And if he doesn't read his own stuff...

then there's no earthly reason for anyone else to.
James Frey on his craft.
"The books are written very deliberately. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes not. Either way, I try to be very careful about the words and the punctuation, or lack thereof. I also never really read my own writing, so I try to make it perfect the first time through."

Where to begin?

Posted by Dave

or it could all end tomorrow

Amazon could end up with the whole industry or things could stay pretty much as they are.
Either way it was a pretty good day around the salt mine so that's good enough for now.

Posted by Dave

Dr. James Orbinski...

was in Waterloo last night and we'd just like to thank everyone for packing Knox Presbyterian Church. It's always nice to have a big crowd for the final author event of the season and Dr. Orbinski gave everyone a lot to think about.
There's a limited amount of signed copies of Imperfect Offering available at the shop, and if you're out there, and want to stay informed of our fall author events let us know.

Thanks again.

Posted by Dave

does anybody really know what time it is?

One kind of expects the soft chewy centre of the astrology/personal growth sections of bookstores to blanch under scrutiny, but it turns out the hard edges of economic forecasting is similarly open to interpretation.

"Today's financial Armageddon writers tend to be a confident group, assuring readers that their theories are ironclad. Some go further and take the opportunity to tell you that they are terrific guys.
Arnold says his concepts are ``unchallengeable.'' Author Stathis, who mysteriously doesn't share his first name with buyers of the book ``America's Financial Apocalypse: How to Profit From the Next Great Depression,'' says on the back cover that his forecasting concepts have been proven ``beyond any doubt.''
William Brussee, author of ``The Second Great Depression,'' asks the question: ``Could this book be completely wrong?'' but dismisses the possibility. ``It is difficult to believe that the premise put forward in this book is completely wrong.''
I'm so glad we got that straight."

A financial guru without a first name?
Suddenly it all makes sense.
Tinfoil hats will be available at the precipice.

Posted by Dave

See if you can guess

There are dueling Frey reviews and either Janet Maslin is having a bit of fun with Mr. Frey or..
never mind, she's having a bit of fun.

Posted by Dave

Second that

The local takes a look at the denuded state of the short story.
It's a sad old song, but Kyl Chhatwal gets most of it right here. Short stories are where the craft is and there's a great whack of novels that are hurt or ruined by needless padding.
There's no room for that in short fiction, but because it isn't reviewed much it doesn't find nearly the audience that it should.
There's also the stubborn perception that a reader doesn't get the bang for the buck because (I guess) short stories don't carry the full narrative arc of a novel.
It's silly, but if I had a dime for every time someone turned away from the genre...well I could afford to publish short fiction.
Just saying, but George Saunders, Kevin Brockmeier, Lorrie Moore, Lisa Moore, a slew of fine anthologies... and one of my faves has new stuff coming in the fall.
Beats this every day of the week.

Although, picking up "under-circulated" books at a library sale isn't a barometer of public affection for any book. Norman Levine was under-circulated for years.

Posted by Dave

On procrastinating

Slate has a selection of works devoted to procrastinating.
I've never read any of them, though I remember Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage from years back, and Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard was for a time, required reading for cool kids.
I'll read them later.

Posted by Dave

Nixonland and Post American World

A couple of non-fiction titles that look interesting are reviewed in the Sunday New York Times.
I've been a fan of Fareed Zakaria since reading the Future of Freedom a few years back. He's kind of an erudite sage with a bit of a cool factor. His site is also required reading.
As for Nixonland, there's been a bunch of books that document whats been called the Rise of the Right, but Nixon put it in motion. For better or worse, it was Nixon who employed the Southern strategy that has all but locked up the White House for Republicans for most of the last three decades. He was a Shakespearean character, more cunning than smart and blessed with great political instincts and enough personal demons to make his every utterance and policy tack fascinating. Margaret MacMillan's Nixon in China was an especially fine book in that regard.
The review by George Will (another right wing guilty pleasure of mine and its a pretty short list) is wonderfully adroit as well.
Below is a typical paragraph, grudgingly complimentary all the way:
"Because the baby boomers’ self-absorption is so ample, there already has been no shortage of brooding about those years. We do, however, benefit from the brooding by Perlstein, who is not a boomer, for two reasons. First, he has a novelist’s, or perhaps an anthropologist’s, eye for illuminating details, as in his jaw-dropping reconstruction of the Newark riots of July 1967. Second, his thorough excavation of the cultural detritus of that decade refutes his thesis, which is that now, as then, Americans are at daggers drawn."
I'm sure going to make time for this.

Posted by Dave

Cleared for takeoff

A few days back I mentioned that its been awhile between crime novels. A good run will do that, but in addition to a new Mo Hayder, there's a new George Pelecanos coming(!) and I'm well into Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. It weighs in at over 400 pages, but the back end of Stalin's Russia pretty much demands a big canvas.
Ridley Scott has scored the rights, and film or not the book is going to be a big deal.
Pretty damn fine so far
Sarah Weinman weighs in here.

Posted by Dave

Oh well

The Last Lecture is getting harder to find, as a result of an enviable publicity crunch. The Wall Street Journal notes that it's out of stock at all the usual places.
Uh..we had eighteen copies this morning.

Posted by Dave

word of mouth (breathers)

James Frey's new novel is out today.
Sara Nelson of Publishers weekly describes it as " a train wreck of a novel, but it's un-pudownable, a real page-turner — in what may come to be known as the Frey tradition."
The Frey tradition?
Based on his work so far that would be a run on sentence written entirely in capital letters.

Posted by Dave

To live and write in L.A.

Mark Sarvas holds forth on the state of play in the world of novels and litblogs.

"But with the Elegant Variation I saw an opportunity to join a conversation that was just beginning to take off. There are now thousands of book blogs: If I did nothing different with the Elegant Variation but launched it today, I'd be a cork in the ocean. So I benefited from timing."

I'm really more of a bottom feeder myself.

By the way, Harry Revised is still a great book and Mark is so cool he's spawned imitators.

Posted by Dave

Fly my pretties, fly

The new guy at Harper Collins might be onto something.
He's been around awhile, but other publishers in the U.S. are getting on board.

`In this age of global warming it's insane to be shipping books back and forth across the country for no good reason,'' said Margo Baldwin, president of Chelsea Green Publishing Co. of White River Junction, Vermont. ``It's just a waste of energy and, not only that, it still encourages the overproduction of books -- many of which end up in landfills.''
Baldwin, a publisher of titles about sustainable living, has started a ``green partnership program,'' signing up 30 bookstores that have agreed to take books on a non-returnable basis. In exchange, she gives them extra discounts and priority access to her authors for readings and events."
Bring it on publishers.

The rate of returns at our place is a good deal lower than the 31 per cent Bloomberg noted in 2005, and if the industry wants to lower returns, they could put a few chain stores on notice.
I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Dave