Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, August 10, 2010


Del Rey Books: The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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

Overlook Press: How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Charlesbridge Publishing: If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Richard Ho, illustrated by Huynh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quang

Shadow Mountain: The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall (Proper Romance Victorian) by Rebecca Anderson

Quotation of the Day

John Waters the Bookseller & His 'Complete Education'

"It was a magical time in my life. I worked in the bookshop. First I worked in the East End Bookshop that was run by Molly Malone Cook and her girlfriend, Mary Oliver, the poet, who was not famous yet. And then I worked at the Provincetown Bookshop for many, many years. And it's still there. Elloyd Hansen, one of the owners, was the guy who really gave me my complete education about books. I didn't go to school, so he's the one who told me about Ronald Firbank, Jane Bowles; I learned everything working there. And when I worked there they said, 'you can have free books--whatever you want, but you have to read 'em and you have to sell 'em.' So I read everything and would get obsessed by a book and sell tons of copies."

--Filmmaker John Waters, in an interview with the Paris Review Daily blog

 


HarperOne: Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World by Craig Foster


News

Notes: Bookstore Opening; 'Some Sympathy' for B&N

Congratulations to Michelle Witte, owner of Fire Petal Books, which recently opened its doors in Centerville, Utah, just north of Salt Lake City. Earlier this year, Witte told Shelf Awareness how the book community was "coming together to help her realize her dream. Not just the Centerville community, but the social media nation of booklovers. And it's all because of Twitter."

Yesterday, the Deseret News wrote, "Opening an independent bookstore that caters to children and young adults has garnered Witte a lot of attention, with many in the industry praising her for her bravery and innovative thinking when it came to raising capital."

"This is the best time in my life to take a risk--I don't have a husband or kids or a house, and if it all falls apart, it falls apart, and I'll just start over again," said Witte. "I just want (the store) to be a place where people can come and crash for an hour and maybe discover a book or two. That, I would consider a success."

Fire Petal Books is located at 386 North Main Street, Centerville, Utah; 801-992-3776.

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Last week's announcement that Barnes & Noble might be for sale (Shelf Awareness, August 4, 2010) "reflects both the better economics of Web sales of print books and the increasingly uncertain future of print books in an e-book world," the Wall Street Journal said, noting that the "creative destruction in the book business has led even Andy Ross to have some sympathy for Barnes & Noble."

"The only thing anyone is talking about in the book business is e-books," said Ross, a literary agent and the former owner of Cody's Books, Berkeley, Calif. "I see it as being similar to the music industry. There is going to be a tipping point where e-books become the dominant medium, thus ending 500 years of the Gutenberg Age." Ross also noted that "the future of physical bookstores is pretty bleak, both for chains and independents."

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The latest volley in the e-reader price wars comes from the U.K., where Waterstone's reduced the price of its Sony Pocket Edition e-book reader to £99.99 (US$158), "making it the cheapest on the market," the Bookseller.com reported.  

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Gayle Shanks, owner of Changing Hands bookstore, Tempe, Ariz., was interviewed on MediaBistro's BlogTalkRadio show regarding her state's immigration bill and her role as a bookseller.

"This immigration issue is a good example of what independent bookstores do in their communities," she said. "They provide that gathering place for people to come together and talk about serious issues. The booksellers provide the forums. The authors who write the books that we sell are on the road, and we are constantly requesting (or sometimes even begging) them to come to our stores so that they can both promote their books and promote the ideas in their books."

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Murphy-Brookfield Books, Iowa City, Iowa, specializes in used academic titles and is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The Press-Citizen reported that when owners Mark Brookfield and Jane Murphy "were motoring around the Midwest in a pickup truck 30 years ago looking for a college town to open a bookstore, this is the kind of shop they had in mind."

"It really has stayed pretty true to what we've wanted to have," Brookfield said.

Murphy added: "Both of us are big readers; we always have been, and we always will be. Other booksellers can get to the point where they don't think of books in any way other than a commodity. But for us, I hope that would never happen. We love books and think they're very important.... We were so lucky--I won't even say smart--but lucky that we picked Iowa City. It's been wonderful."

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The Weekly Volcano's Best of Tacoma 2010 included Sweet Pea of King's Books as the Washington city's Best Celebrity: "So Tacoma’s superhero spends his time running a small bookstore--King's Books--which has been his front for seven years or so. He runs a banned book club and a graphic novel book club to make himself appear even more mild-mannered."

"I'm really just a nice normal guy," said Sweet Pea. The Weekly Volcano noted that he has "studied Hung Gar Kung for nearly seven years now [and] has combined his martial lethality with the innate strength, agility and mystical powers."

Asked what book he would choose as a weapon, Sweet Pea said, "I would probably use one of those nice, leather-bound Easton Press editions. It would stand up to some abuse from swords or staves. It also could be used as a sleight of hand device."

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In anticipation of this Thursday's Algonquin Night (and wine/beer tasting) at Books and Books, Coral Gables, Calif., the Miami Herald featured an interview with Craig Popelars, Algonquin's marketing director, and Brock Clarke, author of Exley.

This will be a return engagement for Popelars, who said that last year, "Mitchell [Kaplan, owner of Books and Books] and his gang invited me down there to sort of give their customers a sneak peek at Algonquin, at some of our forthcoming titles, some of our recent releases and to talk a little bit about the publishing process, especially from a small-house perspective. It went incredibly well last year; it was a standing-room-only event, which surprised me. I didn't think anybody left their houses to brave the heat that time of year, especially for something like that. And I was pleasantly surprised. I think it's a testament to the reach that Books & Books has in the Miami literary community."

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Obituary note: Tony Judt, "a public intellectual known for his sharply polemical essays on American foreign policy, the state of Israel and the future of Europe," died last Friday, the New York Times reported. He was 62.

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Book trailer of the day: Juliet by Anne Fortier (Ballantine), which will be released August 24 and was reviewed in Shelf Awareness earlier this week.

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BeyondRobson.com suggested the top five bookstores in Vancouver that "are mostly, not surprisingly, smaller, independently-owned businesses.... The new, used, specialist and remainder bookstores on this list are worth seeking out--if not for their curated selection and prices, then for their knowledgeable staff and community feel."

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There are beach books and then there are beach books. The Wall Street Journal recommended "books about the beach, a small but lively genre of American literature that's too often overlooked in a nation that is, after all, defined by coasts from sea to shining sea."

Among the titles showcased were The Outermost House by Henry Beston, Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  

 


Park Street Press: An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey by Peter A Levine


Macmillan Audio Asks Book Clubs to Listen Up

Book clubs across the country recently turned up the volume instead of turning the pages. Some 45 groups from 30 states participated in Macmillan Audio's first full-scale book club campaign. "It was a great way to spread the word for audiobooks with these close-knit groups in all different kinds of communities," said associate publicist Stephanie Hargadon, who organized the promotion.

 

Groups selected a Macmillan Audio title, and each member received a copy. The top pick was Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall, with a four-way tie for runner-up: The Last Child by John Hart, Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas, Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin (read by actress Cynthia Nixon), and Fireworks over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff, who spoke by Skype and telephone with several groups. 

 

The campaign began with six book clubs and grew to nearly eight times that number. After the promotion was announced in the Reading Group Choices newsletter, some 150 groups responded in the first week expressing interest. "That changed the whole dynamic," said Hargadon. "The intriguing twist was not the number of book clubs but that they were from so many different states and cities." The final list of participating groups, from the Boston suburbs to Kapolei, Hawaii, was geared toward diversity in geographic locale as well as factors like members' ages, professions, size and duration of the group, and reading preferences.

 

Some participants had previously listened to audiobooks, while others were new to the medium. "Much of our discussion was about how to listen," noted Denise Neary, the founder of a mother/daughter book club in Rockville, Md., that discussed Lisa Scottoline's thriller Look Again. "There was a generational divide--all the girls and a regular audio listener used iPods. Many of the moms used CD players in their cars or homes."

 

Kelly Schimmoller's book club in Littleton, Colo., also read Look Again--the first time in the group's decade-long history that the conversation centered on an audiobook and not a printed edition. "It was fun to talk about how hearing a story is different," Schimmoller remarked. Listening to Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher "put more emphasis on characters' emotions," noted Teresa Steinert of Kansas City, Mo., and led to a lengthy discussion about the narrator and his appeal.

 

Book clubs were asked to complete an eight-question survey about their experiences. Of those who have responded so far, 82% enjoyed switching to audiobooks for their monthly book club selection, 89% would listen to another audiobook in the future and 91% would recommend audiobooks to a friend. Participants also offered feedback on whether they would be more likely to purchase a CD or download an audiobook directly; answers were divided equally and the remaining 11% stating they had no preference. And what did they do while listening to the audiobook? Driving was the most popular multitasking activity, followed by cleaning and relaxing.--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

 

 


G.P. Putnam's Sons: Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney


Cool Idea of the Day: Book Busking

"Can you imagine a world without books or reading?" asked Australian indie Pages & Pages Booksellers on its Facebook page, where details of a unique Book Busking event were unveiled. "For many remote indigenous communities this is an unfortunate reality. The Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP) is a partnership between the Australian Book Industry and the Fred Hollows Foundation. The project's core aim is to raise literacy levels and awareness of literacy issues within the Australian community."

Pages & Pages will assist in the fundraising effort by hosting a Book Busking on Indigenous Literacy Day, September 1, and again on September 4. Anyone interested can "book a 15-minute slot at Pages & Pages to sit outside the front of our store and read aloud from your favorite book. Get your friends and family to sponsor you and the money you raise Book Busking will go to Fred Hollows and the Indigenous Literacy Project." 

 


Media and Movies

Media Heat: David Finkel on the Colbert Report

Today on Inside Edition: Randy Schmidt, author of Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter (Chicago Review Press, $26.95, 9781556529764/1556529767).

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Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America:

Michelle Malkin, author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (Regnery Press, $16.95, 9781596986206/1596986204). She also appears tomorrow on the View.
Nancy Grace, author of Death on the D-List (Hyperion, $25.99, 9781401323134/1401323138). She appears tomorrow on the View, too.
Nina Garcia, author of Nina Garcia's Look Book: What to Wear for Every Occasion (Voice, $23.99, 9781401341473/1401341470)

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Tomorrow on Tavis Smiley: Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (Norton, $26.95, 9780393072228/0393072223).

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: David Finkel, author of The Good Soldiers (Picador, $15, 9780312430023/0312430027).

 


Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Versus Eat Pray Love

Despite the media frenzy surrounding this week's release of Eat Pray Love, another book-to-film adaptation has also been gathering considerable momentum for its Friday movie theater debut.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, an adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, "could reach beyond his fan base," according to the New York Times, which profiled director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead; Hot Fuzz) and featured a video in which he "discusses bringing Mr. O'Malley's artwork to life on the big screen and his stylistic influences for the adaptation."

MTV.com is offering "five straight days filled with Scott Pilgrim coverage," and noted that at Comic-Con this year, Wright said that O'Malley "once described the character as the hero of the movie inside his own head--and this, essentially, is the movie. So it's kind of a daydream for people who've been brought up on Saturday morning cartoons and video games and too many sugary products."

 


Movies: Casting Millennium Trilogy; Everything Must Go

With all of the focus upon who will play Lisbeth Salander in the English-language version of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you could forget there are other roles to be cast as well. Deadline.com reported that Robin Wright "is in talks to play Erika Berger, the publisher of crusading finance magazine Millennium, and the occasional lover of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (to be played by Daniel Craig).... Berger figures in Larsson's sequel books The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, and Wright is negotiating a deal that includes options for both."

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Everything Must Go, the upcoming Will Ferrell movie adapted from Raymond Carver's short story, will debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 9 to 19, according to the Hollywood Reporter

 



Books & Authors

Awards: Chicago Tribune Lit Prize; FT/Goldman Sachs Longlist

Sam Shepard won with the 2010 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement. Tribune editor Gerould Kern said, "In selecting Shepard, we recognize his significant influence on American culture. He transcends boundaries of form, with his talent stretching from the stage to page."

Also honored by the Tribune were 2010 Heartland Prizes recipients Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (nonfiction) and E.O. Wilson for Anthill (fiction).

"This year's Heartland prizewinners are nothing short of dazzling," said Kern. The winners will receive their awards to be presented November 13 at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

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The longlist for this year's Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award--honoring the work "providing the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues"--can be found here. The shortlist will be announced September 16, with the winning author named October 27 during an award dinner in New York. The winner will receive £30,000 (US$47,824) and the shortlisted authors £10,000 each.

 


Attainment: New Titles Out Next Week

Selected titles appearing new Monday and Tuesday, August 16 and 17:

Encounter by Milan Kundera (Harper, $23.99, 9780061894411/0061894419) is a series of essays arguing the importance of art in a world that not longer values beauty.

The Power by Rhonda Byrne (Atria, $23.95, 9781439181782/1439181780) is another entry in the popular series about The Secret.

I'd Know You Anywhere: A Novel by Laura Lippman (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061706554/0061706558) explores the psychological trauma experienced by a woman who was kidnapped for weeks as a teenager--and is contacted years later by the kidnapper, now on Death Row.

Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster, $25.99, 9780743276740/0743276744) is the seventh novel starring Russian detective Arkady Renko.

The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth (Putnam, $26.95, 9780399156809/0399156801) is a political thriller about a president who uses the majority of American military power to combat the international cocaine trade.

The Postcard Killers by James Patterson and Liza Marklund (Little, Brown, $27.99, 9780316089517/0316089516) investigates the murders of young couples in several major European cities.

Last Night at Chateau Marmont: A Novel
by Lauren Weisberger (Atria, $25.99, 9781439136614/1439136610) follows a couple who face relationship problems after one of them becomes a famous musician.

Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe (Morrow, $19.99, 9780062015877/0062015877) outlines the beliefs of the Tea Party political movement.


Now in paperback:

Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us: Customer Service and What It Reveals About Our World and Our Lives
by Emily Yellin (Free Press, $15, 9781416546900/1416546901).

Ford County by John Grisham (Bantam, $15, 9780553386813/0553386816).

 


Laura Lippman: The Nature of Memory

Using her trademark blend of psychological suspense, complex characters and razor-sharp crime writing, Laura Lippman returns with I'd Know You Anywhere (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061706554/ 0061706558, August 17, 2010), the story of Eliza Benedict, whose peaceful life is upended when she receives a Death Row note from Walter Bowman, the serial killer who kidnapped and held her hostage decades earlier. Here, in an interview with Shelf Awareness reviewer and author Debra Ginsberg, Lippman reflects on the nature of memory, the human capacity for evil and the inspirations for her characters.

 

In Life Sentences you showcased the slipperiness of memory and its ability to distort reality. In this novel, you illustrate how memory creates a certain emotional reality. What is your sense of the real nature of memory?

 

It's essential to our survival that our memories be flawed and predisposed to forming stories that are beneficial to us, or at least shaping them in ways that make them useful. I had a pretty happy childhood, but every family has its difficult moments. As an adult, I found my memory had chosen not to preserve everything in amber, as it were, which was a blessing. I also discovered that memories wear down like everything else. I've been interested in the fallibility of memory for a very long time.

 

Does Eliza's memory of her kidnapping help or hinder her?

 

It has helped her for much of her life, but now it's hindering her, in part because her own daughter is turning into the sort of golden girl that Holly (one of Walter's victims) appeared to be--pretty, popular, poised. She has to resolve her feelings about her role in what happened to Holly because they're beginning to mingle with the problem of being the mother to an adolescent girl.

 

By giving part of the narrative over to Walter's point of view, you've made it frighteningly easy to understand (if not sympathize with) him and his crimes. How did you get inside his head--and what was it like to live there for the duration of this novel?

 

I didn't like it. I got very depressed and sullen while writing the Walter chapters and I had a hard time knowing if they would be similarly off-putting to readers. But I committed myself to inhabiting him, seeing the world through those eyes. All adult women know men like this, not killers but guys who are slightly "off." They seek women who look like adults but still think like girls.

 

Part of what makes Walter so scary is the almost casual nature of his pathology. He is competent, "almost handsome" and a skilled manipulator, yet his frustration and lack of emotional problem-solving lead to horrifying consequences. Is Walter evil? How defined is the line between good and evil?

 

If Walter was more self-aware, he might be evil. But up until the end, he's still rationalizing. I think it's hard to be evil, but frighteningly evil to rationalize one's way into doing evil things. I perform this constant mental checklist, where I try to catch myself rationalizing an action I find indefensible in others. For example, it makes me crazy when someone enters, say, the local Motor Vehicle Administration, sees a long line and instantly goes to the front, apparently thinking: "This is line is not for the likes of me." (We call this Secretary of State syndrome in my household.) And yet... I have done the same thing on occasion. Or started to, then caught myself. It's funny, the things we will and won't do. I would never park in a handicapped/disabled spot. I just wouldn't. I would never steal. But I'll speed. I'm sometimes late, much as I dislike lateness. I've been known to gossip, although I quite despise gossip. Walter wants a girlfriend and he thinks he should have one. He never starts out thinking he's going to kill a girl, yet that's what he ends up doing.

 

Although Eliza still harbors fear and guilt, she's remarkably well-adjusted for a woman with such a traumatic event in her past. Where did you find the inspiration for Eliza?

 

Eliza was inspired by a friend. I'm not even sure she knows it. But when she was young, she experienced a traumatic illness, something with a 1% survival rate. And she lived. I knew her for a long time before she mentioned this and it was my sense she wanted to shut the conversation down very quickly. It didn't define her. She also happens to be this incredibly calm, down-to-earth, happy mom.

 

I had just come off writing Life Sentences, a book about the kind of writer whose book is read by book clubs. I wanted to write about the kind of woman who belongs to a book club, if that makes sense. When I was a journalist, I belonged to a school of reporters--admittedly, a small school--who believed that a good reporter should be able to open a phone book, blindly pick out a name, call the person and be able to develop that call into a full-blown feature story. Everybody has a story. I wanted people to look around them, at the grocery store or PTA and think: Do I really know you? What secrets might you harbor?

 

I think Eliza is the most likable character I have ever written and it was very hard to let go of her. To me, her defining moment comes when another character tells her that he/she always does what's right and Eliza replies: "That's a nice way to be." She's utterly sincere, but she also knows it's a luxury to live a life in which right or wrong is readily apparent. By the way, for all of Eliza's protestations about her averageness, her lack of special talent--I think her time with Walter shows she has a genius for empathy. Plus, her made-up version of Travels with Charley isn't bad at all.

 

The complicated relationship between mothers and daughters is a theme throughout I'd Know You Anywhere. How did that develop?

 

In 2008, I wrote a novella in which my series character, Tess Monaghan, had a baby. Because of that, mothers and daughters were very much on my mind already. I wanted to write about good mothers, and I think every mother in this book is a good one. Except, perhaps, Walter's, but whatever her failings, she can't be blamed for the man he became. At one point, I had hoped to tell all the mothers stories, to see how the mother of each victim was faring, but I think the book would have sagged under the weight of so many characters. But I had those stories in my head. Trudy, the mother of Walter's final victim, is not a character whose values I share. But you know what? I would not deign to tell a parent who has lost a child how to be. Over the past few years, I've become good friends with Ann Hood, a brilliant novelist who wrote a memoir about the death of her daughter. Knowing Ann, knowing the book, knowing the novel that also was drawn from her experience--it has opened my mind to the idea that grief comes in a thousand hues, that it's something that lives and breathes and mutates, but it never leaves. The same is true of my mother-in-law, to whom this book is dedicated, along with my late father-in-law. She lost her only daughter to cancer 20 years ago. She thinks about her every day.

 

You've written 10 novels in your series featuring Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan; I'd Know You Anywhere is your fifth stand-alone. What are the challenges and rewards of writing a series vs. those of writing the stand-alones?

 

By the luckiest of happenstances, I managed to create a character with whom I have now spent almost 20 years of my life. But her world is very defined so I've used stand-alones to try things that wouldn't work in Tess's world. And the stand-alones give me a chance to play with structure. The challenge and the reward of a stand-alone is that it takes me into uncharted waters. Although I've tried not to write the same Tess book twice, I do have the advantage of knowing the characters, the setting, the larger world. The stand-alones, in fact, tend to tell the same story, but in very different ways. A woman--or women--has/have a secret. The reader has all the factual information and can begin to piece the story together if intent on doing that. The basic facts of the story are not contradicted; I don't really do twists. But the "why" remains tantalizing--I hope.

 

Laura Lippman discusses I'd Know You Anywhere.

 


Book Review

Book Review: Bring on the Books for Everybody

Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture by Jim Collins (Duke University Press, $22.95 Paperback, 9780822346067, June 2010)

 

Jim Collins, a professor of English and Film and Television at Notre Dame, offers a lively take on the way traditional literary culture has been transmuted into new and sometimes only dimly recognizable forms by the powerful forces of American popular culture. Despite an occasional lapse into academic jargon, Collins's savvy assessment of these recent developments is informative and entertaining and, in a way that's most welcome, accessible to anyone looking for a foothold as the tectonic plates of our cultural landscape shift.

 

Moving with admirable facility through a broad range of topics, from the creation and occasionally creepy evolution of Amazon's bookselling model to the rise of "national librarians" and taste shapers like Seattle's beloved Nancy Pearl and Oprah Winfrey (his deconstruction of her Anna Karenina Book Club rollout is both canny and wry), Collins sketches the crucial role these dominating influences have assumed in supplanting traditional arbiters of literary merit, chiefly his fellow academics. The journey hasn't always been a smooth one, demonstrated most dramatically by the highly publicized tiff between Oprah and Jonathan Franzen over the latter's novel The Corrections.

 

A lengthy section of Collins's book is devoted to the symbiosis between the acclaimed Miramax films of the Weinstein brothers and their literary progenitors. He offers close readings of movies with impeccable literary pedigrees: Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient and The Hours, arguing that their success "depended on the creation of a new film culture... in which traditional relationships between art and commerce, and literature and film, were redefined in unprecedented combinations," in turn illustrating how that success reshaped the way their audiences experienced the printed word when they left the theater.

 

Collins concludes with a comparison of what he calls the "Post-Literary Novel" (ranging from a bevy of well-known chick-lit titles to the works of "man-lit" stalwart Nick Hornby) and the "Devoutly Literary Novel" (Henry James and Edith Wharton repackaged in the prose of Colm Tóibin and Claire Messud). The former epitomize reading as a form of "quality self-actualization," while the latter, for all their demonstrable literary merit, are often "all about the celebration of an imagined reading community." 

 

Countering with aggressive cheerfulness the view of those doomsayers who foresee the demise of literary reading in everything from the Internet to the rise of superstores awash on a tide of lattes, Collins's survey is grounded on a fundamentally optimistic premise: "Popular literary culture," he observes, "is built.., on the interdependency of the print and visual culture, not a world of books versus wall screens." Anyone inclined to challenge him on that point should be primed for a robust intellectual sparring match. --Harvey Freedenberg

 

Shelf Talker: Notre Dame professor Jim Collins presents a lively and generally optimistic look at the way traditional literary reading has been reshaped by American popular culture.

 

 


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