Thursday Links: Reservoir Noir, Calvin & Hobbes, Early Looks, Gunter Grass, Google, DFW

• Waterboro Library in Maine has compiled a list of books about "Drowned Towns," - "Mysteries and other fiction with a featured element of intentional submerging, inundating, and flooding of towns, villages, cities, and other places as a consequence of building dams and reservoirs for water supply, hydroelectric power, irrigation, flood management, and job creation." Also known as "Reservoir Noir."
• Rare art by Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson (via)
• AICN Books offers early looks at The Road by Cormac McCarthy and A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.
• The Written Nerd looks at the ethics of "street dates," the "do not sell before this date, or else!" restrictions that come with blockbuster books.
• The IHT looks at Gunter Grass' new memoir, roughly translated as Peeling the Onion. Earlier this month Grass told the world that the book would reveal that he had been a member of the Waffen SS during World War II. Word has it, the book is unlikely to appear in the US any time soon.
• Google now lets you add a Book Search widget to your Web pages. The search engine giant has also announced that it will start making public domain books available in PDF form. Here's an example.
• YPTR, in amusing fashion, takes up the question of DFW and whether he will produce a novel again.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:13 PM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

Live from Chicago by Emre Peker Part 2

Next I read Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser. Summers are great for reading all the random and must-read books that have been sitting on your shelf for too long. I remember moving to New York a year after the publication of Schlosser's study on fast food companies and how they affect the food industry. Everyone on the subway was reading it. When asked to comment, people usually said: "I'll never eat McDonald's again." I wanted to keep eating McDonald's (even Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me did not stop me), so I made a mental note to read Fast Food Nation when I decided to stop eating McDonald's on my own volition. Well, that happened a while ago and my friend Annastacia conveniently finished reading Fast Food Nation as I finished Marabou Stork Nightmares during a boat trip. So, we swapped. Schlosser's study and diligence are both highly commendable. Despite the great amount of detailed facts contained in Fast Food Nation, which - at times - make it a little textbook like, the book is still an interesting and entertaining read. My favorite parts were: "The Founding Fathers," where Schlosser provides historical information about the spread of drive-in joints and burgers in the US (as well as the suburban lifestyle that was adopted in California and spread - in my opinion like a plague - throughout the country); "Why the Fries Taste Good," where Schlosser explains the intricacies of food engineering through his travels around the New Jersey Turnpike, smelling and tasting final products in chemical form; and "The Most Dangerous Job," in which Schlosser describes the working conditions in meat processing plants. Fast Food Nation does have disgusting parts, especially while describing the meatpacking industry. It also has heart breaking moments such as the demise of mid-level, all-American ranchers, and the aforementioned working conditions in meatpacking.

I finished the book on the plane back to New York. I had been in Turkey for two and a half months and longed for a good burger. As soon as I dropped of my luggage at my friends' house, I went straight to the Corner Bistro and ate a medium-rare burger. It was delicious. I did, however, think twice about my order for the first time in my life. Schlosser's dramatic presentation does leave one wondering about the quality of food we put in our bodies. I heard that Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate by Felicity Lawrence is worse. I am intrigued. One final note, despite enjoying Schlosser's work I think it would be more appropriate to title it "Low Cost Meat: Straight from the Shit Trough and onto your Buns." I think the connection between the fast food companies and the food industry is good, but not strong and substantive enough to warrant the title Fast Food Nation. In the overall context, however, the title does remain relevant as Schlosser also examines the fast food companies' successful efforts to prevent unionization, the decline in industry wages, the creation of an easily dispensable and readily replaceable workforce, and the fast food companies' stronger influence on the food industry than Congress'.

Continuing my obsession with food I am now reading Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris by A.J. Liebling. My friend Serdar, who is a big time food lover as well as a graduate of the French Culinary institute in New York, gave the book to me and told me to become a journalist like Liebling. At this point I can only try. Liebling's prose is entertaining and smooth. He talks about food with great expertise, and it is easy to see his vast understanding of fine dining and good wines. Hopefully I can, one day, be as decadent as Liebling too. From all I can gauge so far, Henry Miller would have penned Between Meals if he had been obsessed with food instead of sex. I am unsure if the opposite would apply to Liebling, but he is a connoisseur in his own field and shows, at every turn, how he acquired his knowledge over the years, beginning as a student. Between Meals is a light, entertaining and mouth watering read. I imagine that it would be perfect if you were on a plane to Paris and wanted nothing but to eat, drink, and be merry. Bon appetite!

See Also: Part 1

- C. Max Magee @ 6:54 AM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

Midweek Links

• I thoroughly enjoyed the second installment of Emdashes' Ask the New Yorker Librarians series.
• Michiko Kakutani hates Jonathan Franzen's new memoir, The Discomfort Zone. Kakutani's wrath filled pen aside, Ed explains why she's right, and I have to agree. I looked back through the archives here and realized I hadn't elaborated on it much beyond writing back in 2003 that "Franzen's non-fiction bugs the heck out of me," but it put me off enough that I avoided reading The Corrections for a long time because of it.
• Speaking of reviews, it's a good thing Bob Dylan didn't get the Franzen treatment. He tells contactmusic.com that while he doesn't care about music reviews, the reviews for Chronicles Vol. 1 meant a lot to him: "Most people who write about music, they have no idea what if feels like to play it, but, with the book I wrote, I thought, 'The people who are writing reviews of this book, man, they know what the hell they're talking about. They know how to write a book, they know more about it than me.' The reviews of this book, some of 'em almost made me cry - in a good way. I'd never felt that from a music critic, ever."
• Even though it seems like there's another "book banning" story in the news every week, the AP reports that the 405 challenges reported to the American Library Association last year is the smallest number since they started keeping track in the early 1980s. The challenges have dropped by more than half since the ALA started Banned Books Week to promote free expression. Kudos to the librarians.
• The second most brilliant magazine in the world (refer to the top item in this list for the first), The Economist has a characteristically well-considered a piece on the newspaper industry's timid efforts to embrace the Internet. Thanks to Millions contributor Andrew for sending this along.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:13 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

What does Stephen Gaghan know that Charlie Kaufman doesn't? by Patrick Brown

As many of you no doubt have read in the trades (Wait, you don't read the trades? What town do you live in, anyway?), Stephen Gaghan, the writer of such sprawling, multi-narrative films as Traffic and Syriana, is set to adapt Malcolm Gladwell's latest quasi-scientific non-fiction potboiler, Blink (IMDb). Anyone who's read the book can tell you, it ain't going to be easy. Blink follows no central character, takes place in a multitude of settings, and covers such diverse topics as law enforcement, ancient art, and advertising.

On the surface, this seems like pure folly, destined to lead to a Charlie Kaufman-esque exercise in navel gazing and postmodern self-reference. This Variety article seems to support this claim (By the way, check out the gaudy sum of money Gladwell pockets in this deal). According to the article, Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star as a jury selection expert who has a sixth sense about people based on first impressions. If that ends up as the plot of the film, it would be the worst adaptation since The Lawnmower Man (IMDb).

But the more I thought about it, the more Gaghan seemed like the right choice, maybe the only choice, to adapt the book; furthermore, the book seemed like the perfect project for him. His last time out, Gaghan took two or three paragraphs from Robert Baer's CIA memoir See No Evil and turned it into a two hour feature film that dealt with practically every aspect of the oil industry. The finished project looked so different from the book that it was nominated for the Academy Award in the best original screenplay category (The official credit says that the book "suggested" the movie, whatever that means). Putting his three major scripts in perspective, it would seem that Stephen Gaghan has hit upon a new and arguably better way to adapt non-fiction to the screen. He doesn't aim to duplicate every twist of plot, every detail of character, but rather to hone in on the theme, the mood, and the message of whatever material he's adapting and to riff on it. The result is a movie that works on the same level as the book, discussing the same subjects with a similar tone, but also functions as a work of art separate from its original source material. While this wouldn't have worked for, say, The Godfather ("What? Why is Sonny's character now combined with Fredo's?"), it seems like the only way to tackle a book like Blink. Maybe if Charlie Kaufman had taken this approach, there might actually have been a film version of The Orchid Thief.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:25 AM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

Live from Chicago by Emre Peker Part 1

Hello! I'm back, this time reporting from Chicago, IL. Without further ado, I'll move on to what I have been reading lately. The first book I picked up since my last post was Asne Seierstad's A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal. I was longing for some non-fiction and Seierstad's memoirs of her visit to Baghdad three years ago seemed like a good choice (I have been meaning to read it for the past two years). Seierstad is a Norwegian freelance journalist that covered the wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan prior to her trip to Baghdad. She arrived in Baghdad roughly 80 days before the war started and began reporting. Seierstad organizes her book in three parts: Before, During, and After. In these simply, yet carefully, organized sections Seierstad conveys her observations of the Iraqi society under Saddam Hussein, during the initial stages of the war, and after the capture of Baghdad. Seierstad has a very personable voice that almost embeds the reader alongside her. She provides good eyes and ears in a society that, under Saddam, became introverted and isolated. One learns about the difficulties of finding out about the regime, the spy network, the reluctance of locals to talk with foreigners, and how Iraqis perceived the brewing US attack on their country.

Throughout the whole affair Seierstad also shows the bureaucratic network in Iraq, explains how she had to bribe officials to remain in, and once to re-enter, the country, and draws a unique portrait of Uday, Saddam's most feared son. Seierstad also communicates to the reader the difficulties endured by average Iraqis, both under Saddam and in face of advancing US troops. Civilian casualties inflicted by "smart bombs," the lack of resources in hospitals, and the fear of the emerging power vacuum each represent a part of the untold story, particularly during the initial stages of the war. Seierstad also mentions (or maybe even predicts) the emerging power struggle between Shiites and Sunnis as early as April 2003, a month after the war started. A Hundred and One Days is a very insightful and well written piece of work. Some of the stories are heart wrenching and leave one wondering how the great powers, and their leaders, could not foresee all the misery that would follow the war. If you are curious about the mood in Iraq, and mostly in Baghdad, at the onset of the war, I suggest that you get your hands on Seierstad's brilliant memoirs. (See Andrew's review of A Hundred and One Days)

Next I turned to Irvine Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares, which had been sitting on my shelves for the past four years. My brilliant friend Mitch had bestowed the book upon me during our final year of college, telling me that it was the best written novel he ever read. Now, that's a pretty strong statement but I have to agree with Mr. Maddox that Welsh's narrative in Marabou Stork Nightmares is smart, innovative, and fluent.

The protagonist Roy Strang is in a coma when the reader first meets him. The narrative moves between Strang's perceptions of things happening around him (such as visits from parents, friends, nurses, doctors, and unrecognized people), to Strang's fantasy world (set in South Africa, where he and Sandy Jamieson are trying to hunt the leader of the Marabou Storks, who are dominating and ruining the wildlife) and Strang's autobiography. The three worlds intertwine as Welsh brings the reader to the current day, sheds light on the demise of Roy Strang, connects his fantasy world with the real, and presents a grand finale at the hospital where the protagonist is stranded. This quite awesome story is further enhanced by Welsh's portrayal of Scots living in "schemes" (i.e. projects) outside Edinburgh and the personal anxieties he created for each character. Child abuse, gay tendencies, rape fantasies, a retarded sibling, a dysfunctional family, and hooligans all add new dimensions to the great story that Welsh devised. If you are a fan of Trainspotting and/or The Acid House, want a good laugh, and can stomach some disturbing moments, you should definitely pick up Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares.

See Also: Part 2

- C. Max Magee @ 7:51 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Hard to Pronounce Literary Names Redux: the Definitive Edition

Thanks to some friendly advice from LanguageHat, and seeing competing pronunciations flying around in the comments of the previous pronunciation post, especially for that pesky Goethe, I decided to go to the library and to do a little more Internet research to try to get some definitive pronunciations for these names, specifically printed references where available.

At the library I took a look at Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (EoL) - pronunciations aside, a very cool reference book - which was very helpful in giving me pronunciations for most of the names on our list. The problem is that the pronunciations are given using symbols that are not easily expressed in HTML, and thus are impossible to convey on this blog. Another problem is that the book was published in 1995, and thus leaves out some of the contemporary authors on this list.

However, with some further digging online, I was able to find some sources, including Merriam-Webster Online (M-W), which uses simplified, Internet friendly notation. You can refer to the M-W pronunciation guide for help if you need it. I also looked at the online version of the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition (AH), whose pronunciations I've only linked to rather than copied because it uses images to convey pronunciation symbols, and I can't easily replicate them here on the blog. Best of all, these two sources include audio pronunciations, as well. Very helpful. Finally I also looked at Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names (PD), some names from which somebody has posted here.

When none of those sufficed I used references from newspaper and magazine articles, hoping that their writers did the research and found out the correct pronunciations, ideally from the authors themselves.

• J.M. Coetzee - kut-'sE, -'si& (audio via M-W)
• Paul Theroux - both PD and EoL have it as thuh-ROO
• Henry David Thoreau - th&-'rO, tho-; 'thor-(")O, 'th&r-(")O (audio via M-W, via AH). The "Pronouncing Thoreau" sidebar on this NPR story goes into some further detail.
• John Le Carre - l&-kä-'rA (audio via M-W, via AH)
• Dan Chaon - I'm going to stick with my friend Edan's pronunciation - "Shawn" - since she had him as a teacher.
• Pulitzer - 'PULL it sir' (see #19 in the Pulitzer FAQ, audio via M-W and via AH, which also offers the "PEW" pronunciation as an alternative.)
• Donald Barthelme - There seems to be some disagreement on this one. AH has it with a "th" sound - see pronunciation and audio - while the EoL has it with a hard "t" sound. Not sure which is right.
• Michael Chabon - "Pronounced, as he says, 'Shea as in Stadium, Bon as in Jovi,'" according to this profile, though other news sources pronounce the last syllable ranging from "bun" to "bawn" to "bin"
• Thomas Pynchon - 'pin-ch&n (audio via M-W, via AH)
• Rainer Maria Rilke - 'rI-n&r Maria 'ril-k&, -kE (audio via M-W, via AH. AH does not offer the "long e" at the end as an alternative pronunciation, nor does EoL.)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Unfortunately not much of a definitive answer here. M-W prefers saying it with more of an "r" sound 'g&(r)-t& (audio), but offers 'g[oe]-t& as an alternative. AH prefers the latter, note the the subtly different audio. EoL has both of those but it calls the "r" sound "Anglicized." It also has a "long a" sound in the first syllable listed as Anglicized.
• Ngugi wa Thiong'o - His first name is pronounced "Googy," according to UC Irvine, where he teaches, while his last name is presumably pronounced phonetically.
• Eoin Colfer - The Seattle PI and Guardian both say the first name is pronounced "Owen." The last name is phonetic.
Seamus Heaney - 'shA-m&s 'hE-nE (audio via M-W, via AH)
• Jorge Luis Borges - 'bor-"hAs (audio via M-W, via AH)
• Vladimir Nabokov - n&-'bo-k&f (audio via M-W, via AH. Both AH and EoL offer alternative pronunciations with a stress on the first syllable.)
• P.G. Wodehouse - 'wud-"haus (audio via M-W, via AH)
• Chuck Palahniuk - Lots of sources, including USA Today, say "Paula-nik."
• Michel Houellebecq - LA Weekly and many other sources say "Wellbeck."
• Jeffrey Eugenides - "yu-GIN-e-dees" according to the Houston Chronicle.
• Jack Kerouac - 'ker-&-"wak (audio via M-W, via AH)
• Colm Toibin - most sources, like the SF Chron have it as "toe-bean," but the Boston Globe says "Column to-BEAN."

Bonus Links:

• The BBC Pronunciation Blog.
• Voice of America's guide to pronouncing challenging names in the news, and a Washington Post story about that guide.
• The really cool kids, however, prefer these pronunciations.

- C. Max Magee @ 1:09 PM ~ comments: 12 ~ Links to this post

 

High Praise for Edward P. Jones

In the Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley writes a glowing review of Edward P. Jones' All Aunt Hagar's Children and has high praise for Jones as well:

Now there can be no doubt about it: Edward P. Jones belongs in the first rank of American letters. With the publication of All Aunt Hagar's Children, his third book and second collection of short stories, Jones has established himself as one of the most important writers of his own generation -- he is 55 years old -- and of the present day. Not merely that, but he is one of the few contemporary American writers of literary fiction who is more interested in the world around him than he is in himself, with the happy result that he has much to tell us about ourselves and how we live now.

Perhaps Yardley (and I) are just rooting for a hometown hero. (I grew up in the DC area.) But after reading The Known World and many of Jones' short stories, it's hard to deny that he's one of the best writers working today.

In the NY Times, Dave Eggers is similarly admiring of Jones' work. He writes that The Known World "is considered by many (including this reviewer) to be one of the best American novels of the last 20 years. It's difficult to think of a contemporary novel that rivals its sweep, its humanity, the unvarnished perfection of its prose and its ultimately crushing power. The book's narrative force is so steady and unerring that it reads as though it was not so much written as engraved in stone. It became a classic the moment it was finished."

"Bad Neighbors" is a story by Jones that recently appeared in the New Yorker.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:30 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Lots of Michael Chabon News

Michael Chabon has posted some news on his infrequently updated and often cryptic blog. Here's the latest:

His forthcoming novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union is "completed and headed for copy-editing." The book will come out in May of 2007 - really looking forward to this one, by the way. You'll recall that late last year the book was postponed until "winter 2007."

Chabon talks about a project with the working title "Jews with swords," which is "a projected 16-part serialized novel," or perhaps a graphic novel, since he indicates that it will run in the NY Times Magazine Funny Pages section in January following the Michael Connelly/Seth collaboration (That sounds cool, too). No word on who will provide the art.

Update: Obviously I haven't looked at the NY Times Mag lately. It turns out that these comics and serialized novels are separate things that have been running in the magazine. So "Jews with swords" will most likely just be a straight up serialized novel... See the comments of this post for more details.

He also provides some movie updates. On the film version of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, he writes: "About to enter the magical estate known as 'principal photography,' in the great city of Pittsburgh." We already knew that thanks to Pinky's update from the scene. Of the film version of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, he gives us this update: "Status: Complying With Polite Request To Stop Posting About It On This Website, Already." I guess he got in trouble for his post about it in June.

There is also reference to a project called "Snow and the Seven." In July, The Guardian wrote about the project saying, "Snow White is about to be transformed into a martial arts epic with Shaolin monks replacing the seven dwarves of the original Grimm Brothers fairytale." Chabon wrote the script apparently, but it sounds like it's not going very well. "'They love you, but they want to go in another direction.' 'What kind of dir--' 'More of a fun direction.' 'Oh.'" IMdB still lists him as one of the writers, along with two other scribes, but not for long it seems.

Finally, Chabon adds some books to his "Reading Ten Books At Once" list:

• The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy
• The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
• Contingency, Irony and Solidarity by Richard Rorty
• You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem (Hadn't heard about this. Very cool. Comes out March 13, 2007)
• A Journey to the End of the Millennium by A.B. Yehoshua

- C. Max Magee @ 4:23 PM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

Other Ventures

• What's it like being a young journalist in a turbulent time for the business? Some of my fellow Medill grads and I have created a blog to discuss that and other pressing matters. If you're a journalism junkie like I am, you'll enjoy The Newshole. Check it out.
• Longtime Millions contributor Emre has started a blog called Live from Gybria, where he will chronicle his travels, his life as a Turkish expat, and his studies at my illustrious alma mater, the Medill School of Journalism. Luckily, Emre will still be posting here, too. In fact, we'll be putting up some more of his reading journals here in the next few days.
• And congrats to Anne Fernald (proprietor of the litblog Fernham) whose book Virginia Woolf: Feminism and the Reader has just been published.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:46 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Fiction Writing Class in Los Angeles

I've got a great opportunity for any aspiring writers in Los Angeles. My good friend Edan Lepucki, an excellent writer and teacher (see her bio below) has decided to start her own fiction writing course. Edan and I met when we worked together at Book Soup in Los Angeles. While there we both led a book club, and her teaching chops were evident from the very start. Our book club members all became big Edan fans. Anyway, if you're interested, email Edan. This is definitely a worthwhile opportunity. Here are the details:

Class Description and Information:

This fiction writing course is open to anyone who adores, fears, and/or is challenged by the English language and narrative craft. Each week, we will meet at my apartment in Los Feliz to hone our skills as storytellers, discussing published work as well as the work of our peers. There will be in-class and out-of-class writing exercises, each one designed to tackle a different element of craft, including but not limited to: characterization, point of view, scene, setting, and voice. Light refreshments will be served.

• Thursdays, 7:30-9:30 pm
• September 14th to October 26th
• Maximum enrollment: 9 students
• Fee: $295 (plus the purchase of Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, $18.00)--various payment plans available...

Instructor Bio:

Edan Lepucki is a recent graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she won the Richard Yates Short Story Contest and taught classes in both literature and creative writing. Her work has been published by, or is forthcoming from, Meridian, Filthy, and West, the Los Angeles Times' Sunday magazine. Last summer she was a fiction fellow at the Vermont Studio Center. She likes Paris, dogs, and filling out forms.

If interested, please email Edan at elepucki@aol.com

- C. Max Magee @ 7:28 AM ~ comments: 2 ~ Links to this post

 

Midweek Links: New Yorker, Google, Leroy, Quills, Cuba

• Emdashes notes that the New Yorker is issuing an update disk for its Complete New Yorker DVD-ROM set. She also spotted the Complete New Yorker being sold on a portable hard drive.
• At the Washington Post, an academic writes in defense of the Google Book Search Library Project: "Only a small fraction of the huge number of books published today are printed in editions of more than a few thousand copies. And the great works of even the recent past are quickly passing into obscurity. Google has joined with major libraries to make it possible for all titles to remain accessible to users."
• At the SF Chronicle, a report that somebody is finally holding the folks behind the JT Leroy hoax responsible: "Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Mary Jane Skalski of Antidote Films, an independent film company that bought the rights to JT LeRoy's novel, Sarah, have sued LeRoy and/or Laura Albert (who was LeRoy) and Judi Farkas, Hollywood manager of the writer. The New York Times reports that in the suit, filed in New York, the filmmakers want $45,000 they paid in options and $60,000 in costs they paid in developing the project." You'll recall that back in January I asked What about JT Leroy? (via Ed)
• The corporate-sponsored literary popularity contest The Quills is back. Here are the many, many nominees. I don't have much to add to what I wrote about The Quills last year: "If we are dissatisfied with the Booker Prize or the National Book Award or the Pulitzer, the Quills, which casts the net very wide and relies on voting from the reading public, have been presented as a populist alternative. The results are less than satisfying. It is not news to anyone that the reading public likes Harry Potter and books by Sue Monk Kidd and Janet Evanovich. I hold nothing against those bestsellers, but naming them the best books of the year does little to satisfy one's yearning to be introduced to the best, to have an encounter with a classic in our own time. We like those bestsellers because they entertain us, but while monetary success is the reward for those entertaining authors, awards have typically honored books with qualities that are more difficult to quantify."
• Another book banning attempt: The Miami-Dade School Board has sided with a parent who wishes to remove Vamos a Cuba (A Visit to Cuba) and 23 other books from school libraries. The pro-book banning contingent contends that the books fail to give an accurate picture of life in Cuba under Castro. The Miami Herald has the latest.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:15 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Update 3: Thanks to some friendly advice, and seeing competing pronunciations flying around in the comments, especially for that pesky Goethe, I decided to go to the library and to do a little more Internet research to try to get some definitive pronunciations for these names, specifically printed references where available. So here is a new updated post on Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Ask the Internet any question you want, and usually you'll be able to learn the answer, but for some reason it's not very good at helping people find out how to pronounce words and names. I've noticed, looking at my visitor logs, that people show up here again and again trying to find how to pronounce a handful of difficult literary names. Sadly they've found no answers here... until now. So on to the pronunciations.

• J.M. Coetzee - the Nobel Laureate's name is pronounced "cut-ZEE-uh" according to this Slate article and a number of other news items.
• Paul Theroux - This well-known travel writer's name "is pronounced 'Thor-ew,'" says the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, "not like the dude from Walden Pond" (which would be Henry David Thoreau, whose name, according to the "Pronouncing Thoreau" sidebar to this NPR story is frequently mispronounced; it is supposed to sound like "thorough.")
• Spy novelist John Le Carre is pronounced "luh KAR-AY" or "luh kahr-AY," according to this site, which lists pronunciations found in the Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names (who knew that such a book existed?). Incidentally, Le Carre is actually the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell.
• Contemporary novelist and short story author Dan Chaon is pronounced "Shawn." So says my friend Edan, who was a student of his at Oberlin.
• Pulitzer, as in the prize and newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer - Number 19 in the Pulitzer FAQ: "The correct pronunciation is 'PULL it sir.'"

If anybody else has other ideas for hard to pronounce literary names, leave them in the comments and we'll add them to the list. Meanwhile, here's a bonus link. The BBC has launched a pronunciation blog (via LanguageHat).

Update: Some great suggestions are rolling in from the comments. Kyle's got some classic problem names:

• Donald Barthelme = "Bartle-may" not "Bar-THELM" as I had originally heard. Michael Silverblatt solved that one for me.
• Michael Chabon = "SHAY-bun" not "Sha-BON" like my friend has said.
• Thomas Pynchon = "PIN-chawn" not "PIN-shin" or "PIN-chin" etc. etc.

...and for kicks here are two German oldies that need some respect...

• Rainer Maria Rilke = "RILL-kuh" not "RILL-kee"
• and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe = "GOO-tuh" not "GARE-tuh" like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as "GO-thee" and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn't as harsh as that. [Bud contends that you don't "ignore the r sound altogether in Goethe." In Chicago, there is a Goethe Street in the Old Town neighborhood, which the locals apparently pronounce Go-EE-the, though I could never figure out if they were just pulling my leg. --Max]

Laurie adds Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O, the Kenyan author whose latest book Wizard of the Crow just came out and Eoin Colfer, neither of whose names I know how to pronounce. Any help? She also suggests Seamus Heaney, Nobel laureate, which The Traveller tells us is pronounced SHAY-mus HEE-knee.

Update 2: Some debate about Seamus Heaney in the comments, but this NY Times article seems to confirm it: "SHAY-muss HEE-nee". Kyle, meanwhile, informs us that Eoin Colfer is pronounced "Owen". My favorite unpronounceable book title, by the way, is James McCourt's Mawrdew Czgowchwz, pronounced "Mar-dew Gorgeous".

- C. Max Magee @ 7:56 AM ~ comments: 37 ~ Links to this post

 

Quarterly Report: Book Industry Trends

I was reading about the recent second-quarter earnings report for Barnes & Noble as part of my day job and I realized how much insight the company's quarterly conference call provides in terms of current trends in the book industry, as well as which books will be are most likely to be the headline-grabbing titles over the next few months. I may do this each quarter from now on, as I think it's an interesting proxy for what's going on in the book industry at a given point in time.

• The big trend so far this year is a lack of blockbuster titles as compared to years past. From Steve Riggio, Barnes & Noble CEO, on the Q2 conference call (courtesy Seeking Alpha):

  We look back at the first half of this year as one of the softest periods in recent memory for the book industry in terms of hardcover new releases. There were simply very few new hardcover books that generated media buzz or sustained sales by word-of-mouth recommendations.

• The lack of blockbusters is thrown into particularly stark light when compared to a year ago, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out. Overall, sales were actually down from last year.
• Riggio called The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards "one of the fastest-selling trade paperbacks in our history."
• Barnes & Noble also looked ahead to the books that they anticipate will be big in the third quarter of this year. In fiction, Frederick Forsyth, Anna Quinlan, Robert Harris, David Baldacci, Janet Evanovich, and Robert Parker have new books on the way. The company also singled out Mitch Albom's For One More Day (Riggio said that Albom's previous book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, "was the second-largest selling fiction book in our history") and Charles Frazier's 13 Moons, while The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld "are getting a lot of buzz."
• In non-fiction, Barnes & Noble is anticipating big sales from Faith and Politics by Senator John Danforth, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina by Frank Rich, Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice by John Ashcroft, The Confession by James McGreevey and Inside Bush's White House, the Second Term by Bob Woodward "continuing his take on the Bush administration and the war." Riggio also called John Grisham's first non-fiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, "one of the most eagerly-awaited books we have seen in a very long time."
• The company also highlighted several upcoming biographies and memoirs: Bob Newhart, Sandy Weil, Carly Fiorina, Ellen Burstyn and David Crosby. There's also a "major new biography" on Andrew Carnegie and "the definitive book" on U2.
• Riggio said it "looks like a very strong season for cookbooks," with the 75th edition of the Joy of Cooking, a new edition of The Bon Apetit Cookbook and new titles from Paula Dean, Rachel Ray, Emeril Lagasse and the Barefoot Contessa.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:59 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Friday Links

• All week I've been enjoying posts by Jeremy Blachman at the Powell's blog about life after the publication of his debut novel, Anonymous Lawyer. I particularly enjoyed hearing about his experience at BEA.
• In other blogging authors news. Critically acclaimed crime novelist George Pelecanos paid a vist to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and left three posts. His new book is The Night Gardener.
• BarnesandNoble.com now accepts PayPal, so sell stuff on eBay and use the proceeds to buy books!
• Can't remember if it's forbidding, foreboding, or formidable? Check out Common Errors in English Usage, also available in book form.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:14 AM ~ comments: 1 ~ Links to this post

 

Splendid Things Gleaming in the Dust by Andrew Saikali

It's not every day that a callow, romantic writer transforms into a trailblazing, acute, realistic observer, right in front of your very eyes.

In autumn 1849, Gustave Flaubert, 27 and full of poetic longing, left northern France for Egypt. Accompanied by his compatriot Max and with a servant or two in tow, Flaubert would spend that winter and most of the following year traveling the Nile from the Mediterranean to the Sudanese border, then up again pausing for a quick jaunt through the desert to the Red Sea.

Journals were diligently kept, both by Flaubert and Max; letters were written - guarded, wistful ones to Flaubert's mother, and more exuberantly bawdy ones to his friends.

Flaubert In Egypt pulls together these various strands and stands at once as 19th century Egyptian travelogue, youthful memoir, geopolitical Middle Eastern history, and literary artifact - the nexus of Flaubert the youthful romantic and Flaubert the keen-eyed realist. His journal writing honed his critical eye. Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education were still years ahead of him, but their seeds were sown here.

It was a romantic Gustave who hesitantly left the family cocoon. So reluctant was he to embark on this epic journey that, on the train from Rouen to Paris, he contemplated canceling all his plans and returning home. He envisioned the look on his mother's face, her surprise and joy. Fortunately for us, he resisted this temptation.

Once in Egypt, his romantic imagination was put to the test, challenged by the reality around him. In a letter home, he claimed to be little impressed by Egypt's sun and sand, but greatly impressed by its cities and people. And why? Because Flaubert had previously given more thought to nature. Consequently, this wound up being more of a rediscovery, and it didn't particularly surpass what had been in his head. However, he'd given no prior thought to people and cities - so this was new, an awakening. And above all, he was fascinated by what he called "the grotesque." This he hadn't counted on at all - slaves, thieves, pimps, hawkers and whores. These fascinated him. Egypt, he wrote, "is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust."

In a letter to his mother, he poses the question whether Egypt is what he imagined it to be? Yes, and more, he responds. It extends beyond his narrow presumptions. Facts have taken the place of suppositions. There's a passage written four years before the trip, written entirely from his imagination, about climbing a pyramid. This is juxtaposed with an excerpt from his Egyptian journals. The realistic on-the-spot description stands in stark contrast with the romantic poetry of the early passage.

We also get a glimpse of Gustave the son, when in a letter home he broaches the subject of getting a job, something his mother has long lobbied for. Then he launches into a lengthy response detailing precisely why this would be inadvisable, why he was ill-suited to anything that would likely please his family. It's a marvelous piece of argumentative prose. If I had read this when I was in college, I would likely have cribbed it and sent it off to every adult member of my family.

In addition to reading this as personal memoir, travelogue, and history - both geopolitical and literary, as if that wasn't enough, there is yet another level of reality that hits you when you read this. At one point, in mentioning the Sudan, Flaubert mentions Darfur. Immediately, I was thrown out of the 19th century narrative and into Sudan's modern hell. Curious, this. A writer does his best to tightly weave his narrative to keep his faithful reader in his clutches. He knows there will be various layers of subtext. He must also know that, especially for future readers, something written might unintentionally trigger this momentary escape from the writer's narrative to the reader's reality. I suppose all he can do is make damn sure his writing is gripping enough to lure him back. And fast.

Flaubert In Egypt also contains some of the earliest photos I've ever seen. Flaubert's friend Max traveled with a "photographic apparatus," to the amusement and amazement of Flaubert, and a half-dozen shots from 1850 are included in the book.

One quibble: there is no map, at least not in the Penguin edition that I have. And for an obsessive map-aholic such as myself, this oversight borders on the criminal. Fortunately, one of my trusty atlases allowed me to chart Flaubert's course, chapter for chapter. But I mean really... no map? What were the editors thinking?

Still, for a book that I didn't even know existed, that I stumbled on and unearthed in a second-hand book shop, Flaubert In Egypt is a hell of a find. Splendid things gleaming in the dust, indeed.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:48 PM ~ comments: 5 ~ Links to this post

 

More Booker Prize News

Now that the 2006 Booker Prize longlist has been out for 24 hours, we're seeing the commentary roll in. So far, the big story shaping up appears to be Peter Carey, who could win for a record third time with Theft, versus Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, who many believe was robbed when his novel Cloud Atlas failed to win a couple years back. Also getting talked up as potential favorites in the early going are Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan and Sarah Waters for The Night Watch.

Looking at the media coverage, The Guardian highlights the difficulty that the judges reportedly encountered in assembling the longlist, taking "more than six hours to pick 19 authors, a length of debate far longer than that taken by previous judges to choose most eventual winners." The Times leads with Andrew O'Hagan, who lost out to J.M. Coetzee five years ago. Metro notes that Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men is the only debut novel on the list. At the Literary Saloon, Michael looks at the total number of books considered for the prize this year and in years past, while lamenting that this even longer list isn't made public.

Of course, the most amusing part of the annual Booker frenzy is the role of the oddsmakers, who take bets on the prize. Nearly all of the Booker commentary mentions these odds in gauging who might be favored, and the BBC rounds up the details on that front. Serious gamblers, meanwhile, should head straight to William Hill, where the latest odds are posted. As of this writing, Black Swan Green is the favorite at 6 to 1, while Nadine Gordimer's Get a Life brings up the rear at 26 to 1.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:31 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Booker Prize Longlist 2006

The Booker Prize longlist has arrived. I'll do another post with some articles analyzing the list once the pundits across the pond have weighed in.

• Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey
• The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
• Gathering the Water by Robert Edric
• Get a Life by Nadine Gordimer
• The Secret River by Kate Grenville
• Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland
• Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobson
• Seven Lies by James Lasdun
• The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
• So Many Ways to Begin by Jon McGregor
• In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
• The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
• The Perfect Man by Naeem Murr
• Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan
• The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson
• Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn
• The Ruby in her Navel by Barry Unsworth
• The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

- C. Max Magee @ 5:35 PM ~ comments: 6 ~ Links to this post

 

Gunter Grass' Revelation

Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass has revealed in an interview with a German newspaper that he was in the Waffen-SS in the twilight of World War II. The SS was the Nazi secret service and played a major role in the Holocaust. He has a new book coming out in Germany in September that is a memoir of his wartime years. From the Reuters story:

The author, best known for his first novel The Tin Drum and an active supporter of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his wartime secret had been weighing on his mind and was one of the reasons he wrote a book of recollections which details his war service. The book is out in September.

"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," the paper quoted Grass as saying in a preview of its Saturday edition. "It had to come out finally."

From later in the article: "'It was like that for many of my generation,' he added. 'We were doing army service and then suddenly, one year later, the draft order was on the table. And then I realized, probably not until I was in Dresden, that it was the Waffen-SS.'"

- C. Max Magee @ 5:27 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

More Books by the Foot

Remeber my post a while back about decorators selling books by the foot to furnish rooms, as an alternative to wallpaper, say? I spotted another book by the foot seller, and this one's got some pretty remarkable prices. Here's Wonder Book's pitch:

BOOKS BY THE FOOT: With pricing starting at $6.00 per linear foot, we provide you with attractive "like new" hardback books. These books will display attractively and offer your clients great value. We can also quote you unit pricing should your specs require.

BOOKS BY COLOR: The same as above except the books will be unjacketed cloth spined hardbacks chosen to match your swatches or general color scheme.

INSTANT LIBRARIES: We create a very inexpensive yet impressive personal or professional library for your specs. This is ideal for senior living, retirement homes, new homes, corporate reading rooms, vacation homes, and even clients too busy to build their own libraries etc. Subjects can be general or specific (childrens, art, encyclopedias, coffee table, sales, motivational, Large Print, etc...).

My previous post on the topic referred to an article that profiled a "a California company that sells foreign books by the foot for the express purpose of looking at them rather than reading them. Danish books cost $100 a foot, German are $150 a foot and French are $200." So this is quite a bargain... if you're in the market for lots and lots of books that you have little or no interest in reading. Next time I go to the bookstore I'm going to bring a yardstick, and I'll ask if they have any sort of "by the foot" pricing scheme.

- C. Max Magee @ 5:13 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Animated Jonathans

The Simpsons will feature some literary heavyweights this season: "Upcoming guest voices include famed authors Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen." (via Emdashes)

- C. Max Magee @ 8:28 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Disappearing Bookstores

Scott's Friday Column is a thoughtful look at why independent bookstores in the Bay Area, and everywhere else, seem to be disappearing.

All this has taken a toll on me, the book shopper. Whereas I once aimlessly browsed through local bookstores thinking of nothing other than a new book, I now keep an eye out for warning signs, wondering which one will be the next to fall.

- C. Max Magee @ 8:24 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Publishers might soon change hands

Reuters is reporting that several prominent publishers, currently tethered to larger companies and media conglomerates, could be the target of bids from private equity firms looking for the steady cashflow that their backlists would provide. At the top of the list is Penguin, currently owned by Pearson, but News Corp's HarperCollins and CBS's Simon & Schuster could be separated from their parents as well. So far Houghton Mifflin is the only major publisher to have been extracted from its parent (Vivendi in this case) by private equity firms.

Is this good news for publishers? Since they're not very profitable, publishers are often forgotten alongside the other holdings of these large media companies. At the same time, however, private equity firms' primary motive would likely be getting a return on their investment, so cost cutting could probably be expected.

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

 

HarperCollins Chief Says Religious Books Selling Poorly

I was looking at today's installment of the Publishers Lunch newsletter (which I highly recommend for those interested in the book business, even if you only get the free version like I do), and something jumped out at me. News Corp reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings this week, including the regular update on HarperCollins, which is owned by Murdoch and company. Publishers Lunch got some additional color on the news from HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman. It's not linkable because it's an email newsletter, but here's the quote:

Segment by segment, Friedman says the general books group continued to grow sales and profits significantly in the US, as did the children's group. "There's one area where we are having a lot of problems--religious publishing is in a lot of trouble." Though religious books "have had a fantastic run for the entire 9 years I've been at this company," Friedman observed, "it is starting to see hard times. Right now we are seeing heavy returns--product that just didn't work, but more significantly, we're seeing a contraction in the CBA, which is what we went through with the ABA." Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life still sells more "than almost any other book" on the religious list, but Friedman has "concerns about the whole religious sector."

Emphasis mine. I was surprised to read this because, as Friedman indicates and as book industry-watchers know, religious books have been a huge seller in recent years, growing much faster than most other types of books.

As I read this, though, it occurred to me that peoples' reading tastes, taken broadly, might be a good indicator of the philosophical mood of the country. It may be that HarperCollins' religious titles were duds this year, but it's also possible that the fervent hold of religion -- and when we talk about "religious books" we're talking primarily about born-again Christian themes -- on this country is loosening. I don't want to read to much into this, but is it possible that, among the broader public, conservative Christianity was a cultural fad, with its own attendant movies, music, and books, and that people who don't have too much invested in it will move onto the next thing that promises to help them with their lives? I'd be curious to see if there's any other evidence out there that lends itself to this idea.

- C. Max Magee @ 6:06 PM ~ comments: 7 ~ Links to this post

 

Quick Links

• Starbucks is going to start pushing books one at a time, Oprah style. Their first selection is Mitch Albom's For One More Day. The general reaction seems to be, why couldn't they have chosen a better book?
• The University of California library system has signed onto the Google Books Library Project. U of C is now involved with both of the two major library scanning projects. (The other one is the Open Content Alliance, which is led by the Internet Archive, Yahoo and Microsoft.) The story at CNet.
• BookMooch is a new book swapping site that lets people exchange books with other people for free. How it works: "Give & Receive: Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you've read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish. No cost: there is no cost to join or use this web site: your only cost is mailing your books to others. Points for entering books: you receive a tenth-of-a-point for every book you type into our system, and one point each time you give a book away. In order to keep receiving books, you need to give away at least one book for every two you receive. (via)

- C. Max Magee @ 8:18 AM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

Dangerous Books

The conservative weekly Human Events has a new spin on the "most important books" list. The magzine rounded up some "conservative scholars and public policy leaders" to compile a list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." The list is more than a year old, but it was resurrected from obscurity when somebody posted it to the Netscape social news site, where some genuinely interesting conversation about the list has been taking place.

People love making book lists -- sometimes I feel like half the posts on this blog are dedicated to them -- but labeling books as dangerous treads some unfortunate ground. Clearly the compilers of this list are ideologically opposed to the books on the list, but labeling the books as "dangerous" implies that we have nothing to gain from reading books that diverge from our point of view or from reading books that helped inspire some of the worst events in recent history. That the list also lumps books like Mein Kampf together with The Feminine Mystique should also make people queasy. Here's the top ten:

1. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
2. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao by Mao Tse-Tung
4. The Kinsey Report by Alfred Kinsey
5. Democracy and Education by John Dewey
6. Das Kapital by Karl Marx
7. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy by Auguste Comte
9. Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes

I have to assume it wasn't a mere oversight that Ann Coulter's books didn't make the list.

- C. Max Magee @ 7:48 AM ~ comments: 4 ~ Links to this post

 

On the HarperCollins Island

Last week, HarperCollins unveiled its new online strategy, which centers on Amazon-like "Browse Inside" functionality, while also pushing new ways of promoting books and authors online. The New York Times wrote up the new initiative. "Browse Inside" allows visitors to "flip through" books on HarperCollins' Web site, using an interface similar to the Amazon Online Reader (profiled here) and Google Book Search, though without any notable bells and whistles. With "Browse Inside," HarperCollins' goal seems to be to let readers get a real look at its books, while also controlling the environment.

This is not, however, an answer to Google Book Search, as HarperCollins implied it would be when it first went down this path at the end of last year. A New York Times article at the time had HarperCollins CEO, Jane Friedman saying, "Rather than give copies of books to search services like Google for those companies to scan as it currently does, HarperCollins would keep the material on its own computers, and users would be pointed there by the search engine."

As I wrote at the time, by going this route, HarperCollins builds its own little island, separate from an aggregator like Google Book Search and it encourages other publishers to do the same. The power of something like Google Book Search is that it puts all book content in one place and enables people to search the world of books. HarperCollins claim that its content would be just as accessible via the main Google search engine, while not being as simple as it sounds, is sort of a moot point. It's like HarperCollins has decided to scatter its books haphazardly around a Wal-Mart rather than putting them in the local library with rest of the books.

It's laudable that HarperCollins, perhaps prodded by its MySpace-owning parent News Corp, is dipping its toe in the digital waters, and stepping up its efforts to use the Internet to promote and sell books. But Google's initiative is a separate effort altogether that would neither infringe upon HarperCollins' strategy nor lead to piracy of any sort.

For more, here are a few of my many posts on the topic: The publishers' big blunder, More Google Book hysteria, and Richard Nash of Soft Skull on Google Print

- C. Max Magee @ 6:16 PM ~ comments: 0 ~ Links to this post

 

The 2006 Lettre Ulysses Award Longlist

There are tons of literary awards out there, but last year I discovered one that caught my interest because of its international and journalistic focus. The Lettre Ulysses Award celebrates book-length reporting, and does not limit its scope to any single language or geographic area. The result is that a richly varied list of books is considered. Last year's award went to Alexandra Fuller for her account of her travels with a white, African mercenary, Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier. This year's longlist is out and once again it's very eclectic:

• Die Hundeesser von Svinia (The Dog Eaters of Svinia) by Karl-Markus Gauss (Austria)
• The People on the Street by Linda Grant (Great Britain)
• Der Smaragdkonig. Victor Carranza und das grune Gold der Anden (The Emerald Czar: Victor Carranza and the Green Gold of the Andes) by Jeanette Erazo Heufelder
• The Deurbanization of Lvov & A Week in Kishinev, part of a series of texts on the decline of post-Soviet cities by Igor Klekh (Russia)
• Pais de plomo. Cronicas de guerra (Country of Bullets. War Diaries) by Juanita Leon (Colombia)
• The Story of "Freezing Point" by Li Datong (China)
• Operacao Araguaia: os arquivos secretos da Guerrilha (Operation Araguaia: The Secret Archives of a Guerrilla War) by Tais Morais & Eumano Silva (Brazil)
• Voyage aux pays du coton. Petit precis de mondialisation (Journey to the Lands of Cotton: A Brief Manual of Globalisation) by Erik Orsenna (France)
• The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer (USA)
• Beirut shi mahal: an Egyptian in Lebanon by Youssef Rakha (Egypt)
• Chasing the Monk's Shadow: A Journey in the Footsteps of Xuanzang by Mishi Saran (India)
• An Iraqi in Paris by Samuel Shimon (Iraq)
• Biz Burada Devrim Yapiyoruz Sinyorita (We are Making a Revolution Here, Signorita) by Ece Temelkuran (Turkey)
• Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy by Manjushree Thapa (Nepal)
• Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu by Yaroslav Trofimov (Ukraine)
• The Long March
• Genius loci by Peter Vail (Russia)
• Cosecha de mujeres: Safari en el desierto mexicano (Harvest of Woman. Safari in the Mexican Desert) by Diana Washington Valdez (Mexico/USA)
• 'What Kind of God': A Survey of the Current Safety of China's Food by Zhou Qing (China)