Home > The Book Page > Archives > 2007 > September
September 2007
A quickie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hey gang, I’m going to keep this short today for reasons explained later.
First, here is your round-up of who’s talking and signing:
Amy Sedaris. 7:30 tonight (Sept. 28) at the Decatur Rec Center, 231 Sycamore St., Decatur. This will be hoppin’. Sedaris (yes, David’s sister) got her first wave of recognition as an actress, mainly for “Strangers With Candy,” projecting a persona that is truly unique. She was also seen recently, and too briefly, as an offbeat character on “Rescue Me” getting groped by Dennis Leary. (!) But here, she’s signing her book “I Like You.” Don’t be surprised if there is a crowd; folks love Amy. The line starts forming at 6. Sponsored by Wordsmith Books.
Christopher Moore.” 7:45 p.m. Saturday (Sept. 29) at Wordsmith Books in Decatur. Author of the recent best-seller “You Suck” and the Christmas classic “The Stupidest Angel,” Moore is one of the funniest novelists working today, and to some he has no peer. Certainly not when it comes to dysfunctional vampire sex, anyway. I would love to go out for a drink with him, but at the same time, I’d keep an eye on him.
Tim Green. Green played for the Falcons from 1986-‘93, and then became a lawyer and best-selling author. He’s mainly been known for suspense novels, but his latest, “Football Genius,” is a novel for kids. He’ll be at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur at 4 p.m. Saturday to talk and sign. Then on Monday morning he’s heading to Drew Charter Elementary School in East Lake and giving away 200 books. But that’s only for kids who attend.
Coming up: Next week is Banned Book Week. I’d like to have more than one blog about it since it’s so important. Does anyone have any specific topics they’d like to suggest? (Save your overall comments and rants for next week.)
Finally, the reason I’m rushing is that today is Ask a Stupid Question Day. I’m supposed to be on another blog, providing answers to the stupid questions readers send in. No, I have no idea how that is going to work. But come visit anyway.Here is the link..
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Naked or well-dressed? You choose
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Naked, Dead, Hot
The annual Georgia Romance Writers Convention — aka “Moonlight and Magnolias” — runs Friday through Sunday Sept. 28-30 at the Hilton Atlanta Northeast. There will be panels, agents, authors giving speeches, and lots of networking, as always.
I love the titles they give panels at conferences like this. Here’s a sample. I didn’t make these up!
The Naked and the Dead
Synopsis Writing for the Innocent, the Eager or the Doomed
Is It Hot in Here?
No More Lazy Scenes
Here’s a hint, though: Don’t just show up in the lobby and start handing out that manuscript you know will be a best-seller. Go to the website and register and be taken seriously.
The name is Bentley. Fonzworth Bentley.
I seriously admire Fonzworth Bentley.** The former Atlantan (a Morehouse grad back when he was Derek Watkins) landed a job as P. Diddy’s personal assistant, and then parlayed that into this weird level of celebrity where he promotes old-fashioned style, fashion and general suaveness. He calls himself The First Gentleman of Hip-Hop, and even though - let’s be honest - there isn’t a lot of competition for the title, it’s kind of a cool concept.
A little Miss Manners, a little Kanye West. I’m OK with that. Kanye even gave him a blurb.
Bentley is swinging through town to promote his new book “Advance Your Swagger: How to Use Manners, Confidence and Style to Get Ahead.” It’s a slim volume with a cover photo of a very natty Bentley holding a furled umbrella.
The matchless Bentley will be making two appearances here (reading, talking, signing). At 6 tonight (Sept. 27) he’s at the Shrine of the Black Madonna, and at 7 p.m. Friday (Sept. 28), he’s at Wordsmith Books in Decatur.
If you want to say anything about romance writers or Bentley, have at it.
Otherwise, what’s a good book you’ve read lately?
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A wide range of bookish miscellany
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Leavitt
Mea culpa. I had intended to read David Leavitt’s new novel “The Indian Clerk” by today, to post an informed recommendation for his appearance here tonight (Sept. 26). He will be signing and speaking at Wordsmith Books in Decatur at 7:30 p.m., but alas, “The Indian Clerk” remains in my getting-to-it pile.
The New York Times Book Review to the rescue. They recently gave the fact-based historical novel, about a Cambridge mathematician’s relationship with an unlikely Indian genius, a front-page rave, in which Nell Freudenberger called it “richly imagined” and went on at length on its glories. I will still read it, but I wanted you to know about Leavitt’s appearance here.
“Eastern Promises”
Has anyone seen the movie “Eastern Promises” that opened Friday. Wow, what a flat-out great flick. I know, this is The Book Page, not The Movie Page. So I stumbled across a link on amazon.com where director David Cronenberg talks about the books (and also DVDs) he used to research this movie about the Russian mob and sexual slavery. Here it is.
This and that
The American Association of University Women holds its annual Bookfair at Perimeter Mall starting today. 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. through Saturday, and 12-6 p.m. Sunday.
Best-selling author Tess Gerritsen will be at the Margaret Mitchell House tonight: $6 p.m. reception, 7 p.m. lecture; free for members, $10 for non-. Gerritsen’s latest is the mystery “The Bone Garden.”
The official attendance tally is in for the Decatur Book Festival over Labor Day weekend, and it’s 60,000 people. Of those, 45,000 tried to get into see Kinky Friedman. There were 240 authors, lots of sunshine, and a feeling of success that is unquantifiable.
So do any of those grab you as a springoard topic? Anything you want to talk about?
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Coming soon to a bookstore near you
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When you go to a movie theater, you usually get five or six trailers for upcoming movies. A great trailer can, sometimes, be better than the movie it’s promoting.
Why shouldn’t books get trailers? Just like with the movies, I haven’t read any of these books yet, and these “trailers” aren’t up to Hollywood’s best. But they’re all coming out in the next few weeks, and I hope there is something here that catches your interest.
“Celebrity Detox (The Fame Game)” by Rosie O’Donnell. Hope she doesn’t beat around the bush and just drop subtle hints the way she often does. Due Oct. 2.
“I Am America (And So Can You)” by Stephen Colbert. I never thought that Colbert’s schtick — mocking pompous pundits by becoming one — would play so well for so long. His book version of his TV show is due Oct. 9.
“”Fatal Revenant” by Stephen R. Donaldson. Donaldson started the Thomas the Covenant series 30 years ago; this is book eight, due out Oct. 9.
“The Amost Moon” by Alice Sebold. Her follow-up novel to “The Lovely Bones” — one day in the life of a woman who kills her mother. Due Oct 16.
“Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson.” An oral biography of the once-brilliant journalist, due Oct. 31.
“A Contract With the Earth,” by Newt Gingrich and Terry L. Maple. Two Georgia authors pen a “pro-business call for pro-environment action,” according to Publishers Weekly. Could be interesting. Due in November.
“Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin. He’s proven he can write lit-quality fiction; now he’s done his memoirs. Due Nov. 20.
“T is for Trespass” by Sue Grafton. Only six more books to go. Due Dec. 4.
What on that list grabs you, and why?
Robert Fulghum in town tonight
Robert Fulghum, the author of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” will be at the Magraret Mitchell House tonight to read from his new book, “What on Earth Have I Done?” Reception at 6 p.m, lecture at 7. $12 admission, $5 for members.
Mother Theresa’s darkness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”
That’s bleak. But what’s extraordinary is that it was written by Mother Teresa. It’s but one entry from her private letters that have been published in the new book “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” which debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times best-seller list Sunday.
Time Magazine did an excellent, very lengthy cover story on the book that moved me to tears. It raises profound questions for people of faith about what that faith means, and about living with doubts.
The book is a collection of correspondence between Mother Teresa — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for founding the Missionaries of Charity to work in the Calcutta slums — and a series of confessors and superiors over more than 60 years. She had asked that the letters be destroyed, but in fact the book was edited by a senior member of her Missionaries of Charity — the very man who is collecting the supporting materials to try to have her made a saint. He has said he sees the letters as evidence of her most spiritually heroic act, according to Time.
Mother Teresa’s doubts about her faith, her feeling of being disconnected from God and from Christ, were not passing. They were a deep part of her for most of her adult life, according to her letters. Yet she would get up, day after day, pray, attend Mass, and minister to the sick. All this despite living for decades in what she referred to repeatedly as “interior darkness.”
I’ve really been grappling with this new information about what was going on inside Mother Teresa for all those years. My faith is an important part of me, but when I’m among committed Christians I often feel like a flickering candle in a roomful of spotlights. I’ve decided that what I should take from this book is that if this woman could have such grave doubts and do what she did, then I should be able to overcome my flickers and do even more than I’m doing.
But I understand that maybe other people will draw different conclusions. Have you read the book? Or at least the Time magazine cover story?
What do you think of the revelation that Mother Teresa felt disconnected from God for most of her life?
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A poetry weekend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April, rather than September, is National Poetry Month (and also the cruelest month, as we know), but for some reason Atlanta is overflowing with poetry events this weekend. I’m just going to list them, but if someone goes to any of these and would like to report back on how it went, we would love to hear from you.
Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar and Alan Shapiro will open the new season of Poetry at Tech at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Clary Theater on the Georgia Tech campus.
Beth Gylys & Friends will read from her new collection, “Matchbook”** at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Troy Moore Library, General Classroom Building at Georgia State.
Voices Carry 4: An Evening of Poetry and Spoken Word is Poetry Atlanta’s fourth annual reading, with a nice line-up of locals, at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Cosmopolitan Gallery in Candler Park.
“My Body is a Candle Touched With Fire” is a benefit performance for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Six poets will perform poetry and spoken word with an emphasis on Iraq. Free, but it’s a fund-raiser. 7:30 p.m. Monday at Actors Express, 887 W. Marietta St.
Also, on a less poetic but no less worthy note, novelist and playwright Phillip DePoy will be at Book Exchange in Marietta from 2-4 p.m. Saturday. His play about the AJC’s Celestine Sibley, “Turned Funny,” has been a big ongoing hit at Theatre on the Square in Marietta, and he’s now working on a Sibley sequel, “Christmas at Sweet Apple.”
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Terry Kay and more
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terry Kay is one of those Atlanta institutions we take for granted if we are not careful. He has written nine novels, the best-known of which is still probably his first, “To Dance With the White Dog.” (Incidentally, the 1993 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie version, which starred Hume Cronyn, was pretty good.) He’s in the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame (Kay, not Cronyn), and according to his bio he used to be a movie and theater reviewer for the AJC, although that was long before I got here.
Kay’s latest novel is “The Book of Marie.” He will be talking about it at a “Literary Salon Event,” which presumably means those in attendance should sip their tea with pinkies extended, at the Margaret Mitchell House. Reception at 6 tonight (Sept. 20), lecture at 7; free to members, $10 for non-members.
I also have just heard about a couple of upcoming author appearances that are a bit exceptional.
On Oct. 9, First Daughter Jenna Bush is coming to the Alpharetta Barnes & Noble to promote her Young Adult book “Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope.” We’re talking Secret Service, folks, so behave.
On Oct. 6, talk radio host Laura Ingraham will bring her Power to the People bus to Atlanta to promote her new book, “Power to the People.” She’ll be at the same Alpharetta Barnes & Noble from 1-3 p.m., then at the Cobb Galleria at 7:30 p.m. I was hoping she’d stop by Outwrite Books in Midtown. That would have been fun.
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Eat, Pray, Love, Write Sequel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s take a swing through Spoiler-town, specifically for the book “Eat, Pray, Love.” If you have not read it and do not want the ending spoiled, click out now.
I said:
Click.
Out.
Now.
Still here? OK. I have to admit I enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir, even though it has become one of those books some people roll their eyes over, and not without some reason. On the one hand, Gilbert is guilty of all the sins of self-absorption that memoirs are heir to these days. On the other hand, she lived a pretty cool adventure.
The Wall Street Journal ran a great article recently about the book, but mainly about the very savvy marketing thereof. It was a minor success in hardback (hey, even that’s something), but really took off when the publisher started pushing the paperback edition like $10 bags at a Dead concert. The paperback edition has been riding the best-seller chart for 32 weeks, and now a movie version is in the works, according to the Journal, starring Julia Roberts.
But here’s what bugged me. Gilbert is working on a sequel. As much as I liked “Eat, Pray, Love,” I’m not at all sure I want to read a sequel. “EPL” was nicely contained, three adventures in three countries, with a happy ending: She finds the lover she needs to complete her. Fade to black, violins up, roll credits.
In today’s pop culture, every success seems to breed a sequel. We all know how well that works, as a rule, in the world of movies, and I’m hard pressed to come up with cases where it’s worked well in the book world. (Alexandra Ripley’s “Scarlett” anyone? Didn’t think so.) Series like “Lord of the Rings” and Harry Potter are different: They were never meant to be one-shots.
So what am I forgetting in terms of literary sequels that worked? Or didn’t, for that matter? And will you read what presumably will not be titled “Eat More, Pray Harder, Love Several More Guys?”
A P.S. on Gilbert, whom I do not mean to trash even though that was kind of snarky: She is coming to the Decatur Library on Oct. 4 to promote the new paperback edition of her first book, a collection of short stories titled “Pilgrims.” The New York Times Book review said of it: “The distinctive cant of Gilbert’s stories recalls the off-kilter worlds of T. Craghessan Boyle, and she embraces the bizarre and fabulous with similar enthusiasm.”
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Well-behaved women need not attend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve seen this bumper sticker around for years: “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.” So when a new book came out with that title, I sort of sniffed because I thought it was pretty much a cliche. Couldn’t the author have come up with something a little more original?
But be careful what you dismiss without knowing the full story. (Hey, maybe that should be a bumper sticker.)
That phrase was first coined in 1976 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian, who wrote in an obscure academic article. It appears to have gone dormant for a while, then cropped up in the mid-’90s in a book of women’s quotations. A woman wrote to Ulrich asking her permission to print it on T-shirts, and it has spread rapidly for the past 10-plus years, on coffee mugs and posters.
She writes in the intro to her new book: “The ambiguity of the slogan surely accounts for its appeal. To the public-spirited, it is a provocation to action. … To a few, it may say “Good girls get no credit.” To a lot more, “Bad girls have more fun.” … It is hard to tell whether this is about feminism, post-feminism, or something much older. One thing it doesn’t appear to have a lot to do with is history.”
Ulrich will be at the Margaret Mitchell House Wednesday night. There’s a reception at 6 p.m. and a lecture at 7; admission is $10 but it’s free to MMH members; and WAND Atlanta and Charis Books are co-presenting. Her book covers several centuries of the contributions of women, focusing on three and radiating out from there: 15th century writer Christine de Pizan, Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Surely you’ve seen the slogan. Heck, maybe you’ve worn it. I always thought of it as pure feminism, the uncomplicated kind that rocked out in the ’70s. I never thought of it as endorsing naughty behavior.
What does it mean to you?
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Reading about food
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I wanted to make sure that no one missed Elizabeth Lee’s great interview Sunday with author Barbara Kingsolver, which is linked here.
Kingsolver, of course, is known mainly as a novelist, for “The Poisonwood Bible” (all together now … wow), and other fictions. But earlier this year she published “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” a personal, non-fiction account of her family’s experiment with eating only food grown close to their home in Virginia for one year. (Yes, the family included a teenager.)
Coincidentally, Wordsmith Books is welcoming Jenni Ferrari-Adler and Phoebe Nobles (great names!), food writers whose latest collection of essays is titled “Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant.” It’s a book about the “terror, excitement, trials and tribulations” of cooking for one and dining alone.
Both foodie appearances are Thursday night. Kingsolver will be speaking at Emory and that lecture is already sold out, I’m sorry to report, but the “Eggplant” authors will be at Wordsmith in Decatur at 7:30 p.m. Thursday to talk, sign and maybe, who knows, nosh a little.
I haven’t had the pleasure yet of reading either book, although Kingsolver’s is working its way to the top of my pile. But they put me in mind of one of the best books I read last year, Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” It is a fascinating tour of what and how we eat in America today, from those “free-range, organic chickens” some restaurants love to tout to the differences between real organic and faux organic. From where McDonald’s gets its meat to how to forage for wild mushrooms, it’s a book everyone who loves good food should eat.
Books about food seem to be more popular than ever. Not counting cookbooks, what is your favorite food book and why?
“Twilight” time: Stephenie Meyer in Alpharetta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Stephenie Meyer’s author appearances are more like mini-Beatlemania re-enactments. Her fans — largely female, ranging from teens to 30somethings — mob whatever bookstore she is appearing at, hoisting handmade signs and banners, wearing homemade T-shirts, and indulging in bouts of shrieking, shaking and general hyper-ventilating.
The reason for this giddiness is Meyer’s “Twilight” trilogy of Young Adult vampire romances. The third book, “Eclipse,” came out in August and peaked at No. 2 on Amazon.com (Harry Potter was still No. 1), making Meyer arguably the most popular author today who doesn’t get much mainstream media attention.
But the fans know. And they’re going to be coming out like eye-spinning crazies during a full moon on Friday night, when Meyer makes her first metro Atlanta stop ever, to sign her books and meet her fans. She’ll be at the Alpharetta Barnes & Noble (7660 Northpoint Parkway) at 7 p.m. Friday.
“Twilight” at its core is a Gothic romance between Bella, a normal girl who transfers to a new high school in Washington state, and Edward Cullen, a vampire who is a student there and who falls for Bella. That’s the bare bones, but Meyer doesn’t really go in for the usual vampire conventions; these novels are romances, closer in feel to something like “Wuthering Heights” than “Interview With the Vampire.”
I had a chance to talk to Meyer on the phone while she was on the road promoting “Eclipse.” She’s a stay-at-home mother of three in Arizona and a Latter Day Saint. Here are some excerpts of what she had to say:
“When you hear about someone writing about vampires, you have certain expectations. I think my publisher was surprised. I’m kind of a girly girl. I don’t wear black. I’m not into horror novels. I’m not Goth, I don’t have any tattoos or any piercings. I’m kind of a goofy, kick-back person.”
“My vampires are very light. Since I started writing, I’ve learned more about how other vampires roll, so to speak, and it’s a very sensual thing, the blood-drinking, the sex and violence. Mine is more about attraction.
“When I was writing ‘Twilight’ I didn’t really have a target audience. It was a very personal thing. I wasn’t letting anyone see it. When it was done, I was kind of shocked. As I kept writing, I got a better idea of how these books were marketed.”
(Her next novel, due out next year, is “The Host,” and is not part of the “Twilight” series.) “I wrote this book as a diversion while I was waiting for Book 3 to be edited. I am afraid my fans are going to get it and start flipping through and say ‘Where is Edward? Why am I reading this without Edward?’”
Yes, Hollywood wants to make a movie out of “Twilight.” No, they have not cast Bella or Edward yet. Meyer said she’ll be happy if they just don’t screw it up entirely.
I thought Meyer was totally cool, and her Atlanta fans are going to love her almost as much as they love Edward. Oh, and if you’ve checked her website, you know that “Eclipse” is not the last book; more are planned.
Are you a “Twilight” fan? Are you going to see Meyer? Can anyone post a report on what happens in Alpharetta to this blog?
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Characters who creep you out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I just finished James Lee Burke’s latest novel, “The Tin Roof Blowdown,” which has been on the New York Times best-seller list for two months. It’s technically a crime thriller, but as folks who’ve glommed onto Burke’s work already know, that’s like saying John Le Carre writes spy novels.
The setting, as with all of Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series, is New Orleans and environs, but now he’s diving into the deep, deep post-Katrina waters. It’s a living hell where packs of young black men go on looting binges through abandoned houses with crowbars, and white power brokers seize the opportunity for graft on a whole new level. The first group is more immediately intimidating, the second far worse to the overall health of the city.
The plot is complicated, and I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t read it, but Burke pulls off a couple of things worth noting:
He really makes the reader feel some of what happened during Katrina two years, and care about how poorly the restoration has been handled.
And he gives us a bad guy who creeped me out big-time, a nasty degenerate named Ronald Bledsoe. Although hired as a goon by one of the book’s villains, he’s the kind of guy who would be evil for free if he wasn’t getting paid, as Robicheaux remarks. The scenes where he calmly stalks Robicheaux’s teenager daughter Alifair are not easy to read. Brrrr.
That got me thinking about bad guys in books who are so bad that you can hardly keep reading. I know Hannibal Lecter is that for some people, or at least he was before Thomas Harris over-exposed him. Good ol’ Stephen King has come up with a few doozies, like Randall Flagg in “The Stand.”
Voldemort and Sauron, on the other hand, may have given some kids nightmares, but they’re more scary as forces working against the heroes than as fully realized characters, to me anyway. And when I think back on villains of the literary canon, like sadistic Wackford Squeers in “Nicholas Nickleby,” I hated them while I was reading, but they didn’t give me the willies.
So who is in your Bad Guy Hall of Fame? I’m talking fictional characters who just worm their way into your head and raise a little hell in there.
Would you ever read an e-book?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The New York Times ran a story the other day that Amazon and Google are both gearing up for big pushes of electronic books soon.
The story raises a fair degree of skepticism over whether this is going to work or not. It seems we’ve proven very willing to download music on our computers and listen to it, and download movies and TV shows and watch them (legally or illegally isn’t really the issue here).
But reading digital books? Not very likely.
Nevertheless, Amazon plans to sell a device called a Kindle, which would hook up wirelessly to Amazon and download e-books. And Google is planning something, a bit unclear at this point, about charging people for full online access to some of its books.
If that picture of a Kindle on the above link is accurate, I think it looks like the last thing I would read a book on. So far, I haven’t been the least bit tempted to read a book electronically, even though I love my iPod/iTunes connection, and have also enjoyed listening to books on CD in the car.
And I’m hard pressed to imagine a technology that would change my mind. How about you? Is there any way you could see switching from a book you hold in your hand to one you read on a screen?
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Shall we start an online book club?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some readers on this blog have suggested we try to be our own online book club. I’m willing to give it a shot if everyone else is up for it. But if y’all are just going to lurk and not comment, it’s going to sink pretty swiftly.
Here’s how I thought it might work. We’d choose a book now to read. We’d give everybody a month to buy it and read it, just like a real-world club. Then we’d re-convene here on a given day and talk about the book.
Let’s pick our book. Here are the nominees I came up with, trying to stick to the kinds of current best-sellers that are popular in book clubs and that could yield interesting discussion:
“Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert
“The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy
“Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen
“A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini
“Middlesex,” by Jeffrey Eugenides
Vote on what you want our first book to be between now and Tuesday morning. Tuesday we’ll declare a winner and if there seems to be enough enthusiasm, we’ll set our discussion date for Oct. 8.
We good with that?
NB: Author appearance
Journalist Lara Santoro will discuss and sign her first novel, “Mercy,” billed as a “powerful story of what it is to die of AIDS in Africa,” at 7:15 tonight at the Decatur Library, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. Georgia Center for the Book is the sponsor, Wordsmith Books is the bookseller.
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Madeleine L’Engle, R.I.P.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Madeleine L’Engle, award-winning author of many children’s and science-fiction books, including “A Wrinkle in Time,” has died of natural causes in Connecticut, accordintg to her publisher. She was 88.
L’Engle wrote in many genres over an incredibly productive lifetime, but “Wrinkle” is the book that made her name. Published in 1963, it won the Newberry Award for children’s literature, and according to the New York Times, had sold more than 6 million copies by 2004.
That’s not quite up to “Harry Potter” numbers, but for several generations, “A Wrinkle in Time” was sort of our “Harry Potter.” I first encountered it in elementary school - I don’t remember which grade - and it is the first book, other than the works of Dr. Seuss, that I can rememer being passionately in love with. (Another Potter similarity: Because the book departs from a Christian concept of God, it’s been the target of book banners.)
“Wrinkle” told the story of Meg Murray, a somewhat bookish girl, who gets swept away on a series of grand adventures in space and time with her weird little brother, in an attempt to rescue her father, a famous scientist who had disappeared. L’Engle built in a lot of real science - relativity and all that - but to kids, it’s just a bang-up adventure.
She went on to write a series that spun off from “Wrinkle,” called the “Time Fantasy” series, as well as books for grown-ups. But the only thing I ever read by her, I’m sad to say, was “A Wrinkle in Time.”
I’ve given it to various young relatives as a gift over and over, and now I need to think of a young person in my life to give a copy.
I’d love to hear about other encounters with the works of Madeleine L’Engle.
Rest in peace.
“If I Did It:” Will you read it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In our tabloid-riddled world of toxic pop culture, it takes a lot to get us riled up sometimes.
So let’s talk about the new O.J. Simpson book, “If I Did It.” Nothing to get agitated about there, right?
The book is finally scheduled to hit bookstores next week. Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s recap the actual facts, then get to the feelings.
Last year, HarperCollins announced a deal to publish this book, in which Simpson talked, hypothetically he claimed, about how he might have murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994. Supposedly he tells in some detail what “might have” happened that night. The response was so overwhelmingly negative that HarperCollins cancelled the book.
But the Goldman family, which won a civil suit against Simpson, viewed the book as Simpson’s confession, and actually wanted it made public. A Florida court assigned the rights to the book to the Goldman family, and it is now being published by Beaufort Books, a small publishing house, and the profits will go to the Goldmans, not Simpson.
The book cover now includes the words “The Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice Authorized Version.” There is a great deal of added “commentary” by the Goldman family. And in Amazon.com’s photo of the jacket, the word “If” in the title cannot even be seen; the title appears to read, in huge red letters, “I DID IT.” A subtitle calls it “Confessions of the Killer.”
Neverthless, Denise Brown, Nicole’s sister, has called for a boycott of the book. Some stores (Target, Wal-Mart) say they won’t carry it, but Barnes & Noble will, and it’s selling OK but not great online.
I was utterly hooked on the trial when it aired like an endless miniseries live on CNN in 1995. No fiction could ever compete with all the bizarre twists and turns, and then the stunning verdict that exposed, as if it needed exposing, how differently blacks and whites view some things.
I also got to meet Fred and Kim Goldman, Ron’s father and sister, when they came to Atlanta in 1997 to promote their book, “His Name is Ron.” “The public turns off the TV and moves on,” Kim told me. “We don’t.” My impression of Fred was that he was a fine man dealing with the unspeakable tragedy not only of the murder of his son, but watching the murderer go free, and gloat.
So “If I Did It” is a different kettle of fish now from when it was first announced. Then it was Simpson trying to make a buck off his infamy. Now it’s a family’s continued search for justice. At least that’s one way to look at it.
But the question remains: Does that change your thinking about the book? Given all this, is there a chance you would buy or read “If I Did It?”
Thanks everybody for the comments. We’re gonna turn off commenting now cause I won’t be able to monitor over the weekend. Come back Monday morning for a new book topic.
Elaine Pagels tonight, and other authors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You could pretty much spend most of your evenings going from one author event in Atlanta to the next, and build yourself a nice library of signed first editions, if you had the time, money and energy. We are awash in authors coming to town.
Tonight, for example, two very different author appearances: Elaine Pagels at Emory and Cassandra King in Marietta.
Pagels, a highly respected religion scholar who writes books that regular folks can read, will talk about Judas Iscariot at 7 tonight Emory’s Glenn Memorial Auditorium. Tickets are $10. Her latest bestseller is “Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity,” and she’s also still identified with her groundbreaking work explaining the Gnostic Gospels. Her book “The Gnostic Gospels” was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
Also tonight, Cassandra King will be at the Book Exchange in Marietta for a four-hour marathon, reading and signing from 4-6 p.m., then meeting with the store’s book club from 6-8 p.m. King happens to be the wife of Southern icon Pat Conroy. Her new book, “Queen of Broken Hearts,” is about a woman who runs a retreat for people recovering from divorce. She’ll also be talking about her last book, “Same Sweet Girls.”
As we go along, we’ll talk in more detail about some authors who are coming to town. But for now, here’s just a quick checklist for September, so you can mark your calendar now if so inclined. These are all subject to change, needless to say.
Sept. 13: Bill Osinski, Wordsmith Books, Decatur.
Sept. 14: Stephenie Meyer at Barnes & Noble, Alpharetta.
Sept. 22: Philip DuPoy at Book Exchange, Marietta
Sept. 25: Robert Fulghum, Margaret Mitchell House
Sept. 26: Tess Gerritsen, Margaret Mitchell House
Sept. 28: Amy Sedaris, Wordsmith
Sept. 29: Christopher Moore, Wordsmith
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Atlanta Events
Does your book club have the blues?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The AJC has been running a weekly feature on book clubs by free-lancer Patti Ghezzi on our Sunday book page, and we’ll showcase Patti’s work sometimes on this blog.
But I noticed the last two weeks the book clubs we profiled really disliked the last books they had read. On Sunday it was “The Double Bind” by Chris Bohjalian. “People felt they were tricked. The whole book is about a big trick or deceit. I think we felt a little … betrayed,” said Joan Johnson on behalf of the Longleaf Ladies’ Book Club of Pine Mountain.
The week before, a club called The Unbearable Lightness of Reading (cool name!) had tackled Allegra Goodman’s “Intuition.” “No one really liked it that much” was the key quote.
I haven’t read either book, but I’m more interested in the questions arising from this:
If your book club keeps choosing books you don’t like, what do you do?
Should a book club only choose books everyone will probably like?
Or is your club more about being with friends and having some wine, and who cares about the book?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Book Clubs
What was the best book of summer?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With Labor Day behind us, summer is officially over. When you were a kid and went back to school, you had to write book reports on what you had read over the summer, whether it was an assigned book or just for fun. (Yes, as a kid I read in the summer for fun. The “call me a dork” line starts over there.)
So here’s your assignment, class. Just tell us about the best book or books you read this summer. You won’t be graded, by me anyway, but brevity does count for something on assignments like this. To get us started, I thought back on some books I read this summer.I’m not sure about “best,” but these are books I will always remember and would happily recommend.
1. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” What an original choice! Yes, it was padded. The end was corny. Snape should have been handled better. I loved it anyway.
2. “Deer Hunting with Jesus” by Joe Bageant. It got almost no attention, but this searing true look at one small Virginia town, where Republican policies and corporations make working class life difficult, deserved much more discussion. Think Michael Moore, only calm and reasonable.
3. “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini. The second novel about Afghanistan I’ve read. Care to guess the other one?
4. “Twilight,” by Stephenie Meyer. First in a very popular series of vampire romances aimed at teenage girls. I was pretty skeptical, but I gave it a try and couldn’t put it down. This is me now: OMG! OMG!
“Long Time Leaving” by Roy Blount Jr., “Are We Rome?’ by Cullen Murphy, “Fright” by Cornell Woolrich.
What was your favorite book or books this summer?
Permalink | Comments (34) | Categories: News and Reviews
Did you go to Decatur Book Fest?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So who went to the Decatur Book Fest? Who did you see? Anybody really good? Any scandalous tales of drunken authors late at night at Twain’s?
I went both days, and thought it came off pretty great, even if I do get a paycheck from a sponsor. I heard unofficially that crowds ran more than 70,000 over the two days, and sometimes it seemed like all of them had just shown up at the venue I wanted to go to.
Friday night I got stuck in traffic in front of Agnes Scott College and by the time I got to Kinky Friedman, the place was full and the “overflow room” (video feed) was about to overflow. So I missed Kinky.
But I got to see Roy Blount Jr., who packed the auditorium at the Decatur Library. When I got there the staff told me the room was full. “But I’m a blogger!” I explained. And once again those words worked their magic and got me standing room in the very back.
Roy was great and had the room in stitches. He’s been up North for 40 years now, and the longer he stays away from the South, the more Southern he sounds.
Kathy Hogan Trocheck (a close personal friend of this blog) also packed the place and was fantastic. She writes Southern chick lit under her pen name Mary Kay Andrews, and explained why she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize at least as much as Jimmy Carter:
“I make a lot of hormonal women happy; I think that’s a blow for peace!” The room, which was probably 80 percent female and over 40, was rockin’.
Diana Gabaldon pleased her fans by telling them she not only is writing the seventh installment of “Outlander,” but has decided there will be an eighth as well.
I caught Alan Weisman reading terrific stuff from his best-seller “The World Without Us,” which I now have to go buy, and got to introduce Melissa Fay Greene, a singular treat.
Come on, I know it’s Labor Day, but take a second to tell us what you saw, liked, and didn’t like at the Decatur Book Fesitval.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Atlanta Events
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