Books

Word of the latest casualties in the Village Voice evisceration is traveling this morning, and it appears that book review editor Ed Park is no longer there. A shame, that. Park’s reviews were always thoughtful and on target and his impeccable taste meant good books from all over the place got covered. The NYT has this:

Ed Park, a senior editor in charge of the books section who said he learned by telephone on Wednesday that he was being let go, said he was “shocked and insulted” by the firings. But, he said, “I could see that this was coming,” in part because of talk of centralized arts coverage. He added that Village Voice management had an “attitude of disdain for what I thought were the strong points of The Voice. It was a swaggering attitude that their chain of papers were so good and The Voice was an embarrassment and we have to get up to their level somehow.”

Here’s hoping Park lands somewhere prominent quickly and that the people who made this decision experience stabbing pains all day. And Jenny Davidson says he’s working on a brilliant novel, which is a bit of good news in with this very bad stuff (see link below).

See also:
Jenny D mourns the firing.
Eek on Robert Christgau.

There’s a miniscule brouhaha over in TEV’s comments about the intrinsic merits (or rather deficiencies) of YA and other genre-type books and whether they can have as much "lasting value" as Great Adult Literature. I’m paraphrasing, but not by much.

I have promised myself not to post any further comments, because happy news day, stuff to do, and the like. But I’m weak, so who knows? And that doesn’t mean you can’t.

I’ve been loving Beirut’s Gulag Orkestar ever since Kelly and Gavin sent it for my birthday. I had no idea that lead singer Zach Condon was just 20 years old — or that he dropped out of school to bum around Paris, and ended up discovering the wonders of Gypsy music.

This seems like as good a time as any to recommend yet again Fernanda Eberstadt’s fantastic book about Gypsy music and culture in France, Little Money Street: In Search of Gypsies and Their Music in the South of France, especially to those who may be listening to Beirut and intrigued by their influences. I’m not surprised at all that someone’s bringing back the influence of the great (often short-lived, often very young) Gypsy bands to the indie rock scene; I can’t believe it hasn’t happened sooner. I found myself drooling at Eberstadt’s descriptions of the tapes of live shows everyone trades in Perpignan. Let’s just hope the focus on Beirut leads to greater availability of bootlegs of some real Gypsy music.

p.s. Today’s earworm, however, is "Weekends Away" by the Math & Physics Club.

So, Liz Scheier won the Hotties of Publishing Contest Women’s Division at GalleyCat. The terrorists have been defeated and Baby Jesus is eating an ice cream cone.

I also forgot to point to the front page-featured review by Dave Itzkoff of the Tiptree biography from this week’s NYTBR. Ron at GalleyCat offers some reasons he believes the Review would deign to cover such a title prominently. I think it’s simpler than that — a mix of early buzz and smart work by St. Martin’s. (They have done a GREAT job of getting this book covered seriously all over the place.) But this is a happy-making development no matter what the reason.

I’ve been reading Bill Buford’s Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, a hilarious and insightful chronicle of his taking a position as Mario Batali’s kitchen slave.

Buford, of course, was fiction editor at The New Yorker for eight years and the founding editor of Granta. I just can’t tell you how much I’m loving this book. Batali is such a larger-than-life character and the humorous acidity Buford employs is a perfect (and affectionate) counterpoint. I find myself wanting to read every paragraph out loud to Christopher (which I’m sure is annoying, when he’s trying to read himself).

You can read a review and excerpt here (and hear audio of Buford reading it). And a tip of the hat to The Wednesday Chef for being the first place I heard about this one.

Happy first: Janet Maslin gives Julie Phillips’ Tiptree biography a very nice review in the NYT. (The ending’s mention of the suicide is far too simple, compared to, say, life or Carter Scholz’s review.) My new favorite phrase is "the wildness of science fiction."

Now sad: Caitlin Kiernan finds out in the worst possible way that her books have been remaindered. (Hint: It involves breach of contract)

Sort of related: Why the word suck rules.

UPDATED:

On thing one: Lots of discussion about how unlikely it is Maslin has ever read much Tiptree (or "got" it) and inconsistencies in the review. (Which I still think is great for the book’s prospects. But "the wildness of science fiction" — if that phrase alone doesn’t show that Maslin knows only a pinch about genre!) Anyway, it’s Maslin, so yeah. Those seeking more substantial commentary on the biography itself should mosey over to Mely’s Coffee and Ink: here’s a post collecting some of her thoughts about the biography and Julie Phillips’ KGB reading and here’s the reaction to the Maslin review (check out the comments). Meanwhile, putting Tiptree into Google News and having the results not be entirely about water leaks in England makes me happy.

On thing two: Caitlin posts an update on her situation, with some much better news.

On thing three: The word suck still rules.

In the interest of trying to keep these little thumbnails slightly more manageable, a reading update.

40 and 41. Astonishing X-Men (Volumes 1 and 2), Joss Whedon – Now this is the f-ing X-Men. Everything I loved about the book when I was a kid, only so’s I actually like it now. If you have any affinity for the history of these characters, it’s worth a look. Joss Whedon fans will appreciate the quips and zippy plots.

42. Manbug, George K. Ilsley – A love story with bugs. And sex. Sex and bugs. What more do you need? I’ll have more to say about this one later, so I’ll just say that I liked it a great deal and recommend it. There’s an excerpt here.

43. Tantalize, Cynthia Leitich Smith – I’m not going to say TOO much about this one either, since it’s not out until next spring. Takes place in a world much like our own, but with werecreatures and vampires and culture clashes around them. Quincie Morris is the girl holding her family’s business together, by way of relaunching her dead parents’ restaurant as a vampire-themed Italian joint, all while lusting after her unavailable, half-werewolf, HOTT best friend Kieren. Only her chef gets murdered most foul in the first chapter… Simply put: FABULOUS. So good and dark. Best ending I’ve read in ages, and nicely feminist as well. If it reminds me of anything, perhaps a bit of Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, but with the focus and directness of the best YA. I loved this. It would make a great vampy triple bill with M.T. Anderson’s Thirsty and Scott Westerfeld’s Peeps (The Last Days is in the TBR stack, but perhaps it should be a foursome). And Cecil says it’s great too! And isn’t the (probable) cover pretty?

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to suddenly be seeing Eduardo Galeano’s name all over the place, after so many years of a stray mention here and there. He is a genius, a wonder, and his work alive with that. Now comes the best yet — Birnbaum v. Galeano:

RB: That’s very tricky. You want the person that you are working with who is translating to be your mirror, but the text is not of their creation.

EG: No, it’s a perfect synthesis of life, life is this, we are always looking at others as possible mirrors and we feel betrayed when it doesn’t work.

They’re speaking of Galeano’s first translator, Cedric Belfrage, who died while translating The Book of Embraces (on many days, my favorite book in existence). I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship implied by the dedications and notes on that book, and this interview deals with how they worked together more directly than any other I’ve seen. Joy.

Now I’ll stop making playlists for the car and go to sleep.

Jeez, I haven’t done this in awhile. And I suspect, as is always my undoing with this sort of thing, I’ve forgotten to record some books.

This has been a very weird year for reading. I was actually shocked to discover I’m relatively on track for the 75, because I’ve been reading a lot less than normal this year. (And WAY less fiction and WAY more rereading.) Vast sections of this year have just been in too much upheaval to do much in the way of reading. And at the moment, I have several books going at once, which is highly unusual for me.

Tonight, by way of beginning to clean and sorting out books to try and sell and donate to the library to make much-needed shelf space, I actually sorted out the Really Really TBRs from the TBR pile. Managing to get it down to about a dozen books I’d like to read right away. You know, after the four or so I have going. This feeling drives me nuts. I prefer a more serendipitous way of choosing books, and am even curious as to whether having sorted out this pile will make me avoid it. Anyway, the reading life feels like it’s settling back into a more comfortable groove. I hope, hope, hope. (And the LBC going to fewer books per round in future will help immensely.) Also, I only have research books out from the library; must remedy that immediately.

So here’s an attempt at some thumbnails to catch things up. I’ll try not to go this long without doing this again, for it makes me very sad to give short shrift to books I really enjoyed. Please forgive any repeat squibbing.

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75 Books (Sort of) UpdateRead More »

I just realized that the interview I did with Maureen McHugh for the trade paperback edition of Mothers and Other Monsters, which includes all sorts of goodies and is out now, is online. (I’m working on a 75 Books update, but then realized I’d already talked about rereading it in preparation for the interview.)

Anyway, a little taste of Maureen’s wonderful answers:

I was drawn to science fiction for the ways in which it allowed me to skip parts of real life I hated. I liked SF that made life more romantic. I liked Andre Norton’s protagonists finding out they weren’t ordinary. I wanted to be a mutant, an escapee from a different reality where I was special.

I studied writing for years. Some of that was formal — I have a masters degree from New York University that would be an MFA in creative writing if I got it today. Some of it was the more traditional way to become of writer. Write a lot, most of it bad, find people who can tell you it’s bad. Learn to get better. I found power in realism. I liked  psychological realism when I read it. Those details — the moments we have all experienced but maybe never seen written down — work like a kind of electric jolt in a good story. In the Lorrie Moore story I mentioned, her two-year-old son has cancer. She describes being in the office of the pediatric oncologist and her son is doing that thing toddlers do so joyously, flicking on and off the light switch, while the pediatric oncologist explains what the cancer means and what they’ll do. How many times have I seen a toddler entranced with a switch — a flashlight, a vacuum cleaner, anything. And juxtaposed against the patient doctor explaining the moment is almost unbearable.

Buy this collection immediately, okay? (I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS YET, and if you have, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HAVEN’T BOUGHT EXTRA COPIES TO GIVE AWAY.)