Two More by Millar: Part 1- Stage Diving

I’ve been slowly working my way through the Martin Millar catalog.   The dazzling Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me was my first exposure to Millar’s work (my review – synopsis: it’s way better than the title would have you believe).  I followed it up with two more that delved into the Brixton squat scene that was the crucible for British punk – Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation (my review) and Lux the Poet (my review).  Although these books were written more than a decade ago, they are only slowing being released here in the states.  Recently, two more Brixton-centric Millar novels have come stateside. The first, and my favorite of the two, is Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving.  With a title like that, it has to go first.

Millar returns to a Brixton of wayward British youth being bounced from various squats, living on the dole, and not doing much of anything with the rest of their lives.  Our heroine (with an “e”) is Elfish – disgusting, unbathed, and completely self-absorbed.  Elfish was the top stage diver in all of Brixton until a falling out with her best friend and an acrimonious split with her boyfriend sent her into a tailspin.  Still, she’s convinced that if she can just steal her band’s name back from her ex and his band, things might just work out.

For all of her faults, Elfish becomes something of a leader for a long list of Brixton losers.  Her single-minded determination (and flagrant lies to everyone she meets) begins to have a positive effect on everyone she comes into contact with.  It might be that their lives have become so desperate, repetitive, and completely lacking of any initiative whatsoever, that a glimmer of hope for something better – no matter how grim the package that the hope arrives in – may be just the thing that they all need to turn it around.

Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving is a fun read.  Millar once again mines the crushing ambivalence of Thatcher-era youth for gold.  And he largely succeeds.  If there were any justice, this novel would have been made into an art house movie 20 years ago that showcased the “real” punks of Brixton – the kind of movie where the accents are so thick that American viewers are baffled about 70% of the time.  Elfish would have gotten it made.

No Saint-Exupéry for you

The Google home page looks like this in the UK today:

Here in the US, not so much.  I’m not sure why the Google didn’t choose to recognize The Little Prince’s author on this side of the Atlantic.  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry would have been 110 today.

The Girl Who was Ripe for Satire

Nora Ephron in The New Yorker:

“I can’t really go on without an umlaut,” he said. “We’re in Sweden.”

But where in Sweden were they? There was no way to know, especially if you’d never been to Sweden. A few chapters ago, for example, an unscrupulous agent from Swedish Intelligence had tailed Blomkvist by taking Stora Essingen and Gröndal into Södermalm, and then driving down Hornsgatan and across Bellmansgatan via Brännkyrkagatan, with a final left onto Tavastgatan. Who cared, but there it was, in black-and-white, taking up space.

The e-book reader price wars

I feel bad for our intrepid Shaft, the first of our number to step up and purchase an e-book reader – the B&N Nook.  In e-book land, the sky is falling. Last week Barnes and Noble announced a price reduction from $259 to $159 and a new Wi-Fi Nook for $149.  This in turn led to Amazon lowering the price of its Kindle from $259 to $189.  That’s a chunk of change.  Borders has a $149 reader – the Kobo – and will be rolling out another reader that will sell for $119.  Amazon and Barnes and Nobble are both offering store credit to the customers it just screwed over with these moves.  It seems inevitable that the sub $100 e-reader is only a matter of time.  I’m waiting for the bottom to fall out.

The Walking Dead

When the Thriller video came out, and that spooky voice over guy talked about the zombies “coming to terrorize yall’s neighborhood,” I had no idea that he meant it literally (and 25+ years later).   Yet, last week my street was crawling with the undead.  It turns out that zombie sightings are rampant in Atlanta due to filming of what will be a new TV show based on the popular comic book series The Walking Dead.

So, really, zombies on my street.  The first hint that I had on the invasion was when my daughter came home from the pool and told me, “Daddy, I saw tons of zombies by Mia’s house.”   I had to investigate.  Sure enough.  Zombies.  They had a pretty tight “no pictures” policy on the set, but I was able to snap this laughably bad photo from down the street:

You can check out the first issue of The Walking Dead for free online here.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about all of the fanfare marking the arrival of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson’s last entry in his wildly popular Millennium Trilogy.  I read it almost immediately.  It kept me up nights well past my bed time so I could fit in that one last chapter.

Hornet’s Nest is tough to talk about without prefacing everything with a spoiler alert.  So much has been written about the series and this last book in particular, that it’s difficult to offer anything new on the topic.  In light of this, I’ll keep it simple and say Hornet’s Nest has more of everything that made the first two books so enjoyable – more coffee, more unpronounceable Swedish geography, more breakneck action, more bad guys, more of Kalle Blomkvist’s steadfast super-journalism and more of Lisbeth Salander – one of the most unique heroines ever.   And more strong women – secret police agents, police women, women working for private security firms – in addition to the recurring tough ladies of the series, Lisbeth Salander and Erika Berger.

I hadn’t occurred to me that women specifically were playing such an outsize role in the culmination of the trilogy until it was pointed out to me in an article that, regrettably, I can’t put my hands on to link to.  It seems patently obvious now in retrospect.  It’s a fitting end to the series and matches Larsson’s over-arching themes.

If you have not read any of Larsson’s books, you owe it to yourself to not start this odyssey with Hornet’s Nest.  If you’re going to read any of the Millennium Trilogy at all, you have to start at the beginning.  Hornet’s Nest must be saved for last – a reward for reading through the first two books and following Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist’s joined struggle for justice.  If you’ve read the first two books and have been wondering if the finale can possibly live up to expectations, I’m here to tell you that Hornet’s Nest has been worth the wait.

Ceci n’est pas une Link Dump

The literary mashups continue.  Next up: Android Karenina. Check out the trailer:

The key to unlocking this week’s episode of HBO’s Treme (i.e., what happened on the ferry) seems to be tied to the classroom discussion of a one hundred year old book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin.  If you’re watching Treme for the music, check out the Songs from Treme blog.

Speaking of books and music, I was recently made aware of Book Tunes, a site that makes iTunes playlists inspired by books (among other things).  Check out the playlist for Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity.

The Millions comes up with their own 20 under 40 list of hot authors.

Frank Delaney (author of  Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show – BGB Review) has begun what promises to be a weekly podcast examining James Joyce’s Ullyses.  (Happy belated Bloomsday, by the way.)

Listen to NPR to learn what nuns, Agatha Christie, and Alzheimer’s have in common.

Clive Owen as Hemingway?

In a move that no one could have seen coming, publishers race to get their hands on more Scandanavian noir.

Salon has two reading lists for your over-achieving young reader (1) Grown Up Books for Kids Summer Reading and (2) Global Awareness Summer Reading

What if I told you that Tom Buchanan (of Gatsby fame) got himself in Nicaragua looking after family investments? That’s the gist of Banana Republican by Eric Rauchway.  If the cover is any guide, I’ll be reading this poolside before too much longer:

BGB’s own Russ Marshalek writes about Bret Easton Ellis’s new book in Creative Loafing. (We’re going to keep referring to Russ that way until he makes us stop.)

Atlantans:  That same Bret Easton Ellis will be reading and signing his new book Imperial Bedrooms tonight at SCAD.  6:30PM.  Free.

Whitman at the Audubon Zoo

The Baseball Codes

If you loved Michael Lewis’s Moneyball because it showed you a whole new way to look at baseball, then you are going to love The Baseball Codes by Jason Turbow (with Michael Duca).    The premise is simple: the authors set out to document, once and for all, the unwritten rules of baseball.

Turbow and Duca answer all of the big questions:  When is it okay to lay down a bunt to break up a no hitter? Can announcers talk about a perfect game while its in progress?  Is it a good idea to stand at home plate and admire your home run? How many runs must your team be ahead before stealing a base becomes a bad idea?  When pulled from a game as a pitcher should you head to the dugout before the skipper gets to the mound?  Is it okay to watch a fight from the dugout?  These are all important questions in the game baseball.  Not knowing the answer to a particular question can cost you your spot on the roster or a fastball in the ribs.

Of course, all pitchers deny intending to hit a batter.  In the post game interview the pitcher says “that one got away.” However, the authors point out that the intent of the pitch was usually understood by both parties.  It’s part of The Code, a well understood system of rules and punishment that have become ingrained in how the game is played.  Even if no one talks about it openly (also part of the code – keep it in the clubhouse).

Cheating (stealing signs, looking back at the catcher from the batter’s box, juicing balls, etc) is not only tolerated, it’s expected:

“Everyone cheats,” said White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen.  ”If you don’t get caught, you’re a smart player.  If you get caught, you’re cheating. It’s been part of the game for a long time.  If you’re doing whatever you’re not supposed to do and you don’t get caught, keep doing it.”

and

Leave the definitive sentiment to Dick Williams, the Hall of Fame manager who won two championships with the A’s,and pennants with Boston and San Diego.  ”Anything short of murder,” he said, “is okay.”

It’s part of the code!

An added bonus of checking out this book is that it caused me to stumble across my new favorite blog, The Baseball Codes.  The blog picks up where the book leaves off and delivers day to day interpretations of The Code.   I especially enjoyed their evaluation of the Alex Rodriguez/Dallas Braden imbroglio from earlier this season, which is also a nice primer for the book:

• A-Rod Crosses Braden – Literally – and Gets an Earful in Response
• A-Rod to Braden: ‘You Talkin’ to Me?’
• Point-Counterpoint on the A-Rod/Braden Affair
• Evidence Proves that A-Rod Wasn’t Alone
• Braden’s Perfecto Threatened By Bunt Attempt; Reaction Minimal
• Details Emerge from Braden’s Perfect Game; He Dropped the Ball

I love this kind of baseball writing.  If you enjoy this sort of thing, add The Baseball Codes to your summer reading.

Ignatius

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit is opening its new season with a stage adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces.    I’m so excited about the idea that I made a special trip to visit the statue of Ignatius J. Reilly while in New Orleans.  Ignatius stands under the clock (not pictured) of what was the D.H. Holmes department store but is now the conference area of the Chateau Bourbon hotel.

Less well known is this fish painted to look like Ignatius, complete with Lucky Dog.  This statue is in a planter of the second floor court yard.

Attention to detail is key, as this pyloric valve illustration shows.  Also note the Lucky Dog actively being digested.

Nook Update (in High Fidelity)

So the first book I finished on my Nook (which I was asking questions about after I purchased it) was High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.  I know, I know — as a self-proclaimed pop culture aficionado, why am I just now getting to this one?  Relax — I’m pretty sure I saw the movie a while back, so I’m not completely out of the loop.

(sweet cover art by Jacob Long – unfortunately not the “real” cover)

First things first — the Nook rocks.  Love it.  Completely.  Can’t wait to keep using it.

Second things second — I have only read one Nick Hornby book before, and didn’t dig it that much (it was A Long Way Down).  But, after reading about High Fidelity, I realized that if I’m gonna like anything by Nick Hornby, this would be the one.  And it is.

This book tells the tale of Rob Fleming, a down-on-his-luck record store owner in London whose girlfriend, Laura, has just broken up with him and moved in with another guy (who turns out to be the guy who used to live upstairs from them and whom Rob and Laura could hear making love for insane amounts of time).  So Rob is trying to make sense of his life and does so by thinking back through what he believes to have been the most important/meaningful relationships he’s had, and trying to figure out what he’s done wrong and what he’s done right.  Lots of things in Rob’s life are broken down into “Top XX” lists, including his relationships.  And including various musical facts, which he and the two guys he’s hired to work at his record store constantly compare.

The insights that Rob divulges are in fact pretty insightful, and the story he tells is pretty funny.  The whole notion of how foreplay was all he wanted when he was younger, and how it’s all women seem to focus on nowadays, but how it doesn’t seem to compute that when he was in high school he couldn’t get the opportunity to engage in foreplay with a girl and now he can’t seem to get anywhere is articulated in a pretty funny way.  Much funnier than I just articulated it.

I really want to see the movie again to see how it was translated into an American story (this one is very British).  And also because now that the book is fresh in my mind, I think that I’d have a pretty good appreciation for the movie — maybe as good as I have for the book.

More DBF News

The official poster for this year’s DBF will look like this:

It appears that Bookzilla has been hitting the gym since last year’s fest.

Old School Politics

Unlike real, actual parties — where I’m always the first one there — when it comes to “literary” parties, I’m typically way behind the cool kids’ schedule. So it probably comes as no surprise that I just picked up Primary Colors, by Anonymous.  Primary Colors is THE hot political novel, giving insights into what makes the American political machine go.  In the early 1990′s.  Meaning last century.  As the old saying goes, though, better late than never.

I really liked this book.  I’m not active in party politics (although I have my beliefs and left-leanings), so what I know about politics comes from the mainstream media.  And this book, which tells the fictional story of a man named Henry Burton’s involvement in the Democratic primary campaign for Jack Stanton – governor of an unnamed Southern state – really opens the kimono on a political campaign, in what I thought was a believable way.  I seem to recall quite a bit of controversy surrounding this book when it came out, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the publishing of a book anonymously should stir controversy, or at least speculation, regardless of the subject matter of the book (it was later revealed that the author was journalist Joe Klein); secondly, the characters involved and the dirt that takes place on the campaign trail depicted in the book — even though it is a work of fiction — bore a striking resemblance to President Clinton’s 1992 campaign.

This book has it all.  There’s a love story, there’s a dynamic of our protagonist struggling with finding his true purpose, there’s lots of scandal, and there’s a real look behind what you see on tv and the strategizing that goes on to make you want to like a political candidate.  A real eye-opener, and a well-written read.

Decatur Book Festival News

Last night was the kick off party for this year’s Decatur Book Festival.  It’s the Fifth Anniversary of the DBF.  In that short span, the little festival that could has become the fourth largest book festival in the nation (but #1 in our hearts). We’ll have much more about the fest in the coming months, but here are some of the highlights so far:

• Jonathan Franzen will be the key note speaker and will kick off his International Tour for his new book Freedom at the DBF
• My pal Todd Moye will be reading from his book Freedom Flyers.  Even cooler?  His mother Dorothy “Dot” Moye will be part of a Hurricane Katrina panel presenting photographs from her X Codes Project.    Are they the first Mother/Son duo at the DBF?  I’m going to say that’s the case until someone tells me otherwise…
• The Theatrical Outfit will be participating in several events to celebrate the opening of their stage adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces.  I will be at all of these events regardless of whatever else may be happening.
• Pulitzer-winning poet Natasha Trethewey will be presenting her new book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
• Our friends at the Wren’s Nest are back this year with not one but two! writing compilations by Atlanta-area kids. Scroll down this list of activities to read about the awesomeness that is The Wren’s Nest Publishing Co.  You are free to read about the other activities while you’re there.
• And…well you can check out the complete list of authors at this year’s fest (so far…) to see who the DBF has lined up.

Since you can’t wait for us to tell you all of the news, spend your morning clicking around the Decatur Book Festival’s website for more.

New Yorker 20 Under 40

The New Yorker reveals its list of the top 20 authors under 40 years old.  But I read about it in the New York Times.  The list is short on surprises, but I was surprised that we had reviewed books by so many of the chosen whippersnappers.  Here’s the list (links go to our reviews):

• Chimamanda Ngogi Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun + 1)
• Chris Adrian (The Children’s Hospital)
• Daniel Alarcon (Lost City Radio)
• David Bezmozgis
• Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
• Joshua Ferris (Then We Came to the End)
• Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close + 1 + 2)
• Nell Freudenberger
• Rivka Galchen (Atmospheric Disturbances – one of my all time favorites – check out our interviews w/ Galchen here and here)
• Nicole Krauss (The History of Love + 1)
• Yiyun Li
• Dinaw Mengestu
• Philipp Meyer
• C.E. Morgan
• Tea Obreht
• Z.Z. Packer
• Karen Russell
• Salvatore Scibona
• Gary Shteyngart (Absurdistan, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook + 1)
• Wells Tower

The Big Short

I’ve read two of Michael Lewis’s recent books, Home Game and the baseball economics classic, Moneyball and loved both of them.  I knew that I had to read his latest, The Big Short, after reading two of his excellent essays (link and link) about the financial meltdown for Portfolio Magazine almost two years ago.

Lewis leads the way through the global financial meltdown by telling the story of those who saw it coming in the first place.  While many claim to have seen the dangers of the subprime mortgage meltdown, only a few said anything about it before everything went south. Even fewer put their money where their mouths were and took short positions against the bonds that were based on the U.S. subprime mortgages (i.e., they bet enormous sums of cash that the system would fail spectacularly).

Realizing that virtually everyone else on the globe was wagering on the success of what were perceived as (and marketed as) zero risk bonds, the handful of clear-eyed money men who saw the situation for what it was began to take short positions on every financial institution that they could.    They were ultimately proven right and made tremendous sums of money along the way.

The short side buyers described seem to be alike in striking ways.  While maybe not iconoclasts exactly, they all seemed to be socially inept and didn’t really care what other people though of them.  They all looked deeply into the small print and wanted to know exactly what they were investing in.  They collectively couldn’t understand why anyone would want to buy these crappy subprime mortgage bonds and felt that they must be missing something.  Then they talked to everyone hat they could to find out why they were wrong. And they listened:

The more they listened to the to the people who ran the subprime market, the more they felt the the collapse of the double-A-rated bonds wasn’t a longshot at all, but likely.  A thought crossed Ben’s mind: These people believed that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market was unlikely precisely because it would be such a catastrophe.  Nothing so terrible could ever actually happen.

The financial meltdown that these short siders were all betting on is incredibly difficult to understand, even in retrospect.  Lewis describes the fiasco as well as anyone else I’ve read, but I’m still not sure that I understand all the details completely.

In a nutshell, piles of crappy mortgages were lumped together and rebranded as mortgage bonds that were given ratings much higher than they deserved.  At each step of the way, risk was passed along to the next guy.  The people who go screwed were at the front and end of the line.

At the front end, consumers were encouraged to take out loans that they were unlikely to be able to pay back (e.g., interest only for 3 years and 12% interest after that).  Since home prices only go up, the homeowner could refinance before the loan became onerous (generating more fees for the originators).  When home prices did go down (or just stop going up), the house of cards collapsed leaving you, the taxpayer, on the hook for billions of dollars in losses. Everyone in between those two points made money hand over fist.  Sure, they may have caused their firms to go bankrupt, but as individuals, they did just fine.

A few charts, graphs, or other infographics to help aid understanding would have been nice.  Not being able to understand the full complexity and magnitude of this wholly manufactured bond market is largely Lewis’s point though.  No one knew what was in the bonds or what the other financial instruments were that grew around them.  Not really.  Unfortunately, it was their job to know.  The lack of understanding coupled with the greed, short-sightedness, and outright fraud driving the financial engine almost led to the collapse of our entire financial markets.  Reading this book will make you very angry. As it should.

I have a journalist friend who is not a fan of Michael Lewis.  One of his issues is that Lewis wrote this book and provided no end notes or other detailed accounting of his sources.  I doubt that the general reader will miss those, but he finds it professionally unconscionable. For my part, I found it a gripping account of an important part of our recent history.  It reads almost like a thriller.  It’s just too bad that it’s all true.

Additional reading: This NYT article sees familiar signs of underestimating risk in the BP Oil Spill.

Nook remorse?

So in my effort to be cool and hip and modern (and to start treating books like I treat music), I picked up a Nook from Barnes & Noble. And a cool case and a light. Now, after the significant financial outlay, I need to figure out if I made a wise decision, so anyone who’s got experience with the various e-readers, let me know if I goofed.