My review of Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy is in the hands of my able editor at the Internet Review of Books. It was a difficult book to review because there isn't much to criticize -- it is a quality book that tells and interesting story. It is well written, organized logically, accomplishes its goals, and doesn't have any flaws worth mentioning. So I tried to explain just why I thought the author did a good job of making a celebrity biography interesting to readers who do not usually read celebrity biographies.
The September issue of the IRB, including my review, will be out on September 15. In the meantime, here are a few tidbits I learned from reading Newman's biography:
• Newman really did concoct his “own” recipe for the salad dressing he used to launch the Newman’s Own brand. His Westport, Connecticut caterer, Martha Steward, judged the taste test for the original commercial recipe.
• Although not starting until his mid-forties, Newman became an avid race car driver. He came in second place at the famous 24-hour race in Le Mans and, at seventy, became the oldest person to win an officially sanctioned auto race.
• Newman and Joanne Woodward were as famous for their 40-year marriage as for their careers, despite Newman’s brief and tawdry affair with a Hollywood gadabout named Nancy Bacon. The affair began during the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bacon later wrote about it in her 1975 autobiography, Stars in My Eyes . . . Stars in My Bed.
• A “functioning alcoholic,” Newman typically drank a case (as in 24 beers) a day. A penchant for exercise and a hummingbird metabolism kept him lean, handsome, and apparently sober, in spite of his prodigious consumption.
• Newman was a true philanthropist. In addition to giving away several hundreds of millions of dollars to charities, he rolled up his sleeves and worked himself. For example, not only did he come up with the idea of a summer camp for children with cancer, he designed the first Hole in the Wall camp himself, hired the doctors to staff it, and visited at least twice every summer to play and eat with the kids.
What a fun book!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Notes on Paul Newman
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My review of Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy is in the hands of my able editor at the Internet Review of Books. It was a difficult book to review because there isn't much to criticize -- it is a quality book that tells and interesting story. It is well written, organized logically, accomplishes its goals, and doesn't have any flaws worth mentioning. So I tried to explain just why I thought the author did a good job of making a celebrity biography interesting to readers who do not usually read celebrity biographies.
The September issue of the IRB, including my review, will be out on September 15. In the meantime, here are a few tidbits I learned from reading Newman's biography:
• Newman really did concoct his “own” recipe for the salad dressing he used to launch the Newman’s Own brand. His Westport, Connecticut caterer, Martha Steward, judged the taste test for the original commercial recipe.
• Although not starting until his mid-forties, Newman became an avid race car driver. He came in second place at the famous 24-hour race in Le Mans and, at seventy, became the oldest person to win an officially sanctioned auto race.
• Newman and Joanne Woodward were as famous for their 40-year marriage as for their careers, despite Newman’s brief and tawdry affair with a Hollywood gadabout named Nancy Bacon. The affair began during the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bacon later wrote about it in her 1975 autobiography, Stars in My Eyes . . . Stars in My Bed.
• A “functioning alcoholic,” Newman typically drank a case (as in 24 beers) a day. A penchant for exercise and a hummingbird metabolism kept him lean, handsome, and apparently sober, in spite of his prodigious consumption.
• Newman was a true philanthropist. In addition to giving away several hundreds of millions of dollars to charities, he rolled up his sleeves and worked himself. For example, not only did he come up with the idea of a summer camp for children with cancer, he designed the first Hole in the Wall camp himself, hired the doctors to staff it, and visited at least twice every summer to play and eat with the kids.
What a fun book!
My review of Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy is in the hands of my able editor at the Internet Review of Books. It was a difficult book to review because there isn't much to criticize -- it is a quality book that tells and interesting story. It is well written, organized logically, accomplishes its goals, and doesn't have any flaws worth mentioning. So I tried to explain just why I thought the author did a good job of making a celebrity biography interesting to readers who do not usually read celebrity biographies.
The September issue of the IRB, including my review, will be out on September 15. In the meantime, here are a few tidbits I learned from reading Newman's biography:
• Newman really did concoct his “own” recipe for the salad dressing he used to launch the Newman’s Own brand. His Westport, Connecticut caterer, Martha Steward, judged the taste test for the original commercial recipe.
• Although not starting until his mid-forties, Newman became an avid race car driver. He came in second place at the famous 24-hour race in Le Mans and, at seventy, became the oldest person to win an officially sanctioned auto race.
• Newman and Joanne Woodward were as famous for their 40-year marriage as for their careers, despite Newman’s brief and tawdry affair with a Hollywood gadabout named Nancy Bacon. The affair began during the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bacon later wrote about it in her 1975 autobiography, Stars in My Eyes . . . Stars in My Bed.
• A “functioning alcoholic,” Newman typically drank a case (as in 24 beers) a day. A penchant for exercise and a hummingbird metabolism kept him lean, handsome, and apparently sober, in spite of his prodigious consumption.
• Newman was a true philanthropist. In addition to giving away several hundreds of millions of dollars to charities, he rolled up his sleeves and worked himself. For example, not only did he come up with the idea of a summer camp for children with cancer, he designed the first Hole in the Wall camp himself, hired the doctors to staff it, and visited at least twice every summer to play and eat with the kids.
What a fun book!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Challenge Wrap Up: Battle of the Prizes
The Battle of the Prizes Challenge ended yesterday on Labor Day. This was the first challenge I hosted and I want to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who participated.
To recap: This challenge pitted winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction against the winners of the National Book Award. The goal was to read one Pulitzer winner, one National winner, and one that won both prizes; to read all three books between May Day and Labor Day; and to post reviews and comments here.
A list of all the reviews follows (if I missed one, please leave a comment with a link). Also, a couple of people did wrap up posts with some comparing and contrasting of the prizes. For those who signed up but did not finish the challenge, I am still so pleased that you participated -- good intentions definitely count when it comes to reading challenges.
REVIEWS
Sophie's Choice on Chaotic Compendiums
The Optimist's Daughter on Joy's Blog
Middle Passage on Living Life and Reading Books
Advise and Consent on Rose City Reader
Empire Falls on Chaotic Compendiums
Gilead on Tip of the Iceberg
Olive Kitteridge by J.G. on Hotch Pot Cafe
The Fixer on Rose City Reader
The Fixer on Hotch Pot Cafe
The Great Fire also on Hotch Pot Cafe
The Magic Barrel on Book Psmith
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter on Chaotic Compendiums
The Fixer on Book Psmith
March on Remember to Breath
The Fixer on Remember to Breath
Sophie's Choice on Remember to Breath
Invisible Man on Tip of the Iceberg
WRAP UP POSTS
J.G. on Hotch Pot Cafe
Mine here on Rose City Reader
Remember to Breath
Book Psmith
THOUGHTS? IDEAS? COMMENTS?
Hosting this challenge was a lot of fun for me. It helped focus my attention on a couple of the lists I am working on and it was fun to "hang out" with other list-obsessive readers.
I plan to host the same challenge again next year (there are still many Pulitzer and National winners I haven't read yet). But I might expand the dates. This was "the Sunshine Smackdown" this year because I didn't think of the challenge until the spring and tried to contain the dates somehow. But I might make it a year-long challenge in 2010.
Also, as Psmith guessed in her wrap up post, this was "the American version." I have plans for the British version of a Battle of the Prizes Challenge. That one would pit Booker Prize winners against . . . I don't know yet. Costa winners? Too short and too dissimilar to the Booker, I think. Probably James Tait Black winners. But I can't launch that challenge until I get the JTB list added to my List of Lists there in the right hand column.
What are your thoughts and suggestions?
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Monday, September 7, 2009
Mailbox Labor Day
HAPPY LABOR DAY!
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My Mailbox Monday list is very short:
Plainsong by Kent Haruf finally showed up after a long time en route. I have to jump on this one because it is my Book Club book for September.
Much more exciting -- the book I have waited for for eight years is finally here: The Age of Reagan (Vol. II): The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980 - 1989 by Steven F. Hayward.
The first volume of Hayward's two-part biography, The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964 - 1980, came out in 2001. Although volume one is over 800 pages, it seemed like a "quick read" because it is full of interesting information and Hayward is a terrific writer with a light touch. Unlike Dutch, Edmund Morris's strange, semi-fictional "memoir" of Reagan's life, Hayward's biography relies on primary source material and analysis. Hayward is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, so it is no surprise that he approaches his subject from the right, but his work is definitely biography, not hagiography.
I am so looking forward to volume two. This one covers Reagan's years as President and Hayward was able to use Reagan's Presidential diaries, which were published in 2007. I am going to review it for the Internet Review of Books.
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My Mailbox Monday list is very short:
Plainsong by Kent Haruf finally showed up after a long time en route. I have to jump on this one because it is my Book Club book for September.
Much more exciting -- the book I have waited for for eight years is finally here: The Age of Reagan (Vol. II): The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980 - 1989 by Steven F. Hayward.
The first volume of Hayward's two-part biography, The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964 - 1980, came out in 2001. Although volume one is over 800 pages, it seemed like a "quick read" because it is full of interesting information and Hayward is a terrific writer with a light touch. Unlike Dutch, Edmund Morris's strange, semi-fictional "memoir" of Reagan's life, Hayward's biography relies on primary source material and analysis. Hayward is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, so it is no surprise that he approaches his subject from the right, but his work is definitely biography, not hagiography.
I am so looking forward to volume two. This one covers Reagan's years as President and Hayward was able to use Reagan's Presidential diaries, which were published in 2007. I am going to review it for the Internet Review of Books.
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Sunday, September 6, 2009
Author of the Day: James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke writes wonderful, literary mysteries. He has a couple of series going, but his most famous is his Dave Robicheaux series, featuring an ex- boozer and ex-New Orleans homicide cop now settled in New Iberia Parish.
The series has gone on for so long, that Robicheaux has gone from cop, to bait shop owner, to sheriff, to ex-sheriff, to sheriff again. He's on his 4th wife. It's hard to say how old he is, but he must be over 70. His three-legged pet raccoon named Tripod is the oldest living raccoon in history, since it first appeared in Heaven's Prisoners in 1988 and was still scampering around, at least as of The Tin Roof Blowdown in 2006. Just how long do raccoons live?
The series is dark, complex, plenty gritty, and rich with lyrical details of beauty and evil. Once you sink your teeth into one, you want to gobble them all up. But I have found that more than a couple at a time are too much. I get tired of Robicheaux's dry drunk sermonizing, bored by the 700th description of rain on the bayou, and as worn out by the parade of creepy bad guys as Robicheaux himself must be. But then a few months or so will pass and I am ready for another.
Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.
The Neon Rain
Heaven's Prisoners
Black Cherry Blues
A Morning for Flamingos
A Stained White Radiance
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
Dixie City Jam
Burning Angel
Cadillac Jukebox
Sunset Limited
Purple Cane Road
Jolie Blon's Bounce
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Crusader's Cross (reviewed here)
Pegasus Descending
The Tin Roof Blowdown (reviewed here)
Swan Peak (reviewed here)
The Glass Rainbow
NOTES
Last updated October 4, 2012.
Review: The Tin Roof Blowdown
Sometimes fiction can make real what the news or government reports, no matter how immediate or thorough, cannot. In The Tin Roof Blowdown, the 16th novel in James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series, Burke describes the devastation and tragedy of Hurricane Katrina with a gut-wrenching emotional intensity that no amount of news footage could ever achieve.
While the hurricane rages and floodwaters rise, Robicheaux and his sidekick, Clete Purcell, track down the usual assortment of psychopathic deviants and lost souls, including several rapists, Mafioso hooligans, a junky priest, and mercenary black marketeers. The details of the plot get a little shaggy, but as a historical record and ode to a New Orleans that is gone forever, this one deserves its fourth star.
OTHER REVIEWS
If you want your review listed here, please leave a comment with a link. .
Saturday, September 5, 2009
List: The Observer's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time
In December 2003, the BBC presented its "Big Read" list of the Top 100 favorite books in Britain. Going for a scoop, The Observer published its own list of 100 Greatest Novels of All Time – more precisely defined as "essential fiction from the past 300 years" – in October 2003.
Unlike the Big Read, which was compiled through a months-long people's choice process, The Observer list was put together in-house, after much wrangling over the nature of enduring literature as well as the merits of individual works. The process is analyzed and explained in the companion piece to the list itself.
Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue. The comments following the titles are the original notes included in The Observer's publication.
1. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
The story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza has entranced readers for centuries.
2. Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
The one with the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair.
3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
The first English novel.
4. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
A wonderful satire that still works for all ages, despite the savagery of Swift's vision.
5. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The adventures of a high-spirited orphan boy: an unbeatable plot and a lot of sex ending in a blissful marriage.
6. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.
7. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
One of the first bestsellers, dismissed by Dr. Johnson as too fashionable for its own good.
8. Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
An epistolary novel and a handbook for seducers: foppish, French, and ferocious.
9. Emma by Jane Austen
Near impossible choice between this and Pride and Prejudice. But Emma never fails to fascinate and annoy.
10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Inspired by spending too much time with Shelley and Byron.
11. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
A classic miniature: a brilliant satire on the Romantic novel.
12. The Black Sheep by Honore De Balzac
Two rivals fight for the love of a femme fatale. Wrongly overlooked.
13. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
Penetrating and compelling chronicle of life in an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France.
14. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A revenge thriller also set in France after Bonaparte: a masterpiece of adventure writing.
15. Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli
Apart from Churchill, no other British political figure shows literary genius.
16. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
This highly autobiographical novel is the one its author liked best.
17. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have passed into the language. Impossible to ignore.
18. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Obsessive emotional grip and haunting narrative.
19. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The improving tale of Becky Sharp.
20. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A classic investigation of the American mind.
21. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (reviewed here)
"Call me Ishmael" is one of the most famous opening sentences of any novel.
22. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
You could summarize this as a story of adultery in provincial France, and miss the point entirely.
23. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Gripping mystery novel of concealed identity, abduction, fraud and mental cruelty.
24. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
A story written for the nine-year-old daughter of an Oxford don that still baffles most kids.
25. Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott
Victorian bestseller about a New England family of girls.
26. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
A majestic assault on the corruption of late Victorian England.
27. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The supreme novel of the married woman's passion for a younger man.
28. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
A passion and an exotic grandeur that is strange and unsettling.
29. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mystical tragedy by the author of Crime and Punishment.
30. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The story of Isabel Archer shows James at his witty and polished best.
31. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Twain was a humorist, but this picture of Mississippi life is profoundly moral and still incredibly influential.
32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
A brilliantly suggestive, resonant study of human duality by a natural storyteller.
33. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
One of the funniest English books ever written.
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A coded and epigrammatic melodrama inspired by his own tortured homosexuality.
35. The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
This classic of Victorian suburbia will always be renowned for the character of Mr Pooter.
36. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Its savage bleakness makes it one of the first twentieth-century novels.
37. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
A prewar invasion-scare spy thriller by a writer later shot for his part in the Irish republican rising.
38. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The story of a dog who joins a pack of wolves after his master's death.
39. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
Conrad's masterpiece: a tale of money, love and revolutionary politics.
40. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (reviewed here)
This children's classic was inspired by bedtime stories for Grahame's son.
41. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
An unforgettable portrait of Paris in the belle epoque. Probably the longest novel on this list.
42. The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
Novels seized by the police, like this one, have a special afterlife.
43. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
This account of the adulterous lives of two Edwardian couples is a classic of unreliable narration.
44. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
A classic adventure story for boys, jammed with action, violence and suspense.
45. Ulysses by James Joyce
Also pursued by the British police, this is a novel more discussed than read.
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Secures Woolf's position as one of the great twentieth-century English novelists.
47. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
The great novel of the British Raj, it remains a brilliant study of empire.
48. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The quintessential Jazz Age novel.
49. The Trial by Franz Kafka
The enigmatic story of Joseph K.
50. Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway
He is remembered for his novels, but it was the short stories that first attracted notice.
51. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
The experiences of an unattractive slum doctor during the Great War: a masterpiece of linguistic innovation.
52. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
A strange black comedy by an American master.
53. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Dystopian fantasy about the world of the seventh century AF (after Ford).
54. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The supreme Fleet Street novel.
55. USA by John Dos Passos
An extraordinary trilogy that uses a variety of narrative devices to express the story of America.
56. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Introducing Philip Marlowe: cool, sharp, handsome - and bitterly alone.
57. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
An exquisite comedy of manners with countless fans.
58. The Plague by Albert Camus
A mysterious plague sweeps through the Algerian town of Oran.
59. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
This tale of one man's struggle against totalitarianism has been appropriated the world over.
60. Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
Part of a trilogy of astonishing monologues in the black comic voice of the author of Waiting for Godot.
61. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A week in the life of Holden Caulfield. A cult novel that still mesmerizes.
62. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
A disturbing novel of religious extremism set in the Deep South.
63. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
How Wilbur the pig was saved by the literary genius of a friendly spider.
64. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Enough said!
65. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
An astonishing debut: the painfully funny English novel of the Fifties.
66. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Schoolboys become savages: a bleak vision of human nature.
67. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Prophetic novel set in 1950s Vietnam.
68. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Beat Generation bible.
69. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert's obsession with Lolita is a tour de force of style and narrative.
70. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Hugely influential, Rabelaisian novel of Hitler's Germany.
71. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Nigeria at the beginning of colonialism. A classic of African literature.
72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A writer who made her debut in The Observer- and her prose is like cut glass.
73. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Scout, a six-year-old girl, narrates an enthralling story of racial prejudice in the Deep South.
74. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
"[He] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."
75. Herzog by Saul Bellow
Adultery and nervous breakdown in Chicago.
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A postmodern masterpiece.
77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
A haunting, understated study of old age.
78. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre
A thrilling elegy for post-imperial Britain. (reviewed here)
79. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The definitive novelist of the African-American experience.
80. The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
Macabre comedy of provincial life.
81. The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
This quasi-documentary account of the life and death of Gary Gilmore is possibly his masterpiece.
82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
A strange, compelling story about the pleasures of reading.
83. A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
The finest living writer of English prose. This is his masterpiece: edgily reminiscent of Heart of Darkness.
84. Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Bleak but haunting allegory of apartheid by the Nobel prizewinner.
85. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women.
86. Lanark by Alasdair Gray
Seething vision of Glasgow. A Scottish classic.
87. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Dazzling metaphysical thriller set in the Manhattan of the 1970s.
88. The BFG by Roald Dahl
A bestseller by the most popular postwar writer for children of all ages.
89. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
A prose poem about the delights of chemistry.
90. Money by Martin Amis (reviewed here)
The novel that bags Amis's place on any list.
91. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
A collaborator from prewar Japan reluctantly discloses his betrayal of friends and family.
92. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (reviewed here)
A great contemporary love story set in nineteenth-century Australia by double Booker prizewinner.
93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Inspired by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, this is a magical fusion of history, autobiography and ideas.
94. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
In this entrancing story Rushdie plays with the idea of narrative itself.
95. LA Confidential by James Ellroy
Three LAPD detectives are brought face to face with the secrets of their corrupt and violent careers.
96. Wise Children by Angela Carter
A theatrical extravaganza by a brilliant exponent of magic realism.
97. Atonement by Ian McEwan
Acclaimed short-story writer achieves a contemporary classic of mesmerizing narrative conviction.
98. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass in America)
Lyra's quest weaves fantasy, horror and the play of ideas into a truly great contemporary children's book.
99. American Pastoral by Philip Roth
For years, Roth was famous for Portnoy's Complaint. Recently, he has enjoyed an extraordinary revival.
100. Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
Posthumously published volume in a sequence of dream-like fictions spun from memory, photographs and the German past.
NOTE
Updated last on December 28, 2022.
OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS
(If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with your links to any progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.)
Friday, September 4, 2009
My First Carnival!
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Teddy Rose at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time is hosting the Bookworms' Carnival this month. The theme is "Historical Fiction" and Teddy has compiled a terrific list of essays, interviews, and book reviews. She organized the reviews by country, which I think was a great idea.
This is the first time that I got my act together to contribute, and I am excited that three of my reviews are included.
I plan to spend a lot of time at the carnival this weekend. There are so many reviews and other posts that I want to read.
Thanks Teddy!
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Teddy Rose at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time is hosting the Bookworms' Carnival this month. The theme is "Historical Fiction" and Teddy has compiled a terrific list of essays, interviews, and book reviews. She organized the reviews by country, which I think was a great idea.
This is the first time that I got my act together to contribute, and I am excited that three of my reviews are included.
I plan to spend a lot of time at the carnival this weekend. There are so many reviews and other posts that I want to read.
Thanks Teddy!
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Thursday, September 3, 2009
Size Matters
This week's Booking Through Thursday questions asks:
Big Deal: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (This book is not only a chunkster, it was hugely popular when I was in high school. I missed it back then, which is too bad, because I don't think it packs the same wallop as an adult.)
Big Ideas: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (Not an easy book, but one I will think about for a long time; reviewed here.)
Big Favorite: Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey (An Oregon classic and new personal best.)
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What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently? (Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)I have a couple of "big" books I can think of that I read recently: Big Book: Underworld by Don DeLillo (At 850+ pages, this one is a doorstop; reviewed here.)
Big Deal: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (This book is not only a chunkster, it was hugely popular when I was in high school. I missed it back then, which is too bad, because I don't think it packs the same wallop as an adult.)
Big Ideas: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (Not an easy book, but one I will think about for a long time; reviewed here.)
Big Favorite: Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey (An Oregon classic and new personal best.)
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Challenge Update: The Spice of Life Challenge
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I love the Spice of Life challenge. This is one that will be easy to finish by the end of the year, because I had already planned to read these books.
So far, I finished my non-fiction book: Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger. My review is posted in the current edition of the Internet Review of Books.
I am halfway through with my cookbook choice: The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins (which overlaps with my "silver" choice for the Colorful Reading Challenge). It is tremendously fun to read this book, although it makes me almost maudlin with nostalgia.
I started my fiction choice this week: The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I really enjoyed her novel, Lost in Translation, and sinking deep into this one already.
And, finally, I am going to get to my "memoir/essays" pick soon: Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. I must read this before I see the movie.
This is one challenge that is going by too fast. I think I should have signed up for the eight course "feast" version. Hopefully, Rebecca will host this again next year and I will be a glutton!
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I love the Spice of Life challenge. This is one that will be easy to finish by the end of the year, because I had already planned to read these books.
So far, I finished my non-fiction book: Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger. My review is posted in the current edition of the Internet Review of Books.
I am halfway through with my cookbook choice: The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins (which overlaps with my "silver" choice for the Colorful Reading Challenge). It is tremendously fun to read this book, although it makes me almost maudlin with nostalgia.
I started my fiction choice this week: The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I really enjoyed her novel, Lost in Translation, and sinking deep into this one already.
And, finally, I am going to get to my "memoir/essays" pick soon: Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. I must read this before I see the movie.
This is one challenge that is going by too fast. I think I should have signed up for the eight course "feast" version. Hopefully, Rebecca will host this again next year and I will be a glutton!
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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Book Trailers
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New technologies and marketing tools pop up fast enough to make me feel like even more of a curmudgeon than I thought I was. It seems like just yesterday I was waiving my cane and yelling at Twitter to get off my lawn, and now here come "book trailers."
Like with all trends, it took a while for me to notice. In fact, maybe book trailers have been around for years and I never realized it. I know that Caitlin from Unbridled Books sent me this trailer to The Evolution of Shadows several weeks ago and I ignored it, like I do with all things I don't understand.
It took this comment from Sarah Stonich, author of The Ice Chorus, for me to finally clue in:
In the interest of research for this post, I went back through my email and found the link to the trailer for The Evolution of Shadows. It is a little different because there is no narration, just stark, black and white photos of war torn Bosnia, interspersed with written descriptions and snippets of praise from other authors.
I have to say that these trailers makes me want to read the books. Both The Ice Chorus and The Evolution of Shadows have been sitting on my TBR shelf for several months. But so have 900 other books. Something has to make a book stand out over the others to make me turn to it sooner rather than later. Maybe trailers are the answer.
What do you all think? Do you watch trailers? Are they effective? Are some better than others?
RELATED POSTS ON OTHER BLOGS
5 Tips for Making a Good Book Trailer on Abel Keogh's Blog
(If you have posted on this topic, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it here.)
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Hi Rose City Reader, I'm hoping to get the opinions of bloggers on book trailers - the one linked here, as well as trailers in general. Are they effective? What makes a good one? A bad one? Please watch my mercifully brief book trailer, which I think conveys a sense and mood of The Ice Chorus, now out in paperback by Alma Books of London: [link to trailer] Any feedback would be appreciated. Cheers, Sarah StonichBecause I react instantaneously to comments, so thrilled am I to get any, I watched Sarah's trailer right away. It is the first book trailer I ever watched. I think I like the idea. It is just a short little video clip with still photos of Ireland (where the book is set) and other images that capture elements and themes of the book. There is a voice-over -- presumably the author -- giving a back-of-the-book type description.
In the interest of research for this post, I went back through my email and found the link to the trailer for The Evolution of Shadows. It is a little different because there is no narration, just stark, black and white photos of war torn Bosnia, interspersed with written descriptions and snippets of praise from other authors.
I have to say that these trailers makes me want to read the books. Both The Ice Chorus and The Evolution of Shadows have been sitting on my TBR shelf for several months. But so have 900 other books. Something has to make a book stand out over the others to make me turn to it sooner rather than later. Maybe trailers are the answer.
What do you all think? Do you watch trailers? Are they effective? Are some better than others?
RELATED POSTS ON OTHER BLOGS
5 Tips for Making a Good Book Trailer on Abel Keogh's Blog
(If you have posted on this topic, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it here.)
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Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Teaser Tuesday: The Last Chinese Chef
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"Every meal here had been a breakthrough into the unexpected, but the food she had eaten in his company had been something more. With him, this world of cuisine seemed not only intricate but coherently beautiful."
-- The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
Magazine columnist and recent widow, Maggie McElroy, travels to China to handle a matter involving her husband's estate. She combines the trip with a story assignment to write about an up and coming Chinese American chef competing for a spot on the "culinary Olympics" team.
It was not easy finding two sentences that capture the mood and appeal of this book, because there are several layers to the story. Like the classic Chinese cuisine Mones writes about, the book combines "flavors" and "textures" in ways that are satisfying, complex, and often surprising.
I am reading this as my fiction choice for the Spice of Life challenge.
Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.
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"Every meal here had been a breakthrough into the unexpected, but the food she had eaten in his company had been something more. With him, this world of cuisine seemed not only intricate but coherently beautiful."
-- The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
Magazine columnist and recent widow, Maggie McElroy, travels to China to handle a matter involving her husband's estate. She combines the trip with a story assignment to write about an up and coming Chinese American chef competing for a spot on the "culinary Olympics" team.
It was not easy finding two sentences that capture the mood and appeal of this book, because there are several layers to the story. Like the classic Chinese cuisine Mones writes about, the book combines "flavors" and "textures" in ways that are satisfying, complex, and often surprising.
I am reading this as my fiction choice for the Spice of Life challenge.
Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.
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Monday, August 31, 2009
Mailbox Monday
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I was expecting to get Plainsong by Kent Haruf in the mail last week, which would have been the highlight of my Mailbox Monday post. But it did not get here yet. It is my book club's September choice, so I have to get cracking on it.
A few other books came into my house last week:
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien (on Erica Jong's list of Top 100 novels by women), Regeneration by Pat Barker (the first book in her "Regeneration Trilogy" that ends with the Booker-winning The Ghost Road), The Murder Room by P. D. James (#12 in her Adam Dalgliesh series that I haven't even started yet, but that recently caught my attention), and Trust Me by John Updike (a collection of short stories), The Falconer by John Cheever (on the All-TIME 100 best list). .
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I was expecting to get Plainsong by Kent Haruf in the mail last week, which would have been the highlight of my Mailbox Monday post. But it did not get here yet. It is my book club's September choice, so I have to get cracking on it.
A few other books came into my house last week:
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien (on Erica Jong's list of Top 100 novels by women), Regeneration by Pat Barker (the first book in her "Regeneration Trilogy" that ends with the Booker-winning The Ghost Road), The Murder Room by P. D. James (#12 in her Adam Dalgliesh series that I haven't even started yet, but that recently caught my attention), and Trust Me by John Updike (a collection of short stories), The Falconer by John Cheever (on the All-TIME 100 best list). .
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Opening Sentence of the Day: American Rust
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"Isaac's mother was dead five years but he hadn't stopped thinking about her."
American Rust by Philipp Meyer.
Interesting enough, if not a real grabber. In fact, this is my second try at starting this one. It has been sitting on my LibraryThing Early Reviewer list since January. I am going to buckle down and finish it.
PS: I started two new books this week -- this one and The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I usually have three books going at one time: one at home (Chinese Chef), one to carry around (Rust), and one audio book on my iPod (Shalimar the Clown this week). The carry around book is either a hardback without the dustjacket, or a paperback that I don't care it it gets beat up or that I put a protective cover on.
I've followed this three-book system for so long, I hardly even recognize it as the fussy idiosyncrasy it is. Do other people have particular book habits?
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"Isaac's mother was dead five years but he hadn't stopped thinking about her."
American Rust by Philipp Meyer.
Interesting enough, if not a real grabber. In fact, this is my second try at starting this one. It has been sitting on my LibraryThing Early Reviewer list since January. I am going to buckle down and finish it.
PS: I started two new books this week -- this one and The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I usually have three books going at one time: one at home (Chinese Chef), one to carry around (Rust), and one audio book on my iPod (Shalimar the Clown this week). The carry around book is either a hardback without the dustjacket, or a paperback that I don't care it it gets beat up or that I put a protective cover on.
I've followed this three-book system for so long, I hardly even recognize it as the fussy idiosyncrasy it is. Do other people have particular book habits?
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Saturday, August 29, 2009
Challenge Update: Colorful Reading
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We are soon to enter the fourth quarter of 2009. Time to get organized if I am to accomplish a couple of reading goals by the end of the year.
One of these goals is to complete the Colorful Reading Challenge. So far, I have read five of the nine books I picked for the challenge. Those books are listed here, with links to my reviews:
RED: Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith (review)
BLACK: Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke (mini-review)
GOLD: Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California by Dinkelspiel, Frances (review)
GREEN: Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? by Vaclav Klaus (review)
YELLOW: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris (review)
I have four left, but I am halfway through my SILVER book, The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso.
I originally picked the following books for the remaining three colors:
BLUE: My Blue Notebooks: The Intimate Journal of Paris's Most Beautiful and Notorious Courtesan by Liane de Pougy
WHITE: White Teeth by Zadie Smith
BROWN: Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosely
But I am going to make a couple of changes. For one thing, I am going to read American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham for my "WHITE" book, because that one is languishing on my guilt list. If I read it by the end of the year, I can accomplish two goals at once.
Also, I am switching one of my extra colors. Instead of "BROWN" I am going to read a "RUST" book. So, "bye bye" to Bad Boy Brawly Brown, and "hello" to American Rust, which has been on my LibraryThing list even longer than the Andrew Jackson book. Another two-fer.
Thanks, again, to Rebecca at Lost in Books for hosting this challenge.
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We are soon to enter the fourth quarter of 2009. Time to get organized if I am to accomplish a couple of reading goals by the end of the year.
One of these goals is to complete the Colorful Reading Challenge. So far, I have read five of the nine books I picked for the challenge. Those books are listed here, with links to my reviews:
RED: Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith (review)
BLACK: Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke (mini-review)
GOLD: Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California by Dinkelspiel, Frances (review)
GREEN: Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? by Vaclav Klaus (review)
YELLOW: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris (review)
I have four left, but I am halfway through my SILVER book, The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso.
I originally picked the following books for the remaining three colors:
BLUE: My Blue Notebooks: The Intimate Journal of Paris's Most Beautiful and Notorious Courtesan by Liane de Pougy
WHITE: White Teeth by Zadie Smith
BROWN: Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosely
But I am going to make a couple of changes. For one thing, I am going to read American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham for my "WHITE" book, because that one is languishing on my guilt list. If I read it by the end of the year, I can accomplish two goals at once.
Also, I am switching one of my extra colors. Instead of "BROWN" I am going to read a "RUST" book. So, "bye bye" to Bad Boy Brawly Brown, and "hello" to American Rust, which has been on my LibraryThing list even longer than the Andrew Jackson book. Another two-fer.
Thanks, again, to Rebecca at Lost in Books for hosting this challenge.
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Friday, August 28, 2009
Opening Sentence of the Day: The Last Chinese Chef
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"Maggie McElroy felt her soul spiral away from her in the year following her husband's death; she felt strange wherever she was."
-- The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
According to the back cover, this is a novel about "the hidden world of elite cuisine in modern China." I am reading this as my fiction choice for the Spice of Life challenge. I am particularly looking forward to it because I have been jonesing for good Chinese food lately -- one of the things I miss the most now that I don't live in San Francisco any more.
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"Maggie McElroy felt her soul spiral away from her in the year following her husband's death; she felt strange wherever she was."
-- The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
According to the back cover, this is a novel about "the hidden world of elite cuisine in modern China." I am reading this as my fiction choice for the Spice of Life challenge. I am particularly looking forward to it because I have been jonesing for good Chinese food lately -- one of the things I miss the most now that I don't live in San Francisco any more.
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My Life According to Literature
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I do not know who started this, but it sucked me in when I read it on We Be Reading. It will probably pop up on facebook soon enough.
"Using only books you have read this year (2009), cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think!"
Here is my life, according to literature (links to reviews):
Describe Yourself: The Innocent
How do you feel: Great Expectations
Describe where you currently live: The Amateur Marriage
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Atget’s Paris
Your favorite form of transportation: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Your best friend is: The Fixer
You and your friends are: Kiss Kiss
What’s the weather like: All Quiet on the Western Front
Favorite time of day: The Mating Season
If your life was a: Crime and Punishment
What is life to you: The Floating Opera
Your fear: Underworld
What is the best advice you have to give: Water the Bamboo
Thought for the Day: Sometimes a Great Notion
How I would like to die: Au Revoir to All That
My soul’s present condition: Mere Christianity
OTHER LITERARY AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
The Noisy Daisy
(Please leave a comment with a link and I will add it here.)
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Thursday, August 27, 2009
Fluffy
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This week''s Booking Through Thursday question asks what "fluffy" books we have read recently. Looking at my list of books over on the right column, I see a lot of serious books, and not many books I would characterize as fluffy.
Doctor Sally by P.G. Wodehouse probably counts. It is shorter than other Wodehouse novels I have read. It is funny and clever, but there are far fewer characters than most of them and the plot is pretty linear and simple.
But still a lot of fun to read!
PS: Thanks to J.G. at Hotch Pot Cafe for reminding me that this post is a definite KITTEN opportunity!
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Challenge Update: Battle of the Prizes
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Congratulations go to Caitlin at Chaotic Compendiums for finishing the Sunshine Smackdown: Battle of the Prizes.
Caitlin's three challenge books, with links to her reviews, were:
Sophie's Choice (National winner)
Empire Falls (Pulitzer winner)
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (double-dipper)
Thanks, Caitlin! Also, if you do a wrap-up post, please let us know and I will add the link.
Book Psmith has also finished her National Book Award winner, The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud. Psmith's review is here.
Challenge details and links to all the reviews submitted so far are on the main challenge page. There are still a few weeks to go before the challenge ends on Labor Day. And Labor Day is only the deadline for reading books -- reviews are welcome after that date. Please leave links to reviews on this post or the main challenge post.
Thanks, again, to everyone who is participating!
Congratulations go to Caitlin at Chaotic Compendiums for finishing the Sunshine Smackdown: Battle of the Prizes.
Caitlin's three challenge books, with links to her reviews, were:
Sophie's Choice (National winner)
Empire Falls (Pulitzer winner)
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (double-dipper)
Thanks, Caitlin! Also, if you do a wrap-up post, please let us know and I will add the link.
Book Psmith has also finished her National Book Award winner, The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud. Psmith's review is here.
Challenge details and links to all the reviews submitted so far are on the main challenge page. There are still a few weeks to go before the challenge ends on Labor Day. And Labor Day is only the deadline for reading books -- reviews are welcome after that date. Please leave links to reviews on this post or the main challenge post.
Thanks, again, to everyone who is participating!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Review: Underworld
Don DiLillo’s Underworld is an atmospheric pastiche of nuclear age anxiety. After an interminable Prologue in which the Giants beat the Dodgers for the 1952 National League pennant, the book generally traces two stories – the story of the winning homerun baseball and the story of Nick Shay. The ball passes from the kid who nabbed it at the game to a series of collectors. Shay grows from a Bronx hooligan to an executive for a large waste management company in Phoenix.
What could be an engaging story – how a juvenile crime changed the trajectory of Shay’s life – is attenuated and addled by laying out the narrative backwards. The story starts in 1992, then moves back in time in chunks until 1952. This means that events in the beginning of the book only make sense later, and characters met early on fall into place later. This is a needlessly confusing and self conscious format. It is like looking at a scrapbook backwards, figuring out how the people and events fit together.
And, of course, a backwards timeline cannot really work if there is to be any resolution of the story, because “how the story ends” would have to come at the very beginning. That would make for a boring book. So the first section raises dramatic issues that hang there through the entire book, until they are wrapped up in a lengthy Epilogue set in 1992 again.
Also confusing are the myriad characters who are all linked, but some only tangentially. Many of the connections are artificial, mere excuses for elaborate digressions. The unifying theme of waste – particularly nuclear waste and destruction – further ties these side stories together, but not in any way enjoyable. DiLillo lingers over descriptions and rumors of disfigurement and deformity caused by nuclear testing, as well as other descriptions of wasted lives.
This book is too long, too self-righteous, too slow, too dark, too garbled, and simply too trying. DiLillo has his fans, but I am not one of them.
OTHER REVIEWS
If you would like your review of this or any other DiLillo book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will list it here.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Teaser Tuesday: Paul Newman
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"But they were easily put off by the parochial aspects of living in Hollywood -- the continuous obsession with money, celebrity, and the next deal. They preferred to keep a quiet space to themselves, and if that made them seem aloof to people, that was their problem."
-- Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy, discussing why Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward chose to live in a renovated barn in Westport, Connecticut.
This is a terrific book. It is packed with details, but written with such easy grace that it never gets bogged down. Levy's years as a film critic bring depth to the story by really analyzing Newman's movies instead of just providing the celebrity gossip personal side of the story.
Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.
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"But they were easily put off by the parochial aspects of living in Hollywood -- the continuous obsession with money, celebrity, and the next deal. They preferred to keep a quiet space to themselves, and if that made them seem aloof to people, that was their problem."
-- Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy, discussing why Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward chose to live in a renovated barn in Westport, Connecticut.
This is a terrific book. It is packed with details, but written with such easy grace that it never gets bogged down. Levy's years as a film critic bring depth to the story by really analyzing Newman's movies instead of just providing the celebrity gossip personal side of the story.
Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.
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Monday, August 24, 2009
Mailbox Monday
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Were it not for the Book Blogger Retreat here in Portland this weekend, no books would have come into my house last week. As it is, my Mailbox Monday list is very short. It includes only the two books that I picked up from fellow bloggers at the book swap they organized:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Resistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert
I don't even know who brought the two books I nabbed, so I have to thank the whole group.
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Were it not for the Book Blogger Retreat here in Portland this weekend, no books would have come into my house last week. As it is, my Mailbox Monday list is very short. It includes only the two books that I picked up from fellow bloggers at the book swap they organized:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Resistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert
I don't even know who brought the two books I nabbed, so I have to thank the whole group.
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Sunday, August 23, 2009
Book Blogger Retreat
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This was the weekend of the Book Blogger Retreat here in Portland. It was terrific to meet some of my fellow bloggers and do some very fun bookish things. Huge thanks go to Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? for organizing the event.
PARTICIPANTS
Wendy from Caribousmom
Bethany from Dreadlock Girl
Trish from Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?
Gabe from Reading Local
Teddy from So Many precious Books, So Little Time
Juli from Whimpulsive
Kristen from We Be Reading
Ali from Worducopia
ACTIVITIES
We met Friday evening for dinner at Ringler's, the McMenamin's in the Crystal Ballroom building. It was a great, casual way to all meet each other and get acquainted.
Saturday morning was the tour of Powell's, which was entertaining and interesting, even for the Portlanders among us who think we "know" Powell's. For instance, I did not know that 1) there are a million books on the shelves at any time; 2) there is a huge tank under the store that catches the rainwater and regulates the flow into the sewers so as to help the city deal with the never-solved problem of its "combined sewer/overflow system"; 3) they have one of the original editions of the Lewis and Clark Journals, for $35,000; and 4) someone is buried in the book column outside the 11th Avenue entrance. Thanks go to Bethany for arranging the tour!
We started off Saturday afternoon with a presentation in the Rare Book Room of the Multnomah County Library. Jim Carmin showed us some amazing books and ephemera from the collection, including a couple of contemporary "art books," a letter from Charles Dickens, a book of hours woven in silk, a manuscript about a safari that is bound in lion skin, and one book from the four-volume The Birds of America set by John James Audubon. This was the highlight of the weekend for me. I was blown away. Thanks go to Ali for setting this up.
After the rare books, we had a great "round table" discussion (minus the actual table) with Portland author Molly Gloss. Molly was gracious and engaging, willing to talk with us about writing, blogging, the state of the publishing industry, her experiences as an author, and her books. Her latest novel, The Hearts of Horses, is getting rave reviews and is going on my TBR shelf right away. Thanks go to Gabe for making arrangements with Molly!
This was a really wonderful event and I am so glad I was here to participate. Trish took copious notes and lots of pictures -- as did several others -- so they will have very good wrap-up posts. Please visit their blogs to read more about the Book Blogger Retreat.
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This was the weekend of the Book Blogger Retreat here in Portland. It was terrific to meet some of my fellow bloggers and do some very fun bookish things. Huge thanks go to Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? for organizing the event.
PARTICIPANTS
Wendy from Caribousmom
Bethany from Dreadlock Girl
Trish from Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?
Gabe from Reading Local
Teddy from So Many precious Books, So Little Time
Juli from Whimpulsive
Kristen from We Be Reading
Ali from Worducopia
ACTIVITIES
We met Friday evening for dinner at Ringler's, the McMenamin's in the Crystal Ballroom building. It was a great, casual way to all meet each other and get acquainted.
Saturday morning was the tour of Powell's, which was entertaining and interesting, even for the Portlanders among us who think we "know" Powell's. For instance, I did not know that 1) there are a million books on the shelves at any time; 2) there is a huge tank under the store that catches the rainwater and regulates the flow into the sewers so as to help the city deal with the never-solved problem of its "combined sewer/overflow system"; 3) they have one of the original editions of the Lewis and Clark Journals, for $35,000; and 4) someone is buried in the book column outside the 11th Avenue entrance. Thanks go to Bethany for arranging the tour!
We started off Saturday afternoon with a presentation in the Rare Book Room of the Multnomah County Library. Jim Carmin showed us some amazing books and ephemera from the collection, including a couple of contemporary "art books," a letter from Charles Dickens, a book of hours woven in silk, a manuscript about a safari that is bound in lion skin, and one book from the four-volume The Birds of America set by John James Audubon. This was the highlight of the weekend for me. I was blown away. Thanks go to Ali for setting this up.
After the rare books, we had a great "round table" discussion (minus the actual table) with Portland author Molly Gloss. Molly was gracious and engaging, willing to talk with us about writing, blogging, the state of the publishing industry, her experiences as an author, and her books. Her latest novel, The Hearts of Horses, is getting rave reviews and is going on my TBR shelf right away. Thanks go to Gabe for making arrangements with Molly!
This was a really wonderful event and I am so glad I was here to participate. Trish took copious notes and lots of pictures -- as did several others -- so they will have very good wrap-up posts. Please visit their blogs to read more about the Book Blogger Retreat.
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Saturday, August 22, 2009
Challenge Update: Battle of the Prizes
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DONE! I am all finished with the Sunshine Smackdown: Battle of the Prizes Challenge. This is the first challenge that I have ever completed, as well as the first challenge I ever hosted.
The challenge was to read three books between May 1 and Labor Day: one book that won the Pulitzer Prize, one that won the National Book Award, and one that won both.
My three reviews are:
1) Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (my Pulitzer pick);
2) Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (my National pick); and
3) The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (my double dipper).
How do these compare? My choices were all mid-century winners, but different in significant ways. The Fixer is a historical novel, set in Tsarist Russia in the early 1900s. The Drury and Roth books are both "middle class realism," but A&C is a doorstop of WASP politics and G.C. is a breakout collection of short stories reveling in Jewish family life.
I cannot make any big generalizations about Pulitzer winners versus National winners based on my selection of three. But they all fell within my preconceived notions of these prizes, which are that the Pulitzer tends to go to books that have popular appeal, and the National goes to books because they have some significant beyond the story. In this case, Roth's shift to a Jewish perspective on American middle-class life was revolutionary. Even if it does not seem so now, the book had an edge to it back in 1960.
So, why did The Fixer win both? It certainly has an edge -- it is downright grim. But I guess it could have had some popular appeal as well because it is an incredibly moving, fast-paced story. I definitely deserved to win both prized. It is an excellent book.
There is still time to finish the challenge before Labor Day. J.G. at Hotch Pot Cafe is already finished. Book Psmith recently finished and reviewed her Pulitzer pick, Olive Kitteridge.
Feel free to submit your reviews with a comment here on on the main challenge page.
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DONE! I am all finished with the Sunshine Smackdown: Battle of the Prizes Challenge. This is the first challenge that I have ever completed, as well as the first challenge I ever hosted.
The challenge was to read three books between May 1 and Labor Day: one book that won the Pulitzer Prize, one that won the National Book Award, and one that won both.
My three reviews are:
1) Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (my Pulitzer pick);
2) Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (my National pick); and
3) The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (my double dipper).
How do these compare? My choices were all mid-century winners, but different in significant ways. The Fixer is a historical novel, set in Tsarist Russia in the early 1900s. The Drury and Roth books are both "middle class realism," but A&C is a doorstop of WASP politics and G.C. is a breakout collection of short stories reveling in Jewish family life.
I cannot make any big generalizations about Pulitzer winners versus National winners based on my selection of three. But they all fell within my preconceived notions of these prizes, which are that the Pulitzer tends to go to books that have popular appeal, and the National goes to books because they have some significant beyond the story. In this case, Roth's shift to a Jewish perspective on American middle-class life was revolutionary. Even if it does not seem so now, the book had an edge to it back in 1960.
So, why did The Fixer win both? It certainly has an edge -- it is downright grim. But I guess it could have had some popular appeal as well because it is an incredibly moving, fast-paced story. I definitely deserved to win both prized. It is an excellent book.
There is still time to finish the challenge before Labor Day. J.G. at Hotch Pot Cafe is already finished. Book Psmith recently finished and reviewed her Pulitzer pick, Olive Kitteridge.
Feel free to submit your reviews with a comment here on on the main challenge page.
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Friday, August 21, 2009
Review of the Day: Blue Planet in Green Shackles
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Václav Klaus is the President of the Czech Republic, a former Prime Minister of the country, and an economist by training and profession. Given his position and background, he brings an informed and interesting perspective to the issue of global warming, which he sees as a conflict between statism and freedom.
Klaus witnessed firsthand the devastation – human, economic, and environmental – caused by communism. Based on these observations, he believes that the best hope for dealing with climate change is to allow technology and innovation to thrive so that future generations can adapt to whatever changes may come. Klaus is not talking through his hat. He has researched and written about climate change and other catastrophic scenarios from an economic standpoint since at least the early 1990s. He is also well versed in the hard science aspects of the debate.
His recent book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles is a culmination of decades of analysis. In Blue Planet, Klaus argues that global warming is an issue deserving a full and honest debate. He wants to see debate on questions such as: What is the real level of global warming likely to be? Is there evidence for or against significant human contribution to current global warming? Would a warmer climate be better or worse than the present one? Can we do something about climate? He shares his own answers to these questions, solidly supported by scientific and economic evidence.
Klaus makes clear that he is not “anti-environment”; just anti-environmentalism, which he sees as the newest form of megalomaniacal central planning at the expense of human freedom. He supports scientific study of the environment, which he calls “scientific ecology,” but explains, “Even though environmentalism boasts about its scientific basis, it is, in fact, essentially a metaphysical ideology . . .”
While a few passages on economic theory get a little dry, most of this short book is pitched at an introductory level to appeal to a broad range of readers who have probably not given Klaus’s take on the subject much consideration. He is direct, concise, and pulls no punches. It is worth reading, even if just to view the issues from a different perspective.
OTHER REVIEWS
(If you would like your review posted here, please leave a comment with a link.)
This was my "green" pick for the Colorful Reading Challenge. .
Václav Klaus is the President of the Czech Republic, a former Prime Minister of the country, and an economist by training and profession. Given his position and background, he brings an informed and interesting perspective to the issue of global warming, which he sees as a conflict between statism and freedom.
Klaus witnessed firsthand the devastation – human, economic, and environmental – caused by communism. Based on these observations, he believes that the best hope for dealing with climate change is to allow technology and innovation to thrive so that future generations can adapt to whatever changes may come. Klaus is not talking through his hat. He has researched and written about climate change and other catastrophic scenarios from an economic standpoint since at least the early 1990s. He is also well versed in the hard science aspects of the debate.
His recent book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles is a culmination of decades of analysis. In Blue Planet, Klaus argues that global warming is an issue deserving a full and honest debate. He wants to see debate on questions such as: What is the real level of global warming likely to be? Is there evidence for or against significant human contribution to current global warming? Would a warmer climate be better or worse than the present one? Can we do something about climate? He shares his own answers to these questions, solidly supported by scientific and economic evidence.
Klaus makes clear that he is not “anti-environment”; just anti-environmentalism, which he sees as the newest form of megalomaniacal central planning at the expense of human freedom. He supports scientific study of the environment, which he calls “scientific ecology,” but explains, “Even though environmentalism boasts about its scientific basis, it is, in fact, essentially a metaphysical ideology . . .”
While a few passages on economic theory get a little dry, most of this short book is pitched at an introductory level to appeal to a broad range of readers who have probably not given Klaus’s take on the subject much consideration. He is direct, concise, and pulls no punches. It is worth reading, even if just to view the issues from a different perspective.
OTHER REVIEWS
(If you would like your review posted here, please leave a comment with a link.)
NOTES
This was my "green" pick for the Colorful Reading Challenge. .
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