to Protect Journalists, of which she is a director. The website keeps track of journalists who have been killed in the line of duty, underscoring what is at stake for journalists who put themselves in dangerous situations. Finally, I should mention her book, which, after meeting Garrels, I would really like to read. Have a look: Naked in Baghdad

- C. Max Magee @ 7:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Monkey Shakespeare

Who was it that came up with the idea that a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters would eventually, with their random keyboard smashing, type William Shakespeare's complete works? Well, you can give the experiment a try here (link from the CC). And while you're waiting for your monkeys to finish typing Love's Labor's Lost, check out some book excerpts I found:

• Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick -- excerpt, NYT review, SF Chronicle review
• Chain of Command by Seymour Hersh -- excerpt, CS Monitor review
• The Double by Jose Saramago -- excerpt, NZ Herald review
• The Fall Of Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson -- excerpt, WaPo review

- C. Max Magee @ 10:07 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Richard Avedon RIP

One of the world's great photographers and perhaps the greatest portrait photographer ever, Richard Avedon died today. Avedon started out in the fashion world, and then he became equally well known as a portraitist in the documentary style. He was known for placing his subjects in front of an all white background, for eliciting hidden emotions from his subjects, and for his meticulous darkroom work. Photos, a timeline, and various other goodies can be found here. Here are his most comprehensive collections: Evidence: 1944-1994 and An Autobiography

- C. Max Magee @ 5:45 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post