Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, December 2, 2009


William Morrow & Company: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Del Rey Books: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Peachtree Teen: Romantic YA Novels Coming Soon From Peachtree Teen!

Watkins Publishing: She Fights Back: Using Self-Defence Psychology to Reclaim Your Power by Joanna Ziobronowicz

Dial Press: Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood

Pantheon Books: The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

Peachtree Publishers: Leo and the Pink Marker by Mariyka Foster

Wednesday Books: Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

News

Notes: E-Reader's 8-Track Moment; Gaiman on Audiobooks

While e-books may be having "their iPod moment this holiday season," the Wall Street Journal cautioned that an e-reader buying frenzy "could also turn out to be an eight-track moment" because the technology is changing so rapidly.

"If you have the disposable income and love technology--not books--you should get a dedicated e-reader," said Bob LiVolsi, founder of BooksOnBoard e-book store, who suggested that an old laptop or inexpensive netbook might serve the purpose as well. "It will give you a lot more functionality, and better leverages the family income."

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Neil Gaiman and David Sedaris talked with NPR's Morning Edition about their experiences with, and the future of, audiobooks.

"I grew up in a world where stories were read aloud," said Gaiman. "I was overjoyed the first time one of my publishers let me record one of my own audiobooks, though I was slightly saddened when she explained that there would soon be no more audiobooks.... But the death of the audiobook never happened. In the past six years, I've recorded six audiobooks, and although it can be exhausting, I've loved the process and have been delighted with the result."

Sedaris called himself "a huge tapeworm. I think I heard my first one, it was one of those musty ones. Remember, you would find them at the library in boxes the size of a suitcase. They were actual tapes--and that's where I first started with audiobooks.... I often believe that no one could appreciate the iPod more than me. I think that it was invented especially for me. I would fight for my iPod. Like, I wouldn't fight for my freedom, but I would fight for my iPod."

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Experimental Twitterature may have taken a slight turn for the worse--or at least a detour--this week as Electric Literature (@ElectricLit) and 20 partners launched Rick Moody's Twitter story, "Some Contemporary Characters," in a series of tweets at 10-minute intervals, beginning Monday and running until today, with evenings off.

The Los Angeles Times' Jacket Copy book blog praised Electric Literature for innovative thinking, but suggested that "simultaneous publishing by 20 different Twitterers is perhaps a miscalculation. In the past, having bookstores, bloggers and other magazines simultaneously pass out a short story would widen the circulation. Today, many of those people are in overlapping social networking circles, and the result is repetition rather than reach. Anyone following more than one of the outlets sees exactly the same tweet show up at exactly the same time from multiple sources. Twitter has a viral recirculation tool--retweeting, or an RT in a post--which is organic and feels like a shared secret. But this project isn't using retweeting, it's simply sending out the same broadcast from many places at once--leaving the receiver to feel like he or she has been attacked by clones. No fun."

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Effective this week, the Jane Addams Book Shop, Champaign, Ill., has new owners. After 25 years in the business, Flora Faraci handed over responsibility for the used and rare bookshop to Don and Susan Elmore, the News-Gazette reported.

"We're a big book family," said Susan. "I fell in love with Jane Addams when my kids were little."

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After 30 years in business, Lee Booksellers, Lincoln, Neb., is closing. Owners Linda Hillegass and Jim McKee told the Journal Star that they plan to retire. The store is closed until Thursday, then will reopen for its going-out-of-business sale.

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Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage, San Francisco and Corte Madera, Calif., wrote a piece for the Huffington Post, "No One Warned the Dinosaurs. Will Anyone Warn the Publishers?" in which he observed that the "best-seller price war that is being waged by the mass merchandisers is the latest symptom of a problem that has been growing larger and larger. The major publishers are in a difficult position: they are service companies that function like manufacturing companies--20th century businesses in a 21st century economy. The control of the book business is gradually slipping out of their hands."

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Jane Austen "probably died of tuberculosis caught from cattle" rather than Addison’s disease or lymphoma, as had previously been speculated, the New York Times reported.

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In showcasing the "best-reviewed, buzziest books of 2009," the Toronto Globe & Mail noted that "our 12th annual pick of the 100 best and most influential books of the year includes prize-winners and surprises, writers allegedly famous and those about to be, prose and poetry, science and social studies, memoir and manifesto, and much, much more."

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What's next? Oprah's Book Club without Oprah?

The "book club made famous by presenters Richard and Judy is to return to TV screens, but with celebrity reviewers replacing the couple. The TV Book Club will review 'the most compelling reads for 2010' and be fronted by stars including stylist Gok Wan and comedian Jo Brand," BBC News reported.

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Philip Turner, who formed Philip Turner Book Productions earlier this year, has established Philip Turner Books, an independent publishing imprint whose first book is The Deeds of My Fathers: Generoso Pope, Sr., Power Broker of New York & Gene Pope, Jr., Publisher of the National Enquirer by Paul David Pope, son and grandson of the subjects of the book. Expected pub date is next October.

Philip Turner Book Productions offers a variety of editorial services, including line editing; co-agenting with literary representatives; and development and packaging of new books featuring truthtellers, whistleblowers, muckrakers and revisionist historians.

Turner had created Union Square Press as part of Sterling Publishing and earlier was v-p and editor-in-chief at Carroll & Graf, Thunder's Mouth and Philip Turner Books at Avalon Publishing.

Turner began his career in 1978 as a co-founder with his family of Under Cover Books, an independent bookseller in Cleveland, Ohio. Since leaving Under Cover in 1986, Turner has held a number of senior editorial positions, including executive editor at Times Books and editor in chief of Kodansha America.

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"I'm a celebrity memoir... get me out of here!" was the headline for an Independent piece on the sales slump for ghost-written celebrity confessionals that observed: "It is a literary genre about 'how I became famous' that readers have found endlessly riveting and which has made a fortune for those celebrities who decide to tell all in return for a seven-figure advance. But the love affair with the fame memoir could finally be coming to an end."

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Ingram has launched Ingram Wire, a downloadable desktop application for the bookselling community that is designed so booksellers can receive stock news on fast-moving titles specific to their assigned distribution center, alerts on top awards and breaking events, as well as "backorder now" messages to ensure they are among the first for allocations. Users can also click directly to ipage to place orders.

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DailyLit has made its content available free of charge. DailyLit's blog noted that "any feature we’ve launched or change we’ve made has been in response to readers’ requests. We’re now listening to our readers once again, and it’s clear that they most appreciate the wonderful books, stories and installments available for free."

 


Now Streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME: A Gentleman in Moscow


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Armstrongs, Mortenson, Huckabee & More

Today on Talk of the Nation: Terry Teachout, author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30, 9780151010899/0151010897).

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Tomorrow on Live with Regis & Kelly: Lance Armstrong, author of Comeback 2.0: Up Close and Personal (Touchstone, $27.99, 9781439173145/1439173141).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Greg Mortenson, author of Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Viking, $26.95, 9780670021154/0670021156).

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Tomorrow on the View: Mike Huckabee, author of A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories that Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit (Sentinel, $19.95, 9781595230621/1595230629).

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Tomorrow on Tavis Smiley: Malcolm Gladwell, author of What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (Little, Brown, $27.99, 9780316075848/0316075841).

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Tomorrow on the Martha Stewart Show: David Carter, author of White Noise: A Pop-up Book for Children of All Ages (Little Simon, $22.99, 9781416940944/1416940944), who will help Martha create a holiday pop-up centerpiece.

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Tomorrow on KCRW's Bookworm: Tao Lin, author of Shoplifting from American Apparel (Melville House, $13, 9781933633787/1933633786). According to the show: "Although he has had five books published--two novels, a book of stories and two books of poems--Tao Lin is not yet thirty. Yet, for all his industriousness, his work expresses the apathy and emptiness felt by many members of his generation. The name of his blog, Reader of Depressing Books, says it all--or most of it. Here, we discuss the difference between apathy and indifference and the possibility that a Buddhist sense of passive acceptance underlies his work."

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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Michael Specter, author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives (Penguin Press, $27.95, 9781594202308/1594202303).


GLOW: Greystone Books: brother. do. you. love. me. by Manni Coe, illustrated by Reuben Coe


Television: The Colorado Kid

The Syfy network has picked up 13 episodes of Haven, based on Stephen King's novella The Colorado Kid (Hard Case Crime, $5.99, 9780843955842/0843955848). Variety reported that this is "the first project to be produced for Syfy outlets around the globe (except Canada and Scandinavia). That's because Universal Networks Intl., the newly rebranded global channels unit of NBC Universal, had already signed on to co-finance the Stephen King drama Haven." 

 


BINC: Apply Now to The Susan Kamil Scholarship for Emerging Writers!


Movies: Breath

Australian actor Simon Baker (star of The Mentalist on CBS) and American producer Mark Johnson have acquired the rights to Tim Winton's Miles Franklin Award-winning novel, Breath (Picador, $14, 9780312428396/0312428391). Variety reported that  "Baker and Johnson will produce together, and Baker plans to play one of the lead roles. They will set a director before setting up funding."

"Winton’s book beautifully captures the excitement and brutality of growing up in a way I’ve only experienced but have never been able to articulate,” Baker said.

 


Books & Authors

Awards: John Llewellyn Rhys Prize

Evie Wyld, a bookseller from south London, won the £5,000 (US$8,318) John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her debut novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (Pantheon, $24, 9780307378460/0307378462). She topped a shortlist that included 2008 Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga and 2007 Orange winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Chair of the judges Louise Doughty "saluted the strength of the shortlist, and the awareness of young Commonwealth writers whose work is eligible for the award. 'Writers under 35 are really tackling the big subjects across the board,' she said. 'There isn't a sense that they are hiding in a hole,'" the Guardian wrote.

 


Midwest Connections Picks

From the Midwest Booksellers Association: six recent Midwest Connections picks. Under this marketing program, the association and member stores promote booksellers' handselling favorites that have a strong Midwest regional appeal:

The Chain Letter of the Soul: New and Selected Poems
by Bill Holm (Milkweed Editions, $18, 9781571314444/157131444X). Hans Weyandt of Micawber's Books in St, Paul, Minn., said, "Bill Holm, one of Minnesota's greatest champions of the arts, passed away not too long ago. The Chain Letter of the Soul is his last book--a new and selected poems (heavy on the new) that is not at all one of those thrown-together collections. It is a great testament to his life and his writing."


Twisted Tree by Kent Meyers (Houghton Mifflin, $24, 9780151013890/0151013896). According to Nancy Simpson of Book Vault in Oskaloosa, Iowa, "Twisted Tree by Kent Meyers is one of those books that really grabs your attention in the first three pages and never lets go! It is actually the story of a human domino chain: the interrelated stories of what happens after one young girl in a very small town is killed. Meyers's character development is superb.... each character speaks by turns in the first person. Highly recommended."

Stray Affections by Charlene Baumbich (WaterBrook Press, $13.99, 9780307444714/0307444716). Nancy Simpson of Book Vault in Oskaloosa, Iowa, said, "What a bundle this book is! A combination of mystery, magic, joy, second chances, quirky characters and the blessings of God... all brought to light by the purchase of a snow globe at a flea market.  This is an ideal book to read on a snowy winter day, snuggled up in a blanket, with a cup of hot chocolate beside you."

The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer and Ted Lewin (Holiday House, $17.95, 9780823420544/082342054X). Angie Grafstrom of Inspiration Hollow in Roseau, Minn., said, "The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer is a charming story about the winter solstice and the return of longer days. Its lyrical style and beautiful illustrations will make this an instant family classic to be shared with generations to come. Children will ask for this one over and over again!!"

Pioneer Girl: A True Story of Growing Up on the Prairie by Andrea Warren (Bison Books, $14.95, 9780803225268/0803225261). Carla Ketner of Chapters Books & Gifts in Seward, Neb., said, "This summer my 11-year-old niece and I visited Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska, where we saw first-hand what Grace McCance Snyder, the 'pioneer girl' of Warren's book, would have encountered as a homesteader to this area in 1885. Pioneer Girl is an engaging, well-researched extension of our visit, and I just had to buy it for her for her birthday!"

Moose on the Loose by Kathy-Jo Wargin and John Bendall-Brunello (Sleeping Bear Press, $15.95, 9781585364275/1585364274). According to Bev Denor of LaDeDa Books & Beans in Manitowoc, Wis., "Home invasions are not funny--that is unless the invader is a moose who tries on your socks, scrubs up in your tub, and needs a kiss before snuggling into your bed for the night. Kathy-Jo Wargin's silly story told in rhyme, enhanced by John Bendall-Brunello's whimsical drawings, won't settle on your bookshelf for long... it is sure to be read again and again."



Pennie Picks U Is for Undertow

Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco's book buyer, has chosen U Is for Undertow by Sue Grafton (Harper, $26.99, 9780060852573/0060852577) as her pick of the month for December. In Costco Connection, which goes to many of the warehouse club's members, she wrote:

"The great thing about a series--be it books, film or television--is how the characters start to feel like old friends. After spending 21 books with Kinsey Millhone, the lead in Sue Grafton's Alphabet series, I almost feel as if she's a member of my family.

"Kinsey, a private investigator, is flawlessly fleshed out. As she tries to solve a murder in the latest novel, U Is for Undertow, her imperfections surface, allowing the reader to, if not like her, at least recognize the qualities that make her human. Not only do I adore Grafton as a person, but as a writer she successfully keeps the mysteries fresh in each novel."

 


Children's Reviews: Gift Books, Part II

Here's the second installment of our annual roundup of children's gift books for the holidays.

Superb Nonfiction for All Ages

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone (Candlewick, $24.99 hardcover, 9780763636111/0763636118; $17.99 paperback, 9780763645021/0763645028; 144 pp., ages 10-up, February 2009)


Stone (Elizabeth Leads the Way) begins this eye-opening history with the July 1999 launch of Columbia, piloted by Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a space shuttle, then fills in the details of the women who helped pave the path to this moment. Led by Jerrie Cobb, in 1961 a dozen women "took their shot at being astronauts." Stone demonstrates how prevailing attitudes at the time (which traveled all the way up the chain of command to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson), as well as an embittered female pilot, obstructed the path to space exploration for these women, who put their jobs and families at stake in pursuit of their dream. Copiously illustrated with photographs, this volume may well be as revelatory to women's history and space program buffs as it will be to young readers.

Anne Frank: Her Life in Words and Pictures by Menno Metselaar and Ruud van der Rol, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans (Flash Point/Roaring Brook, $19.99, 9781596435469/1596435461 hardcover; $12.99, 9781596435476/159643547X paperback; 216 pp., ages 9-12, October 2009)

This beautifully designed, hand-size volume published in partnership with the Anne Frank House makes an ideal gift for any age admirer of Anne Frank. The book takes us inside the pages of The Diary of a Young Girl, via quotes and photographs of pages from Anne's original journal, and into the Amsterdam annex where the Franks stayed hidden from the world during the Nazi occupation, until, on Friday, August 4, 1944, the Secret Annex was invaded. Pictures taken during Anne and her sister Margot's early years depict a normal childhood spent at the beach and in school (the cover shows Anne's passport pictures). Photos of the interior and exterior of 263 Prinsengracht make the journey through this book the next best thing to a visit to what is now preserved as the Anne Frank House.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (Melanie Kroupa/FSG, $19.95, 9780374313227/0374313229, 144 pp., ages 10-up, February 2009)

Phillip Hoose won the 2009 National Book Award for this book about an African-American teen who, in segregated Montgomery, Ala., refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger on March 2, 1955--nine months before Rosa Parks's identical action set off the Montgomery bus boycotts. Colvin was only 15 when she took a brave stand by remaining seated, and she was thrown in jail. Although she was released on probation, "I would have a police record whenever I went to get a job, or when I tried to go to college," Colvin said. A little over one year later, on May 11, 1956, she once again stood up for justice, as a plaintiff in the Browder v. Gayle case, which challenged the constitutionality of Alabama's segregation laws. Not only does Hoose's account, liberally laced with quotes from interviews he conducted with Colvin, set the record straight, it is an inspiration to all young people about the sweeping changes that can come from one brave act and a belief in doing the right thing.

Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of the Death and Life of Great American Cities by Glenna Lang and Marjory Wunsch (David R. Godine, $17.95, 9781567923841/1567923844, 128 pp., ages 9-12, June 2009)

Born to a physician and a nurse on May 4, 1916, in Scranton, Pa, the opinionated young Jane Butzner's ideas would later shape the development and approach to urban areas across the United States. Jane headed to New York City at the tender age of 18 and, before long, had published a poem in the New York Herald Tribune while working as a secretary. She became a journalist, and a 1943 feature article in the Iron Age promoted her hometown as an attractive place for businesses, after Scranton's coal mines were depleted and 25,000 miners were out of work. Jane met and married Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., an architect, in 1947 and, while raising her family in New York's Greenwich Village, began to formulate her philosophy about urban planning as many families fled the cities for the suburbs after World War II. These ideas became the basis for her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and she practiced what she preached: she took on the mighty Robert Moses twice to save her neighborhood's Washington Square Park and also defeated a plan to build an expressway that would have destroyed what is now SoHo.

Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don't You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge (Viking/Penguin, $19.99, 9780670011896/0670011894, 80 pp., ages 10-up, October 2009)

"The first time Joanne Blackmon was arrested, she was just ten years old," begins Elizabeth Partridge's (John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth) account of the events leading up to the 54-mile civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. Joanne's grandmother Sylvia Johnson was involved in the Dallas County Voters League and attempted to register fellow African-American residents to vote. But a racist governor, George Wallace ("Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" he cried), and a racist sheriff, Jim Clark, employed intimidation tactics that kept potential voters from registering for fear of losing their jobs or being paid a call by the KKK, until Johnson traveled to Atlanta to seek help from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Partridge makes clear what a crucial role children played in spreading the word, marching in protest and being willing to be jailed in pursuit of positive change. Photographs as powerful as the quotes, songs and poetry combine in this elegantly designed volume to deliver a wallop.

A Savage Thunder: Antietam and the Bloody Road to Freedom by Jim Murphy (McElderry/S&S, $17.99, 9780689876332/0689876335, 112 pp., ages 9-12, July 2009)

Jim Murphy (Truce, see below) here encapsulates the issues and events that prompted "the bloodiest single day in American history"--September 17, 1862. The author presents both sides of the Civil War and the tensions within the Union army leadership (particularly between President Abraham Lincoln and General George B. McClellan), and recounts how Corporal Barton Mitchell's discovery of what came to be called Confederate General Lee's "Lost Orders" led to a key strategic victory for the Union army. Murphy puts a human face on the many individuals on both sides of the conflict through letters and primary documents, and also gives a context for the timing of Lincoln's delivery of the Emancipation Proclamation, outlining the president's national and constitutional considerations.

Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting
by Jim Murphy (Scholastic, $19.99, 9780545130493/0545130492, 144 pp., ages 9-12, October 2009)

In contrast to the bloodbath at Antietam in A Savage Thunder (above), Murphy's account of December 25, 1914, describes a spontaneous peace precipitated by more than 100,000 soldiers on both sides of the trenches during the Great War. Kaiser Wilhelm's failure to read the full text of Serbia's reply to Austria's demands resulted in a battle that engulfed the globe--a battle that even the soldiers eventually deemed fruitless. In both Savage Thunder and Truce, Murphy allows the soldiers to speak for themselves through letters, documents and other primary source material. No official photographers were present during the Christmas Truce, so many of the photographs in Murphy's volume--of Germans and Brits lifting a glass or posing together good-naturedly--were taken by the soldiers themselves. Murphy also demonstrates how the Germans' bitterness about the Versailles Treaty at the close of the Great War laid the groundwork for World War II.--Jennifer M. Brown



Book Brahmin: Terese Svoboda

Terese Svoboda is the author of 14 books, including Trailer Girl and Other Stories, which appears in paper this month (Bison Books, December 2009), plus her fifth book of poetry, Weapons Grade (University of Arkansas), which was published in September, and her fifth and sixth novels, Pirate Talk or Mermalade (Dzanc Press, 2010) and Bohemian Girl (Bison Books, 2011). She worked her way into the book business as a magician's assistant, legal secretary and filmmaker, and lives in New York City with her husband, son and two difficult dogs.
 
On your nightstand now:

Where is that nightstand? You'd I think I have never recovered from all those years I slept on a mattress on the floor and the books slid under the covers with whomever. I'm wallowing in the collected poetry of James Wright and Stanley Plumly for a talk I have to give. For fun there's the very sharp Lydia Millet's My Happy Life, about an abused woman abandoned in a mental institution and a drunken pornographer who thinks he's the messiah. I'm making room for the new Coetzee, Summertime, and Abdourahman Waberi's In the United States of Africa. I read until I fall asleep, hoping to absorb genius without any effort. Instead I have a great time writing books in my dreams and forget every word by the time I'm awake.
 
Favorite book when you were a child:

My grandmother gave me 10 cents for every book I read in the summer. I quickly figured out that poetry books were the thinnest. When I was older and realized I was cast adrift on the plains, I read everything by Bess Streeter Aldrich and of course that great Kansan escape epic, The Wizard of Oz. Mutiny on the Bounty--yes!
 
Your top five authors:
 
Donald Barthelme; Nicholson Baker; Dervla Murphy, whose walking tours of the remote inspire and terrify; Russell Edson; and Muriel Spark.
 
Book you've faked reading:
 
Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. It's like the pendulum swinging, I fall asleep and do whatever anyone asks me after. Like free associate.
 
Book you're an evangelist for:
 
Reinaldo Arenas's The Assault, a sci-fi about killing your mother. It's fierce. Give him a big posthumous prize: he died of AIDS after being kicked out of Cuba.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:
 
The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France, the cover (and plates) illustrated by Frank C. Pape. A big-breasted sphinx cradles Pan while two bad cherubs beat each other up at their feet, all in embossed gold. Inside, a plate showing an angel bashing Monsieur Sariette over the head with a book!
 
Book that changed your life:
 
One Hundred Years of Solitude
, a book so true to a culture that it widened my own. My biggest aspiration was to travel to South America to live that book. But instead of walking through Latin America under Gabriel Garcia Marquez's spell, I spent six months in the South Pacific and a year in Africa. Wrong boat? I discovered surreal magic emanates from all villages.
 
Favorite line from a book:
 
Tolstoy's "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Coming from a very large family, I like to think we're way more unique.
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
 
Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. It appalls, page by page. Also Barthelme's The Dead Father. Such a lascivious sex scene in amongst all that frivolity. Or maybe Muriel Spark's Memento Mori. Those old people, so catty, so fun. Or Marguerite Duras's The Lover, where nothing is clear except emotion.

 



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