John William Corrington Award winner Paul Auster

Brooklyn’s own Klingon has put out a new book that seems real confusing, but this interview is pretty straightforward. Sure, there is way too much about 9/11 and nothing about Sophie, but it’s nice to see that while Auster was affected by the attacks, and his new book seems very socially and politically charged, he dismisses that this is a post-9/11 novel. At least it seems he does. Also, and maybe I mentioned this before, but doesn’t it seem like he should be British? If I ever hear his Brooklyn accent it’s gonna blow my mind.

Do you wanna find out the long, storied history of the Booker? Yeah, me neither, but here’s an article about it that’s one million words long.

Enter the Octopus has decided to screw me over by not doing the huge lists of book links anymore. He gives some reasons, but my laziness is more important so feel sorry for me.

Something else I never did was send books to the Middle East or Africa or wherever I promised I was going to. Man, I should probably do that.

There is another remake of Johnny Got His Gun but this time it’s just one guy on a soundstage. Looks hella boring, my friends. Also, speaking of Johnny Got His Gun check this out. If you don’t know what video that links to, you should be ashamed of yourself.

And finally, Paper Cuts asks what turns you from a “Books are neat and I like to practice the reading of them” to “That book sucks and you suck for not thinking it sucks”. Since I grew up with about four non-illustrated books in the house, and at least two of them were about Larry Bird, I have no idea when I decided to hone my tastes. But I do seem to remember crying at a passage in The Silence of the Lambs (Something about a psychotic putting his mother’s head in a collection plate) when I was a preteen and realizing that a simple sentence or passage could have an effect that no amount of Too Close for Comfort could equal. But why did I cry about a psychotic putting his mother’s head in a collection plate?

Madame Bovary’s Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature by David P. Barash and Nanelle R. Barasch

“Men are often jealous beasts, with much to be jealous about.” (Paraphrase of Winston Churchill)

So begins this study of both evolutionary biology and and evolutionary psychology as reflected in literature.  Gatsby, Othello, and all the other jealous men of literature are not just motivated by their emotions.  They are compelled by their biology.   Belmonte doesn’t just fight bulls for the sheer sweaty pleasure of it.  Gatsby doesn’t hold lavish parties because he has nothing better to do.  They did it to attract their chosen mates, a compulsion driven not only by their thoughts but also by their genes, even though the objects of their affection are frequently pretty immune to their displays of feathery finery. 

(For peacocks, this peahen is Helen of Troy.  I am not kidding. She is FINE.)

Women, the Bararsches argue, ultimately hold all the cards in mate selection and thus in natural selection.  While this is hardly a new idea, its application to literature is innovative. The authors ask us to think back to some of the earliest stories and myths:  the Iliad and the Bible are two compelling examples.  “Over and over,” Barasch points out, “men fight other men with women as the prize;  indeed, the earliest descriptions of  war involve male-male competition… (T)wo goals are at stake:  direct access to fertile females and achieving social status.”  When you think about it, doesn’t that fairly well comprise the subject matter of oh, say, 9/10ths of literature?  (And before I get angry comments, I also mean women reacting in literature to being pursued by men, being mated, and their own social rankings.)

The two authors (who are father and daughter) consistently pair human behavior to behavior in the animal world.   The result is often funny, sometimes unsettling, and frequently illuminating.  

I finally found a picture. She seems nice

So while America is still filled with the most cowardly group of publishing ninnies in the world, at least Jones’ tale of Mohammed’s love child (see what I did there?) will finally be published in England, whose residents speak a very loose form of English. So I guess you can expect all of London to be a towering inferno by tomorrow. Sorry, Clive Anderson.

But don’t worry, there’s a school board in the UK to make up for this courageous deed by crapping their pants over a poem that talks about a bread knife. It’s a poem, so I already think it should be removed from the school (Seriously, I just buried poetry) but the board are the same bunch of wankers we have in America that can’t see past their fake jobs to anything practical in the world and I hope… I don’t know, I guess something bad but not that bad. They’re dicks but with every Muslim in the world ready to suicide nuke their country I feel kind of bad for them.

My main-ish dude Joshua Henkin throws down some knowledge for all us sinners on The Elegant Variation. As a great writer and seemingly great teacher, he’ll learn you good. Also, next week we’re going to have a goddamn contest here involving the paperback version of Matrimony and if you don’t try and compete you will banned from everything on the internet save those games where you can win a ringtone.

Was saying Sherry Jones seems nice sexist? Don’t tell Pat Buchanan.

This isn’t actually Beckett performing Beckett, but the guy who is reading this is really hard to listen to. The book seems pretty cool, though.

And finally, some tips on how to make your own book cover look not awful. Philip Roth obviously didn’t read this, and it once again brings up the craw-sticking point of why don’t book covers look better or more interesting? Did you see McSweeney’s 28? Holy crap, people. I won’t butcher the idea by poorly describing it, but it just shows how literature can be packaged in phenomenal, dazzling ways. Those other fools should be ashamed of themselves. Not just for that, but it’s a big one.

Hurry, before she suffocates under all that money

The writer of bad vampire books for mall goth teenagers has put her new novel indefinitely on hold after the rough draft leaked on the internet. Why? Cause she’s sad. Wait, did I just write because she’s sad? Yep. As Sarah Weinman points out, there has to be more to this, but for right now we’re left with a grown-up millionaire refusing to finish her book because people saw the rough draft and it hurt her feelings. Let’s all pray for her.

Hold on, you’re saying there’s some horribly crappy crap book out about a fake Laura Bush? And you’re telling me it has the worst trailer, with the worst music, for promotion? Sorry, but my need for exploitation of current events to shamelessly move units has already been fulfilled my Mr. Stone.

Philip Pullman tells you forty books to read. The only one I’ve read is a comic book, and I didn’t actually finish it.

There’s a new Quarterly Conversation up and, of course, it’s more than you deserve. Here’s a taste with some dude getting knee deep in Tobias Wolff.

And finally, I didn’t get past page three of Anna Karenina on my iPhone. I just couldn’t do it. There is no way in hell I will ever enjoy a Kindle or its 2.0 versions. Why? Because I’m on an iPhone. This goddamn thing can make Lightsaber sounds. Why would I want to spend my time reading fake pages on something that is practically screaming to have me go on Youtube and watch some old coot who builds wacky do-nothing machines out of spit and refuse? You know the thing about real books is that they’re still pretty easy to carry around. But I would like to say that if in fifty years when my grandchildren are cruising around on some sort of hideous Segway/Hoverboard contraption and have Wikipedia installed into their corneas and they make fun of me for reading what in their mind may as well be a stone tablet, I’m gonna write those assholes out of my will.

Wondering exactly what point it was in your life that you chose to forgo things like, oh, say, a car made in this millennium… retirement… non-clearance clothing….in favor of educating Our Nation’s Youth?

Don’t despair…. here are a few others of our ilk who have pondered the same question… in literature, in letters, in essays.  May their travails and triumphs inspire yours.  Or help you remember what it feels like to be them…god help you…which, frankly, is at least two-thirds of the battle….

  10.   “What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.  I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them.  I hate that.  I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it.  If you don’t, you feel even worse.  — J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

   9.   ”If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you.” — Stephanie Meyer, Twilight

  8.    “Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all.”  –Henry David Thoreau

  7.   ”A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.”  –Frederick Douglass

  6.   “Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.”   — Mark Twain

  5.  “The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me - he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other. He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn’t see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn’t? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts.”   — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

  4.  “Our pride must be strong, for we know the value of the human mind and soul. We must teach our children. We must sacrifice so that they may earn the dignity of study and wisdom. For the time will come. The time will come when the riches in us will not be held in scorn and contempt. The time will come when we will be allowed to serve. When we will labor and our labor will not be wasted. And our mission is to await this time with strength and faith.”  –Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

  3.   “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.”  — William Butler Yeats

  2.  “Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.”  — Albert Einstein

  1.  “Nine tenths of education is experience”  — Anatole France 

Wishes she was around for new 90210

Jeanette Eyerly, a woman who wrote seventeen novels, almost all of them about the more unsavory aspects of teenage girlhood, is now hanging out in that big mall food court in the sky. Eyerly dished about abortion, being a single mother, premature marriage, and shoplifting in an era where a young woman couldn’t learn everything about life from the comments on a Rancid video. We offer condolences to her family and suggest you pick up some of the woman’s books. And also, shoplifting?

It seems like maybe some people are actually understanding that telling people what age is appropriate for a book is the dumbest thing. I’ve decided I’m for age banding only if it’s super specific, like “Appropriate for Age 7″.

I like Hunter S. Thompson quite a bit, but do we need another biography? I think they’re gonna keep crapping these out until they run out of photos of him wearing sunglasses and smoking. Hell, I’m not even going to read the review. Who wants to bet “Gonzo”, “Drugs” and “Johnny Depp” are in there?

I don’t like Science Fiction because I enjoy occasionally talking to women, but this article on how to convert someone into a SF fan is entertaining and it makes fun of people that read those get rich quick books whom I hate.

I actually like that Rancid song, by the way, but they do suck. I’m only into real punk.

I think that last one was via Enter the Octopus, but I found this one while checking to see how many babies Sarah Palin had today. The guy who wrote The Horse Whisperer ate poison mushrooms and had to be hospitalized. Why did I even bother posting this?

And finally, when Roald Dahl wasn’t writing books for children, he was railing fancy ladies for the British Embassy. Uh, what? Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are. Unless, of course, you read the biography on the writer that called him “one of the biggest cocksmen in America”. Wow. Just wow.

You ever seen Dracula and Wolfman do it?

Ackroyd’s new novel, a meta re-imagining of Frankenstein that puts Mary Shelley in the story, is lauded by The Telegraph for its playfulness, impressive research, and complexity. They’re also happy that at the beginning the monster masturbates (I went back and forth on whether I should a slang term instead of the clinical description, but most colloquialisms are hack and “jerking off” was just a little much) and the corpse is described as “the most beautiful” Victor has ever seen. So maybe you should check out The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein. Or, if you just don’t have the time, I’m working on a well-hung Mummy story that should be done soon.

After awarding previous awards to Jonathan Safran Foer and Zadie Smith, the Guardian first book award may now give it to a chimp. Yes, this is almost completely true. Me Cheeta, an “autobiography” of a 75-year old primate is up for the award because… I don’t know, maybe because no one cares about this award and Guardian needs some press. We’ll see. It’s up against books that aren’t silly, so hopefully it doesn’t win, but then again, hopefully it does.

Paper Cuts discusses Carpenter’s Gothic by William Gaddis, someone I will read, someday. It turns out at one point there was a feud between a couple of authors (One you’ll know from a couple of other feuds) and then Cynthia Ozick pops in and calls both of them out and then ruins the end of the book. It’s something like that. But seriously, I’m way behind on reading now and even with dozens and dozens of books at home that I’ve never read and need to, I really just want to go out and buy The Recognitions.

So I was expecting a pretty traditional pick from McCain for his vice president, but when I… wait, what? The New York public library has one million literary panels (estimation by Scott) posted on its website? Hopefully this takes me two months to read and I won’t have time to watch anymore of this insane abortion of a general election.

Via Enter the Octopus, some tips on how to write, while also acknowledging that most tips on how to write are lies.

And finally, some guy at The Onion never read To Kill a Mockingbird or saw the movie. And while it would be hard to have gone this long without seeing either and then be underwhelmed, the writer is quite impressed, insanely impressed, at how both the novel and film were able to translate both a child’s coming of age and the social implications of race and family. For those of you who have also missed out, or any fans who would like a fresh perspective, this is a great read. And for everyone else, Party.

Born for Liberty by Sara M. Evans

Seneca Falls Inheritance by Miriam Grace Monfredo

This week, there has been a lot of attention focused on John McCain’s surprise selection of Sarah Palin as his running-mate. In various interviews, both McCain and Palin make references to the recent anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, apparently in an effort to equate the historic conference with Palin’s gender and accomplishments. 

But do either McCain or Palin truly know what they are talking about in regard to Seneca Falls?

If there is an area in which many Americans are woefully under-educated, it is in women’s history.  The words “Seneca Falls” probably don’t conjure up more than a vague idea that the gathering propelled the movement for a woman’s right to vote (which, incidentally, did not occur for another seventy-two years in 1920.  See a timeline here.)  The name Susan B. Anthony might be known (oh, yeah… that woman on the coin, right?).  Maybe a few more will know Elizabeth Cady Stanton; likely very few will have more than a passing recollection of the name Lucretia Mott. 

What these women were fighting for was much more than the right to vote.  They  worked relentlessly toward shattering the ideology of  ”republican motherhood.”  Republican motherhood was (is) the belief that women were (are) responsible for the upbringing of moral children and the care of the home, using her “gentle influence” to guide proper behavior and thus create a new generation of worthy (male) leaders.”  Sara M. Evans’ study, Born for Liberty  follows the events that led up to the historic “Declaration of Sentiments.”  The Seneca Falls Convention, “claimed republicanism for women not as mothers responsible for rearing good citizens but as autonomous individuals deserving of that right” (from Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty).

If you would like to know more about the history of the Seneca Falls Convention and the women who shaped America as we know it today but find non-fiction accounts off-putting, you might want to read Miriam Grace Monfredo’s historical novel Seneca Falls Inheritance.  Monfredo combines a fairly compelling murder mystery with historically accurate details about both the convention and the personalities who shaped it.  

Is Palin a part of that “inheritance”?  In one way, yes, of course she is, for without the efforts of our foremothers such a rise to (potential) power would not be possible.   But simply because she is a woman does not mean all women are going to follow like zombies.   For my money, Samantha Bee said it best on The Daily Show Friday night.  Watch here.  Please!

That’s what Seneca Falls and subsequent efforts have done for women.  We have reached a point where we do not follow blindly, any man or any woman.   Read a little bit about Seneca Falls, either in Sara M. Evans’ excellent history or in the ficitonalized account.  Or, watch Ken Burns’ superb documentary, Not for Ourselves Alone:  The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. 

Be informed.  Hold politicians of all parties, and of all genders, accountable for whom they claim as being “on their side.” 

The Grouchy Grammarian:  A How-Not-To Guide to the Most Common Mistakes in English Made by Journalists, Broadcasters, and Others Who Should Know Better by Thomas Parrish

School’s only been back in session for a week and already I am feeling grouchy.  One day they will find me in a bell tower with major weaponry, shrieking, “Your and you’re are not the same thing!”  Reporters will gather below, asking if misplaced apostrophes drove me to the edge.  Through bullhorns, police will try to reason with me, urging tolerance for those who cannot or will not make their subjects and verbs agree.  “Agree to disagree,” they will shout.  This makes me even more angry!  Come back at me with a cliche, will you?  And a bad one at that.  People never “agree to disagree”….they just get tired of arguing. 

I often teach writing.  Young writers imitate what they think sounds erudite.  A good number of my students are business or computer science majors.   Therefore, my frequent, bleak task is to wade through verbiage like this:   “Businesses planning sales strategy perceive buying power as a gauge of the general ability of potential customers to buy their products.”  Why do they write like this?  Because they see it all the time, that’s why.  The abuse of words I just cited is from The Chicago-Sun Times.

Parrish, using the conceit of a friendship with an antiquated grammarian, highlights the misuses and abuses of the English language in his eyebrow-raising, humorous “how-not-to” book, The Grouchy Grammarian.    To his credit, Parrish does not ”go after small and easily wounded game” (e.g., “local dailies and small TV and radio stations”).  Instead, his study is replete with examples from such lofty news sources as National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Associated Press, the History Channel and other big dogs who ought to know better.

The book is full  of cringe-worthy examples: 

“blacks account for 43 percent of Cincinnati’s population of 331,000 people.”  (Population of people?  Who would have guessed?)

“The car smased into the fruit stand while traveling at a high rate of speed.”  (Speed is a rate.)

“FDR was rarely seen in a wheelchair during his lifetime.”  (Not often after he was dead, either.)

On arrangement of words:

“Officials said they responded to a call from a resident at the Cypress Run Apartments…who said she heard a child crying after falling from a second story window.”  (Who fell?  The woman or the child?)

On the “fallacy of the nearest noun”: 

“Companies like Wayne Breeden’s Helicopters Inc. in Memphis, Tenn., has lost $2,000 a day.” (Subject was “companies” but the writer chose the nearest noun for his verb agreement.)

On choosing the wrong word: 

“Alexandra Stevenson plays tennis with… plenty of flare.”  (should be “flair,” a talent or special quality, not “flare,” surging or spreading.) 

“flaunting tradition, Crane was married on the set of Hogan’s Heroes.”  (should be “flouting“)

While it is funny to see the big guys stumble, Parrish’s message is much more genuine; he wants language to be treated well, especially by those who have been entrusted with its pervasive usage.   It is difficult to get a high school student, or even college students, to understand the importance of proper expression when the best of the supposed-best stumble so often. 

Parrish’s creed comes very close to what I tell my own students: “I can’t teach anybody every individual thing… but (I) can damn well try to hound you into THINKING…And maybe tomorrow, or one day soon, you’ll have a boss or a teacher who doesn’t believe that mediocre is good enough and will therefore expect more from you.” 

Expect more.  You’ll get more.  I promise. 

(Parrish also has a website that contains some of the same material as is in the book.  Check it out here.) 

But first, how about a little help on Google Image Search

So Ms. Jones, who I guess isn’t very big on photos, should feel pretty good after these two pieces of news- First of all, a Danish publisher is trying to buy the rights for Jones’ book that will spark the upcoming holy war, and they said they won’t bow to censorship. Awesome. Almost as awesome is this is the name of the publishing house- Trykkefrihedsselskabets Library. So sweet.
Secondly, Random House, who bowed to self-censorship like little babies, has been black-balled by The Langum Charitable Trust which will not recognize anything from the publishing house specifically because of the little baby thing. Please read the statement from the founder of the prize to see a true American hero.

Via Conversational Reading, a new website is up that features a catalogue of books that only exist in other books. I think this totally rules even if I don’t know many of them, but where is Trout, Kilgore? That dude was prolific.

Mark is now an Australian teacher or something and he shows off some of the books he will be discussing with his students to make them (almost) as successful as himself. Or at least help them not write crap.

Via Bookslut, some poetry books about Katrina. Go see what they rhymed with “… doesn’t care about black people”.

Another superheroine has decided to save our children from the evils of basic education. I wonder what she thinks about Sherry Jones.

And finally, Booksquare discusses authors holding off rights for e-books for financial reasons or because that particular format isn’t the proper way to view their art. I’m about as anti-Kindle as anyone, but the idea that you don’t want your book read by people unless it’s been written on vellum and bound in wool of an Andes Llama is the kind of pretentious garbage that makes me wish all novelists were poor.