Friday Links

This week’s Coolest Thing EVER:

Artist Jane Mount has a collection of illustrations called Bookshelves.  It’s a pretty straightforward idea.  She paints portraits of people’s favorite books. You can buy prints of some of her paintings here – or – and this is the really cool part – you can have her paint a portrait of your favorite books by visiting her Etsy store.  What makes it to be immortalized on your shelf painting?

In other (e.g. not as awesome) news:

Refrigerator magnet poetry without the refrigerator.  Or the magnetism.

Mark Twain decided that at least 100 hundred years should go by before his autobiography was published.  This cooling off period should be mandatory for politicians.  Contact your congressman today.

Hey look at that, book sales are up.

toothpastefordinner.com

All the help you need on that novel you’re writing

Attention aspiring novelists:  826 National, the official HQ of the tutoring and writing centers founded by Dave Eggers, has two items that you are going to want to check out.  Pronto.   And it’s all for the kids.

1. The first is a book of top secret writing knowledge distilled from interviews with Michael Chabon, Paul Auster, Amy Tan, Haruki Murakami, Roddy Doyle, and Stephen King – and it is edited by Daniel Alarcon.  It’s called The Secret Miracle: The Novelist’s Handbook and you can but it here.
2. But how will you know when that novel is ready to be published?  The 826 gang has you covered there, too. They’ve distilled everything that they know about novel-readiness onto this handy poster.  What could be simpler?  Order your own here.

   

Working on a Dream

I think that it’s safe to say that David Masciotra, author of Working on a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen, has spent a lot more time reflecting on the music of The Boss than any of the rest of us.   Several years ago now, I wrote a  post about songs as short stories.  I included several Bruce songs among a shortlist of examples that I called “so lyrically strong that they could be the basis of a prize-winning short story.”  Masciotra takes this idea and carries it many steps further making the case that Springsteen’s body or work is a tool for progressive political change and social justice.

Working on a Dream is a timely look back on an impressive career by a musician dedicated to writing songs aboutsomething.  It is pretty clear that The Boss could have decided to take the easier career path and make songs that would serve as the soundtrack for Chevy truck commercials.  Instead, Springsteen consciously took the less commercially certain route.  Masciotra highlights Springsteen’s work that explores the space “between the American Dream and American reality” and gives voice to the plight of people that are often invisible in our society.

The saying goes that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”   In support of this notion, the author’s descriptions of the actual music can be strained at times:

Piano notes are set against the wailing trumpet to evoke action and fill in the gaps.  If the trumpet sounds like observation, the piano rings of movement.  As a piano riff takes control, opening up room for the singer…

Masciotra is on firmer ground when analyzing lyrics.  He takes a literary criticism approach, interpreting lyrics in their larger temporal and political contexts.   The author name checks St. Augustine, Noam Chomsky, Confucius, Cornell West, Studs Terkel and others to bolster his interpretations of what is presented as Springsteen’s over-arching progressive political philosophy.

In one of the strongest chapters, the book quotes Bruce Springsteen as saying that his ideal concert is “part circus, part spiritual meeting, part political rally, part dance hall.”  Masciotra follows up with examples to support each of these components.  Springsteen is also quoted as describing his career as:

a community in the making…It’s not just my creation.  I wanted it to be our creation.  Once you set that in motion, it’s a large community of people gathered around a core set of values.  Within that there’s a wide range of beliefs, but you still gather in one tent at a particular moment to have some common experience, and that’s why I go there too.

Masciotra persuasively argues that this idea of the importance of community is a pervasive theme  in Springsteen’s work and is a striking counter to the “me first” mentality that permeates our culture and “I vote my pocketbook” political discourse.

Working on a Dream largely preaches to the choir.  The book is likely to appeal most to Springsteen fans and/or those left of center politically.It is not likely that those who dislike Springsteen’s songs for whatever reason or those who feed on a steady diet of Fox News will find anything here that  will convert them to Masciotra’s view.  Working on a Dream also doesn’t supply many detailed arguments to bolster political statements that some would argue are controversial but are self-evident to the author and like-minded readers.   Occasionally I found myself wondering if Masciotra had forgotten about the Boss when several pages of political discussion would go by with scant mention of Springsteen or his songs.  But these are minor quibbles.

Overall, Working on a Dream is a unique book of musical/political scholarship.  I am unaware of any similar books that examine a particular artist and his political philosophy at this level of scrutiny.  Fans of Springsteen interested in viewing the Boss’s work through a new filter will definitely want to pick this up.  Progressive political types that may have somehow missed Springsteen’s career or just “don’t get it” may also want to give it a look.

For your listening pleasure:

I should also note that I wore out my Springsteen collection on the iPod while reading this book.

Of the songs that Masciotra singles out in the book, two seem especially noteworthy.

• Springsteen recorded the theme song for Philadelphia at a time when recording a song about AIDS was not an intuitively strong career move for a straight rocker with a blue collar fan base.
• Relatively recently, Springsteen’s song American Skin (41 Shots) put the singer at odds with the NYPD

Springsteen’s The River will always stand for me as the pinnacle  of Springsteen doing what he does best.

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And I love this Raul Malo cover of Downbound Train

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Other reading:

Popmatters: Recession Sounds: Revisiting Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska

It’s Here

Finally!  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the finale to Stieg Larsson’s wildly popular Millenium trilogy, has arrived in the US.  I don’t know about you, but I plan to be at my local bookseller as soon as possible to pick this one up. Here’s some of the hubbub on the internets:

Michiko Kakutani, who often seems to have a personal vendetta against books, gives Hornet’s Nest a glowing review. it must be opposite day.

Washington Post review: “Only now, with the publication of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest…can we fully appreciate the Swedish writer’s achievement.The trilogy ranks among those novels that expand the horizons of popular fiction.”

San Francisco Chronicle review

NYT Magazine reports on the sordid details of the author’s estate: The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson

This LA Times review seems to miss it completely.  Read on to the end to see what I mean.

Salon on why we can’t get enough Lisbeth Salander

Slate wishes the Lisbeth Salander had founded a better author

Salander’s debt to Pippi Longstockings

Little Green

Domestic Violence – heavy subject.  I certainly enjoy a good dysfunctional family, but domestic violence makes me very uncomfortable.  Knowing this, I dug into Loretta Stinson’s Little Green anyway and I’m glad I did.  Ms. Stinson, in her first novel, drew me in right away to a world that is completely foreign to me with her tale of young Janie Mareck’s search for herself, family and love.

Janie Mareck is an abandoned 16 year old.  Her mother died and her father remarried. Her father died and his wife wanted nothing to do with Janie, so she dropped out of school and skipped town.  The year is 1976, after the huge explosion of drugs in the 60′s, but apparently they are alive and well, in fact flourishing, in many communities.  Janie finds herself briefly topless dancing in a country bar and when she tries to move on she is brutally raped and beaten by some random dude who picked her up in a van.  She returns to the bar where she is taken in by one of the owners (a good guy) and nursed back to health.

While recovering she gets to know Paul – a handsome, fun, 26 year old guy who seems to treat her well and helps bring her back to life.  Paul has a little (HUGE) problem. He likes to drink a lot of beer, smoke a lot of pot and inject a lot of crank into his veins. When he is really high, which becomes more and more frequent, guess what he does to poor Janie? He never remembers beating her, he apologizes and Janie “knows” that with enough love from her he will change. He says he’ll change, he certainly will with her help.

Janie and Paul go back and forth between “I want to change,  baby” to feeling like he has to escape from Janie.  Right before putting Janie in the hospital with a baseball bat, Janie has pretty much given in:

Janie knew she stayed now because she was afraid to leave.  Paul could easily kill her when he was high and not even remember it later.  There was nowhere to go where he wouldn’t find her. He told her that every time he was wired or drunk.  He whispered in her ear, so close she could taste the crank on him, “If you ever left me I’d find you. I’d kill you before I let you leave me.”  She no longer doubted that they would become one of these TV new reports. It was only a matter of time.

From the hospital however, Janie calls her old friend  (the former owner of the bar) who is clean and living a respectable life with his wife and baby.  Janie is lovingly nursed back to health and with the support, love and strength from these friends, Janie finds the courage to do what is needed for her survival.

I found myself throughout the novel giving advice to Janie and wishing Paul dead! Every other page I hoped he would die.  Not having a lot of personal experience with domestic violence or drug use/abuse, I have read quite a bit about it trying to understand how women are attracted to these men and how they can stay.   Frequently, women go back to their abusers because they are convinced that eventually the men will change, or the abuser threatens to kill them or themselves.

Drugs don’t help this situation at all. Like a lot of addicts, the high is so incredible there is nothing more important.   Every time Paul warmed up that crank and prepared his arm and needle, I cringed, while wishing him dead.  Every time he is high he admits to himself that he could never give it up – not for anyone.

I did find Ms. Stinson’s writing to be a bit choppy. There are a lot of very short sentences that just didn’t seem to flow for me each time I started to read, however, once I got going there was a rhythm to it.  Certainly not a deal breaker in this case.

Little Green is no blissful escape – it is brutal reality for some people, but like Janie I hope they all can find their voice and the strength to survive.

Friday Links

Is it Friday already?  How did that happen?  Here are some items that caught our eye this week:

Flavorwire has “Your Grown-Up Summer Reading List.”  I’m book marking this for when I grow up.

Shameless self promotion:

• The Billerica, Mass Public Library showcases BGB in their Weekly Web Spotlight
• Elle magazine has a book blog called Lit Life wherein BGB is one of the Sites We Love
• Related?  According to this list, BGB is #2 on the list of 50 Great Book Blogs Especially for Women

This Baby’s Touch N’ Feel Guide to Russian Literature from McSweeney’s is an invaluable resource for introducing the classics to my youngster

Book covered tank?  Weapon of Mass Instruction.

Salon gets Lisbeth Salander fever.

The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi wins this year’s Nebula Award for Best Novel.  Check out my glowing review here.

Have you seen these Buck Naked Book Reviews?  Me neither.  (clicking that particular link at work may not be in your best interest)

Where was I when this awesome poster for Children’s Book Week came along?

An Argentine lawmaker’s proposal  for a tough new anti-plagiarism law copies from the Wikipedia page on plagiarism verbatim.  Three paragraphs worth. ¡Oh, la ironía!

Glorious

Bernice McFadden has a way of getting your attention within the first few pages of her books.  She did it with Sugar (my review) and she has done it again with her latest novel Glorious. The horrors of the rural south are brought to life as Ms. McFadden opens her novel with vivid descriptions of a rape and a lynching.

Ester Bartlett finds herself too close to both of these events and decides that she needs to leave Waycross, Georgia.  She doesn’t know where, just away.  She asks her Aunt Mavis to go with her and Mavis’ reply resonates down through generations of southerners:

Girl, every place the same as here, they just go by different names.  Anyway, I’d rather stay here and deal with the devil I already know.

After landing a brief job with a traveling vaudeville group as a personal assistant to a lesbian/exotic dancer (Rain), Easter leaves when she catches Rain in bed with another woman.  She is shattered and jealous.  She continues to North Georgia and becomes a schoolteacher.  This life does not pan out either after an incident with a male student.  On a fluke, Easter finds herself headed to New York City.

When the nose of the train edged across the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, a young, dark porter appeared and unceremoniously removed the tin sign above the doorway that stated, COLORED.  The car exploded in applause…

It’s 1921 and the Harlem Renaissance is just beginning.  Harlem is the place to be if you’re black and want to make something of yourself.

Easter is working in a beauty salon when Rain waltzes in. They re-ignite their friendship as Rain introduces Easter to the cultural ‘who’s who’ in Harlem.  One Africa-loving white woman, Meredith Tomas, is particularly influential.   Recognizing Easter’s writing talent, Meredith uses her wealth and connections to become Easter’s mentor and begins by getting her short stories published.

Life is exiting and fun for awhile, but when her secret novel is discovered and stolen by Meredith, Easter is accused of plagiarism and is reduced to nothing.  We’re not quite sure what happens to her until 1961 when the story picks up again with Easter working for a white family back in Waycross, Georgia.  She is re-discovered by a local school teacher and word spreads quickly as to who Easter really is.  Finally, after forty years she is awarded the credit she deserves.

In this novel, Easter’s journey is a thrilling ride.  I never really knew where the story was going. This same story mechanism is what made Sugar such a compelling read as well.  Ms. McFadden always keeps the reader guessing.  I would have liked to have known where Easter was during the forty years that were omitted from the novel, but once she arrives back in Waycross, Georgia, the story became its own compelling self again. I couldn’t put the book down.

Glorious gives us a taste of the Harlem Renaissance, a very important moment in black history.  I was introduced to this era years ago in The Autobiography of Malcom X by Alex Hailey (a very enlightening read for this white girl).  This decade of history is often overlooked and deserves more credit for the black entertainers, artists and intellects it produced.  Ms. McFadden introduces many important individuals who invite further research and, fortunately for us, she provides a wonderful list of reference materials in the back of the book.

I truly enjoy Ms. McFadden’s writing.   Words sail past the eyes, reflecting a beautiful style that’s so easy to read and enjoy, while keeping it “real”.  She doesn’t pretend or hide anything during uncomfortable moments.  I hope this novel reaches and touches all audiences, as well as, if not better than Sugar has.

Max Tivoli Rides Again

I first read Andrew Sean Greer’s second novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, way back when this blog started (it was one of my very first posts).  I absolutely loved it then, and have considered it one of my favorite books since.  Given that most people have read their favorite books more than once, I decided to read this one again.  And while I have to confess it read differently the second time (I suppose any book with any depth should), it was no less moving or heartbreaking.

For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it tells the tale of a boy born in the body of an old man, who ages backwards physically but ages normally mentally, emotionally, and psychologically.  When F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was made into a major motion picture, I was somewhat alarmed that Greer might have stolen from Fitzgerald.  Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — he didn’t.  The two literary works have very little in common, and there are fundamental differences even in some of the similarities between them.

At its heart this is a love story, albeit a love story filled with unrequited love, secret love, and love that succeeds unbeknownst to some of its participants.  And it is a story of love on many levels — romantic love, familial love, and the love of dear and trusted friends.  As Max moves through his life in his strange state, he tries to abide by the one rule his mother gave him:  Be what they think you are.  A difficult task when his outward appearance and true self are at odds throughout most of his life.

As a young man in the body of an old man he befriends another boy named Hughie, who becomes his lifelong friend.  And he falls madly in love with a downstairs tenant, Alice — a young woman for whom he could not express his love because of his appearance.  The book follows Max in his quest to find happiness with time working for/against him the way it was, and each of these characters play a part in his quest.

And throughout the telling of this tale, Greer’s gift for prose is absolutely masterful — a gift that is praised on the book jacket by no less than Michael Chabon and Michael Cunningham.  The way Greer can describe a scene in just the right amount of perfect words is pure magic:

I saw how the moon had dropped into her cup of coffee.  It struggled there like a moth.  Then I saw her lean forward, her mouth in silent kiss, and as she blew on the furrowed surface to cool it, I saw the moon explode.

I urge everyone to read this book.  I still refuse to give any further details on the story itself for fear of ruining it or mis-setting expectations about what happens.  But I stand by my position that this is one of my favorite books of all time.

Freedom Flyers

J. Todd Moye’s Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II was a lock to jump atop my reading stack.  Dr. Moye’s a friend of mine and an occasional contributor to BGB.  It is safe to assume that this will be one of the least objective reviews that we ever post here.  Should you doubt my sincerity when I tell you that it’s an excellent book that you should check out?  No way!  This is just one of those “full disclosure” things that I feel you should be aware of as you read my praise for Freedom Flyers.  But don’t book just take my word for it.  The book is out on Oxford University Press, which is about as big deal an academic press as there is.

The basic story of the Tuskegee Airmen is well known. World War II was, in many ways, the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.  The Tuskegee Airmen were notable because they were among the very first African-American officers in the U.S. Army (there was exactly 1 black officer prior to World War II).  They were also among the first black men entrusted with more than just menial labor jobs in what was an institutionally segregated fighting force.  Given an opportunity to prove their worth in what was disparagingly called “an experiment,” they found themselves fighting “Adolf Hitler and Jim Crow simultaneously.”  For these reasons and many others, the Tuskegee Airmen have become a justly celebrated pillar of the Civil Rights Movement.

However, Moye’s book is not the usual hagiography of the Tuskegee Airmen that gets dusted off each February for Black History Month.  It’s the story of real, imperfect men, who found themselves in an unprecedented position at a pivotal point in world history.  Often lionized as civil rights warriors, they were more often than not simply trying to work their way into a better  job with prospects for a better future.  Moye also points to recent scholarship that shows that the popular myth that the Tuskegee Airmen never lost a plane under their escort is almost certainly untrue.  The real history of these men is so intriguing that embellishments of their story are hardly necessary.

What separates this book from other histories of the famed airmen (and the movie starring Laurence Fishburne) is the thoroughness and depth of Moye’s account.   Dr. Moye was the director of the Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project, a National Park Service project that set out to collect oral histories from all of the surviving airmen.  This incredible access to the men behind the myth provides a layer of humanity and realism that is often missing from other historical accounts.

A few years ago, I went to see a talk that Dr. Moye gave on his Tuskegee Airmen scholarship.  A few of the Airmen were present in the auditorium and answered questions from the audience.  Someone asked one of the pilots what part of their legacy was he most proud of.  He paused for a moment and answered the question with a story about seeing a black female pilot landing a military plane in the background of a news story recently.  The Airman said that he was most proud that the news story was about something else entirely – that a black woman piloting an Air Force plane was no longer a newsworthy event.   It was an incredibly heartfelt and moving moment.

The mark of a well written history is that it casts current events in a new light.  The reasons that the Army put forward for not integrating the service before and during World War II – “the Army is not a social laboratory,” “there are questions of morale,” “it’s not the right time to make these changes” – are the very same reasons that were trotted out to deny women equal opportunities in the armed forces and they are the same arguments used to deny gay soldiers from serving openly.  History not only repeats itself, it blatantly plagiarizes itself.  Fortunately, the lessons of the Tuskegee Airmen make it clear that a ghetto-ized military doesn’t work.  The way to a diverse and equal-for-all military is to have a policies in place that are serious about effecting change and making promotion incumbent upon implementing and respecting the letter and the spirit of those policies.

Freedom Flyers captures a moment in our history that is important for what it tells us about ourselves and our past, as well as the insight it provides to our future.  Do check out Freedom Flyers, and if you want to pick up a few extra copies for your friends and family members, I’m sure that my pal Dr Moye,won’t mind.

Friday Links

This AO Scott piece in the NYT that puts forward the idea of a Gen X midlife crisis (my generation) seem to be spot on.  It also puts forward Sam Lipsyte and Lloyd Dobler John Cusack as voices of our generation.  I’m buying it.  Lloyd Dobler was my career counselor:

I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.

Check out Vice magazine’s very long interview with Brett Easton Ellis, whose new book, a follow up to Less Than Zero, comes out in June.

Bronte Sisters Action Figures – I believe that says it all

The fim adaptation of Kerouac’s On the Road is coming soon and will star that one girl from the Twilight movies

The Guardian has a slideshow highlighting the differences between book covers in different countries

Speaking of slide shows, Penguin UK (always cooler than its US cousin, rolls out a new series called Central European Classics – check out the sweet covers

Quote:  All this puts Wikipedia in the confusing position of not allowing a page for an undefined word whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word — and now I have to lie down for a moment.”

Amazon to put the “sell” back in bestsellers – allegedly

Bruce Springsteen, who I just happen to be reading about at the moment, spends a night of cross-cultural pollination with a former US poet laureate, who just happens to be from the same hometown

The Surrendered

I missed author Chang-rae Lee’s recent Atlanta reading at The Carter Center in support of his new book The Surrendered.  I had heard many good things about the novel, and I would have liked to hear the author talk directly about it.  As it is, I picked up the novel anyway based on its near rave reviews.  However, I did get to listen to Lee on Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm show just after finishing the book,  which is almost as good as seeing him live.

I had read somewhere that the novel’s horrific opening scene, which features small children trying to find a safe haven in the midst of the Korean War, was based on the experiences of Lee’s father.  It was good to know this going in, or I would have wondered at the author’s need to create such a brutal chain of events.  It turns out that Lee was just getting started.

The novel intertwines the stories of three people: a survivor of the opening scene, a US soldier, and an American missionary.  Each of these people has suffered a horrific loss in their lives, in the most horrifying ways possible.  As a result, each has largely given up on life – they are the surrendered.  They each self medicate in some way in order to have some respite from their pain and make it through the day. Still, the pilot light of their will to live is in danger of flickering out once and for all at any moment.

The timeline of the novel extends from the war to the approximate present.  There is little joy and almost no hope for anyone involved over the years.  Only two of the three live to make it out of Korea, which is the source for still more pain for the survivors.  Despite trying daily to merely endure life and its pain, bad things continue to happen in their lives.  It is a vicious downward spiral that renders makes it not worth living.

Reading this novel is a chore despite its many upsides:  it is beautifully written, the scenery comes alive, the characters are utterly believable, and, at times the plot was absolutely gripping.  But it is so challenging (for me) to read at length about people who have no interest in living.  The misery in the pages can suck the joy out of an otherwise  beautiful day.  And I suppose that is the point of the novel – war necessarily leads to human suffering that is prolonged in many, many lives long past the dates of the actual conflict.  The novel carries with it an incredible and very heavy sadness.  “soul-crushing” might be too strong a word to describe this novel – but not by much.

In the interview with Michael Silverblatt, Lee says he wanted to create a sort of modern Book of Job.  Except in this novel, there is no answer to Job’s (or his stand-in’s) pleas to God of “why?”.    There is no point to the human suffering that hangs on almost every page.   Silverblatt asks Lee a rather bold question:  “Why should we read such a thing?” Lee says we should read it to “feel something”, to connect in an emotional way with war in a time when we are increasingly placed at an emotional remove from it.  If any of this sounds intriguing to you, listen to Lee’s interview with Michael Silverblatt before buying the book.  If you still want to read it, do so in a sunny place with loved ones nearby.

Novel-Ts

A few weeks ago I posted about the sweet novel-related shirts available from Out of Print clothing.  Well, it’s a big internet out there, and I stumbled across more  cool book themed t-shirts.  You can be the nerdiest kid on your block.  Check out the collection at Novel-T.   The shirts are designed around the theme of “The Word Series”.  Each author gets a numbered jersey with a character/author name on the back and his/her own logo on the front.  The Vonnegut shirt made me laugh out loud (you have to be a fan to get the joke). I was all set to order that one until I saw the Huckleberry Finn shirt.  H. Finn is the namesake of my son (Finn), so that sealed the deal.

Since there isn’t a good way to link directly to a particular shirt (boo!), here’s the tag that came on my shirt.  It’s gives a pretty idea of the basic design.  There’s a log raft on the front with the initials HF (XL and quote not on the shirt).

Finn and the number on the back (copy at the bottom not on the shirt…)

It’s a really nice soft cotton T that is begging for lots of wear.  The fine print at the bottom says that a dollar of each sale goes to 826 NYC, a fine organization that I’m happy to support.  (The exception is the Vonnegut shirt which goes to Doctors without Borders).

Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show

Don’t you love when you’re just minding your own business and a wonderful book falls in your lap?  That’s what happened with Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show by Frank Delaney.  What a story!  In fact, every character has a tale to tell, and through our narrator Ben,  the author enables each of these big, colorful characters to tell a little something.

Ben MacCarthy is a “man of mature years” telling the story of himself at eighteen when his quiet life on his family’s farm in Ireland was changed dramatically and completely by the remarkable Venetia Kelly.  Ben has a reason for telling this story: it isn’t over, and he’s “telling it now to try to secure it’s ending.”  I had forgotten this statement on page 4 by the book’s tearful end, but it perfectly exemplifies the author’s ability to draw the reader in by dropping little hints, digressions, and short sub-stories about the characters, and especially about the theater, politics, and the spirit of the people of Ireland in the early 1930s.

It takes about 70 distracting but enjoyable pages before Ben has introduced everyone and set the stage for what he calls the Catastrophe and it’s aftermath.  I don’t want to say what the catastrophe is, but it involves Ben’s loving and dependable father doing something completely out of character, Ben’s shattered mother, Venetia’s own dramatic and conniving mother, the violent and boisterous tactics of Venetia’s grandfather, a couple players, acrobats and a ventriloquist’s dummy, two adoptive parents,  the mystical Venetia herself, and of course, our hero, Ben.

VKTS is almost presented like a play, with Ben on an Homeric journey complete with a black-clad guide,  Shakespearean references, lots of foreshadowing and even the mysterious appearance of a shrew.  Delaney’s powerful descriptions and “lyrical prose” are utterly captivating.  Early on the mature Ben asks:

Is there an ideal age at which momentous events should happen to us?

As he grapples with his growing responsibility after the catastrophe he states “it’s so difficult for an only child to be his real age.”  With so much to handle he almost pleads:

My parents treated me as almost an equal.  And I looked mature quite early…inside me, however, at that moment, I was no older than twelve.

Ben decidedly handles the situation with much more aplomb than the typical 18 year old, but he does wreak some of his own havoc along the way.  After the Catastrophe and it’s aftermath, and with the sound advice of those two aforementioned “adoptive parents”, Ben continues his soul searching and becomes first, a spalpeen – a type of Irish migrant farmer, and then a seanchai, roaming the countryside telling and collecting stories.

Then began the rest of my life.  Then began the slow, slow acceptance.  Then began the shaping of a life that took  so long to shape.  It would lead me to places in my soul that I never knew existed.  It would lead me to landscapes barer and colder than that of the moon.  It would lead me to make an interpretation of this calamity, an interpretation that turned into a life…….And it would lead me to embrace the most powerful emotion in the world.  That, you say, would be love, wouldn’t it?  No.  The most powerful emotion in the world is hope.  I should know.

When the story ended and I realized exactly why it had been written, I was left wanting to ask the lead characters a few questions of my own.  Then, I felt satisfied that I had read a really good tale, told by a fabulous seanchai.

Six Suspects

I enjoyed Vikas Swarup’s first novel, Q&A, which was re-purposed into the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.  Swarup is a talented writer, and the structure he used to build the story in Q&A was pretty inventive — placing our protagonist on a quiz show and having each of the questions he was asked happen to magically relate to some experience he had had in his life to that point — it was a neat way to tie together a bunch of otherwise unrelated threads.

Unfortunately, Swarup’s second novel, Six Suspects, while a completely different story than Q&A (albeit one that takes place in India), felt to me like a re-hashing of that structure.  In this book, a wealthy young playboy/industrialist, who was the son of a high-ranking corrupt politician, is murdered at his estate during a party he is throwing to celebrate his acquittal in his murder trial (a trial that was fixed).  As the book begins, a newspaper columnist is writing about Vicky Rai’s murder, and we learn that six individuals who were in attendance at the party had guns with them, and that those six had thus been identified as the suspects.

And then Swarup introduces us to each of those individuals — the victim’s father, a Texan, a Bollywood movie star, a mobile phone thief, a Tribal from an island in the Bay of Bengal, and a former politician — providing their unrelated histories and each of their possible motives for wanting to murder Vicky Rai.  This just smacked to me of a re-casting of the literary device that Swarup used in Q&A; and as we got to the end of this one, he frantically started crossing the suspects’ paths to add even more uncertainty to who the murderer might be in what to me read like a desperate attempt to tie the storylines together, and then he went overboard with switcheroos at the very end.  Frankly, while I love a good twist in a tale, I was annoyed by this series of “gotcha!” moments, and the end result was not nearly satisfying enough for me to grant Swarup forgiveness for re-using his schtick.

If you’re a fan of surprises, go ahead and give this one a shot.  But to me, it had a few surprises too many.

It’s Friday

Let’s invite some links over:

The 70 books your children should read.

There has been a lot of debate about how e-books should be priced. The cost of each of the bestsellers on the Kindle?  $0.

Project Gutenberg books (free) make up 31% of e-book sales on the iPad.

And here comes the Google e-book store…

Is Emily Gould the voice of her generation? I have no clue. I’m of another generation. She was editor of Gawker or something…

The MacMillan book company has been punished for admittedly offering bribes to corner the lucrative textbook market…in the Sudan.  Ouch.

My “to read” stack is threatening to overtake a room in our house, but I may need to add these books about Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to the stack.

And once again:  Authors, don’t try to anonomously review your own books and/or berate other reviewers on Amazon.  Just don’t.

I.B. of B.G.B., Local #1

There was plenty of flipping out here at BGB world headquarters a few weeks ago.  Through an automated Google search for all things Baby Got Books, I stumbled across a book blog titled, Baby Got Books.  Only it wasn’t the one that I was used to writing and editing.  Clearly this meant only one thing – someone was out to rip us off and cash in on our good name. Outrage!  As it turns out, all it took was a few e-mails back and forth to realize that despite our ego, Lila (hostess of the other BGB) had never heard of us and was actually a very nice person.  In the end, we decided that a simple way for our sites to be distinguishable from one another was for her site to become  Baby Got Books UK. She has also noted on her site that we are not affiliated.  Problem solved!

After sorting that all out, Lila asked if I had ever had any contact with this other Baby Got Books (third! if you’re keeping track at home).  Adding insult to injury, we started out on the very same blogspot URL before buying our own domain name. I’m not sure what to make of this interloper.  The site is in Swedish, but blogspot/Google offers one click translation.  It’s “a blog for all bibliophiles and bookwhores.”  What the what?  As you may know, I’ve declared our BGB “huge in Sweden”,  based largely on some linky love from the wonderful Swedish book blog Bokhora (Bookwhore!). What are you playing at Svenska BGB?  Most of the posts are less than 50 words long, and it seems unlikely that anyone will confuse Svenska BGB with either BGB-UK or The Original Baby Got Books™.   I can’t find any contact info, so we may never know the full story with this third BGB.

The important thing to remember is that the three Baby Got Books sites have nothing to do with one another.  We are not franchising.  Also, if you are a blogger, you might want to take a moment to tighten down your site name – maybe scoop up similar URLs before you find yourself in an uncomfortable spot.

25 Books All Georgians Should Read

Last Thursday night, the Georgia Center for the Book (new snappy looking web site!) hosted a special event at the Brick Store Pub in Decatur.  The occasion was the unveiling of the latest list of the 25 books that all Georgians should read.  This is the fourth list compiled by the Georgia Center for the Book.  The purpose of the list is to promote quality literature by authors living in or born in the State of Georgia.  It was an excellent event, and I am very thankful to have been invited.  Many of the honored authors were in attendance, and it was especially thrilling to meet Senator Max Cleland.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The 25 books that all Georgians should read are:

Fiction

James Braziel, Snakeskin Road, a novel shortlisted for the Townsend Award for Fiction and the British Fantasy award, is the author’s second novel after Birmingham 35 Miles. Braziel grew up in Pitts and teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.

Jeff Fields, A Cry of Angels, a novel. Fields was born in Toombs County and grew up in Elberton, now lives in Atlanta.

John Holman, Luminous Mysteries: A Novel. Holman teaches fiction writing at Georgia State University and is the author of a short story collection, Squabble and Other Stories.

Mary Hood, How Far She Went, a story collection that won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Born in Brunswick and now living near Commerce, she is the author of And Venus is Blue and Familiar Heat.

Amanda Gable, The Confederate General Rides North, a first novel shortlisted for the Townsend Award for Fiction. Gable is a native of Marietta now living in Decatur.

Anthony Grooms, Bombingham, a novel. Winner of the Lillian Smith Award for Fiction. Grooms is professor of English at Kennesaw State University and the author of Trouble No More: Stories and a poetry collection, Ice Poems.

Joshilyn Jackson, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, a novel shortlisted for the Townsend Award for Fiction. Jackson, who lives in Atlanta, is the author of several novels including Gods in Alabama and Between Georgia.

James Alan McPherson, Hue and Cry: Stories. McPherson, born in Savannah and now teaching at the University of Iowa, was the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his collection Elbow Room.

Jack Riggs, When the Finch Rises. Riggs is writer-in-residence at Georgia Perimeter College and the author of a second novel, The Fireman’s Wife.

Bailey White, Nothing with Strings: NPR’s Beloved Holiday Stories, shortlisted for the Townsend Award for fiction. White, a native of Thomasville who still lives there, has been a popular commentator for NPR and is the author of Quite a Year for Plums and Sleeping at the Starlite Hotel.

Philip Lee Williams, The Heart of a Distant Forest, a novel which won the Townsend Award for Fiction. Born in Madison and recently inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Williams is the author of many books including The Campfire Boys, Reflections from First Light and A Distant Flame.

Poetry

Coleman Barks, Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008. Barks, a renowned and prize-winning poet, taught at UGA for more than three decades and lives in Athens. His books include The Hand of Poetry and The Essential Rumi.

Thomas Lux, New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995. Lux holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and directs their poetry program. He also is the prize-winning author of many collections including Split Horizon and The Cradle Place.

Memye Curtis Tucker, The Watchers. Tucker is a senior editor for Atlanta Review and the prize-winning author of several chapbooks including Admit One and Storm Line.

Nonfiction

Douglas Blackmon, Slavery By Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Blackmon is a writer for the Wall Street Journal based in Atlanta.

Roy Blount, Jr., Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South. Blount, who grew up in Decatur, is the award-winning author of many books including Be Sweet, First Hubby, Alphabet Juice and Roy Blount’s Book of Southern Humor.

Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68. Branch, born in Atlanta, won the Pulitzer Prize for Parting the Waters, the first volume in his “America in the King Years” trilogy. He also is the editor of The Clinton Tapes.

Max Cleland, The Heart of a Patriot: How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove. Cleland is a decorated U.S. war veteran, a former U.S. Senator from Georgia and the author of Strong at the Broken Places.

Jessica Handler, Invisible Sisters: A Memoir, a first book. Handler lives in Atlanta and has received several major writing fellowships that led to the writing of her memoir.

Lauretta Hannon, The Cracker Queen: A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life, a first book. Hannon lives in Atlanta and has been a commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Paul Hemphill, Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams. Hemphill, a long-time Atlantan who died in 2009, was the prize-winning author of many books including The Nashville Sound, Leaving Birmingham, and King of the Road.

Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy. Mayes, born in Fitzgerald, is a poet and novelist and memoirist whose books include Bella Tuscany and Swan, a novel set in Georgia.

Deirdre O’Connell, The Ballad of Blind Tom, a first book. O’Connell lives in Australia but spent considerable time in Georgia writing about the 19th century Georgia slave who was a blind musical genius.

Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith. Taylor, A former Episcopal priest in Atlanta, now teaches at Piedmont College and lives in Northeast Georgia. She is the author of Leaving Church.

Virginia Willis, Bon Appetit, Y’All: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking. Willis is an Atlantan who is the former Kitchen Director for Martha Stewart Living Television.

More Just Kids

Tim hasn’t mentioned Just Kids by Patti Smith in about a week, so I’ll do it for him.   There have been many reviews on this book and I’m throwing my hat in the ring as well. Fantastic!  First, be sure and check out Tim’s original review that inspired me to read a book about people that I didn’t know much about and frankly didn’t think I cared anything about.  Patti Smith’s account of her life with Robert Maplethorpe moved me to explore their work. I googled Patti’s music and Maplethorpe’s photography to familiarlize myself with these two amazing artists.

Maybe it was the era or maybe just youth, but both Patti and Robert were incredibly dedicated to their art. They truly believed that some day each of them would make it.  Preferably together. They inspired each other and they completed each other.

“No one sees as we do Patti,” he [Robert] said again.  Whenever he said things like that, for a magical space of time, it was if we were the only two people in the world.

No one can see the future so no one knew who would succeed and who would be dying soon.  But to be in that moment, during that particular time period when everything was new – the drugs, the music and the art.  Certainly it was amazing at the time, but right now it blows our minds because we know what happened.

Just imagine what Patti and Robert saw on a regular basis:

At the table to my left, Janis Joplin was holding court with her band. To my far right were Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, along with members of Country Joe and the Fish.  At the last table facing the door was Jimi Hendirix, his head lowered, eating with his hat on , acrosss from a blonde. There were musicians everywhere…

Just Kids is one of those books that you don’t want to skim through. You’ll want to read every single word.  Since Patti Smith is a poet, all these magical words probably naturally flow from her.  But I’m sure that if analyzed closer, every single word has a deeper meaning than what is first thought.  I’m not that insightful, but it sounds like a good exercise for a high school English class.

Check out all of Tim’s links to Patti Smith’s interviews. Truly fascinating.

Great recommendation Tim!