West of Here by Jonathan Evison

In days of yore, and before the new austerity in which publishing finds itself, it was not uncommon for publishers to create clever ways to promote their books, among them by providing swag.  The good folks at Algonquin were always particularly adept at this, even sending salamis to accompany the publication of one of their titles (anyone remember Laurie Gwen Shapiro's charming first novel?).

Last week, I had the good luck to be chosen among five winners for a "boxed" version of the new novel from Algonquin, West of Here.  Expecting a slipcased edition of the book, you can imagine my absolute delight when the package arrived in yesterday's mail, containing:

• A sturdy wooden box with a sliding lid revealing a hardcover copy of the book with a signed bookplate.  Is the dust jacket Tyvek?  What a wise move.
• A note on High Tide Seafood Company letterhead from executive editor Chuck Adams extolling his love of the book. (It was addressed to Dear Reader but I'll forgive him for getting my name wrong.  It's 'Reed', Chuck)
• Five old-timey postcards depicting people and places from the era in which the book is set
• A map of the Washington Territory from 1879
• A reproduction of a newspaper piece decrying how land barons and railroad magnates were carving up the Territory for their own needs instead of use by "settlers and homebuilders" per the original land grant
• A one-sheet with bookseller blurbs and news that West of Here is a #1 Indie Next Pick

The book, published February 15, was well-hyped and has been well-reviewed and it's obvious the publisher is behind it, going to some considerable expense to create this fine package.  More importantly, the goodwill this generates and the obvious love and care, thought and planning, makes me think the financial outlay will be well-justified soon enough.  Bravo, Algonquin. 

Once my travels in Swamplandia! conclude, I will travel West of Here happily.

A free Roddy Doyle story

Regular Reed readers know how I respect and relish Roddy.  Here is a new short story he was asked to write for the upcoming St. Patrick's festival in Dublin.  

http://goo.gl/jzdmu

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Talk about your dark horses.  Patti Smith writes her first non-fiction book and she succeeds beyond expectation, ultimately winning the National Book Award.  As you may know, Just Kids is a love letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, her dearest friend, lover, and constant companion.  Knowing Mapplethorpe primarily for his work and the controversy it created two decades ago here in CinciTucky, I was happy to learn more about the man.  Patti humanized him and was honest about his faults.  How she described their lives, together and apart, was constantly touching.


More than just the Patti-and-Robert show, Just Kids is also a love letter to her art.  Admittedly, I couldn't always follow her when she talked about art--hers, that of others, and art as a philosophy--but it was obvious to me how much it means to her and how much faith she has in its power.  

The other recipient of a Patti-penned mash note is New York City.  As in good fiction, she portrays the City as its own character throughout the book.  Were I to happen across a time machine, one of the first places I would travel would be to New York when you could be poor and still live there, a condition that is almost unthinkable now.  Clearly, the City and the ability to live in it while struggling to make a living, to make art, to make a life, had long, lasting effects on for Patti who has continued to succeed on her own terms for the last 40 years.

I was terribly pleased to receive my copy of Just Kids from my dear friend Rocky who had Patti inscribe it to me "with all good wishes".  Many thanks and many happy returns.

Life by Keith Richards

Considering the, ahem, life Keef has lived, you wouldn't expect him to remember anything from the last half century of being "Keef".  Remarkably, he remembers damn near everything and recounts his colorful life as rock 'n' roll icon/'this-is-your-brain-on-drugs' posterboy in very lively detail.   

Ultimately, Keith is Keith.  There are no apologies and few regrets.  He is true to himself and fuck off if you don't like it.  Amazing as it is that he's lived at least nine lives, Keith really isn't all that surprised.  He maintains he has been blessed with a "strong constitution" and a "high tolerance".

As for the Stones, Keith dismisses Brian, loves and respects Charlie, has surprisingly little to say about Bill, and feels kind of sorry for Ronnie.  He misses Ian Stewart, adores Bobby Keys, and was happy to be done with Billy Preston.  He lets Mick have it pretty good.  Despite the long road, Keith understands how they have grown together and grown apart.  He refers to them as brothers though no longer friends.  Where Keith believes he has stayed true to himself, he paints Mick as a control freak and a social climber. Despite all this, he considers Mick the greatest singer, greatest dancer, and greatest front man in rock 'n' roll.

As expected, Life is rife with dirt and drugs and guns and girls, silly scrapes and narrow escapes, love and hope and sex and dreams.  As Keith tells it, he wouldn't have it any other way.
 

Book mix

The only thing I love as much as reading is music so I've been toying with making this music mix for some time.  

Every Day I Write the Book – Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Obvious?  Sure but I have loved EC's music and wordplay for more than thirty years.  And because he writes every day and that's something I can't seem to manage.

Book of Poems - Old 97s

I don't usually get poetry but I think Rhett and the boys could persuade me.

Paperback Writer - The Beatles

A young writer without delusions of hardcover grandeur?  Bullshit.  Still, if the first one does well, another house will pick you up and offer you a three book deal.

 

Poets - The Tragically Hip

Don't tell ME what the poets are doing because I can't figure out what they're doing. Do YOU know what they're doing?  (Did I mention I don't usually get poetry)

Read About It - Midnight Oil

Actually I think he's talking about newspapers but it's a powerful song by a powerful band.

Miss Teen Wordpower - New Pornographers

I'm not one for pageants but were I crowned Miss Teen Wordpower, I'd wear the sash and tiara with great pride and carry out the requisite duties most dutifully.

Book I Read - Talking Heads

David Byrne is embarassed to admit it but there's a soft spot in his heart.  I just love that.

Books Are Burning - XTC

The worst-case scenario made only slightly less terrible-sounding when sung by the pop-py deliciousness of Andy Partridge.

When I Write the Book - Nick Lowe

A tale told by Nick is always a good story.  Imagine a whole book.

Amsterdam - Guster

They're "gonna write you a letter". They're "gonna write you a book".  That's all I need to hear.  Plus Mrs. Next has a mad crush on the drummer. 

Jacqueline Susann - Pernice Brothers

The perpetually literate Joe Pernice-penned paean to the girl on the train and the books in her lap. Any song that name-checks Ford Madox Ford AND Jacqueline Susann has to make the list.  Plus, Joe pubbed a novel called It Feels So Good When I Stop I quite enjoyed.

Here Is Where the Story Ends - The Sundays

Pretty much a perfect pop song and a good closer.

Any suggestions or additions are welcome.

Selected Shorts

I listen to Selected Shorts from WNYC and thought I'd pass along the link.  
http://www.symphonyspace.org/shorts 

They always do interesting works read by talented actors.  The website isn't great and it's kind of hard to actually get to the downloadable part but have patience because the payoff is well worth it. 







The most recent show has a marvelous version of 'Boys' by Rick Moody, performed by actor B. D. Wong.  
 
To make a good thing even better, Selected Shorts partners with my beloved One Story and with the good folks at Houghton Mifflin and their Best American Short Stories series, which is also quite beloved by me.  (There is much beloving going on here at Chez Next.)  Indulge yourself and enjoy.

Happy Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year? Already?  I just took down the tree.  So it goes.  The Year of the Rabbit is upon us.  With that in mind, here are a few books by Chinese authors or about China.

First, the slim novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.  Sijie is a filmmaker who was 're-educated' by the Mao regime and this tale of love and books will move you.

Next, two memoirs of growing up during the Cultural Revolution both by Da Chen.  Colors of the Mountain is the story of how Chen went from rural farmboy to being the first from his village to attend university.  Sounds of the River picks up as he arrives at the Beijing Language Institute.  Expecting a new and easier life, he encounters hardships of a far different kind.  His strength, wisdom and belief in himself allowed him to succeed.  He went on to study at Columbia University and lives here in the States.  These are great rags-to-riches stories and Chen writes with a beautiful voice. 

Daniel Levy's Two-Gun Cohen was my kind of guy.  A Cockney pickpocket and con artist, he fled England for Western Canada where he was appalled by the treatment of the Chinese hired to build the railroads.  He became such a friend and advocate, it led to Cohen becoming no less than the bodyguard of Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of the Chinese Republic.  Morris Cohen's later life turned for the worst but Levy has written a fascinating book about an unlikely hero.  

Matthew Polly's American Shaolin was great fun when I read it in 2007.  You can read my post about it here: http://goo.gl/qESVN

And since it is the Year of the Rabbit, perhaps it's time to re-read Watership Down and watch a few Bugs Bunny cartoons.  

Gong xi fa cai

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto

Yesterday I received a care package from a dear friend at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt filled with some magnificent books. Today I began As Always, Julia and can only marvel at what a gift I've been presented.

Merely twenty pages in and I've already welled up with tears at seeing a friendship blossom, initially over kitchen knives. In just a few letters, the stilted civility of the 1950's quickly gave way to warmth and mutual admiration and became a deep, lifelong friendship.

In a wonderfully prescient letter, Julia describes the French cooking school she founded as "...a real and satisfying profession which will keep me busy well into the year 2000". Just wait, Julia.

More to come. Go buy the book.

Swamplandia! approaches

Just a heads-up on a title I'm more than a little excited to get my hands on. Swamplandia!, by the frighteningly talented Karen Russell, hits bookstore shelves February 1.

Here's an author who demands your attention. A few years ago, The National Book Foundation named Russell one of their '5 under 35' authors to watch and the New Yorker included her in their '20 under 40' list this past year.

I was bowled over by her marvelous first collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and one of the stories from that collection, Ava Wrestles the Alligator, is the starting point for the new book.

Here is what I wrote about St Lucy's: http://reednext.blogspot.com/2008/01/st-lucys-home-for-girls-raised-by.html

You can also read a recent interview with Russell from Powells.com here: http://goo.gl/osI61

Put down the Girl Who Ate My Lunch books. Cast aside the graying Grisham, the predictable Patterson and the insipid Sparks. All hail Karen Russell. All hail Swamplandia!

Should I stay or should I go?

          I am at a crossroads with this blog. One brief visit can tell you I don't spend enough time on it or write well enough to make this a site people return to repeatedly. It's nice to believe people come here and learn about a book or two but it's never been my intention for this to become anything more than my opinion about what I read. This has always been for me.

So I'm thinking I've had enough of this. It has become a tiny drudgery. There are days when I finish a book and feel obligated to do a book report. It hangs over me and I procrastinate and then I finally write something and post it and then I pat myself on the back. For what? To write something few people but me read? Vicious circle so what's the use, right?

Yet every time I come here to write my farewell post something stops me and so I am trying to make a decision about what to do. Keep at it or let it go? Change the format? Enlist others? As yet, I'm not sure. I'll never be a great writer or a great critic but I'm a good reader and perhaps that's what this blog should be about. Me reading and then writing. As simple as that.

A decision is forthcoming. Should you choose to come along, you're most welcome.

An old friend visits

The work of James Thurber has meant a great deal to me since I paid a quarter for a copy of The Thurber Carnival at a thrift store almost 25 years ago. Most people had to read "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" or "The Catbird Seat" as part of a college collection or as an assignment in high school. Maybe that's all the Thurber most people need but his work spoke to me immediately and with immediacy. It was smart and funny and literate and snobby and drunken and sad--all qualities to which I aspired. For many years, I would bore most anyone who would listen to me go on (and on and on) about James Thurber. His work turned me on to Perelman, Runyon, Benchley and the rest of the Harold Ross/New Yorker set and changed how I read.

The other night, for the first time in several years, I picked up The Thurber Carnival and am delighted to report it is STILL smart and funny and literate and snobby and drunken and sad. Certainly it is dated and some of the pieces have little in common with our present world nor how humor has evolved since but the writing holds up as truly classic American literature.


The selections, especially those from The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, knocked me out all over again: Elliot Vereker from "Something To Say", Barney Haller's accented speech and Thurber's fear of 'grotches' from "The Black Magic of Barney Haller", Charlie Deshler 'coming out of the anesthetic' of his wife's charms from "The Curb In the Sky". Still funny, still clever, still beautifully written. I was also quite moved by the longing and loneliness in both The Evening's At Seven and One Is A Wanderer. Thurber is remembered as a writer of humor but he was a hell of a writer, period.

I could go on (and usually do) but instead suggest you, too, dig out your old copy of The Thurber Carnival and give it a read. Or should you come across a copy in a thrift store, spend the quarter. My guess is you will be rewarded and delighted.

Two Coming of Age Tales

Coming of age.

The best and worst of times, though only in hindsight. Pure Id: everything is the happiest or saddest or most fun or most boring thing ever. Carbonated glands and nowhere to go with them, in my case, at least.

Though some might question my level of maturity--puckishness, my dears, and an irrepressible boyish charm!--I’m fairly certain I came of age years ago. Years and years ago. So why am I still reading about it? Is there a point when I’ll be too old to read and relate to coming of age novels? Is it a timeless genre or is it telling the same story over and over AND OVER again, in different hands with a slightly different perspective? Holden and Huck, Scout and Siddartha. The eventual outcome--isn’t it the same? Losing the child for the adult. The lifelong look back. Loneliness, lewdness (if you’re lucky), liberty.

To wit, two books--one fiction, one non-- that have me thinking about all this. Neither is great, but both are pretty good.

First, Cardboard G-ds: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards by Josh Wilker. Snapshot: small urban 70's family, artsy Mom, ineffectual Dad, beloved older brother. Mom takes on a boyfriend who moves in with the family. Family moves to Vermont to get 'back to the land' and then finds it neither easy nor very rewarding. Big brother tries to grow up, parents and boyfriend fall apart, kid clings to his baseball cards as the only constant in his life.

This is a very sentimental memoir and had I not grown up at the same time collecting the very same cards, I would never have gotten through the book but there was something I could appreciate despite the fact that my own circumstances were nothing like his. My family never divorced, my mother never took on a boyfriend, etc. At the time, I did find a certain sanctity in baseball cards. I traded and flipped with friends. We lusted after cards we needed to complete our teams and speculated how our teams would do and we memorized stats and recited them as we shagged fly balls and played catch for hours in the side yard.

Then something happened. Cards were less important and were replaced by music. Baseball, which had been our social currency, took a backseat to rock, especially punk rock. The Grand Old Game versus Young, Loud and Snotty.

Which brings us to Joe Meno’s Hairstyles of the Damned. I was just crazy about Meno’s novel, The Boy Detective Fails about which I gushed in a horrible run-on sentence of a post (http://reednext.blogspot.com/2007/01/boy-detective-fails-by-joe-meno.html). Hairstyles is actually the book before Boy Detective. Truth is, it's a pretty stock coming-of-age tale: Brian, an unremarkable adolescent boy, 'in love' with his best friend, a punk chick who fistfights other girls and parents whose marriage is falling apart around him. Punk rock becomes his life preserver.

However, it succeeds because Meno has a tremendous sense of what, in Yiddish, is called rachmones. (It’s pronounced rachMOness. It doesn’t rhyme with Ramones.) While it defies a literal definition, I’ve always thought of it as where empathy and sympathy meet. Meno gets the sadness inside his characters, the scars they have and their inability to verbalize them despite wanting to scream, “help me! I hurt!” For that alone, I love his work.

I graduated from baseball cards to punk rock, too, so these works struck me between the ears.

Straight Man by Richard Russo

Simply, Straight Man is superb.

To wit, a few examples that left me breathless. Then I will leave you to get your keys, drive to the bookstore (an indie, please), purchase your own copy and get down to reading a brilliant, funny, sad and rewarding work.

This, from page sixteen (!) from a novel almost four hundred pages long about a minor character:

"Looking at Gracie now, you had a hard time remembering the effect of her hiring twenty years ago. She had been like one of those dancers in black fishnet stockings and tails and a top hat, being passed from hand to sweaty hand over the heads of an otherwise all-male revue. As Jacob Rose, then our chair and now our dean, was fond of observing, every man in the college wanted to fuck her, except Finny, who wanted to be her. That was then. I doubt we could hoist her over our heads now. We're not the men we used to be, and Gracie is twice the woman. The sad thing is that anybody has only to look at Gracie (or, in my case, catch a whiff of that perfume) to know she still wants to be that woman. And, hell, we understand. We'd like to be those men."

Four pages later he writes this:
"I had not intended to belittle Gracie. At least not until I got started, after which it felt like the natural thing to do, though I no longer remember why. I don't dislike Gracie. At least I don't dislike here when I think about her. When I'm in one place and she's in another. It's when she's near enough to backhand that backhanding her always seems like a good idea."

 
I had forgotten what a masterful writer Russo is and I hope I never do again.

Now, go find your keys.

What Is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman

Some authors write beautifully. Others write sparingly or in a flowery fashion or have a style you can't quite name. Howard Norman writes simply and it works well for his latest, What Is Left the Daughter.

Set in a small Nova Scotia town during World War II, What Is Left the Daughter is really two love triangles laid atop each other and peopled with a small cast of odd but likable characters (the always-blunt Cornelia McTell was my favorite). The author could have written a 'village' novel, one in which we get to know and love the quirky characters of some little town along with their faults, foibles and families, their hopes and heartbreaks. To his credit, he didn't. What he wrote was a story of murder, obsession, and suicide that is engaging, sad, and funny. It's a story of how people get lost and how they find themselves again.

There were times where it was a little hard to believe--the main character's occupation near the end and the series of coincidences that help shape events were a little too coincidental. Still, this is small beer because the story works. I will be certain to read Howard Norman again.

Favorite line:
"I could write a book--if I could write a book"

James Beard, Sid the Kid, and Damon Wayans walk into a bar and order a pastrami sandwich...

*A great big mazel tov to author David Sax whose delightful book, Save the Deli, won a James Beard award.  Here's his acceptance speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esBETl_OOSI  
My two cents, or two cents plain, as it were, can be found here: http://reednext.blogspot.com/2010/03/save-deli-by-david-sax.html. 

Besides, any author who checks the email on his website and then actually replies is okay with me.

*With all the talk about Ipad, Kindle, e-books and their effect on book publishing, let's not forget Google. I thought this informative article gives an idea what's just ahead: http://bit.ly/9q5GKb

Despite my deep disdain for Messrs Bezos and Jobs, I'm okay with Google taking over the world.  Google founders Larry & Sergey just seem less bloodthirsty.  Maybe I'm a sucker.

*Got a wonderful care package from my friend, Jen, filled with books about hockey and baseball.  Especially since my team, the brilliant Pittsburgh Penguins, are one game away from clinching the second round of the playoffs, I'm all over the hockey titles (More about the baseball books in another post):

First off, a novel by Bill Gaston entitled The Good Body, due out in August from House of Anansi Press.  Hockey-themed and well-blurbed, I'm looking forward to starting it.

Hockey Night in Canada has put out two absolute beauties: By The Numbers: From 00 to 99 and My Greatest Day: 50 People, 50 Great Moments, both by Scott Morrison.  These are fantastic, four-color books loaded with photos, facts, trivia and opinion.  My hockey knowledge increases with each trip to the bathroom.

The Year of the Penguins by Andrew Podnieks is a chronicle of, you guessed it, the winning season that led to their Stanley Cup Championship.  This is a game-by-game analysis of all eighty-two regular season games, as well as a look at the entirely-too-long playoffs and finals.

The capper is My Day With the Cup by Sidney Crosby, captain of the Pens and arguably the greatest hockey player on the planet.  After a team wins, the members of the team get to "take the Cup home", and this is a photo chronicle of Sid the Kid's return to his hometown, Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.  I can honestly say what should have taken 20 minutes to page through took me three days because I kept getting so choked up with emotion.  There is something about Crosby and the team and their incredible season that just gets me right in the ganektagazoink.  Reed Next?  Sentimental?  Who knew?

Go Pens! 

*I leave you with an item of deep concern.  Could this be the fourth horseman of the apocalypse?  If not, it's gotta be damn close: http://bit.ly/bk74yT

Books and Bands

If you're like me, and I know I am, I love the rock 'n' roll so here's a marriage of two of my favorite things--the music and the books:

http://www.coudal.com/bookingbands.php

Tuesdays With Morrisey!

The Ben Folds Five People You Meet In Heaven!

HA!  And those are just Mitch Albom titles.   

Got this from my dear friend, the real Joe Pope, fans of Ferris, and thought I'd pass it along.  May you larf long and hard.

A Reed Next Round Up

Greetings all.  I took a couple of weeks off as Mrs. Next was on Spring Break and we spent considerable quality time together.  Lovely, of course, but I'm behind so a couple of quick hits before I post on Howard Norman's upcoming What Is Left the Daughter.

* I Tweeted this just the other day but just love the idea of Keef being at the library.  He would certainly bring a bit of swagger to any collection

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1263492/How-hell-raising-Rolling-Stone-Keith-Richards-wanted-librarian.html 

* Sherman Alexie won the PEN/Faulker aware for War Dances, his last book for Grove, against some serious competition (http://www.penfaulkner.org/news_media.php?id=596)  As an avid Alexie admirer, I enjoyed it though it was obvious he was moving on to another house.  The short stories collected alongside his poems and lists seemed a mix of contractual obligation and permission to "let the kid do as he pleased" as though this was his last summer at home before leaving for school.  Still, that's not to say I didn't love parts.  He can still a turn a phrase and tell a story with the best of them and his ability to create and flesh out little vignettes of human desperation reminds me of Carver, if Carver were funny. 

* Went to a used bookstore for the first time in what seemed like ages.  I had almost forgotten how enjoyable it was to roam the aisles with no real agenda and just allow the books to present themselves.  While I could have spent far more time and money, I was stingy with both and left with Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned, and two Richard Russo titles, Straight Man and Nobody's Fool.

* Happy to report that Reporting At Wit's End is a delight.  St. Clair McKelway's collection of New Yorker pieces from the 1930's through the 1960's show their age at times but the stories are of a time and place we'll never see again told in a way that captures the spirit, soot and savvy of a New York about which we can only smile and reminisce.

Dreaming Deeply with Richard Russo

Just got back from a lovely little affair: a discussion with Pulitzer prize-winning author Richard Russo.   The school where Mrs. Next teaches assigned the brilliant Empire Falls to the eleventh grade and then had him at the school to speak to the kids.  Sadly, I missed his presentation but was able to attend a lunch attended by eight faculty/staff types and Mr. Russo.  While he was peppered with questions, the esteemed author ate a turkey on wheat and pasta salad. 

A few high notes: 

*He just finished editing the next edition of Best American Short Stories.  He spoke highly of work by Wells Tower, Steve Almond, Lauren Groff and Brendan Mathews.

*Work on his next novel begins soon.  That said, it could take him anywhere from a year and a half to six years until it's completed if his track record is examined.

*His daughter is a bookseller at an indie bookstore.  I wish I could explain why this makes me so happy.

*He never pictured Paul Newman as Sully in the HBO adaptation of Empire Falls but as soon as Newman walked toward him on the set, limping in character, he knew it would work out well. 

*A Kindle is a likely purchase for him in the near future.  He's never read a book on one but thinks the ability to have all the books, magazines and papers he reads with him on an upcoming trip to Italy makes sense. 

*After our discussion, he was headed to a local NPR station to be interviewed by Bob Edwards whose featured topic this week is The Future of the Book. http://www.bobedwardsradio.com/

*Favorite quote du jour: "When I read, I want to dream deeply."  

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

I was but a young bookseller when I was given a copy of High Fidelity and was sold immediately on the author's talents.  There have been some peaks and valleys since but I am happy to say Juliet, Naked is my favorite Hornby book since About a Boy. 

Hornby has always been adept at, and has become expert in, portraying his characters with depth despite their shallowness, honesty despite their self-deceit and the ability to change after hitting bottom.  He has a way of imbuing his characters with a marvelous sense of humanity while also keeping them normal and real and even mundane.  I believe it is this sense of the mundane that makes them so readily identifiable.  Not only do I know Rob from High Fidelity or About a Boy's Will, I am Rob, I have been Will and, in this instance, Duncan and Tucker AND Annie.  (here's a question I've always had: does Hornby write women well?  After all these years, I still can't decide.)

So, to Juliet:  in short, Duncan, a university teacher, worships an obscure American singer/songwriter named Tucker Crowe, whose retirement from music is shrouded in rumor and innuendo, much of it fueled and speculated on by Duncan and his like-minded Internet cohorts.  Duncan and girlfriend Annie long ago lost sight of each other and muddle through life as DuncanandAnnie, a sort of loveless blob, together more by habit than affection.  When Annie strikes up an unusual email correspondence with the reclusive Crowe, everything comes unglued though it doesn't become the sitcom it could in less capable hands.  Fortunately for the reader, Hornby tells a story that is entertaining and emotionally honest and is filled with warmth, growth and humor.

Remember all the hubbub about Hapworth?

Here's how it happened:

http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/65210/ 

This fantastic piece from New York magazine tells how a small publisher caught the biggest fish of all, J. D. Salinger, and, despite his best efforts, somehow still managed to let him get away. 

Heartbreaking but true to form, I suppose.

Awards, award-winners, hockey

Just a couple of quickies before I go laptop shopping so I can blog on the back deck or in coffee shops or in the middle of a forest or wherever the kids blog these days.  Got to stay hip, you know.

--Save the Deli author David Sax sent me a very kind note about my recent posting on his book.  It's nice to know authors actually check their own websites.  Thank you again, David.

--The National Book Critics Circle award winners were announced.  Fiction award goes to Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall.  If memory serves, when the book won another award a few months ago, I posted that I needed to read her.  I've still no idea who she is but I had better get on it. 

http://bookcritics.org/awards/

Finally, had you told me I'd ever utter a phrase with 'Margaret Atwood' and 'goalie' in it, I'd have never believed you.  Check out this absolutely delightful video of the Man Booker prize winner in the crease:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkkwEXi-zZI&feature=player_embedded

(While I'm at it, check this vid from America's favorite all hockey rock 'n' roll band, the Zambonis:

http://www.cnchockey.com/videos/hockey-monkey)

Save the Deli by David Sax

The other day, I caught the end of Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose.  If you haven't seen it or don't remember, it's a bunch of comedians sitting around the Carnegie Deli recalling stories of talent agent, Danny Rose, and the lengths he would go to for his roster of marginally talented performers, among them a stuttering ventriloquist and a blind xylophone player.

The film was one of my father's faves and he and I watched it together a number of times and recalling that made me happy. Too, the Carnegie Deli makes me happy and giant deli sandwiches make me happy, as does the idea of old comics sitting around telling stories in the Carnegie Deli over giant sandwiches.  So I burst into tears.  Deep sobs, actually.  That day was my father's birthday.  He's been gone since 2006 and I miss him.  My father had an appreciation of those things and passed that appreciation on to me.  Bless him.

After reading Save the Deli, I think author David Sax would understand the sobs.  He treats the topic with a lot of love and respect and while I have no idea if his father is alive and well (I certainly hope so), he gets the idea that deli is just kind of in your blood.  As Ken Kesey said, you're either on the bus or off the bus and I'm on the bus.  So much so, that I was hell-bent on visiting Schwartz's in Indianapolis on a recent weekend trip--they didn't disappoint--and I've been looking into flights to Montreal since Sax' description of a smoked meat sandwich has me more than intrigued.  Pair that with a recent Calvin Trillin New Yorker piece on a dish called poutine, said also to be born of Montreal, and I've got a weekend in the works.

Sax gives readers a history of the deli, really an American culinary and cultural phenomenon heavily influenced by Eastern European Jews, the current state of the delicatessen and a glimpse of the future for the deli.  What was once a thriving food culture has struggled for some time and tastes have changed a great deal but he leaves the reader with the hope the cuisine may be poised for a comeback.  However, without some reinvention and real love, it could just as easily go the way of the dodo.  Eating at a deli isn't meant to be a nostalgia trip or a tourist stop.  It's an experience that should be shared, perhaps over a very large pastrami on rye with some Guldens brown mustard and a Dr. Brown's soda.  Save the Deli captures that feeling very, very well. 

What Is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman

Some authors write beautifully. Others write sparingly or in a flowery fashion or have a style you can't quite name. Howard Norman writes simply and it works well for his latest, What Is Left the Daughter.

Set in a small Nova Scotia town during World War II, What Is Left the Daughter is really two love triangles laid atop each other and peopled with a small cast of odd but likable characters (the always-blunt Cornelia McTell was my favorite). The author could have written a 'village' novel, one in which we get to know and love the quirky characters of some little town along with their faults, foibles and families, their hopes and heartbreaks. To his credit, he didn't. What he wrote was a story of murder, obsession, and suicide that is engaging, sad, and funny. It's a story of how people get lost and how they find themselves again.

There were times where it was a little hard to believe--the main character's occupation near the end and the series of coincidences that help shape events were a little too coincidental. Still, this is small beer because the story works. I will be certain to read Howard Norman again.

Favorite line:
"I could write a book--if I could write a book"

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O'Brien

The author, a biologist, was given the opportunity to look after a barn owl with wing damage that had been found by hikers and could not return to live in the wild.  She named him Wesley, nursed him back to health, and they lived together for an astonishing nineteen years.  

There are some wonderful behavioral anecdotes and information about owls.  Wesley seems to have had a considerably broader emotional range than scientists had believed and, in that respect, O'Brien contributes valuable scientific info to the on-going study of owls.  There were also a wealth of Disneyesque feel-good moments where you say 'awwwwwwww'.  

While I did admire her near complete dedication to Wesley,  it gets a little icky at times.  Her infantilization of the bird made me wince more than once.  By the end, she's trying telepathy with Wesley and is convinced it might be working. 

Still, she gave the bird a far better life than he might have had and was rewarded with affection and an insiders view of the life of a remarkable bird.  

Many thanks

I really appreciate the feedback about the look of the blog.  It has been very positive and quite helpful.  I've made a few more tweaks per your suggestions and think I might be done tinkering for now.

 

Also, I'd like to thank the nice folks at Bloomsbury USA for the copy of Reporting at Wit's End, a collection of pieces by St. Clair McKelway.  I've just started it and am taken back to an old New York and an old New Yorker.  The intro is by Adam Gopnik so the right tone is set right away.  At just over 600 pages, it'll take a while but I look forward to posting my thoughts about it.  The book just came out. 

Another big thanks to my friend at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for a recent care package.  I've finished Save the Deli by David Sax (just completed a draft of my forthcoming post) and am fifty pages deep in Howard Norman's upcoming novel, What Is Left the Daughter.  I've never read him but have always heard good things and am happy to report I'm most intrigued so far.

A few changes and a new post

After messing with it for a month or so, I've changed the layout again.  I found the last template hard to read and believe this is easier.  I'd ask for input but with no one actually reading this, I'm all about satisfying my own whims and fancies.

Also added a box on the right about what I'm reading now in hopes that it spurs me on to follow through more with my own posts. 

Just in case you missed it, there is also a new post below about the former Mr. Zimmerman and his memoir, volume one.  

Chronicles by Bob Dylan

The first volume of Bob Dylan's recollections is an interesting read.  He names a lot of names, some well-known in relation to his career, others, less so; still more, forgotten. I had hoped it would be more linear but it skips around from early Dylan as reluctant Messiah to late/current Dylan as elder statesman then back a bit.

He paints a picture of America, and New York City, especially, that is of a different era; a world that was bigger and smaller at the same time.  A slower world that relied on paying your dues in coffeehouses and, unlike today's American Idol-imposed instant fame, a leg up from record industry men. 

That said, his way of describing things, a way that might be described as Dylanesque were it someone else's memoir, gets caught in a certain rhythm and that certain rhythm got caught in my ear.  If you've heard his radio show on Sirius/XM, it's actually kind of fun in short bursts but, over the course of several hundred pages, I found it tiring. Still, I kept reading because it's Bob Freakin' Dylan.  The man, his music, and his mystique all made history and knowing your history is easily overlooked these days. 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

A woman I barely know gave me a copy of this when I helped her put a case of wine in her trunk (No. That is not a filthy euphemism. I really did load wine in the trunk of her car). When I saw the book and asked if she'd read it, she neither raved nor railed about it but simply told me to take it and enjoy.

I cannot recall the last time I was so utterly charmed by a novel (maybe Water for Elephants?) and I am so glad I read this little gem.

An epistolary novel that reminded me a little of Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn, Guernsey is peopled with an array of characters I grew to like, then love, in the short span of the book and evoked a time and place in history that made me want to learn more.

Like most good Americans, I know next to nothing about the Channel Islands: I'd heard of Guernsey because of their cows and Jersey because of the attractive sportswear. Otherwise, bupkis. Shaffer and Barrows make the place seem idyllic despite the post-World War II time frame and the attendant hardships. An eye-opener, historically speaking: Britain simply stopped defending the archipelago, allowing the Nazis to hold it for five years. Nazis being Nazis, it was a nasty business.

The book reads quickly, the story is a pleasure to wrap oneself in, and it is a long afternoon well-spent. And thank you, Sondra.