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Ok, while I grant you this is the most beautiful, least cutesy baby book I've ever seen, is there really anyone out there who'll pay one hundred and ten dollars for a book in which to write down baby's first word? Seriously, one hundred and ten dollars? Even as a gift? It costs serious money to be a hip parent. [via design*sponge]
Ok, I admit it, I cried at the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Yea, though she tugs on my heartstrings, I still resent J.K. Rowling for her assorted imperfections as a writer. Ah well. If you have finished the novel, and need a giggle to cheer you up, check out the Guardian's Alternative Potter contest.
Read the--no spoilers here--VERY SIGNIFICANT ENDING rewritten in the style of famous authors from Chaucer to the depression-inducing Dan Brown. I shudder to even speak his name. Rowling is Shakespeare compared to that clown. [via LISNews]
Admittedly, the new Narnia film is creating a merchandising frenzy, and I'm not sure I'm ready to see a stuffed Aslan toy, but how cool is this preview? I'm still unclear on how the studios can make a series of movies out of the novels, though, since they share almost no characters in common. Will the country be the main character? Because that could be a really hard sell. At least they picked arguably the most photogenic of the stories for the first film. Oodles of images here. I'm well aware the film looks a bit, well, orc-ified, but since I pretty much worship Peter Jackson, I think I can cope.
And I can't complain about the fact that sales of C.S. Lewis's saga are skyrocketing. Kids reading great fantasy literature? Who's got a bottle of champagne? [link via Bookslut]
Only 10 days till the next Harry Potter novel is released, and I'm already sending welcoming thoughts to my pre-ordered copy, to encourage it to fly most urgently into my waiting American arms. Need more HP mania to prepare you to devour Half-Blood Prince? Try a local Potter Party!
Oak Park appears to be staging a repeat of its marvelous Diagon Alley celebration. Attendees note: get there early if you want butter beer, don't bring kids in strollers (it was a zoo last time), and the first copy at the Magic Tree will go to the winner of an essay contest. Bravo!
This afternoon I finished reading Word Freak by NPR contributor Stefan Fatsis, a saga of the competitive Scrabble universe and his descent into its lovable madness. After reading the final pages, of course, I had to check the National Scrabble Association roster for Stefan's current rating: 1565. I'm sort of glad to see it's down from his writing-period high of 1733. I've never wondered before if researching other people's hobbies could be hazardous, but Scrabble sure sucked this guy in! Still, I was completely entranced by his story, and was thrilled to see photos of some of the book's Scrabble personalities on the NSA site.
Ever wondered how to write a best-selling fantasy novel? The Bookslut rightly calls this one "quite brilliant."
To make Character Names, just run some nonsense syllables together until it looks like a foreign language. If they are unpronounceable they will be seem even more authentic. "Y"s, "H"s and apostrophes add an exotic feeling. Words like "Dn’a’brht", "ynhazzmhn", "jbreheh’m" are all acceptable.
Fantasy Worlds always have inexplicable gaps in their technology. They are ruled by councils of venerable sages who are the guardians of the accumulated learning of thousands of years and yet have never got around to inventing anything that might actually help them against wights, trolls and orcs - such as a .44 Magnum. Many Fantasy Worlds possess fine metal working, word-working and the ability to make crossbows, catapults and elaborate secret trapdoors but have no wheeled transport.
Note: Fantasy Worlds never have working economies. Very few people work, there is little agriculture and it is not clear where food comes from.
For anyone who enjoyed Nancy Pearl's NPR interview on great first lines, don't miss openinghooks, an online database of first lines from many novels.
[via LISNews]
Michael Dirda of the Washington Post recently produced As I Live And Read, a wisftul commentary on the NEA's much-discussed "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America".
He opens with the following suspicious statement:
No doubt I could have looked online for the report, but I prefer to regard the Web as largely an invention of the Devil. I use the thing for e-mail, but that's just about it. I have seen the best minds of the next generation, and a few from my own, destroyed by its insidious ensorcelments.
Ah. Well, in that case, I think we can quite sensibly not expect a balanced view of Internet culture, and its relationship to reading, in this essay. According to Dirda:
By "literary" reading, the NEA report means "novels, short stories, plays, or poetry." But novels is a category that embraces mysteries, chick lit, adventure novels, Westerns, fantasy and science fiction, spy thrillers, possibly even children's picture books (this isn't clear).
Although he is careful to point out that I enjoy work in nearly all of fiction's genres -- occasionally even Harlequin romances, whose fans probably account for most of the people who get through a dozen or more titles a year, he naturally cannot elevate these works to the level of serious reading, as Literary Reading. He insists, Any genre is capable of producing work of high artistic merit. He means, some of my favorite books are genre fiction, but I wouldn't want to be wedded to any of them.
There's a lot of nostalgic tragedy in this essay, about how we've become a shallow people, happy enough with the easy gratifications of mere spectacle in all the aspects of life and how we no longer have the intellectual fascination to read Richardson's Clarissa or Freud. Freud.
Look, bub, I read Freud. And I read Chaucer. And Shakespeare. (too many to link a particular one). I even enjoyed most of the "serious reading" of my college years. I still read Dickens for pleasure on occasion, or his modern admirers. But I read mostly for pleasure now, and that means, for me, lots of genre fiction, magazines, and the web. I see plenty of theater, too, even if I don't read plays. Actually, I think reading plays isn't nearly as worthwhile as seeing them staged, but that's a different argument.
To me, there are two problems with Dirda's thesis. Modern life does, as he points out, include many tempting alternatives to reading. So what? So I watch more movies than I read books. Does that mean I'm intellectually impoverished? If I get my news from NPR instead of from the Chicago Tribune, or even if I get my news [gasp!] online, does that mean I'm no longer an engaged member of the reading public? Of course not. If Dickens's contemporaries had only theater and books to entertain them, and they read more books than I do--and had more leisure time, and read because the discussion of the most recent fiction was a vital piece of their social interaction--who cares? That simply means I now have more options. And I've been just as stimulated by an in-depth discussion of the meaning behind Pulp Fiction as I was by my last discussion of a great book. Real books are simply too serious for us. Too slow. Too hard. Too long. No. But we differ on what exactly a "real book" is, and on whether the only source of thought, wit, and learning is "literature."
My other issue is with Dirda's assumption that the greatest books are found in our past. He snears at those who read Oprah's Book Club selections, and The Da Vinci Code, and mourns how we have turned our backs on Thoreau. My father often laments that there are old (and doubtless great) movies I have not seen. He is frequently disappointed by newer films (as am I, to be quite fair), and by remakes (usually dreadful). But the body of quality film available now, in 2004, is so huge that I will never catch up, just like the body of great literature. And, in fact, there are many great modern films I may never see, too. Wonderful movies that will stand the test of time are still being produced. Fantastic novels and plays, which will be read by the grandchilden of my generation, are still being published. Simply being old does not make something great. And being new doesn't make it worthless. That's the most offensive sort of nostalgia.
And by the way, Michael Dirda, dismissing The Da Vinci Code and Oprah's picks as crap, even if they are, is pointless and detrimental to your purpose. You want people to read more? Stop judging their choices. If people read chick lit, and it's an easy read, and they get something out of it, who are you to judge their taste? Proper young ladies were once discouraged from reading many of the novels you probably consider great literature. This is the worst sort of intellectual snobbery. Even if I did loathe The Da Vinci Code and couldn't finish it. Even if I do know that many writers, from Diana Wynne Jones to C.S. Lewis wrote better fantasy than J.K. Rowling. I'm still waiting for the next Harry Potter novel with anxious pleasure. You want to make something of it?
[via LISNews]
Thanks to the Librarian In Black, I didn't miss the 30th birthday of Dungeons & Dragons. Soon, the game freaks out about commitment, dumps its long-time mate, meets someone new, gets married, and has baby games. Then it has a midlife crisis and buys a convertible.
Utterly wrong-headed title of the day, found in Worldcat while searching for home medical guides of all things: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Your Civil Liberties.
Harry Potter & the Revenge of the Sith. Has a real ring to it, don't you think? [Beloved Unshelved]
Apparently it has just occurred to J.K. Rowling that there are parallels between the attitude of the Death Eaters toward Muggle-born wizards and Nazi discrimination against those with Jewish blood.
Ms Rowling then explained how she had discovered that this fictional prejudice held by some wizards against non-magical people [muggles] bore a strong resemblance to the way the Nazis thought.
[via LISNews]
Looking for something to read during these hot summer evenings? Check out Poynter Online's list of links to recommended reading lists. Among those singled out: the UC Berkeley list, which focuses on humor this year. The archives of this list are also worth, ahem, checking out. [via lisnews]
Miyazaki is filming Diana Wynne Jones's utterly marvelous novel Howl's Moving Castle! I don't know how I'll contain myself until it's released in the States.
Minimal details on the IMDB. [via Neil Gaiman's Journal]
Harry Potter fans grow up and lose interest.
"I'm out of that mystical and magical phase," he said. "Now I'm more into chicks and cars and movies like 'Hellboy' and 'Eurotrip.'"
Eurotrip. Right.
Apparently adults aren't so fickle. [via LISNews]
It's true, you know. See June 11.
Bookslut redesigns. We all have a crush on Bookslut.
[via librarian.net]
CrossGen is apparently dying a tragic death. Too bad, I was really enjoying Abadazad. [via LISNews]
A judge for the Orange Prize for fiction, "awarded to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English," described her experience for the Guardian. It was pretty entertaining, especially the part where she described one of the other judge's reactions to a rather racy novel among the contenders:
"I can't read about all this sex! Don't they know I'm a librarian?"
[via Bookslut]
Ahh, I remember when e-books were going to be the next big thing. Check out Sony's new Librie, reviewed and commented upon here and here.
The annual "Who Reads What?" list is now available. Great! Now I can feel secure in the knowledge that Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) reads John Irving, and that king of YA horror novels, R.L. Stine, likes Ray Bradbury.
Men are from Red Mars, Women are from Blue Mars -- Kim Stanley Robinson's epic about terraforming the relationship between the sexes.
A Brief History of the Wheel of Time -- Stephen Hawking takes time out from being clever to condense Robert Jordan's gargantuan fantasy sequence for people who can't be arsed reading the whole bleeding lot. 10 books and running, you've got to be having a laugh, mate.
[via Bookslut]
Apparently J.K. Rowling is considering milking the Harry Potter franchise even beyond book 7. It's a sad day, really. [via Bookslut]
On the bright side, Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series is a solid and enormously readable alternative to Harry Potter, so go out and get the first one, Mister Monday, right now!
Absolutely gorgeous. Buy them and frame them! [via LISNews]
Ordinarily, I don't believe in forwards. But the one I received about this was so good, I thought I'd find the original source and share the wealth.
Though only your skin, sinews, and bones remain, though your blood and flesh dry up and wither away, yet shall you meditate and not stir until you have attained full Enlightenment. But first, a little nosh.
The haikus aren't bad either.
Hey! Get back indoors!
Whatever you were doing
could put an eye out.
A terrific article on the perils of using Google to back up a claim of popularity or importance, focused on abuses in journalism. But still, I admit, I only linked it because I loved the title. [via LISNews]
The recent British Library Mingle attempted to spark romance between some over-educated romantics.
I'm rather on the prowl for a Lara," confessed a nervous, middle-aged Dr Zhivago, as three young Eves discussed the Plantagenets at his elbow. "I'm looking for an ice maiden - but one my own age."
Too bad that the modern library, which opened in 1997, had "none of the sexual charge that used to crackle around the old, round reading room at the British Museum", according to an older "Narcissus seeking Narcissus". [via LISNews]
Well, I know we're all breathing a sigh of relief that the hugely obscene Asimov's Science Fiction is out of the hands of children. [via LISNews]
Asimov's responds:
Reporter Kristi Andersen and the News 8 anchors portrayed Asimov’s as a pornographic magazine. They characterized it as "full of sexual content," "an adults-only magazine," and said that it "contained stories about sex, drugs, and molestation." Probably because it doesn’t fit with their one-sided characterization, they did not mention that Asimov’s is a highly respected literary magazine. Its stories have won numerous awards, including at least 40 Hugo awards and 24 Nebula awards.
According to a BBC News story, a survey of over 1000 people determined that only 10% could place such classic literary quotations as "Now is the winter of our discontent." Apparently, 71% had no trouble placing "If only you knew the power of the dark side."
When asked to complete the line "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your..." from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, some people said swords or money rather than ears.
Lend me your money. This doesn't really surprise me, but still.
I would love to know how many people would list popular movies as the original source of classic quotes, like the Shakespearean lines in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
This also got me thinking about the Lord of the Rings film cycle. Are there any quotes in those films as memorable as the ones from the Star Wars saga? Much better movies, but maybe not so quotable. [via LISNews]
As a birthday present for Dr. Seuss (100 years!), the US Postal Service [pdf] will premiere a commemorative stamp! [via PR Bop]
I was also excited about the stamps devoted to Mary Cassatt and the efforts of the Wright brothers.
Thanks to Randy for noticing that blog has been immortalized in the Oxford English Dictionary. [via PodBayDoor]
Youch. Bookslut may think Ursula K. LeGuin answers a Harry Potter question with grace in this Guardian inteview, but her comments seem harsh to me (although largely accurate, more's the pity).
Q: Nicholas Lezard has written 'Rowling can type, but Le Guin can write.' What do you make of this comment in the light of the phenomenal success of the Potter books? I'd like to hear your opinion of JK Rowling's writing style.
UKL: I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the "incredible originality" of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a "school novel", good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.
Locus Magazine published its 2003 Recommended Reading List which, I'm delighted to say, includes lots of titles I haven't read yet. Hurray! Of course, when I'll have time to read them is another matter entirely. (via LISNews)
For wanting to read freely, that is. Freedom to Read week begins on February 22. (via LISNews)
Ok, I had to link to this. T.E. Lawrence identified as a sadomasochist based on a new uncut version of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Never read it, don't know anything about the man, but this article just cracked me up. (via LISNews)
Apparently the novel I'm reading for my first review as a Bookslut contributor is up for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the British SF prize. I admit I'm enjoying Coalescent a lot so far. Yes, it has bad cover art (although I have the US cover, not the British), and yes, the book itself is bright yellow once you take the cover off (great for train reading, really), but it's a bizarre and fascinating mix of near-future society and ancient Rome. (via Bookslut)
Tobias Semon relates What Literature Has Taught Me. (link via Bookslut)
"Dracula" illuminated the perils of foreign travel: fatigue, disingenuous sleeping arrangements, and unappetizing dietary options.
The Bible confirmed that no one likes a know-it-all either.
Just finished Clive Barker's Abarat. (Cool web site, by the way.) Crud! I didn't realize it was the first in a series. Oh well. Only drawback to the novel that I could see is how heavy the gorgeously illustrated pages are. Just TRY holding it open between your thumb and pinky finger while slurping down cereal before work.
Rereading Susanna Moore's In the Cut. Managed to not see the movie, but I may remedy that after I finish the book again. I remember it as intense, sexy, and disturbing. So far seems much the same.
Reading Paula Fox's Desperate Characters for the new book club I joined. So far, a puss-filled, swollen cat bite seems to be a metaphor for the festering wound hiding underneath a couple's pretty life. Yuck. Also, I have an urge to yell, "Block that metaphor!" about every other page. And no one talks like these people. Geez Louise.
we read! Yay for reading addictions!
In my week and a half off, I devoured Le Divorce (weak ending); The Summoning God (excellent, second in a series); and reread Burnt Offerings, an Anita Blake novel, in preparation for the new one coming out. Let's pray it's better than the last one.
Currently nearly finished with Robin McKinley's latest novel, Sunshine. Thank goodness she finally got a proper hardback premiere! Congrats! This one is really not for the youngsters, and is quite a departure in style from her previous work. It's a stellar alternate history in which Others (vampires, weres, and assorted demons) inhabit the Earth and are a continual danger to humanity. Our heroine, Sunshine, is kidnapped by vampires, only to develop a bond with a fellow prisoner--also a vampire. To say more would spoil things for you. Go out and buy it at once!
Thanks go to Jessa for the heads-up that even the New England Journal of Medicine's readers find Harry Potter to be dangerous to our health.
I picked up Neil Gaiman's new Sandman: Endless Nights collection over the weekend. I almost don't want to start it, because I know it will distract me from everything else in my life until I'm done reading it. Plus, once I finish it, I'll never be able to read it for the first time again.
This is probably the same reason I'm hesitating before buying Neal Stephenson's latest novel. Safety first: if I don't own it, I can't stay up till dawn reading it!
One of my favorite used book stores, which I fear to go to because I tend to drop $50 or more per trip, is Myopic Books in Chicago. They recently moved to a new storefront, which used to be the home of the excellent Earwax Cafe. Earwax moved across the street, into very nice digs, and has incredibly cool new booths painted in gorgeous colors and patterns. Also, dragons hanging from the ceiling. Niiiice.