Time to celebrate ...

... at the Literature Carnival!

What makes for a great book ...

... as opposed to a merely good one?
Blogging will continue to be light today as I continue reading War and Peace. But Tolstoy's masterpiece has got me to wondering: What exactly is it that makes it so great?
It is a world on paper, for one thing. You pick it up, start reading, and all of a sudden you're not in the 21st century anymore. Tolstoy has a unfailing knack for choosing the right details and arranging them in just the right way to bring a scene or a person to life. I guess it comes down to his preternatural power of imagining what he is writing about so vividly:

... there was no one between the squadron and the enemy, but there was that dreadful dividing line of uncertainty and fear, so similar to the line between the living and the dead. All of them sensed this, and one question worried them all: would they cross it or not, and if yes, how would they cross it?

I'm only about a sixth of the way through, but already the contrast between the war as talked about in the drawing rooms and the war as experienced on the fields of battle seems to offer a lesson our chattering classes could well use.

My review ...

... of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania is here. Also, since he was a runner-up for the NBCC's Nona Balakian Award for criticism, I recommend for your delectation my colleague Carlin Romano's refreshing piece on this year's anniversary boy.

And the nominees are ...

… well, see for yourself: The finalists for this year’s National Book Critics Circle Awards are:
Fiction
E.L. Doctorow, The March (Random House)
Mary Gaitskill, Veronica (Pantheon)
Andrea Levy, Small Island (Picador)
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (Alfred A. Knopf)
William Vollman, Europe Central (Viking)
General Nonfiction
Svetlana Alexievich, Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History ofa Nuclear Disaster (Dalkey Archive Press)
Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of theMiddle East (Alfred A. Knopf)
Ellen Meloy, Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild(Pantheon)
Caroline Moorehead, Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees (HenryHolt/Metropolitan Books)
Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (Henry Holt)
Biography
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumphand Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Alfred A. Knopf)
Carolyn Burke, Lee Miller: A Life (Alfred A. Knopf)
Jonathan Coe, Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson(Continuum International)
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius ofAbraham Lincoln (Simon & Schuster)
Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (Free Press)
Autobiography
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (Alfred A. Knopf)
Francine du Plessix Gray, Them: A Memoir of Parents (PenguinPress)
Judith Moore, Fat Girl: A True Story (Gotham Books)
Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City (Alfred A. Knopf)
Vikram Seth, Two Lives (HarperCollins)
Criticism
Hal Crowther, Gather at the River: Notes from the Post-millennial South (Louisiana State Univ. Press)
Arthur Danto, Unnatural Wonders (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
William Logan, The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin (Columbia University Press)
John Updike, Still Looking: Essays on American Art (Alfred A.Knopf)
Eliot Weinberger, What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles (NewDirections)
Poetry
Simon Armitage, The Shout (Harcourt)
Manuel Blas de Luna, Bent to Earth (Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press)
Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven (Alfred A. Knopf)
Richard Siken, Crush (Yale University Press)
Ron Slate, The Incentive of the Maggot (Houghton Mifflin/MarinerBooks)

The winners will be announced on March 3 at the organization’s 32d annual awards ceremony.

At the ceremony, the NBCC will also present the Ivan SandrofLifetime Achievement Award to Bill Henderson, founder of the PushcartPress in Wainscot, NY and editor of the annual Pushcart Prize anthology.

In addition, the NBCC will award its Nona Balakian Citation forExcellence in Reviewing to Wyatt Mason, a contributor to Harper'sMagazine, The New Yorker and The New Republic. The award, named after a longtime supporter of the organization and an editor at the New YorkTimes Book Review, is presented annually to a member who has demonstrated the highest critical standards in his or her work. The other finalists were Allen Barra, Katherine A. Powers and Carlin Romano.

The awards ceremony will be held on Friday, March 3, in theTishman Auditorium at the New School, 66 West 12th Street, New York, NY,at 6:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. A gala receptionfollows directly at the New School and costs $40.

Nominees will participate in a reading from their works onThursday, March 2, at the Tishman Auditorium, at 6:00 p.m. This is also free and open to the public.

Blogging will be light ...

... for the remainder of today. I am reading Anthony Briggs's new translation of War and Peace. It's great, but also more than 1,300 pages long. Then tonight, my lovely wife (proof at left) and I will be out at dinner celebrating our anniversary.

The future of newspapers (cont'd) ...

Joel Kotkin, writing in the Wall Street Journal (The War Against Suburbia -- which may be restricted to subsribers), after pointing out that "despite widespread media exposure about a massive 'return to the city,' demographic data suggest that the tide continues to go out toward suburbia, which now accounts for two-thirds of the population in our large metropolitan areas," goes on to note:

These facts do not seem to penetrate the consciousness of the great metropolitan newspapers anymore than the minds of their favored interlocutors in the planning profession and academia. Newspapers from Boston and San Francisco to Los Angeles are routinely filled with anecdotal accounts of former suburbanites streaking into hip lofts and high-rises in the central core. Typical was a risible story that ran in last Sunday's New York Times, titled "Goodbye, Suburbia." The piece tracked the hegira back to the city by sophisticated urbanites who left their McMansions to return to Tribeca (rhymes with "Mecca"). Suburbia, one returnee sniffed, is "just a giant echoing space."
Such reports confirm the cognoscente's notion that the cure for the single-family house lies in the requisite lifting of consciousness, not to mention a couple of spare million in the bank. Yet demographic data suggest the vast majority of all growth in greater New York comes not from migration from the suburbs, but from abroad. Among domestic migrants, far more leave for the "giant echoing spaces" than come back to the city. As a whole, greater New York -- easily the most alluring traditional urban center -- is steadily becoming more, not less, suburban. Since 2000, notes analyst Wendell Cox, New York City has gained less than 95,000 people while the suburban rings have added over 270,000. Growth in "deathlike" places like Suffolk County, in Long Island, Orange County, N.Y., and Morris County, N.J., has been well over three times faster than the city.

No comment.

Eureka!

Thanks to a Bill Peschel post yesterday -- The Decline Of The West(ern), which I didn't read until this morning -- I have discovered Richard Wheeler's Observations. As Bill says, just start at the top and read.

Conrad on screen ...

Joseph Conrad hasn't been served well by film. Whatever else one may think of Apocalypse Now -- and I think very little of it -- it hardly does justice to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The film version of Lord Jim was described by Time magazine as being based "on the title by Joseph Conrad." And John Huston -- who might well have pulled it off -- never succeeded in getting Nostromo to the screen (though it has been made into a TV mini-series, about which I know nothing). At any rate, Patrice Chereau has made a film out of Conrad's story "The Return" (which I am also unfamiliar with). I don't think it's debuted in the U.S. yet, but Chereau has some interesting things to say about adapting Conrad in Fearing feelings more than fire at Sign and Sight.

Curtains for poets ...

Anna Mantzaris looks at poets taking their lines to the boards: From Page to Stage.

Decades ago, one Sunday night, one of the TV networks presented a show of actors peformaing poetry. Among the most memorable was Hurd Hatfield, who starred in the classic film version of The Piction of Dorian Gray, did Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." It was unforgettable and has always made me think that more of this could do wonders for poetry. A lot of poets, especially American ones, aren't very good at reading their poems, lacking either an attractive voice or a skillful technique of reading or both. Actors can usually do a better job.

What are we to make of this?

Sharon Osbourne's Extreme has become Britain's best-selling autobiography ever. Apparently, it has the X-factor. At least it didn't start out as a novel.

Meter and crime ...

Under the names Jack Curtis and David Lawrence, David Harsent is a succesful author of crime fiction. He is also a poet. Christina Patterson talks to him in David Harsent: The pity, and poetry, of war. Here's Harsent's poem "At the Bedside."

Plus ca change ...

But in Moscow? Apparently. In Everyday Moscow: Scenes of City Life From the Beginning of the 20th Century, authors Vladimir Ruga and Andrei Kokorev present evidence that not all that much has changed in the Russian city: The Circle of Time.

Art and life mix it up ...

Glenn Reynolds wonders about a possible trend in science fiction.

Vanity boogie ...

The Gothamist observes: "Dave Eggers and Paul Auster start a band...it sounds like the beginning of a joke. For better or worse, it's not." Read The Author Project. Bad enough that real rockers go on Geritol tours. Who the hell wants to hear a bunch of bookish amateurs jam?
(Via Conversational Reading.)

Reviewing the reviewers ...

The Elegant Variation does just that in Compare and Contrast. I liked The Sea a lot, so naturally I'm inclined to agree with Rafferty in this. But I have to say I try myself, when reviewing a book, not to compare it to an author's other works, because I think each work should be judged on its own terms. It's not a hard and fast tule, though, just a rule of thumb. Rafferty certainly is a close and perceptive reader, which makes his review especially pleasurable to read.

Reasons to celebrate ...

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Singer Sargent, in my view America's greatest painter.

It is also the 130th anniversary of the birth of Jack London, one of its greatest writers. (Don't think so? Read "Building a Fire" again. Or Martin Eden.)
"There is an ecstasy," London wrote, "that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive." Yes.

Updated to correct typo indicating it was Jack London's 100th birthday. He was born in 1876, as reader Arthur Gadfly has noted in the comments.

Speaking of counting the ways ...

David Montgomery totes up his reading and reviewing. With record-keeping skills like this, he should always be able to come up with a good alibi.

How might a pro edit your book?

Ray Rhamey counts the ways: What this editor does. (Hat tip, Bill Peschel.)

Turn the key deftly ...

Scott McLemee, in Beyond Consolation, talks with Sandra M. Gilbert, author of Death’s Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve.

Refreshing candor ...

Grumpy Old Bookman explains why he gave up on a couple of books: Abandoned novels.

Well, I guess I ought to ...

... say something myself about the Frey business. But I haven't read his book. I have, however, done a spell in rehab -- honest! So I can say that one of the things that is impressed upon you in rehab is the importance of honesty -- with others and with yourself. What Michelle at It's Just My Day Job says in A million little lies is right on the money. But Frey's dishonesty would seem to be compounded by a fundamental betrayal of a key principle underpinning the recovery process. This is about more than a book.

Speaking of lying ...

Lisa Coutant has some thoughts on James Frey that are well worth considering: On the Frey. Money quote:

I think it will be interesting to see how this impacts American society in general because believe me, it will. And I’m not just referencing the fact that as of this morning both of Frey’s books are in the top five on Amazon.

Read the whole thing.

The question of trust ...

Paperback Writer wonders, in Perception: "how can you tell when someone on the internet is lying to you?"
Really good liars are hard to detect even when you're sitting face to face with them, actually. I know this from having had a number of friends in low places.
As for those who may be lying on the internet, I have grown suspicious of people who preface their criticism of the Bush administration by saying that they are lifelong Republicans or conservatives. This is supposed to give added weight to their views, I gather.

I probably shouldn't do this ...

... but one so rarely encounters anything rational being written about Ann Coulter that I just can't resist linking to Dr. Helen's splendidly measured review of Is It True What They Say About Ann?

I agree with Glenn Reynolds (Dr. Helen's InstaHusband) is "rather over-the-top," but some were Juvenal and Swift.

Where would I be ...

... without Dave Lull? Dave sends me a link to Jeff Bryant's Larry King Freyed over at the Syntax of Things, as well as one to this piece in which Richard Rodriguez tells of his Disappointment.
"Though John Steinbeck was not, in my opinion," Rodriguez begins, "the best California writer of the last century, The Grapes of Wrath remains California’s greatest novel." Well. Steinbeck is awfully good, judged solely on the quality of his writing. Open any one of his books and just observe how skillful the prose is. I'll be interested to see who Rodriguez thinks is California's greatest writer -- judged solely in terms of the quality of the writing.

The sky is still falling ...

Down with catastrophism, Joe Kaplinsky's review of James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency, is a must read.
The book, Kalpinsky notes, "has received a warm welcome, featuring on the front covers of both the leftish British publication the New Statesman and Pat Buchanan's old-right American Conservative." And why not? The extremes of right and left have found common ground in pessimism, isolationism, opposition to technological progress, authoritarianism, and even anti-semitism.

A genuine bibliophile ...

From Bill Peschel: Ruskin on Books.

Want your kids to read more?

Well, maybe you should have them watch you logon to Target's Book Club. As Bookdwarf notes, it's a really cool site.

Perhaps what the future holds ...

... for newspapers is something on the order of The Muckdog Gazette. Hat tip once again to Dave Lull.

Think reading is in decline?

Maybe you're looking in the wrong place. Mark Schurmann has some thoughts and observations in Who Reads in America? (Hat tip: Dave Lull, who mentions Eric Hoffer in connection with it. Here are some key Hoffer quotes.)

What's in a name?

Why a possible bond of love, land and literature: Matilda's Aussie moniker.

Come one, come all ...

... the Culture Vulture World Literature Tour is soon to embark. First stop is Finland. Time, obviously, for a Mika Waltari revival.

UPDATE: More on Finnish lit at Literary Saloon. Is Finland conquering the literary world ? (Via Sand Storm.)

The future of newspapers (cont'd) ...

Glenn Reynolds links to a couple of examples of dubious reportage that may have some bearing on this topic.

The future of newspapers (cont'd) ...

Michael Kinsley weighs in with Extra! Extra! (Hat tip: Dave Lull.)

So what does make a book good?

Some pertinent criteria are enumerated at The Millions.

Time for class ...

... Louise Doughty's latest Novel in a year column is up.

Now here's something different ...

... Brenda Coulter's In defense of bad writing.

One more time ...

... with James Frey, because Maud Newton makes some very interesting points in Memoir, "reality," and condescending pep-talks.

And let's not forget ...

... Brad Vice. Paperback Writer certainly hasn't: Authors Behaving Badly.

Sci-fi alert ...

Glenn Reynolds likes Jeff Duntemann's new sci-fi thriller.

An ex cathedra pronouncement ...

... two, actually, from Miss Snark on l'affaire Frey here and, most of all, here. Money quote:

It's beyond stupid as a business practice to not verify facts. Contracts have clauses that authors can't libel someone, can't infringe copyright, and god forbid publish anything detrimental to the work in the contract, but "make it all up cause it sounds better" isn't mentioned.

Read the whole thing.

Money for poetry ...

Wesley Yang comments on Ruth Lilly's largesse to the Poetry Foundation: Poets, Inc.
The Page pulls out this quote: "... the Lilly gift may be an experiment relevant to all serious art struggling to subsist in America." I wonder about the adjective "serious."

And the nominees are ...

Gwenda Bond links to the Philip K. Dick Award finalists and notes that it's equal opportunity.

A carnival of literary fakery ...

... dutifully gathered by Sarah Weinman.

Want a story rejected?

Well, you can count the ways. Bill Peschel links to some good advice for those entering story contests.

Off to a concert, so ...

... little or no blogging tonight.

What makes for a good book?

Is the ideas? Or the style? Or some combination of the two? Eric Myer thinks he knows: Ideas vs Words.

My own view? If the writer's subject is palpably real to himself, it will come across as real to the reader. In other words, the more intensely imagined, the more effective. Style is most effective to the degree that it grows out of that intense imagining -- otherwise, it's just a stand-in for substance.

The future of publishing ...

... is almost as bad as the future of newsapers, according to Grumpy Old Bookman: More on the Sunday Times fiasco.

The heart of the matter: "Modern publishing is concerned first and foremost with making a profit. And the problem with 'literary quality', as generally defined, is that it is not profitable." But "most of the leading newspapers concentrate their reviews on literary fiction ..." And "courses which purport to teach 'creative writing' also tend to concentrate on 'literary quality.'"

Hat tip: Steve Clackson.

More on Frey ...

... over at GalleyCat: Further to the Frey-up. Something posted earlier here.

And, speaking of GalleyCat and dubious authors, here is The Author Who Wasn't There.

Everybody's talking about it ...

... so here's The Smoking Gun's The Man Conned Oprah. And here's a somewhat odd take on same.

Cuba libre ...

... at least for Papa Hemingway. Or at least his archives.

The future of newspapers ...

... is not bright, according to Joseph Epstein, writing in Commentary: Are Newspapers Doomed? Lots that's good here, but this will do as a sample:


I rarely give the daily Times more than a half-hour, if
that. I begin with the obituaries. Next, I check the
op-ed page, mostly to see if anyone has hit upon a
novel way of denigrating President Bush; the answer
is invariably no, though they seem never to tire of
trying. I glimpse the letters to the editor in hopes of
finding someone after my own heart. I almost never
read the editorials, following the advice of the journalist
Jack Germond who once compared the writing
of a newspaper editorial to wetting oneself in a
dark-blue serge suit: “It gives you a nice warm feeling,
but nobody notices.”

No sooner do I say ...

... in my previous post that "having my posts commented upon and sometimes challenged by [visitors to this blog] has sharpened my thinking" than Jeff McDonald proves it . Jeff comments:

As for, "this is something some of my official colleagues in the news business would do well to ponder." ... I think that IS going on, slowly, but surely. My station is affiliated with the NBC television network, and I have been impressed with how the reporters/anchors there have developed a blog component (through msnbc.msn.com) to complement and develop their broadcast component ...

He is, of course, right. A prime example is my colleague Dan Rubin's blog blinq. But Dan is a top-notch reporter and knows full well that blogging is more than just doing your usual journalism online. I've suggested here before that I think new forms will emerge from the practice of online writing (and that is in fact happening -- see link in previous post to Jill Walker).
I also agree that it is inevitable that a symbiotic relationship will be established between the blogosphere and the MSM, and that it will prove immensely productive.
So thanks, Jeff, for helping me clarify my own thinking.
And while I'm reviewing what I wrote last night, I should add that, while exchanges at this blog have been invariably cordial, I have certainly seen plenty of instances on blogs of inexcusable rudeness. Whatever virtues the Thersites who comments frequently at Ann Althouse may have, common civility is not among them. There are even lit blogs where a certain angry, coarse-languaged MO seems to be the order of the day. As a shrewd Jesuit once explained to me, sarcasm works best when measured carefully and used precisely.

Some thoughts on blogging (cont'd) ...

I started blogging for the same reason I suspect most other people do: There was something I wanted to blog about. In my case, it was books and reading and reviewing.
Henry Miller says somewhere that happiness consists largely in finding a more or less pleasant way of passing the time. Since most of us spend a good chunk of our time earning a living, if you can find a job that you like, you’ll have a leg up on the happiness problem.
I have one of the pleasanter jobs.
But after a year of doing it, my understanding of blogging is different from what it was when I started. Which isn’t all that surprising. Reading something is a lot different from writing something.
Still, there’s more to it than that. Searching online for book-related items, skipping from link to link, has enabled me to cover the book beat better than I was ever able to before. I not only know things now that I didn’t know before. More important, I know things I simply wouldn’t have known otherwise. Distributed narrative, for instance, “telling stories across networks,” in Jill Walker’s phrase. The size, the variety, and the quality of the poetry one encounters online are prodigious — and I’m convinced I’ve only scratched the surface.
But what has most impressed me about blogging — and has been of greatest benefit to me — is its interactivity. The phrase “blogging community” is more than just a metaphor. It’s a reality.
There have been some lively discussions on the blog over the past year. Forceful, but always cordial.
I have never met Bonnie Calhoun, or Rus Bowden, or Dave Lull, or Vikram Johri, or Willis Wayde, or Melville Goodwin, or Lisa Cohen, or Kate Benedict — to name just a few who come immediately to mind — but I have come to regard them not only as friends, but as colleagues. Having my posts commented upon and sometimes challenged by the likes of such people has sharpened my thinking. I thank them all.
This is something some of my official colleagues in the news business would do well to ponder. If the aim is to know more and understand better, then an ongoing dialogue among kindred spirits is likely to prove in the long run more successful than anything we’ve known previously.

"the Science Museum's resident poet ..."

... that's what poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw is. Read all about it in Testament of middle youth. Here are Three Pieces by Greenlaw.

Art and life: a merger...

... that's sort of what Lisa Coutant is proposing in Lessons from Lost . Sounds like a good idea to me. Might even take on a life of its own.

But is it art ...

I certainly think so. Instapundit links to Sam & Dean.

Oridinarily, I like to stay clear of politics here ...

... but Roger K. Miller -- a frequent Inquirer reviewer -- sends me a link to a piece in the Wisconsin State Journal about poliblogs that's worth a look. What I found particularly noteworthy:

Two surveys last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that about one in 20 adults nationwide reported creating a blog and about one in six are blog readers.
Studies by the Pew project also debunk a major criticism of bloggers and the Internet in general - that people use the Web to seek out their preferred brand of politics and shut out opposing arguments. In fact, wired Americans get more points of view from both sides of the political spectrum, a 2004 study found.

So you're thinking of creating a villain ...

... then you may want to read I, the villain at Brandywine Books. The reason Macbeth is more interesting than Richard III is that Macbeth doesn't set out to be evil -- and he retains certain redeeming qualities (his tenderness toward his wife, for instance). Which makes his last bold, desperate plunge into combat almost admirable. Richard's character is as grotesque as his physique.

Here's a deal ...

Emerging Writers Network can help you Get Lit Journals! They also explain why you might want to.

My review ...

... of James Freeman's Ishi's Journey is here. And here's an Ishi Page.

The hunt is on ...

... a new Booker sponsor. I'd like to see Wal-Mart make a bid for it. Or maybe McDonald's.

Miss Snark has done her part ...

... now it's your turn: Time to vote on the Crapometer Entries!!

Not to be outdone ...

... by The Book Standard's list of the 200 bestselling books of 2005, David Montgomery has compiled his own list of the Bestselling Crime Fiction Novels of 2005.

Literary mutation ...

Scott McLemee takes a look at Franco Moretti, author of Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History: Literature to Infinity. A key passage:

Moretti is a cultural Darwinist, or something like one. Anyway, he is offering an alternative to what we might call the “intelligent design” model of literary history, in which various masterpieces are the almost sacramental representatives of some Higher Power. (Call that Power what you will -– individual genius, “the literary imagination,” society, Western Civilization, etc.) Instead, the works and the genres that survive are, in effect, literary mutations that possess qualities that somehow permit them to adapt to changes in the social ecosystem.

Am I the only person who is beginning to think that Darwinism is rapidly morphing into something that, by explaining everything, actually explains nothing at all?

Art and life ...

... always an odd mix, as Ian Fleming's women, both real and fictional, strongly suggest.

Some literary tech stuff ...

I'm no wiz when it comes to technology. I learn what I need to as I need to. But this freeware that LynnViehl links to looks interesting (via Bill Peschel).

In search of ...

... research geeks at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. As with everything, research needs to be disciplined, otherwise it can get in the way of writing. I have also found myself annoyed with books -- biographies, for example -- that are less about their purported subject than an account of the author's research of the subject. But I have to admit I like the digging, too, up to a point.

The past in color ...

Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked to color photos from the World War II era. Now he has a link to World War I color photos as well. Fascinating.

So you want to write a novel ...

Well, novelist Louise Doughty is offering assistance. Throughout this year, she is going to be writing a column in the Daily Telegraph called Write a Novel in a Year.
You'll also be able to post your writing on the Telegraph's Web site in order to have it commented on by others following the column.

Words, words, words ...

Ann Althouse links to the etymology game. I got nine out of 10 the first game I played, the only one I played so far. But I was lucky -- some of my choices were just hunches (though I've been a word origin buff all my life, which must count for something).

See, I told you ...

... Joan Houlihan would get a lot of grief for Three Invitations to a Far Reading. (Hat tip: Rus Bowden.)

In cold print ...

An interesting look from Down Under at Truman Capote, both real and celluloid, and his famous nonfiction novel.

A most interesting question ...

... is posed by Steven Clackson at Sand Storm: Do you read when you are writing?

Tracking the Singularity ...

Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near was quite possibly the most important nonfiction book to come out last year. Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds linked to a wide-ranging discussion of it. If you're interested in what Kurzweil has to say for himself -- plenty, as it happens -- here's my interview with him. And here is my review of the book.

Who's got the wardrobe?

Conflicting claims to Narnia's entry point.

Birdwatchers alert ...

Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS, reports on a restaurant in Namibia catering to select members of the avian tribe.

Len Deighton again ...

... this time eulogizing Ted Allbeury over at GalleyCat.

So you want to be a writer ...

Well, Bill Peschel has some helpful links.

Lots of good stuff ...

... at Chekhov's Mistress. Just keep scrolling.

It's good to be a pro ...

Grumpy Old Bookman discusses Reginald Hill:

As usual, the work of an old pro from one of the commercial genres makes the average literary novel look like a very sick puppy indeed.

Read the whole thing.

Author calling ...

GalleyCat notes a trend among book clubs.

Last year's best-sellers ...

... all 200 of them.

Dang ...

According to Laura at Altalk Blog, Swedes have a problem with us Anglos when it comes to swearing, Read Swedish Swearing and Translation Travesties.

All you ever wanted to know ...

... or at least what there is to know (maybe) about JT LeRoy.

This has nothing to do with books ...

... but I'm posting it because I think it should be broadcast as widely possible: Deprived of treatment.

Encountering Mr. Eliot ...

... yet again, and more sympathetically than has been the case of late, though the man continues to prove elusive. Read David Barber's excellent The artist as a young mandarin. (Hat tip: Dave Lull.)

A kind word ...

... for U.S News & World Report from Bill Peschel. Bill says the magazine reports "the news as news and not lecture." Imagine that.

The plot thickens ...

... in the Golden Dagger brouhaha.

Caution: audio books ...

Steve Clackson warns against the potential danger audio books pose.

Some of us remember fondly ...

... both Len Deighton and Harry Palmer.

And the winners are mostly ...

... Whitbread winners announced. Not all, but most.

Hear, hear ...

The question of audio books, their cost, and more at Booksquare: Synchronicity, Or Close Enough For Government Work.

Arthur Machen revisited ...

... twice , in fact. At Book World. Here and here.

The man who should have won ...

... this year's Nobel for literature is Orhan Pamuk. Vikram Johri comments on and links to an interview with Pamuk: An Encounter With Pamuk .

If you read nothing else today ...

... read this at the World Question Center (naturally, I found it at the incomparable Arts & Letters daily). Two favorites of mine so far: Freeman Dyson's and Michael Nesmith's (yes, he of the Monkees).

An imitation of an imitation ...

What Buck and Reynolds say is all that needs to be said.

Two good quotes ...

... from the Times Literary supplement.

The first is from a review by Hal Jensen published in the issue of Nov. 18, 2005, of Andrew Biswell's The Real Life of Anthony Burgess:

Biswell not only understands, he enjoys, his subject's evasiveness and inventiveness. Indeed, his central achievement is the way he quietly persuades the reader that the real Anthony Burgess is not to be found in the documents and reminiscences that tug and pull his own version of events into a more accurate, verifiable shape, but in the writer tugging and pulling at reality until it suits his needs. In other words, the real life of a writer is to be found in his works.

The second is from a review by C. Bradley Thompson published in the issue of Dec. 9, 2005 of David McCullough's 1776 and Stanley Weintraub's Iron Tears:

If academic historians are writing the histories of ordinary people doing ordinary things (which, it turns out, ordinary people find tediously ordinary), David McCullough, Stanley Weintraub and the non-professional historians are writing books that examine oridinary (and great) people doing great things -- and that makes all the difference. Maybe it's a good thing that academic historians have abandoned writing books on the American Revolution. In any event, it's no loss.

Some thoughts on blogging ...

I have been blogging for nearly a year. So I thought I’d opine a bit on the subject. First, something general:

Relations between blogs and the MSM remain tense, as these links from Glenn Reynolds and Roger Simon clearly indicate. I have myself heard in the newsroom comments about blogs that actually did sound, in Michelle Malkin’s phrase, “thoroughly unhinged.”
But it really isn’t blogging in general that bothers the MSM. It’s only the political blogs. The MSM doesn’t care about lit blogs or cooking blogs or knitting blogs — or even tech blogs or science blogs (except to the extent they might be useful in advancing some editorial viewpoint).
Blogs have challenged the MSM’s self-designated right to shape political debate by choosing what to cover and how to cover it. The MSM claims it has resources not available to bloggers — and it does. So how explain the disparity between what was reported in the papers and on TV during Hurricane Katrina and what we have since determined was actually the case? This was, after all, the demonstration case for the superiority of the MSM.
Amanda Bennett, editor of The Inquirer, wrote a column that ran on Christmas about surveys of our readers’ likes and dislikes. The finding I thought most interesting was this: “More than half our readers weren't even aware that we had endorsed a presidential candidate!” This really seems remarkable, considering that we had gone to the trouble of endorsing John Kerry for 21 straight days.
But maybe not. Lots of people may go into journalism because they’re interested in politics, but it doesn’t follow from that the people who read newspapers share that interest. A good many do, of course — and they are precisely the ones likely to read blogs as well and to blog themselves.
I suspect that the MSM’s role in shaping political debate is going to steadily decline. There will be plenty for it to cover. But from now on the agenda, increasingly, is going to be set by others. The blogs are here to stay. Political debate now takes place in an electronic agora. Get used to it.
But it’s the rest of the readers that interest me, the people who didn’t even know we had endorsed a candidate for president. Now if you think the be-all and end-all of existence is politics, then you will probably dismiss such people as boobs. I suspect they’re people who have better things to do than be preoccupied day in and day out by matters over which the only control they have involves entering a booth and casting a vote every now and again.
Reporters and editors ought to start visiting the rest of the blogosphere. It might give them some idea of what that large chunk of readers uninterested in the editorial board’s orotund pronouncements really is interested in. Plenty of potential stories there. Plenty of potential readers, too.

Let's hear it for her ...

Miss Snark has completed testing 99 synopsis entries with her trusty Crapometer.