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August 2007
Bow down before Melissa Fay Greene
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last year, the first for the Decatur Book Fest, I went to hear Melissa Fay Greene, the award-winning Decatur author of several memorable non-fiction books. The auditorium at DeKalb Library was so packed it’s a good thing the Fire Marshall didn’t show up. At least folks appreciate her.
This year I get to introduce her at the DBF, so at least I’ll get a seat this time. It’s 3:45 p.m. Sunday at Decatur Presbyterian Church.
If you don’t know her books, you really need to try one. They’re recent history, on various topics, but so well researched and written they read like great novels. Her first book, “Praying for Sheetrock,” was about this poor community on Georgia’s coast completely oppressed by a corrupt political system. That one won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, among others. Then came “The Temple Bombing,” about the attack on an Atlanta synagogue in 1958, which was a National Book Award finalist. Her third book, “Last Man Out,” took us deep into a mining disaster in Nova Scotia, and was a New York Times Notable Book.
Last year she published “There Is No Me Without You,” which was about AIDS in Ethiopia. Specifically, an orphanage for babies whose parents have died of AIDS, run by a woman whose daughter died of AIDS. How depressing, I thought. I should read this, but I don’t want to.
Then I did, and of course, it was magnificent: sometimes sad and tragic, but not depressing. It was named a Best Book of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, the Christian Science Monitor and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Melissa Fay Greene speaks truth to power, and does so eloquently. There is no one at this DBF I admire more.
If you know Greene’s work, what is your favorite? If you don’t, did I convince you to give her a try?
See you at DBF this weekend.
GABALDON UPDATE I’m told by DBF folks that Diana Gabaldon will be signing books at 12 noon Saturday at Decatur Presbyterian Church. She is not on the printed schedule, and as of yesterday had not even been added to the website schedule, but she is definitely gonna be there. So you Gabaldon fans, get over there and say hello. The crowd might be a lot thinner than usual and you might have more of a chance to have an actual conversation.
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Decatur Book Fest: Who do you love?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Decatur Book Festival, sponsored by the AJC, starts Friday night, and I am psyched. If you didn’t go last year, and you care about books, you need to block out some serious chunks of time over the weekend and prepare to immerse yourself.
Last year was a blast, with more than 50,000 people wandering from venue to venue, soaking up that Decatur vibe, listening to best-selling authors, children’s story-telling, musical performances and cooking demonstrations. There’s almost too much good stuff this year, like the heyday of Music Midtown, when you had two and sometimes three great acts on all at the same time. You can get over to their website and check out the schedule yourself, but here’s a smattering:
Charles Frazier. This year’s biggest “get” is the acclaimed author of “Cold Mountain” and “Thirteen Moons.” I haven’t made it to “Moons” yet, but “Mountain” was wonderful. He’s giving the keynote address at 8 p.m. Saturday in Presser Hall at Agnes Scott, and as a bonus, former AJC book editor (and a close personal friend of this blog) Teresa Weaver will conduct a Q & A with Frazier.
Diana Gabaldon. The author of the “Outlander” series of novels (romance, time travel, lots of ideas) has an intense fan base. Last year when she was here, the audience was like tween girls awaiting the cast of “High School Musical.” 4:15 p.m. Saturday and 3:45 p.m. Sunday. I get to introduce her on Saturday. Just had to throw that in.
Terry Brooks. Dear Mr. Fantasy/ play us a tune/ You are the one/ who can make us all glad. 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
Kinky Friedman. The Kinkster. Former leader of the Texas Jewboys rock band, now author of a successful string of comic mystery novels best described as delightfully shambling. Known for a salty sense of humor and a penchant for cee-gars. This is a keynote speaker? I’m there. 8 p.m. Friday at Presser.
Other close personal friends of this blog: Jack Wilkinson, 10 a.m. Saturday; Kathy Hogan Trochek, appearing as her altar ego Mary Kay Andrews, 1:45 p.m. Saturday.
Also of note: The AJC’s Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer-winning author of “The Race Beat,” 10 a.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday; the AJC’s Julia Wallace , 3 p.m. Saturday; Emory’s Pulitzer-winning poet Natasha Trethewey, 3 p.m. Saturday.
Melissa Fay Greene. So awesome, she gets her own blog entry tomorrow.
The Big Parade. They’re calling it Krewe for the 2007 DBF, and it’s set for 6 p.m. Sunday in the Decatur square. Book clubs, bookstores, libraries, or ragtag author fan clubs are encouraged to form krewes, as in Mardi Gras, and march around paying tribute to whatever they want to pay tribute to. Sounds like a big goofy mob-up to end it all.
Did you go to DBF last year? What did you think? Who are you looking forward to this year?
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Atlanta Events
Coming soon to a theater: Your favorite novel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When I hear that a novel I loved is being turned into a movie, I get both excited and nervous. It can be so wonderful, or so sickening, to see a book you’ve loved re-imagined by someone else — sometimes a fine artist, sometimes a committee of hacks.
Entertainment Weekly just ran a list of movie releases between now and the end of the year, and even for “prestige” season, there seems to be an unusual number of well-loved books being turned into films. Take a look at what’s coming, and whether there’s any chance they can live up to the printed page.
“The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini. This is the kind of novel — juicy, entertaining, not terribly dependent on a strong author’s voice — that makes a fun movie. I’m hopeful.
“The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman. If you haven’t read Pullman’s trilogy “His Dark Materials,” leave this blog, go to Amazon and order it right away. It is a transcendent work of fantasy that will shake your soul. The trailer looks good in a very CGI way, and I have high hopes for the first movie. But the books get much darker and stranger as they progress, and I’m not sure if they’ll have the guts to do it right.
“Love in the Time of Cholera,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Oh, they didn’t. Yup, they did. Not only is it going to be a movie, they shot it in English. Javier Bardem stars, though, and he’s good.
“Into the Wild,” by Jon Krakauer. This was Krakauer’s first book about crazy people taking on the wilderness, pre-“Into Thin Air.” It’s a good read, and probably easy not to screw up.
“Atonement,” by Ian McEwan. Exactly the kind of novel that should not be made into a movie — delicate, tricky, very dependent on McEwan’s exacting style. The movie will probably be perfectly fine, but it won’t be McEwan.
“Gone Baby Gone,” by Dennis Lehane. Casey Affleck (Ben’s bro) stars as Lehane’s private investigator, Patrick Kenzie. I love Lehane, but this does not bode well.
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” by Ron Hansen. Brad Pitt plays James. I haven’t read the book.
“No Country for Old Men,” by Cormac McCarthy. Haven’t read it, but the Coen brothers are doing it. Cormac McCarthy and the Coens? Could be magic.
That’s a lot to chew on. What are your thoughts? Which among these will you seek out, or avoid?
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: News and Reviews
Karen Abbott’s big, bold “Sin”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you haven’t read “Sin in the Second City,” by Atlanta author Karen Abbott, you’re missing a delicious cocktail of historical detail and salaciousness.
Abbott’s “Sin” is about what was, at the time, the most famous whorehouse in the world — the Everleigh Club in Chicago, circa 1900. It was run by two colorful, iron-willed sisters, Minna and Ada Everleigh, and catered only to the richest clients by offering them the best prostitutes (referred to as “butterflies”) in the plushest surroundings.
(Ever hear of a gentleman drinking champagne from a lady’s shoe as a sign of devotion? The Everleigh is where that started, according to Abbott’s book.)
If the whole topic bothers you, well, maybe you ought to skip Abbott’s appearance at 1:15 p.m. Sunday at the Decatur Book Festival. There’s a schedule on the festival’s homepage.
While she doesn’t actually endorse the Everleighs, Abbott appears to sympathize with them in the book, more than the various forces of church and state that eventually shut the club down.
Abbott is not afraid of a little self-promotion, either. The author’s photo on the dust jacket does not exactly portray her as dowdy. Check it out yourself on the book’s website. In AJC staff writer Kirsten Tagami’s profile of Abbott that ran Sunday, Kirsten wrote:
“There’s definitely something in the self-described one-time “troublemaking” Catholic schoolgirl that is attracted to naughtiness. At her New York book party … Abbott was described as “smooching” with her female editor and grabbing a stripper’s breasts for the camera.”
Of course, no such shenanigans will be going on at the Decatur Book Festival.
Enough titillation. “Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America’s Soul,” is solid history, very much in the territory of Erik Larsen’s “Devil in the White City,” occasionally covering adjacent patches of ground as that best-seller. Abbott and “Sin” just got a huge shout-out in Entertainment Weekly, where Sara Gruen, author of “Water for Elephants,” did a guest critic gig and called Abbott’s writing “exquisite” and her reporting “first-rate.”
Karen Abbott is just one of many reasons to hit the Decatur Book Fest this weekend. Have you read “Sin in the Second City” yet? What did you think?
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Let’s get it started
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Where do we begin? Harry Potter? Jane Austen? The power of Oprah? The price of paperbacks?
Like the T-shirt says, “So many books, so little time.”
Welcome to The Book Page, ajc.com’s new blog that’s all about books, and mostly about books in Atlanta and hereabouts. Go ahead and bookmark us now. If you like to read, this may be a place you want to come back to on a regular basis to see what’s going on.
The Book Page will have a daily stream of news about authors who are coming to Atlanta to sign and talk about their books. We’ll talk about Atlanta book clubs. We’ll have debates about specific books that are selling big or making news or just plain worth discussing. Which means we’ll talk about everything, eventually, from God to Google.
Most of all, we’ll interact. My name is Phil Kloer, and I’ve been a writer and editor at the AJC for 22 years. I was TV critic here for many years, and pop culture critic, and arts editor, and now I work on our dot-com side. I read a lot of stuff, and wish I had time to read more.
I’ll introduce the topics, but listening to me pontificate can get pretty deadly — just ask my Well-Read Wife. So this is about being a community of engaged, opinionated readers who talk to one another.
Because the Decatur Book Festival starts Friday, and that’s the 800-pound gorilla of ATL book events, we’re gonna blog a lot about the DBF this week. But then we’ll go wide. What would you like to see here? What should a good book blog do? Let me know.
About Phil Kloer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Phil Kloer has worked for the AJC for 22 years. He has been the Arts Editor, the television critic, a pop culture writer, an editor on ajc.com and is currently a feature writer. The only consistent thread is that he has reviewed books for the AJC all along. E-mail Phil
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