I hope you're enjoying the highlights reel so far. There's an interesting conversation going on in the Bibliolounge, in our forum, which I want to call attention to. Kat Warren asked about the wealth of dog-centered novels, particularly in recent years, and wondered why cats get “short shrift.” Only half-jokingly, and expanding the thought to memoirs, I suggested that dogs are “literary” and cats are “commercial.” I’m not convinced I’m wrong. What do you think? Are cats too closely associated with genre fiction to be taken seriously in more literary work? Read the discussion and weigh in.
>> Where Are the Queens of Nonfiction?
“Ira Glass, host of the radio and television program This American Life, claims that nonfiction is the most important and impressive art form of our day” — but why was it necessary, Anne Trubek wonders, to title his anthology The New Kings of Nonfiction. (Thanks, Kristin.)
>> A Shed of One’s Own
Having built a writing hut with his own two hands, Chris Routledge ruminates on the spaces famous writers have carved out for their work. (Thanks, Pat.)
And a Special Note to Harcourt Children’s Books:
I just don’t know about a giant metal phallus for the cover of a YA book. Especially with the girl peering into it like that. I get that the heroine has “been able to kill a man with her bare hands since the age of eight” and all. But still — you might want to give that one another look before you ship it.
>> Breaking the silence
“A new project led by Dave Eggers is documenting the stories of people whose voices usually go unheard” — that is, undocumented laborers.
A pair of unusual and intriguing (and otherwise unrelated) items today, about two books making their way into print. (Come to think of it, both have a porn angle.) The first is the tale of Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle, one of the most hotly anticipated books still to release this summer, and how the author landed his agent. It’s no ordinary tale — read it.
The second hinges on the advent of the Denis Johnson novel (Nobody Move) that is being serialized in Playboy. The first installment is in the July issue, now on stands, and Playboy isn’t making it available online. But the Los Angeles Times book blog is doing a running commentary on both the meat and the meta, which is where the link will take you. (Start at the bottom.) FSG will publish the book.
>> Heroic story of books
“In all the statewide stories of heroism, it would be hard to find more passion than in the snaking line going up the steps of the Main Library at the University of Iowa on the banks of the flooding Iowa River.”
>> The book wot I wrote
Stephanie Merritt wonders why “real” authors ghostwrite celebrity books.
>> Zogby Poll Plumbs U.S. Reading Demographic
A new Zogby poll on reader demographics asks not just how many books people buy, where they buy them, and whether they read them, but breaks the results down along political lines as well. Turns out there may be some basis for brainy Dem vs. brawny Rep stereotypes. Or is it something else?
The full survey is here: The Reading and Book Buying Habits of American
>> Written on the body
Shirley Dent ponders the trendiness and the irony of literary tattoos.
>> Andrew F. Altschul on McClellan and Frey
“There are lots of writers, old and new, who are ready to tell us the truth. Why should they have to compete for shelf space and column inches with those who have already broken their vows?”
>> Books, tears and blood
The director of Baghdad’s national library, a former Kurdish fighter, talks about “why culture is the key [to his new mission], why the US must surrender looted papers — and why he refuses to have a bodyguard.”
>> Music’s literary side
Songwriter Joe Henry “reflects on a lifetime’s worth of reading — and its influence on his music.”
>> A Life in Books: Lorrie Moore
“I had such a reaction to the academic culture that I used to ask myself, what would Goldie Hawn do?”
Devout independent bookstore shoppers — and avid book people in general — are likely familiar with Book Sense, the collaborative program devised a few years back by the American Booksellers Association. The idea was to band together in various ways to help indies compete against the chains and Amazon. Participating stores display the logo in various ways. Booksellers vote on titles to create what’s most recently been known as the Book Sense Picks list. Etc. The online venture is a regular source of debate in the Readerville forum. But the one thing you may not have heard about yet, coming out of last week’s BEA, is that Book Sense is being replaced with a new program: IndieBound.
>> Electronic Device Stirs Unease at Book Fair (NYT)
>> Star-crossed booksellers make the Hollywood scene (USAT)
>> Prince’s Late Night at Book Expo (Paper Cuts)
>> A Fair Fair (PW)
However it gets reported, there’s no getting around the fact that BEA in LA this past weekend was one seriously dull scene. The Times attempts to pin it on some underlying dread caused by the Kindle, but all anyone talked to me about was how dead the place was and how irrelevant the show itself has become. (Nobody mentioned the Kindle, one way or the other, and I went out of my way to find Amazon’s booth to see one.) I’ve no doubt the 300 people invited to Prince’s house for a 2 am concert were glad they made the trip, and PW suggests that, despite the celebrity afterparties, the problem was that the show was in LA. Because, y’know, everyone who attends comes from the east coast, and nobody likes to go to California. (Seriously — click that PW link.) Whatever you want to chalk it up to, Friday morning — normally crowded and crazed — was like Saturday afternoon normally is: not a lot of people, and no energy. [Michael Cader, of Publishers Lunch, had a number of good comments on all of this, but his report is not online.]
>> 800-word Harry Potter prequel to be auctioned
... along with miniature works by Doris Lessing, Neil Gaiman, Tom Stoppard, Margaret Atwood and others, each contained on a postcard.
Whatever you may think of Amazon’s Kindle, it seems to have pushed the core reading population very near some indefinable tipping point, judging by the Readerville community. For years, we, collectively, have resisted the idea of ebook devices, clinging to our love of the printed book — a love that extends beyond that aspect (the actual content) that can be reproduced electronically.
>> How to outsource the slush pile
“Just as MySpace allowed bands to succeed without the prior approval and investment of record companies, so [HarperCollins’ new website] will theoretically help separate the unpublished wheat from the chaff.”
>> Bradbury in bronze
Or, rather, one of his characters that is — on display in Pasadena CA.
>> Nuala O’Faolain, 68, Irish Memoirist, Is Dead
“Nuala O’Faolain, an Irish journalist who mined a rich vein of longing and childhood suffering in two midlife memoirs and an acclaimed first novel, My Dream of You, died on Friday night in Dublin. ...”
>> James Bond's TLS
In honor of his centenary, Fleming's favorite periodical, the Times Literary Supplement, has put together "an exclusive collection of articles, reviews and commentaries, documenting his long history with the paper."
>> James Frey's Morning After
In the June issue, Vanity Fair has what Frey says will be his last and final interview. Mm hm. They've made it available online early.
In his first U.S. interview since Oprah nailed him, in 2006, Frey tells his version of the story, including how his new novel, his family, and the late Norman Mailer helped him survive the resulting maelstrom, sober all the way.
>> Saving Laura, Part 2; Or, Nabokov's Walled Garden
Nice bit of NYT archive mining from Steve Coates over at Paper Cuts, wherein he digs up some lovely early reporting on The Original of Laura. This is a perfect example of what a treasure trove an online archive can be.
Whatever you may think of Amazon’s 