Lev Raphael's Blog, page 70
December 27, 2010
7 Best Small Press Books of the Decade
Even with major changes in publishing, far too many reviewers still focus on books published by major houses. It's a sort of default position, possibly due to unconscious prejudice against independent publishers, or maybe even laziness. Who knows? But independent and university presses have been putting out books every bit as good as those published by New York's major houses. They typically don't get the same media attention or the same space in bookstores, so here are some of the best small press books of the decade.
An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell. Making music and making a life out of making music are two completely different things. This gorgeous novel explores the mysteries and joys as well as the brutal business realities of a musical life, focusing on a woman violist's grief when her secret lover dies. News of that death leads her and readers along surprising paths to a splendid resolution.
Made for Each Other by Meg Daley Olmert. The bond between humans and dogs isn't just thousands of years old, it echoes the one between humans because of oxytocin, a hormone released when mothers nurse babies and when people pet or even look at their dogs. Engaging and witty, Olmert explores the latest neuroscience on this dynamic in a deft mix of science and speculation, anecdote and analysis.
The General of the Dead Army by Ismail Kadare. In this short, stunning novel, an Italian general travels to Albania two decades after World War Two to harvest a terrible crop: the remains of Italian soldiers buried in unmarked graveyards across the country. Public pressure back home has forced this mission into being. It's a grim task, dogged by miserable weather, the hatred of the people he meets, and the heavy weight of history.
A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses by Anne Trubek. Why do people visit writer's homes? What are they looking for and what do they hope to take away that isn't sold in the gift shop? This memoir-travelogue takes you from Thoreau's Concord to Hemingway's Key West, exploring the tracks authors and their fans have laid down over the years. Trubek is a sharp-eyed observer, and you'll wish you could have been her travel companion.
The Jerusalem File by Joel Stone. Mystery and murder combine with Jerusalem's violent ethnic politics for a gripping new take on the classic pattern of PI + femme fatale = nothing but trouble. This is a model of what a thriller writer can do without having to produce the bloated "big book" too typical of American crime fiction, and it's one of my favorite thrillers of the decade.
Waiting on a Train by James McCommons. If you've ever wondered why our train system doesn't even measure up to that of some Third World countries, this is your book. The Michigan author spent a year taking trains in every part of America to interview passengers, bureaucrats, politicians, and everyone involved in a system not remotely living up to its potential. A fascinating, must-read journey for the next decade.
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. Based on the true story of an ordinary Berlin couple suddenly launching anti-Nazi resistance, this novel was published right after WWII and feels as if it were written in a white heat. I can't recall any novel that gives such a vivid feel for life inside the Nazi whirlwind. Melville House deserves kudos for being the first publisher to translate this novel by a popular German author who ended up hounded by the Gestapo.
For more terrific small press books, check out another one of my Huffington Post blogs.
An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell. Making music and making a life out of making music are two completely different things. This gorgeous novel explores the mysteries and joys as well as the brutal business realities of a musical life, focusing on a woman violist's grief when her secret lover dies. News of that death leads her and readers along surprising paths to a splendid resolution.
Made for Each Other by Meg Daley Olmert. The bond between humans and dogs isn't just thousands of years old, it echoes the one between humans because of oxytocin, a hormone released when mothers nurse babies and when people pet or even look at their dogs. Engaging and witty, Olmert explores the latest neuroscience on this dynamic in a deft mix of science and speculation, anecdote and analysis.
The General of the Dead Army by Ismail Kadare. In this short, stunning novel, an Italian general travels to Albania two decades after World War Two to harvest a terrible crop: the remains of Italian soldiers buried in unmarked graveyards across the country. Public pressure back home has forced this mission into being. It's a grim task, dogged by miserable weather, the hatred of the people he meets, and the heavy weight of history.
A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses by Anne Trubek. Why do people visit writer's homes? What are they looking for and what do they hope to take away that isn't sold in the gift shop? This memoir-travelogue takes you from Thoreau's Concord to Hemingway's Key West, exploring the tracks authors and their fans have laid down over the years. Trubek is a sharp-eyed observer, and you'll wish you could have been her travel companion.
The Jerusalem File by Joel Stone. Mystery and murder combine with Jerusalem's violent ethnic politics for a gripping new take on the classic pattern of PI + femme fatale = nothing but trouble. This is a model of what a thriller writer can do without having to produce the bloated "big book" too typical of American crime fiction, and it's one of my favorite thrillers of the decade.
Waiting on a Train by James McCommons. If you've ever wondered why our train system doesn't even measure up to that of some Third World countries, this is your book. The Michigan author spent a year taking trains in every part of America to interview passengers, bureaucrats, politicians, and everyone involved in a system not remotely living up to its potential. A fascinating, must-read journey for the next decade.
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. Based on the true story of an ordinary Berlin couple suddenly launching anti-Nazi resistance, this novel was published right after WWII and feels as if it were written in a white heat. I can't recall any novel that gives such a vivid feel for life inside the Nazi whirlwind. Melville House deserves kudos for being the first publisher to translate this novel by a popular German author who ended up hounded by the Gestapo.
For more terrific small press books, check out another one of my Huffington Post blogs.
December 21, 2010
6 Best Spell-Binding Novels of the Decade: A Magical Literary Tour
Books don't have to have wizards to make magic or cast a spell. The magical books I look for as a reader and reviewer create realities unlike my own so seamlessly, with such organic detail, that I live inside of them for days after having read them. I feel ensorcelled. All of life's troubles fall away and it's as if I have wings. Even more, I want to share them with every book lover I know. These books haunt and inspire me, make me proud to be a writer, glad to be a reviewer. Here are some of my favorites of the decade.
The Game by Laurie R. King. King's Sherlock Holmes series never gives off that odor of staleness you find in long-running hit series and The Game is flat-out astonishing. Set in a brilliantly evoked India of the 1920s, it features Holmes on a mission to find the Kim who inspired Rudyard Kipling's eponymous novel. The lush book glitters on every page, as well it should, and it's one of my favorites to use in writing workshops.
The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber. It's fitting that this novel about Victorian prostitutes starts with a seduction -- of the reader! I can't recall ever being so grabbed by a novel's first pages. I couldn't stop reading except to note passages that left me in a state of wonderment, or to reread descriptions of London or people to my spouse. The book is a triumph of voice and vision.
Already Dead by Charlie Huston. The fiendishly clever author creates a New York underground divided among gangs of vampires who have great power, but whose anonymity is threatened by dumb, voracious zombies who are bad for PR. His cynical narrator is a zombie hunter/P.I., and every single detail of his world has been worked out with breathtaking ingeniousness.
City of Thieves by David Benioff. One of my grandfathers starved to death in the Siege of Leningrad along with hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens and I've always been fascinated by the story. Benioff turns it into the setting for a bizarre quest narrative, rooted in the unreal realities of war, starvation, disease, and terror. It's harrowing, funny, and crazy all at the same time--and unforgettable.
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett. Crime goes beautifully cross-cultural in this heady mix of Buddhism, corruption, murder, and unexpected comedy. The narrator is half-Thai and half-American, and his life in two different zones of reality anchors one of the strongest debuts of the decade. You'll feel you've been living in Bangkok before you're done, or long to go there.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Okay, there are magicians in this massive, wildly inventive novel that doubles as an academic spoof. But the real magician is the author, who creates an alternate England complete with its own history, wars, idols, and much more. A decade in the writing, it opens doorways into worlds you wish really existed. A perfect, mind-blowing winter book.
Check out my previous Huffington Post blog here.
----
The Game by Laurie R. King. King's Sherlock Holmes series never gives off that odor of staleness you find in long-running hit series and The Game is flat-out astonishing. Set in a brilliantly evoked India of the 1920s, it features Holmes on a mission to find the Kim who inspired Rudyard Kipling's eponymous novel. The lush book glitters on every page, as well it should, and it's one of my favorites to use in writing workshops.
The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber. It's fitting that this novel about Victorian prostitutes starts with a seduction -- of the reader! I can't recall ever being so grabbed by a novel's first pages. I couldn't stop reading except to note passages that left me in a state of wonderment, or to reread descriptions of London or people to my spouse. The book is a triumph of voice and vision.
Already Dead by Charlie Huston. The fiendishly clever author creates a New York underground divided among gangs of vampires who have great power, but whose anonymity is threatened by dumb, voracious zombies who are bad for PR. His cynical narrator is a zombie hunter/P.I., and every single detail of his world has been worked out with breathtaking ingeniousness.
City of Thieves by David Benioff. One of my grandfathers starved to death in the Siege of Leningrad along with hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens and I've always been fascinated by the story. Benioff turns it into the setting for a bizarre quest narrative, rooted in the unreal realities of war, starvation, disease, and terror. It's harrowing, funny, and crazy all at the same time--and unforgettable.
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett. Crime goes beautifully cross-cultural in this heady mix of Buddhism, corruption, murder, and unexpected comedy. The narrator is half-Thai and half-American, and his life in two different zones of reality anchors one of the strongest debuts of the decade. You'll feel you've been living in Bangkok before you're done, or long to go there.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Okay, there are magicians in this massive, wildly inventive novel that doubles as an academic spoof. But the real magician is the author, who creates an alternate England complete with its own history, wars, idols, and much more. A decade in the writing, it opens doorways into worlds you wish really existed. A perfect, mind-blowing winter book.
Check out my previous Huffington Post blog here.
----
December 16, 2010
What Made My German Tour Perfect? The iPad
I'm not a tech person at all, I'm an author. When I run into trouble with any device, I consult my partner, that is, after a lot of cursing like Eddie Izzard.
I'm also not an early adopter. It took years for me to make the switch to CDs and a CD player. What can I say? Having gone from records to eight tracks to cassettes, I was leery.
But I did buy myself an iPad only a few months after it was released (and no, I'm not an Apple person either).
I had a PC and no laptop and was in the market for a netbook, looking ahead to a seventeen-day book tour in Germany. When I saw the first iPad ads, I was smitten. But was this only a crush? Would reality prove I was deluded?
I checked out a friend's iPad, but even that didn't prepare me for how valuable a travel tool it turned out to be. Did I say valuable? No, perfect.
The iPad has a microphone, though even some friends who own one didn't seem to know that. The mic meant I could Skype home and get Skype calls while I was in Germany and save hundreds over previous trips.
I downloaded a bunch of apps like Evernote, Dragon Dictation, Dropbox, Pages and Quickoffice recommended by another author and found myself both writing and dictating throughout the trip. I kept a travel journal on the iPad and even composed a blog or two for Huffington Post while I was gone.
I stayed in three hotels, all of which had excellent WiFi, so I kept up with email via the iPad, too. I read several books and followed as much news as I was up for on the road, which wasn't a lot. But it was enough to keep me informed about the elections back home and potential problems flying back through Paris that luckily didn't disrupt my return.
The iPad also had all my iTunes music and I could listen to anything in my library as well as watch movies. HD movies look killer on the iPad, which looks killer itself.
I know that some people are bothered by the iPad screen being shiny when you read outdoors, but I don't read even regular books outside, so that's not a problem for me. And I've heard complaints about the backlighting, but I think it's perfect, especially for reading in bed at night without disturbing your partner or having good lighting on a plane. I'm prone to migraines and have never had one triggered by reading or doing anything else on the iPad.
Can I think of a disadvantage? Yes: I have more books on my iPad than I can keep track of now. But that's no real change from the many bookmarked books scattered throughout my house with book, waiting to be read or even remembered.
I'd been getting recommendations to buy the Kindle, which had always seemed a bit drab to me, and flying back from Germany via Paris, I sat next to a Kindle user. Silently comparing our devices, I couldn't help thinking hers was like the old East German Trabant: dowdy and utilitarian. In contrast, I was roaring down the Autobahn in a hot BMW.
She was apparently thinking something similar because unsolicited, she pointed at my iPad and said, "I'm getting my husband one of those for Christmas. And maybe one for myself, too."
Looking for unique holiday reading to download?
I'm also not an early adopter. It took years for me to make the switch to CDs and a CD player. What can I say? Having gone from records to eight tracks to cassettes, I was leery.
But I did buy myself an iPad only a few months after it was released (and no, I'm not an Apple person either).
I had a PC and no laptop and was in the market for a netbook, looking ahead to a seventeen-day book tour in Germany. When I saw the first iPad ads, I was smitten. But was this only a crush? Would reality prove I was deluded?
I checked out a friend's iPad, but even that didn't prepare me for how valuable a travel tool it turned out to be. Did I say valuable? No, perfect.
The iPad has a microphone, though even some friends who own one didn't seem to know that. The mic meant I could Skype home and get Skype calls while I was in Germany and save hundreds over previous trips.
I downloaded a bunch of apps like Evernote, Dragon Dictation, Dropbox, Pages and Quickoffice recommended by another author and found myself both writing and dictating throughout the trip. I kept a travel journal on the iPad and even composed a blog or two for Huffington Post while I was gone.
I stayed in three hotels, all of which had excellent WiFi, so I kept up with email via the iPad, too. I read several books and followed as much news as I was up for on the road, which wasn't a lot. But it was enough to keep me informed about the elections back home and potential problems flying back through Paris that luckily didn't disrupt my return.
The iPad also had all my iTunes music and I could listen to anything in my library as well as watch movies. HD movies look killer on the iPad, which looks killer itself.
I know that some people are bothered by the iPad screen being shiny when you read outdoors, but I don't read even regular books outside, so that's not a problem for me. And I've heard complaints about the backlighting, but I think it's perfect, especially for reading in bed at night without disturbing your partner or having good lighting on a plane. I'm prone to migraines and have never had one triggered by reading or doing anything else on the iPad.
Can I think of a disadvantage? Yes: I have more books on my iPad than I can keep track of now. But that's no real change from the many bookmarked books scattered throughout my house with book, waiting to be read or even remembered.
I'd been getting recommendations to buy the Kindle, which had always seemed a bit drab to me, and flying back from Germany via Paris, I sat next to a Kindle user. Silently comparing our devices, I couldn't help thinking hers was like the old East German Trabant: dowdy and utilitarian. In contrast, I was roaring down the Autobahn in a hot BMW.
She was apparently thinking something similar because unsolicited, she pointed at my iPad and said, "I'm getting my husband one of those for Christmas. And maybe one for myself, too."
Looking for unique holiday reading to download?
What Made My German Tour Perfect?
I'm not a tech person at all, I'm an author. When I run into trouble with any device, I consult my partner, that is, after a lot of cursing like Eddie Izzard.
I'm also not an early adopter. It took years for me to make the switch to CDs and a CD player. What can I say? Having gone from records to eight tracks to cassettes, I was leery.
But I did buy myself an iPad only a few months after it was released (and no, I'm not an Apple person either).
I had a PC and no laptop and was in the market for a netbook, looking ahead to a seventeen-day book tour in Germany. When I saw the first iPad ads, I was smitten. But was this only a crush? Would reality prove I was deluded?
I checked out a friend's iPad, but even that didn't prepare me for how valuable a travel tool it turned out to be. Did I say valuable? No, perfect.
The iPad has a microphone, though even some friends who own one didn't seem to know that. The mic meant I could Skype home and get Skype calls while I was in Germany and save hundreds over previous trips.
I downloaded a bunch of apps like Evernote, Dragon Dictation, Dropbox, Pages and Quickoffice recommended by another author and found myself both writing and dictating throughout the trip. I kept a travel journal on the iPad and even composed a blog or two for Huffington Post while I was gone.
I stayed in three hotels, all of which had excellent WiFi, so I kept up with email via the iPad, too. I read several books and followed as much news as I was up for on the road, which wasn't a lot. But it was enough to keep me informed about the elections back home and potential problems flying back through Paris that luckily didn't disrupt my return.
The iPad also had all my iTunes music and I could listen to anything in my library as well as watch movies. HD movies look killer on the iPad, which looks killer itself.
I know that some people are bothered by the iPad screen being shiny when you read outdoors, but I don't read even regular books outside, so that's not a problem for me. And I've heard complaints about the backlighting, but I think it's perfect, especially for reading in bed at night without disturbing your partner or having good lighting on a plane. I'm prone to migraines and have never had one triggered by reading or doing anything else on the iPad.
Can I think of a disadvantage? Yes: I have more books on my iPad than I can keep track of now. But that's no real change from the many bookmarked books scattered throughout my house with book, waiting to be read or even remembered.
I'd been getting recommendations to buy the Kindle, which had always seemed a bit drab to me, and flying back from Germany via Paris, I sat next to a Kindle user. Silently comparing our devices, I couldn't help thinking hers was like the old East German Trabant: dowdy and utilitarian. In contrast, I was roaring down the Autobahn in a hot BMW.
She was apparently thinking something similar because unsolicited, she pointed at my iPad and said, "I'm getting my husband one of those for Christmas. And maybe one for myself, too."
Looking for unique holiday reading to download?
I'm also not an early adopter. It took years for me to make the switch to CDs and a CD player. What can I say? Having gone from records to eight tracks to cassettes, I was leery.
But I did buy myself an iPad only a few months after it was released (and no, I'm not an Apple person either).
I had a PC and no laptop and was in the market for a netbook, looking ahead to a seventeen-day book tour in Germany. When I saw the first iPad ads, I was smitten. But was this only a crush? Would reality prove I was deluded?
I checked out a friend's iPad, but even that didn't prepare me for how valuable a travel tool it turned out to be. Did I say valuable? No, perfect.
The iPad has a microphone, though even some friends who own one didn't seem to know that. The mic meant I could Skype home and get Skype calls while I was in Germany and save hundreds over previous trips.
I downloaded a bunch of apps like Evernote, Dragon Dictation, Dropbox, Pages and Quickoffice recommended by another author and found myself both writing and dictating throughout the trip. I kept a travel journal on the iPad and even composed a blog or two for Huffington Post while I was gone.
I stayed in three hotels, all of which had excellent WiFi, so I kept up with email via the iPad, too. I read several books and followed as much news as I was up for on the road, which wasn't a lot. But it was enough to keep me informed about the elections back home and potential problems flying back through Paris that luckily didn't disrupt my return.
The iPad also had all my iTunes music and I could listen to anything in my library as well as watch movies. HD movies look killer on the iPad, which looks killer itself.
I know that some people are bothered by the iPad screen being shiny when you read outdoors, but I don't read even regular books outside, so that's not a problem for me. And I've heard complaints about the backlighting, but I think it's perfect, especially for reading in bed at night without disturbing your partner or having good lighting on a plane. I'm prone to migraines and have never had one triggered by reading or doing anything else on the iPad.
Can I think of a disadvantage? Yes: I have more books on my iPad than I can keep track of now. But that's no real change from the many bookmarked books scattered throughout my house with book, waiting to be read or even remembered.
I'd been getting recommendations to buy the Kindle, which had always seemed a bit drab to me, and flying back from Germany via Paris, I sat next to a Kindle user. Silently comparing our devices, I couldn't help thinking hers was like the old East German Trabant: dowdy and utilitarian. In contrast, I was roaring down the Autobahn in a hot BMW.
She was apparently thinking something similar because unsolicited, she pointed at my iPad and said, "I'm getting my husband one of those for Christmas. And maybe one for myself, too."
Looking for unique holiday reading to download?
November 28, 2010
Two Amazing Thrillers for Your Holiday Gift List
If you're looking to surprise book lovers on your gift list, you can't do better than giving them two paperback thrillers by Jacques Chessex.
Never heard of him? Join the club. The American club, that is.
Chessex, who died last year, was celebrated in Switzerland and France, winner of many prizes and the first non-French author to win the the Prix Goncourt. But things like that usually mean zip in the United States because we don't tend to read books in translation (Stieg Larsson aside). Currently, only about 3 percent of our books are translated from other languages. In Europe, it's more like 30 percent.
Chessex's two short thrillers available in English are so gripping it's hard to believe they were written in any language but English. The prose is taut and tense; the stories are knock-outs. Chessex lived in northwest Switzerland which is where both novellas are set. It's a bleak, unforgiving region he compares to the Carpathians.
A Jew Must Die takes place in 1942 close to Hitler's birthday, when most of Europe has been subjugated by the Nazis and the Soviet Union seems bound to fall next. A vicious Minister and a megalomaniacal Swiss Nazi want to rouse the Swiss people and offer Hitler a perverse birthday present: a dead Jew. They want this act to guarantee them power and a prominent place in the New Europe when Switzerland becomes part of The Reich. Their target? A prominent well-liked cattle merchant. How he dies, how they hide the body, and the initial response to the man's disappearance will shock you.
The Vampire of Ropraz isn't sleek and elegant: he's a brain-addled fiend who violates the corpses of beautiful girls in bestial ways. Set in 1905, it's a story of insanity, suspicion and profound ignorance. The countryside goes wild with panic and the crimes feel like all the "dreaded secrets of an evil world" have been set loose. Neither one of these novels could have endeared Chessex to his neighbors; they paint the Swiss of the region as superstitious, venal, and backward, steeped in cruelty.
At only around 100 pages, both thrillers pack more power than books many times their length, and raise profound questions about complicity and guilt. Even more striking, Chessex knew the Jew-killers he fashioned the first novel about, and his vampire novel is based on a true story.
At one point Chessex invokes Baudelaire's "To the Reader," implicating himself and his readers in "Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin." You realize then that you've been reading much more than a thriller, and a different kind of chill settles in.
Never heard of him? Join the club. The American club, that is.
Chessex, who died last year, was celebrated in Switzerland and France, winner of many prizes and the first non-French author to win the the Prix Goncourt. But things like that usually mean zip in the United States because we don't tend to read books in translation (Stieg Larsson aside). Currently, only about 3 percent of our books are translated from other languages. In Europe, it's more like 30 percent.
Chessex's two short thrillers available in English are so gripping it's hard to believe they were written in any language but English. The prose is taut and tense; the stories are knock-outs. Chessex lived in northwest Switzerland which is where both novellas are set. It's a bleak, unforgiving region he compares to the Carpathians.
A Jew Must Die takes place in 1942 close to Hitler's birthday, when most of Europe has been subjugated by the Nazis and the Soviet Union seems bound to fall next. A vicious Minister and a megalomaniacal Swiss Nazi want to rouse the Swiss people and offer Hitler a perverse birthday present: a dead Jew. They want this act to guarantee them power and a prominent place in the New Europe when Switzerland becomes part of The Reich. Their target? A prominent well-liked cattle merchant. How he dies, how they hide the body, and the initial response to the man's disappearance will shock you.
The Vampire of Ropraz isn't sleek and elegant: he's a brain-addled fiend who violates the corpses of beautiful girls in bestial ways. Set in 1905, it's a story of insanity, suspicion and profound ignorance. The countryside goes wild with panic and the crimes feel like all the "dreaded secrets of an evil world" have been set loose. Neither one of these novels could have endeared Chessex to his neighbors; they paint the Swiss of the region as superstitious, venal, and backward, steeped in cruelty.
At only around 100 pages, both thrillers pack more power than books many times their length, and raise profound questions about complicity and guilt. Even more striking, Chessex knew the Jew-killers he fashioned the first novel about, and his vampire novel is based on a true story.
At one point Chessex invokes Baudelaire's "To the Reader," implicating himself and his readers in "Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin." You realize then that you've been reading much more than a thriller, and a different kind of chill settles in.
November 24, 2010
Does George W. Bush Love Books?
Reading all the press about George Bush's memoir reminds me of Karl Rove's claims a few years ago that he and Bush had been having a "book competition" for three years.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Rove noted that he won each year, but the essay wasn't about his victory. It was all about how Bush "loves books, learns from them, and is intellectually engaged by them."
This was a flashback for me to Bush's first term when his own staffers breathlessly informed America that President Bush "asks a lot of questions!" Of course, that was bull. Insiders leaving the Bush administration uniformly reported him as deeply incurious. And I myself knew a journalist who had spent lots of time with Bush in Texas who said the same thing. Do people like that read?
Well, maybe if motivated by a contest. Which was pretty embarrassing, since the the last time I competed with anyone about how many books we read, it was in fourth grade. I think I got a nifty certificate, signed by my peppy teacher.
So what kinds of books did Rove say his buddy read? Mostly history and biography, including works like Team of Rivals. And how many did he read a year? Ninety-five.
That makes about two a week. When I reviewed for a National Public Radio show and the Detroit Free Press as well as freelancing for the Washington Post, Jerusalem Report, and the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, I read a minimum of two or three books a week week -- around the clock.
Did Bush really have that much time to read?
Of course, it's not impossible that Bush read the books Rove reported. After all, some were mysteries and they typically read fast. One was apparently a young adult book, ditto.
But did Bush learn anything from them? Did they affect his thinking? Did they change his world view? On the basis of his interviews and press conferences over eight years which all seemed pretty consistent, reading didn't seem to have much impact on the President.
Those books, including Team of Rivals, sure didn't show up in his conversation. You often can't stop talking about a book if you love it -- or even if you hated it. But at meetings of world leaders, the president was widely known to basically just ask about his colleagues' flights, and if they slept on the plane. That was about it for chatting. He never brought up books that he read, when that would have been a perfect opportunity, especially if his favorite topics are history and biography.
The saddest part of the whole story was that reading didn't sound remotely enjoyable or engaging as Karl Rove described it. Rove reported that "We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book's pages -- its 'Total Lateral Area.' " So the number and size of pages apparently meant as much to Rove and Bush as what was on them. The reader as size queen. Wow.
You have to wonder if in tackling his own memoir, Bush picked a total lateral area and told his ghostwriter to shoot for that.
A version of this blog appeared on Bibliobuffet.com
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Rove noted that he won each year, but the essay wasn't about his victory. It was all about how Bush "loves books, learns from them, and is intellectually engaged by them."
This was a flashback for me to Bush's first term when his own staffers breathlessly informed America that President Bush "asks a lot of questions!" Of course, that was bull. Insiders leaving the Bush administration uniformly reported him as deeply incurious. And I myself knew a journalist who had spent lots of time with Bush in Texas who said the same thing. Do people like that read?
Well, maybe if motivated by a contest. Which was pretty embarrassing, since the the last time I competed with anyone about how many books we read, it was in fourth grade. I think I got a nifty certificate, signed by my peppy teacher.
So what kinds of books did Rove say his buddy read? Mostly history and biography, including works like Team of Rivals. And how many did he read a year? Ninety-five.
That makes about two a week. When I reviewed for a National Public Radio show and the Detroit Free Press as well as freelancing for the Washington Post, Jerusalem Report, and the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, I read a minimum of two or three books a week week -- around the clock.
Did Bush really have that much time to read?
Of course, it's not impossible that Bush read the books Rove reported. After all, some were mysteries and they typically read fast. One was apparently a young adult book, ditto.
But did Bush learn anything from them? Did they affect his thinking? Did they change his world view? On the basis of his interviews and press conferences over eight years which all seemed pretty consistent, reading didn't seem to have much impact on the President.
Those books, including Team of Rivals, sure didn't show up in his conversation. You often can't stop talking about a book if you love it -- or even if you hated it. But at meetings of world leaders, the president was widely known to basically just ask about his colleagues' flights, and if they slept on the plane. That was about it for chatting. He never brought up books that he read, when that would have been a perfect opportunity, especially if his favorite topics are history and biography.
The saddest part of the whole story was that reading didn't sound remotely enjoyable or engaging as Karl Rove described it. Rove reported that "We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book's pages -- its 'Total Lateral Area.' " So the number and size of pages apparently meant as much to Rove and Bush as what was on them. The reader as size queen. Wow.
You have to wonder if in tackling his own memoir, Bush picked a total lateral area and told his ghostwriter to shoot for that.
A version of this blog appeared on Bibliobuffet.com
November 22, 2010
The TSA and the Power of Shame
The American air traveler has been remarkably docile over recent years. Take my shoes off? Fine. Put my liquids in a baggy where you can see them (but not test them)? No problem. Strip off my belt and watch and rings? Happy to. Subject myself to potentially dangerous radiation in a machine that hasn't been proven to work? I'm ready.
But the TSA finally seems to have crossed a line. We're hearing more and more stories about outrage on the part of passengers across the country.
It's being fueled by reports like the one about a woman being told to remove her prosthetic breast. Or the man whose aggressive pat down left him urine-stained despite his warnings to be careful with his urostomy bag. And the 71-year-old man who had to take his pants down in a public space for a knee replacement to be checked out.
The TSA is finally facing the fury it's long deserved, and the key ingredient is shame. That's right, in a culture where reality shows rule the airwaves and nobody seems to be ashamed of anything anymore, shame is driving the discussion.
According to psychologists like Gershen Kaufman, shame is a basic human feeling. Its core is a sense of exposure and that can take many forms. We can feel exposed about a misdeed (guilt), or exposed in front of an audience (shyness) or exposed for doing something silly (embarrassment). In its most extreme form, shame is humiliation and it can drive us into rage.
That's what the TSA has unwittingly done. It's enraging the American public by humiliating us through intrusive, invasive, idiotic security measures that leave many of us feeling helpless and ashamed. Imagine having had cancer surgery and having your body invaded once again, by strangers who don't seem to have the least bit of empathy or kindness.
These stories trigger our own sense of shame for the people suffering through them, and anxiety that we could be next. It's a nightmare. And half-hearted responses from the head of TSA only make things worse.
We had to put up with the lie that the government needed naked images of us and our loved ones to make us all safe, and these images couldn't be stored. Now we've been asked for "patience" and presented with a phony choice: be humiliated by these pat-downs or get blown up.
Shame sometimes has a powerful positive effect: it alerts us to outrages against human dignity, it makes us fight to right a wrong. That's what partly fuels movements for social change. In the cascade of TSA stupidity, there's one thing to be thankful for this holiday season: in pushing us too far, the TSA might be forcing us to wake up and take action.
But the TSA finally seems to have crossed a line. We're hearing more and more stories about outrage on the part of passengers across the country.
It's being fueled by reports like the one about a woman being told to remove her prosthetic breast. Or the man whose aggressive pat down left him urine-stained despite his warnings to be careful with his urostomy bag. And the 71-year-old man who had to take his pants down in a public space for a knee replacement to be checked out.
The TSA is finally facing the fury it's long deserved, and the key ingredient is shame. That's right, in a culture where reality shows rule the airwaves and nobody seems to be ashamed of anything anymore, shame is driving the discussion.
According to psychologists like Gershen Kaufman, shame is a basic human feeling. Its core is a sense of exposure and that can take many forms. We can feel exposed about a misdeed (guilt), or exposed in front of an audience (shyness) or exposed for doing something silly (embarrassment). In its most extreme form, shame is humiliation and it can drive us into rage.
That's what the TSA has unwittingly done. It's enraging the American public by humiliating us through intrusive, invasive, idiotic security measures that leave many of us feeling helpless and ashamed. Imagine having had cancer surgery and having your body invaded once again, by strangers who don't seem to have the least bit of empathy or kindness.
These stories trigger our own sense of shame for the people suffering through them, and anxiety that we could be next. It's a nightmare. And half-hearted responses from the head of TSA only make things worse.
We had to put up with the lie that the government needed naked images of us and our loved ones to make us all safe, and these images couldn't be stored. Now we've been asked for "patience" and presented with a phony choice: be humiliated by these pat-downs or get blown up.
Shame sometimes has a powerful positive effect: it alerts us to outrages against human dignity, it makes us fight to right a wrong. That's what partly fuels movements for social change. In the cascade of TSA stupidity, there's one thing to be thankful for this holiday season: in pushing us too far, the TSA might be forcing us to wake up and take action.
November 16, 2010
Confessions of a Book Slut
For as long as I can remember, I was a monogamous reader. I'd start a book and read it straight through no matter how much time that took. Even if I didn't like it, I was supposed to finish it.
My example was my parents. Not their reading habits, but their marriage, which was often acrimonious, but like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going.
Or maybe a better model would be a high school production of Mourning Becomes Electra.
College and graduate school didn't change my book monogamy. Even when my reading load was very heavy, I never had a book on the side. That seemed shifty and wrong. Once during my MFA program I had to read Bleak House, The Wings of the Dove and two novels by Iris Murdoch all in one week, but I didn't cheat. I slogged along serially, losing sleep but determined to be faithful. My roommate later claimed I was prone to hysterical laughter that week, but monogamy can make anyone frantic.
Years later, when I was reviewing for a handful of magazines and newspapers and two public radio stations, I still didn't cheat. My motto: One man, one book.
Now I'm a book slut. I can't seem to keep my hands off all the books piled in my study, by my bed, in the den, and sent to me by publishers. I'll try to stay focused but then a new book shows up and I go all Iggy Pop: "You look so good to me...."
This has nothing to do with competition from time spent downloading music, on Facebook or Twitter, texting, or watching the latest Blu-Ray DVD. It's the books that compete with each other. Some months I'm reading as many as five to six books at a time. That means bookmarks, Post-it notes, a pen or pencil, a napkin, a comb, a receipt or whatever else is handy will be poking out from books all around the house.
That also means some weeks I shun the New York Times Book Review. I don't want to hear about another new book in any genre, don't want any book club recommendations, don't want any recommendations from anyone. I don't want to be tempted!
So what's in my book harem right now? John Le Carré's A Small Town in Germany, a biography of "dark and stormy night" Edward Bulwer-Lytton, A Bridge Too Far, A Renegade History of the United States, Sarah Waters's Affinity, a book about Nero and The Great Fire of Rome, and probably one or two others I've mislaid.
But I haven't gotten my mail yet today, so I have no idea what new seduction will be lurking in the box.
My example was my parents. Not their reading habits, but their marriage, which was often acrimonious, but like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going.
Or maybe a better model would be a high school production of Mourning Becomes Electra.
College and graduate school didn't change my book monogamy. Even when my reading load was very heavy, I never had a book on the side. That seemed shifty and wrong. Once during my MFA program I had to read Bleak House, The Wings of the Dove and two novels by Iris Murdoch all in one week, but I didn't cheat. I slogged along serially, losing sleep but determined to be faithful. My roommate later claimed I was prone to hysterical laughter that week, but monogamy can make anyone frantic.
Years later, when I was reviewing for a handful of magazines and newspapers and two public radio stations, I still didn't cheat. My motto: One man, one book.
Now I'm a book slut. I can't seem to keep my hands off all the books piled in my study, by my bed, in the den, and sent to me by publishers. I'll try to stay focused but then a new book shows up and I go all Iggy Pop: "You look so good to me...."
This has nothing to do with competition from time spent downloading music, on Facebook or Twitter, texting, or watching the latest Blu-Ray DVD. It's the books that compete with each other. Some months I'm reading as many as five to six books at a time. That means bookmarks, Post-it notes, a pen or pencil, a napkin, a comb, a receipt or whatever else is handy will be poking out from books all around the house.
That also means some weeks I shun the New York Times Book Review. I don't want to hear about another new book in any genre, don't want any book club recommendations, don't want any recommendations from anyone. I don't want to be tempted!
So what's in my book harem right now? John Le Carré's A Small Town in Germany, a biography of "dark and stormy night" Edward Bulwer-Lytton, A Bridge Too Far, A Renegade History of the United States, Sarah Waters's Affinity, a book about Nero and The Great Fire of Rome, and probably one or two others I've mislaid.
But I haven't gotten my mail yet today, so I have no idea what new seduction will be lurking in the box.
November 9, 2010
Foreign Language, Foreign Land: Reading My Book in a New Language
I'm just back from a book tour of over two weeks in Germany where I did something I never dreamed of doing: I read from my new memoir in German.
Published so far only in English, My Germany explores the role Germany real and imagined has played in my family, in my life as the son of Holocaust survivors, and in my career as an author.
It was going to be published in Germany first until the publishing house got sold and now book is waiting for a German publisher. But the German translation was finished before the sale, and that made me moderately hopeful when one of the tour organizers asked if I could read in German in three cities in former East Germany. English isn't as widely spoken or understood there as in former West Germany.
I'd already read the prologue in English at over 40 events across North America -- and I'd taken a few German courses -- so this couldn't be too much of a challenge, could it?
To prepare for my tour, I was having German lessons anyway, meeting almost weekly with a woman who was a retired high school German teacher. Petite, tanned, and Viennese, Maria was a friend of friends, had done some translations for me before, and was a good mix of enthusiasm and clarity. My two Westies loved her and they joined us for every session.
Maria and I had already been working on my conversational skills by talking about everything from books to politics to what I had done the previous week. The setting couldn't have been more conducive to learning: the quiet small sun room of my mid-century ranch house looking out over a back yard filled with lilacs, elephant ferns, viburnums, all of it anchored by sassafras trees and a century-old oak tree.
So I sat down with Maria to talk about doing some readings in German, and then I got the bad news. "This is very complicated," she said quietly, the way a doctor might say, "Hmm" looking at a troubling X-Ray. I know German is different from English, but as I explored the German translation with Maria, I slowly realized I was facing a huge challenge.
German syntax presents opportunities for complexity English speakers can't imagine. Here's an example of what we were dealing with. One 24-word English sentence read like this
In German, it wasn't much longer, but it was very differently structured:
The second half of this long sentence isn't too bad or too different from the English, but the first half says, "the one street away-standing Protestant cathedral-connected book store" etc. You can say that in German. I guess. But can you read it aloud? I couldn't.
As we explored further, Maria said, "We have to make this easier for your audience to hear, and for you to say." So we spent time simplifying sentences, simplifying vocabulary, and sometimes just substituting words because I couldn't pronounce certain combinations of sounds together without getting my tongue twisted.
Then I started practicing it by myself almost daily, reading it aloud to her once a week, line-by-line. She explained something that three German classes hadn't taught me: except for questions, the intonation of German sentences drops at the end, it doesn't go up or stay level. How had I watched so many German movies and missed this?
Eventually, I started feeling more comfortable with the German, started slipping inside of the sentences rather than feeling like I was just reciting something unconnected from me. I claimed these words as my own -- and in a sense they are, or at least partly so, a collaboration of me, my tutor, and the translator. The German became so familiar that when I did a reading from the book at a Michigan university two weeks before leaving for Germany, the German phrases kept running through my head as I read the English. It was very strange, but it seemed like a good sign.
What would my Holocaust survivor mother have said about this adventure? I think she would have been proud because her German was perfect, though she rarely spoke it. She expected the best of her children and it's what I always try to give my audience.
I read in big cities and small towns: Berlin, Frankfurt, Magdeburg, Dessau, Halle, Celle and Kirn. Of my nine readings, the three German ones went every bit as well as the English ones. People complimented my accent and my intonation, all of them impressed that I had made the attempt. The summer's work paid off, and everything went without a hitch. Es ist alles glattgegangen.
I've had books of mine translated before, but this is the first time I've entered the translation. Now the book exists for me in a whole new realm.
Published so far only in English, My Germany explores the role Germany real and imagined has played in my family, in my life as the son of Holocaust survivors, and in my career as an author.
It was going to be published in Germany first until the publishing house got sold and now book is waiting for a German publisher. But the German translation was finished before the sale, and that made me moderately hopeful when one of the tour organizers asked if I could read in German in three cities in former East Germany. English isn't as widely spoken or understood there as in former West Germany.
I'd already read the prologue in English at over 40 events across North America -- and I'd taken a few German courses -- so this couldn't be too much of a challenge, could it?
To prepare for my tour, I was having German lessons anyway, meeting almost weekly with a woman who was a retired high school German teacher. Petite, tanned, and Viennese, Maria was a friend of friends, had done some translations for me before, and was a good mix of enthusiasm and clarity. My two Westies loved her and they joined us for every session.
Maria and I had already been working on my conversational skills by talking about everything from books to politics to what I had done the previous week. The setting couldn't have been more conducive to learning: the quiet small sun room of my mid-century ranch house looking out over a back yard filled with lilacs, elephant ferns, viburnums, all of it anchored by sassafras trees and a century-old oak tree.
So I sat down with Maria to talk about doing some readings in German, and then I got the bad news. "This is very complicated," she said quietly, the way a doctor might say, "Hmm" looking at a troubling X-Ray. I know German is different from English, but as I explored the German translation with Maria, I slowly realized I was facing a huge challenge.
German syntax presents opportunities for complexity English speakers can't imagine. Here's an example of what we were dealing with. One 24-word English sentence read like this
The bookstore, connected to the Protestant cathedral a block away, is packed before I begin, with at least forty people looking interested and attentive.
In German, it wasn't much longer, but it was very differently structured:
Die dem eine StraÃe weiter stehenden protestantischen Dom angegliederte Buchhandlung ist bis auf den letzten Platz besetzt, mindestens vierzig Menschen schauen mich interessiert und aufmerksam an, als ich beginne.
The second half of this long sentence isn't too bad or too different from the English, but the first half says, "the one street away-standing Protestant cathedral-connected book store" etc. You can say that in German. I guess. But can you read it aloud? I couldn't.
As we explored further, Maria said, "We have to make this easier for your audience to hear, and for you to say." So we spent time simplifying sentences, simplifying vocabulary, and sometimes just substituting words because I couldn't pronounce certain combinations of sounds together without getting my tongue twisted.
Then I started practicing it by myself almost daily, reading it aloud to her once a week, line-by-line. She explained something that three German classes hadn't taught me: except for questions, the intonation of German sentences drops at the end, it doesn't go up or stay level. How had I watched so many German movies and missed this?
Eventually, I started feeling more comfortable with the German, started slipping inside of the sentences rather than feeling like I was just reciting something unconnected from me. I claimed these words as my own -- and in a sense they are, or at least partly so, a collaboration of me, my tutor, and the translator. The German became so familiar that when I did a reading from the book at a Michigan university two weeks before leaving for Germany, the German phrases kept running through my head as I read the English. It was very strange, but it seemed like a good sign.
What would my Holocaust survivor mother have said about this adventure? I think she would have been proud because her German was perfect, though she rarely spoke it. She expected the best of her children and it's what I always try to give my audience.
I read in big cities and small towns: Berlin, Frankfurt, Magdeburg, Dessau, Halle, Celle and Kirn. Of my nine readings, the three German ones went every bit as well as the English ones. People complimented my accent and my intonation, all of them impressed that I had made the attempt. The summer's work paid off, and everything went without a hitch. Es ist alles glattgegangen.
I've had books of mine translated before, but this is the first time I've entered the translation. Now the book exists for me in a whole new realm.
October 25, 2010
Letting Go of The Past: An Author's View
Not long ago, I spoke at a book club where the woman introducing me mentioned that I had recently sold my literary papers to the Michigan State University Libraries. Someone in the club asked, "Won't you be losing your identity when they take your papers away?"
It was a good question, because Michigan State was going to cart off more than 30 years of my writing life in over ninety boxes. Letting go of the past is something I've worked on in therapy over the years, and, for me, it has often meant dealing with something that had gone wrong in my career.
As a writer, the past almost always includes what might have been, so no matter how good things look to an outsider, there's a shadow story that the public doesn't know.
These boxes held the dreams and realities of 31 years of publishing and easily another five or more before that, in college and graduate school learning my craft. Though I would eventually publish 19 books and hundreds of stories, essays and reviews, the boxes were filled with many false starts.
There were dozens of stories that didn't get finished or published, aborted novels and short story collections, un-produced plays, un-filmed screenplays, notes for stories and books that never took shape at all. And then the files and files of rejections from editors and agents.
I had held on to everything, good and bad. That included handwritten and typed manuscripts; writing diaries; travel/book tour journals; correspondence with other authors; domestic and foreign tour memorabilia; fan mail; corrected galley proofs; drafts and clippings of the hundreds of reviews I've published; programs from all the conferences I've attended with copies of my talks and info about the panels I appeared on; advertisements for my books and readings; notes and talking points for talks and keynotes I've given; copies of material for workshops and classes I've taught; CDs from my radio show interviews with authors like Salman Rushdie and Erica Jong.
There were also research materials in various media for every book I'd written or tried to write, including books I consulted for many of my projects; my interviews in print and on tape, CD and DVD; editorial correspondence; reviews of my books from around the world; articles, conference papers and book chapters written about my work; copies of all my published works in all languages; unpublished manuscripts; unpublished poetry; books inscribed to me from other authors; original cover art and posters; and "ephemera" including gifts from fans.
As for the precious prizes, framed great reviews, and framed book covers that used to decorate my study -- I stripped the walls and sent all that off, too, without any hesitation. I went five years between publishing my first and second short story. The drought left its mark, and there were other bad times where every door seemed closed to me. Good news hanging on the wall had helped to remind me that even if my career might seem like it was floundering at times, that wasn't how it had always been or would be. But with a home for my papers, none of that seemed necessary now.
Once I had agreed in principle to a deal with Michigan State, it took me six months on and off, working with my spouse, to get them ready. We inventoried the boxes that were already filled, and emptied out all the file cabinets in the house into more boxes. We carefully labeled and recorded everything, adding explanatory notes when necessary. The full inventory was over 70 pages long.
The process made me relive my entire career until that point, the highs and lows. It reminded me of people I'd met and lost touch with, of places I'd forgotten I'd visited, and paths I'd never completely explored. It was a journey I had never expected to take, a retrospective that surprised me, made me laugh at times, and sometimes moved me to the point of tears.
It was a very long goodbye.
So do I feel I've lost my identity? Not at all. Something about boxing everything that was un-boxed and inventorying the entire collection helped me separate myself from my writing past and look toward the future. Selling my papers has been a giant spring cleaning, an act of liberation.
The freeing up of physical space has also freed my mind. I don't find myself dwelling much any more on the things that didn't happen for me in my writing life, the wrong turns, the many career disappointments, some of them profound, one or two almost crippling. The pressure to succeed, to keep striving, to publish more and more and more has been lifted.
My legacy -- whatever it is -- has been secured.
A different version of this blog appeared in Bibliobuffet.com
.
It was a good question, because Michigan State was going to cart off more than 30 years of my writing life in over ninety boxes. Letting go of the past is something I've worked on in therapy over the years, and, for me, it has often meant dealing with something that had gone wrong in my career.
As a writer, the past almost always includes what might have been, so no matter how good things look to an outsider, there's a shadow story that the public doesn't know.
These boxes held the dreams and realities of 31 years of publishing and easily another five or more before that, in college and graduate school learning my craft. Though I would eventually publish 19 books and hundreds of stories, essays and reviews, the boxes were filled with many false starts.
There were dozens of stories that didn't get finished or published, aborted novels and short story collections, un-produced plays, un-filmed screenplays, notes for stories and books that never took shape at all. And then the files and files of rejections from editors and agents.
I had held on to everything, good and bad. That included handwritten and typed manuscripts; writing diaries; travel/book tour journals; correspondence with other authors; domestic and foreign tour memorabilia; fan mail; corrected galley proofs; drafts and clippings of the hundreds of reviews I've published; programs from all the conferences I've attended with copies of my talks and info about the panels I appeared on; advertisements for my books and readings; notes and talking points for talks and keynotes I've given; copies of material for workshops and classes I've taught; CDs from my radio show interviews with authors like Salman Rushdie and Erica Jong.
There were also research materials in various media for every book I'd written or tried to write, including books I consulted for many of my projects; my interviews in print and on tape, CD and DVD; editorial correspondence; reviews of my books from around the world; articles, conference papers and book chapters written about my work; copies of all my published works in all languages; unpublished manuscripts; unpublished poetry; books inscribed to me from other authors; original cover art and posters; and "ephemera" including gifts from fans.
As for the precious prizes, framed great reviews, and framed book covers that used to decorate my study -- I stripped the walls and sent all that off, too, without any hesitation. I went five years between publishing my first and second short story. The drought left its mark, and there were other bad times where every door seemed closed to me. Good news hanging on the wall had helped to remind me that even if my career might seem like it was floundering at times, that wasn't how it had always been or would be. But with a home for my papers, none of that seemed necessary now.
Once I had agreed in principle to a deal with Michigan State, it took me six months on and off, working with my spouse, to get them ready. We inventoried the boxes that were already filled, and emptied out all the file cabinets in the house into more boxes. We carefully labeled and recorded everything, adding explanatory notes when necessary. The full inventory was over 70 pages long.
The process made me relive my entire career until that point, the highs and lows. It reminded me of people I'd met and lost touch with, of places I'd forgotten I'd visited, and paths I'd never completely explored. It was a journey I had never expected to take, a retrospective that surprised me, made me laugh at times, and sometimes moved me to the point of tears.
It was a very long goodbye.
So do I feel I've lost my identity? Not at all. Something about boxing everything that was un-boxed and inventorying the entire collection helped me separate myself from my writing past and look toward the future. Selling my papers has been a giant spring cleaning, an act of liberation.
The freeing up of physical space has also freed my mind. I don't find myself dwelling much any more on the things that didn't happen for me in my writing life, the wrong turns, the many career disappointments, some of them profound, one or two almost crippling. The pressure to succeed, to keep striving, to publish more and more and more has been lifted.
My legacy -- whatever it is -- has been secured.
A different version of this blog appeared in Bibliobuffet.com
.
