Archive for March, 2007

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Friday, March 30th, 2007

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Recommended.

The Dismal Failure of E-books

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

A blog post by Charles Stross, author of Glasshouse, explains why the future of electronic books looks no brighter than the present.

Scum

Monday, March 26th, 2007

The New York Times has an article on new books that deal with rampant corporate crime.

Heavy Lifting

Sunday, March 25th, 2007

In a Salon interview Jonathan Lethem, author of You Don’t Love Me Yet, wails against copyright law and celebrates appropriation.

Shiny Shoe Buckles

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

In his review for Slate of Ben Wilson’s The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837, Michael Chase-Levenson asks: Why are we still so obsessed with the Victorians?

“Seriously Uncool”

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

In the London Review of Books Jenny Diski covers the Susan Sontag collection At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches, which was put together by Sontag’s son.

If the funny is hard to find in Sontag’s writing, her seriousness is never in doubt, and it is precisely the suspicion of that quality that seems to distinguish the present time.

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

[Cover]

Highly recommended.

Medicus

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Scott Simon of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition interviews Ruth Downie, author of Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire.

Orange Prize Nominees

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

The Guardian has the list of nominees for the Orange prize.

The Copied Word

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

China Daily has the latest figures for book piracy in China.

Lionel Shriver Profiled

Monday, March 19th, 2007

The New York Times profiles Lionel Shriver, author of The Post-Birthday World.

The Lying Tongue

Sunday, March 18th, 2007

The Washington Post has a review by Michael Collins of Andrew Wilson’s The Lying Tongue.

“Think you know how to read, do you?”

Saturday, March 17th, 2007

Salon has an article by Tom Lutz on authors who want readers to stop reading in the academic mode.

Francine Prose, for instance. In her latest book, “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them,” Prose rails against the FemiMarxiDecons in English departments that are destroying literature and everything holy.

Carpenter’s Gothic by William Gaddis

Saturday, March 17th, 2007

[Cover]

Recommended with reservations.

Don’t Teach

Friday, March 16th, 2007

The message for new teachers is becoming painfully clear: please don’t teach.

John Benjamin Banville-Black

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Slate has an article on John Banville’s (writing as Benjamin Black but disclosing that fact on the jacket) Christine Falls.

But what is the point of taking on a pseudonym only to identify it as such immediately? And what are we to make of the simplistic art/craft distinction he has used to defend this noir effort? One suspects that Banville, like the archly unreliable poet-madmen who have narrated his previous novels for almost 20 years, is playing games with us.

Yes, one does suspect.

Let’s Play

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition has readings from Margaret Bradham Thornton’s Notebooks, a collection of the journals of Tennessee Williams.

The River of Lost Footsteps

Monday, March 12th, 2007

[Cover]

Recommended.

“Exile on P Street”

Sunday, March 11th, 2007

Christopher Byrd at the Washington Post reviews Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.

NBCC Winners

Saturday, March 10th, 2007

The New York Times has the winners of the National Book Critics Circle awards. The NBCC blog has more information.

Bad Source

Friday, March 9th, 2007

So, one of Wikipedia’s most respected editors is a complete fraud. I wish that I were surprised. What does surprise me somewhat is this quote:

The New Yorker editors’ note ended with a defiant comment from Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia and the dominant force behind the site’s growth. “I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it,” he said of Mr. Jordan’s alter ego.

Few people have a problem with a pseudonym, Mr. Wales. A hell of a lot of people have a problem with an invented doctorate.

“The Greatness of Gabriel García Márquez”

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

Jay Parini at the Guardian’s Books Blog profiles Gabriel García Márquez, who celebrated his eightieth birthday this week.

The Dead Fathers Club

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Veronique de Turenne reviews Matt Haig’s The Dead Fathers Club for National Public Radio’s Day to Day.

Formosa Betrayed

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

It has come to my attention that Formosa Betrayed, George Kerr’s indictment of the KMT administration in Taiwan in the years just after World War II, is available on the Web.

You’re Smothering Me

Monday, March 5th, 2007

I subscribe to several periodicals. Two subscriptions I plan to allow to lapse when the time comes. Another subscription I have canceled. The content of all three publications is uneven from issue to issue but is of acceptable quality on the whole. What is not acceptable is that every week brings a few breathlessly urgent “renewal notices” or “gift subscription opportunities.” The gift subscription push has always been offensive, but renewal notices used to be acceptable because they came attached to the next to last issue and the final issue. The subscription that I canceled pushed me over the edge. I received a renewal notice and thought “Wait. Didn’t I just start this subscription?” I looked it up in my checkbook and found that I had just started the subscription. I had received a single issue. I had eleven out of twelve months to go, and I received a notice begging me not to let my subscription run out. Enough.

“Censoring Our Educators”

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

Utne has an article that rounds up the most recent attacks on teachers.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

Fresh Air is rerunning a 2002 interview with Pulitzer Prize winning historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Taunt You a Second Time

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Why do the French have to be so damned right about so many things? An exceptionally unappealing article on the Oxford English Dictionary appears in the Financial Times.

Noted Historian Passes

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Slate has an obituary of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and author of works such as The Age of Jackson.