Hey, look at SA on the Book Bench!
paperhaus December 12th, 2009
The New Yorker takes note of S.A. Griffin’s poetry bomb on its book blog, the Book Bench.
Go SA. Go Book Bench. Go poetry. Go bombs. Oh, wait….
I never wrote for Kirkus, but these guys did
paperhaus December 11th, 2009
Yesterday, Nielsen announced that it would shutter several publications, including the review-o-matic Kirus, Kirkus, for its willingness to go negative.
I never wrote for Kirkus, and as I haven’t published a book, I haven’t feared its cold, cold advance publication stare. But it was interesting to read what some reviewers experienced.
Mark Athitakis: Though the editors there knew my general interests, I didn’t get a vote on what was sent to me to review. In short, it wasn’t a job for reviewers who cared only about books they felt pretty certain they’d like. Which speaks to the most contentious and, I think, admirable aspect of the magazine—that Kirkus‘ reviews were more negative than positive. Conventional wisdom argues that this is because the reviews were written by large passels of smug know-nothings who used their anonymity as a blunt instrument. I prefer to think Kirkus served an uncomfortable truth—most books are mediocre.
Jonathan Taylor in the Stranger: From mountains of galleys that loomed all around her office, my editor took care to pluck out some interesting obscure books that otherwise would have been, or probably still were, destined to pass largely unnoticed. Most of the books were boring–kind of all right or sort of bad–in either case hard to do justice to in less than 300 words. It gave me great pleasure, though, to craft just what I wanted to say about the really bad ones and the really good ones.
All wrote anonymously, all wrote short, pithy reviews — less than 350 words — and all tended to express their opinions boldly. Perhaps that was the consolation they got for writing cheap. In some ways — cheap/fast/short — it reminds me of CMJ’s reviews; I wrote a couple when I began writing about music, because I wanted the clips. Not having much of a say as to what landed in my mailbox (this was in the era of CDs) meant I had to work hard, sometimes, to hear the music on its own terms and not my own.
Taylor takes on the question of reviewer impartiality. “For me, it’s like a massive crush, almost literally: I stopped writing reviews because my interest in books has led me quite naturally into a position of a ‘conflict of interest’ with regard to the literature I love the most.” But I’m not sure that’s entirely true — I think it’s possible to remain in love with literature and review it. At least, it’s still possible for me.
Hear me on The California Report
paperhaus December 5th, 2009
This week I reviewed the book In My Father’s Shadow by Chris Welles Feder for the weekly magazine of the California Report. The show is broadcast by public radio stations statewide at various times over the weekend. It was on San Francisco’s KQED Friday at 4:30pm and it’s online now. Here’s how it begins:
Orson Welles was a genius filmmaker, with all the complications that genius seems to bring. The desire to learn more about one of the most fascinating characters to pass through Hollywood is understandable. But it’s this interest in Welles that gives the new memoir by his eldest daughter its unusual shape, if not its title: In My Father’s Shadow.
Yet the book is no cliched litany of star-offspring complaints. Feder might have had them — like the punch line of a Johnny Cash song, she’s a girl named Christopher. But Chris, now 71, adored her father, and is a talented storyteller who brings alive the golden era of Hollywood.
If you listen, that silky voice at the beginning isn’t me — it’s Rachel Myrow. I’m the more nubby one that follows.
10 favorite books of 2009
paperhaus December 4th, 2009
The LA Times list of favorite books of 2009 is now online, a total of 50 books in two parts, fiction/poetry and nonfiction. It’s a master list that is compiled by the editors; some of my suggestions made it. But not all.
I’m not including all the books that I loved in 2009, but right at this moment, here are 10 of my favorites, in alpha order by author, including a few I haven’t even read.
Invisible by Paul Auster (haven’t read it, but I really really want to read it)
Ablutions by Patrick deWitt (from bad to worse, told with raw precision, in a sleazy Hollywood bar)
I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett (haven’t read this either, but sometimes favorites are those books that are all potential)
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (if you can eat chicken after reading this book, you’re not well)
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem (like Ms. Kakutani said, except the opposite)
Generosity by Richard Powers (I loved The Echo Maker so much that I don’t believe his follow up could possibly let me down)
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (Sixties, smart, silly, streamlined Pynchon that’s about the end of mystery while masquerading as a detective fiction).
A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner (the true story of two Angelenos whose intersecting lives capture two aspects of the city in a critical defining era)
When Skateboards Will Be Free by Said Sayrafiezadeh (memoir of growing up red & poor in the 70s & 80s)
Far North by Marcel Theroux (when civilization crumbles, head to Siberia and follow Makepeace’s lead)
PEN tonight
paperhaus December 2nd, 2009
Heading to the PEN USA West awards tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In my many years in LA, I’ve never before been to the pink icon of Beverly Hillsiness. Nor have I been to the PEN Awards, actually. Last year Veronique was tweeting the winners to me, but this year she’s in Guadalajara with many other LA writers at the massive book fair. I guess it’s up to me to tweet — so I will, right here.
We wear glasses, read books and like cats.
paperhaus November 18th, 2009
That’s my mom at age 13 in 1955. The name of the cat is long forgotten.
Sarah Palin’s book is not a book
paperhaus November 17th, 2009
I know it comes between covers and is sold in bookstores. But it’s not a book, it’s a celebrity media push. Maybe it’s a campaign advertisement. Maybe it’s a talk show audition. Maybe it’s a prelude to a line of “you betcha!” ladies huntingwear — who knows. But whatever it is, “Going Rogue” is not a book in the way we book people think of books.
Have I read it? No. I’d rather read Edmund Morris’ “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,” even though it’s a) about Ronald Reagan and b) has a questionable historical fiction conceit. Because at least that was a book.
Talking to Colum McCann
paperhaus November 10th, 2009
I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately for Jacket Copy. The latest, with Colum McCann — conducted all of yesterday — is up now on Jacket Copy. Not only is Colum McCann an accomplished writer — his “Let the Great World Spin” is nominated for a National Book Award, the occasion for the interview — but he’s got lots of interesting things to say; he’s thoughtful about about writing and about the writer’s place in the world. He told me one of his favorite authors is John Berger (which I kind of loved), and also that I really ought to read E.L. Doctorow (since I haven’t).
While it is no fun getting up before dawn to transcribe — which is exactly what I did this AM — I have to admit that I do love getting the chance to talk to amazing writers, and, even if I’m sleep deprived, I’m really lucky. Now, off for more coffee.
Reading EATING ANIMALS
paperhaus November 6th, 2009
I consumed Jonathan Safran Foer’s book EATING ANIMALS very quickly, mostly because I had less than 24 hours between the time I got my hands on it and our scheduled interview. It is, I must warn you, difficult to read while eating, even if what you’re eating is a plate of entirely meatless potato perogies. There is just no way to read about factory farmed chickens and not want to swear off eating anything, at all, ever again.
I don’t eat much chicken, because it’s pretty gross. But I do eat pork chops and bacon (mmmm, bacon); I make and eat delicious hamburgers; I buy spicy sausages and a nice hunk of tri-tip when I can find them. Frozen shrimp, fish, and cans of tuna. I eat sushi with gusto. Salmon skin? Bring it on.
It’s been more than a decade since I gave up being a vegetarian. I was solid veggie for two years, but I was blacking out a lot, and dreaming of cheeseburgers, which I took to be my body telling me that I needed more iron than spinach and tofu were giving me. So I did one year on, one year off — it gave me a resolution, and I stuck to it. In my world, fish were as off limits as cows (the distinction makes no sense to me still), but cheese and eggs were OK, because no animals were killed for them.
Part of my vegetarianism was health-related — we all know too much red meat isn’t good for you — and part of it was my conscience. I turned veggie the first time I drove past a cattle truck on a highway somewhere in the middle of America. You know what those trucks are like? The cows are stacked double-decker in metal cages; driving past, you can see their noses and haunches, the splatters of cowshit smattering the lower cages and those toward the back. Were they going to slaughter? Or just farm to farm? I had no idea. Neither did they, just that they were suddenly whipping down a highway one above the other at 75 mph.
Foer doesn’t write about this in his book — what he writes about is worse. The conditions of factory chickens, turkeys and pigs, who are barely recognizable as the farm animals we picture. How a slaughterhouse works, and how the trauma of killing animals on an assembly line turns normal people into sadists.
But it wasn’t that parade of horror that reminded me that I was once a vegetarian for a reason, and that I do care about that reason.
It was a list. On page 49 and 50, Foer lists the creatures that are swept up in tuna nets. Before I got to the end of the more than 100 fish, mammals and birds that die in tuna nets, I thought, I can’t be responsible for this. I can’t kill all those creatures because I like a good piece of sushi, because a tuna salad sandwich is a comfort food that goes back to childhood. I’m not interested in turtles dying, I’m not interested in killing an albatross that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s possible to fish without enormous nets, it’s possible to raise and kill animals to eat in a way that’s not cruel. And those are going to be the only meats I eat from now on. If I can’t be sure, I’ll skip it.
Don’t get me wrong — I like meat. I REALLY like bacon, steak and New England lobster. I dreamed about cheeseburgers, for god’s sake. But I’ll only get those things when I know they’re humane.
If you’re a foodie and you don’t read this book, you’re not a foodie. And if I tried to tell you about this book and you tell me you don’t want to hear it, well, I think I know what you’re getting for Christmas.
Distracted from John Irving
paperhaus November 3rd, 2009
I could have sworn I had another week. But I bought the ticket to see John Irving and never put the details in my calendar, so when he was across town being interviewed I was sitting cozily at home, reading. Clueless.
Perhaps I was slightly distracted by my fabulous orchid. When the American Orchid Society held its conference in town recently, my dad, who’s a judge, came into town (I managed to get his flight info into my calendar) and showed me around. He helped me buy some orchids that should be happy in the LA weather, including this one. I love its crazy spidery blossoms, which opened up during a sweltering day. I don’t know its name.
And I feel like I should — my family is given to taxonomy. My grandmother kept an Audubon book or two next to a set of binoculars near her picture window, to figure out exactly what each bird was. Naming the bird was as vital as watching the bird. So, too, walks through the woods would involve the names of trees, of bushes, of creeping vines. I can tell you how to distinguish Poison Ivy (shiny leaves that come off the stem in threes), although I suppose anyone who went to summer camp can do that, too. But anyway, I feel like I ought to know the names of things, like this orchid, but all I can do is show it to you.
