Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 34

THOSE WHO CAN'T, TEACH

Posts are delayed this morning as I'm off for my first orientation session at UCLA, where I will be teaching Novel I in the winter session at the Extension (beginning January).  I'll be back later (I hope), with an amusing post on typewriters, and then tomorrow we give away a little Marilynne Robinson as we ease back out of the summer doldrums.  Stay tuned.

MAN BOOKER SHORTLIST

The Man Booker shortlist has been announced:

A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)

J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)

Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)

TUESDAY MARGINALIA

* One of the nice things about an extended leave is it spares us the need to engage with idiocies like Lev Grossman's recent WSJ essay in favor of easy books.  The cynic in us assumes that because Grossman has just published a genre novel, he feels compelled to defend its bona fides, lest we take him less seriously than, well, we've always taken Time's book critic.  And others have already responded to the more obviously stupid points in his essay (and there are many to choose from).  But...

BACK IN SEPTEMBER

Well, between a nasty summer cold and a lovely baby daughter, it seems it's time for my annual end-of-summer hiatus.  Posting will be infrequent at best until Labor Day-ish, but I reserve to right to pop up if something catches my eye.  Until then, I wish all my loyal readers and their loved ones a happy end to their summer.  Back before you know it.  Until then, please do visit the fine sites in my blogroll.

NETHERLAND ADAPTATION?

Oprah's involvement notwithstanding, our feeling is that any screenwriter who can confidently use "quail" as a verb might just be the guy to adapt Netherland ...

[Christopher:] Hampton said he had been nervous about trying to adapt Netherland, which he described as "a most seductively... and beautifully written book", but eventually had been persuaded by Mendes' persistence.

"I quail at the idea of adapting it. This is a very difficult project, I know that," he told The Observer.

REVIEW: GLOVER'S MISTAKE

My review of Nick Laird's novel, Glover's Mistake, appears in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review.  Here's the opening:

"Who knows what you mean by love?" This question, posed by the immoderately gifted Nick Laird in his 2007 poem "Estimates," runs like a burning filament through the heart of his fiction and poetry. And it illuminates his new novel, "Glover's Mistake," in which Laird returns to themes he has explored in two poetry collections and his first novel, "Utterly Monkey." He continu

TINTIN CENSORED IN BROOKLYN

If you want to see the Brooklyn Public Library's copy of Tintin au Congo, be prepared to make an appointment and wait a few days.

"It's not for the public," a librarian in the children's room said this month when a patron asked to see it. The book, published 79 years ago, was moved in 2007 from the public area of the library to a back room where it is held under lock and key.

As the Tintin movie nears, we're likely to see more stories about the dreafully racist nature of some the early books.  Th

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Every now and then, there's an almost too-perfect-to-be-accidental juxtaposition of editorial and advertising on the New York Times website.  Here's the latest example, captured from today's obituary of Library of America founder Richard Poirer:

 (Click on image to enlarge.)

Undoubtedly a genuinely random bit of programming, but still ...

READINGS UPDATE

Lots of new events added to the Readings sidebar, including E.L. Doctorow, Dan Chaon, AS Byatt, Ray Bradbury and my own Hammer Museum appearance in October.  So if you're reading via RSS, please do click through and check them out.

CONTRA MAD MEN

It's rare that we agree with the n+1 kids' privileged juvenalia, but, as the Mad Men hype machine relentlessly sucks us all into its insatiable maw, it's worth going back to read Mark Greif's generally astute take on the show, published last October in the London Review of Books.  The DUMBO football team tends toward the contrarian for its own sake, but in this case, we recognize our own experience of trying to watch the first season in Greif's words.

Mad Men is an unpleasant little entry in the