Andre Dubus III's The House of Sand and Fog was probably THE saddest, most wrenching book we ever read. We were hoping his latest, The Garden of Last Days, would be similar in its delicious soul-killing-ness. But Janet Maslin doesn't think so! In her Books of the Times review, she notes that:

“The Garden of Last Days” explores the cultural chasm between Bassam’s world and Spring’s. With a plot fueled by the certitude that something terrible will happen, this narrative may mean to recall the devastating forward motion of Russell Banks’s “Continental Drift.” But Mr. Dubus shows none of Mr. Banks’s anguished insight into such a clash of values and attitudes. Instead he often treats this book as an occasion for easy irony, as in the way April has left Franny to watch Disney videos. Thus the child can immerse herself in “The Little Mermaid” despite the smoke, loud music, raucous men and tawdry, real-life women surrounding her. Thus if Franny is to watch “The Lion King” in these last days before the 9/11 attacks, April insists that her daughter be shielded from the scary parts.

Maslin is disappointed that in this novel, Dubus's "forces of darkness are less subtle." Maybe Dubus wrote out all the baddies and doesn't have anything left to forward his sad muse. Kinda like Rivers Cuomo. But at least Dubus doesn't have a porn-stache. There are still some things to be grateful for.

In the NYTBR's Summer Reading supplement, some famous writers suggested a few books they thought the Presidential candidates ought to read in between all the flesh-pressing and promise-making. (When this ran, Hillary Clinton was still in the picture. Er, technically.) Anyway, Loorie Moore and Junot Diaz had some excellent ideas. Several authors believe Clinton needs to re-read Macbeth. In particular, John Irving's Lady Macbeth/Hillary comparison made my skin crawl (she's Carrie Bradshaw! no, she's a Shakespearean femme-villian!), and Francine Prose makes it all sound too much like a freshman seminar. But I particularly enjoyed Scott Turnrow's suggestion:

More seriously, I would recommend the same three books to each. The first is “Anna Karenina,” the fullest rendering I know of the complexity of human motivation and thus a precious warning against seeing the world as full of villains.

Nailing it.

William Grimes wrote in the New York Times last Friday about the 2006 book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (Universe). He offers a realistic take on said list, pointing out its merits while acknowledging that any such catalog should be taken with several grains of salt (perhaps sea salt of the Moby Dick variety?).

Here, without further ado or embarrassment, are the books (from that list) I’ve read from start to finish:

1) The Body Artist, Don DeLillo

2) The Human Stain, Philip Roth

3) The Hours, Michael Cunningham

4) Memoirs of a Geisha, Arther Golden

5) Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

6) Possession, AS Byatt

7) Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood

8) The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

9) The Color Purple, Alice Walker *

10) Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison *

11) Surfacing, Margaret Atwood

12) The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles

13) In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

14) The Collector, John Fowles

15) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey

16) Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

17) To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee *

18) The Once and Future King, TH White *

19) On the Road, Jack Kerouac

20) Lord of the Flies, William Golding *

21) The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler

22) The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger *

23) The End of the Affair, Graham Greene

24) Animal Farm, George Orwell *

25) The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene

26) Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

27) Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston *

28) Brave New World, Aldous Huxley *

29) All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque *

30) Steppenwolf, Hermen Hesse

31) The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

32) Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

33) The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald *

34) Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

35) A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man *

36) Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

37) Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad *

38) Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad

39) The Awakening, Kate Chopin

40) The Turn of the Screw, Henry James

41) Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy

42) The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

43) The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy

44) The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James

45) Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

46) Middlemarch, George Eliot

47) Little Woman, Louisa May Alcott

48) Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

49) Silas Marner, George Eliot

50) Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

51) The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

52) Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

53) Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

54) Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley *

55) Emma, Jane Austen

56) Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

57) Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

58) Foundation, Isaac Asimov **

59) The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck * **

* Read as part of a high school or college class

** The list is presented chronologically from most recent-oldest; Foundation and The Grapes of Wrath are out of order because I saw them the second time I read through it.

 
If you combine those 59 with the handful that I’ve started and know I won’t finish (including The Handmaid’s Tale and *gasp* White Noise), I’ve dispensed with a mere 6.59 percent of the list, according to the handy Excel spreadsheet available here.

 
Just 93-ish percent to go before death! That’s encouraging, especially considering all the books on my mental To-Read list that aren’t included on this one. Sigh. I began The Brothers K last night, so that’s a start. And I recently discovered Lydia Davis, so her 2004 novel, The End of the Story, might come next.

-- Deirdre Fulton 

The book is also a further unpacking of Mr. Gessen’s personal philosophy on the proper function of the novel: to hold up an honest mirror to society, no matter how frivolous and unserious that society may be. Young people in big cities like New York, Mr. Gessen said: “are willing to acknowledge that they’re a class only ironically. So they’ll have their ironic kickball games. Their ironic magazines.”

 “They’re willing to have the privileges of their class,” Mr. Gessen added, “to go to a good college, and be subsidized in their New York lives by their parents, but maybe not willing to be written about.”

The result, Mr. Gessen said, is that the everyday lives of young urban adults are no longer considered appropriate subjects for ambitious novels.

Well, hello there! Yep, we're still here. So let's talk shop.

The 39 Clues, a new series that Scholastic is billing as the successor to Harry Potter sounds remarkably dull. Collector cards? Why not just package the books with Pogs. More Paper Cuts contributors are on the way. Editorial Ass is a blog we recently discovered, written by an extremely witty former ed assistant. Why are we so easily seduced by books about crafting, even though we never, ever craft, only tell ourselves we will? We finished the novel, and now we must see the movie. It will not be good enough. Why is it so impossible to give holiday gifts that aren't books? We're giving this away to at least two people. It's not Harold Bloom-approved, duhs, but it's as delicious a read as we've ever had. Meh, all these lists are really exhausting. Should we be reading Tree of Smoke instead of Persuasion right now? Probably. Of course, nobody can stop us. Oh happy day.

We wish.

Here's the thing, as we are fond of saying when we want to rant about something. We found this week's "Questions For..." very amusing in light of recent now-simmering accusations that Solomon uses certain less-than-ethical methods to give her column its trademark snap-crackle-pop. We keep reading and re-reading her interview with Pierre Bayard, a professor of French literature at the University of Paris, a fake-reader of Proust (self-described!), and the author of How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Anyone who gets their rocks off on discussing how many hard books they read as English majors and lurrrrved and felt ever so deeply and blahblahblah will hate this book. For the record, if there is such a solid thing on the Interweb, we love Crime and Punishment too but that doesn't mean we don't like to snuggle with a fashion magazine now and then. BUT ANYWAY. (Unresolved issues). Here's one exchange:

Solomon: But what about those of us who read to feel things — to experience pleasure, an end to loneliness?
Beyard: Of course I read in order to feel something. And to feel an end to my loneliness, of course, just as you.

Bam. What? She totally lets him get away with that zinger. Instead of following up with a question that also insinuates she isn't lonely at all, but is actually a deeply fulfilled human being with a rich private life, Solomon says:

Then why are you so willing to devalue the experience of close reading in favor of skimming? You seem to believe that knowing a little bit about 100 literary classics is preferable to knowing one book intimately.

Errr. Huh?! Deborah, why are you playing Ms. Nice Lady all of a sudden? But really the best exchange is the final lightening round:

Solomon: Have you read all of Proust, on whom you once wrote a scholarly book, “Off the Subject: Proust and Digression”? Bayard: Proust is very difficult to read. His sentences are long and have very strange constructions, so it is not very possible to read it from the first line to the last line. You are obliged to use another way of reading.
Solomon: Are you saying you skimmed Proust?
Bayard: Yes, of course I did! I prefer to say that I live with Proust. He’s a companion. Sometimes I go to Proust and I seek advice for my life. I open it and I skim some pages. That is to live with books. It’s important to live with books.
Solomon: But if you’re a habitual skimmer, why should we trust the conclusions you draw about literature?
Bayard: Because now, after hearing my arguments, you are convinced of my position.
Solomon: Not completely convinced.
Bayard: Then you have to read my book once more, from the first line to the last line, the French method of reading.

Excuse us? Bayard, you cheeky monkey! She actually allows him to make the idea of SKIMMING PROUST sound attractive. Well, okay, she makes him sound a little poseurish, but beyond that--what gives? It's like they were having a jokey back and forth, and "Questions For..." isn't usually jokey unless is S-master making a joke at her subject's expense, and then we chuckle and feel kinda bad for them and awestruck at her poison pen. Where did the Solomon mojo go? We want answers. We'll be watching and waiting for them.

Also, this Bayard guy is a real kick. We heart him now.

There's something vaguely diabolical about Jessica Seinfeld's book, Deceptively Delicious. The basic concept is that you hide good-for-you things like spinach and sweet potatoes in yummy things like brownies and mac & cheese. Except 1) People say her recipes are actually disgusting and 2) She may have stolen the ideas from another lady who thought of those gross combinations first. We smell another Frey-gate. Oprah is going to shit bricks now!

We're also extremely disturbed by this Raymond Carver debate that's been happening in literary circles over the past week. While it might seem tantalizing to read What We Talk About When We Talk About Love in its original form, we're pretty sure we wouldn't like it as much. Republishing it: not a good idea. This whole situation brings to mind a lot of questions about the editor-writer relationship and the idea of "making a literary legend." Who would Gordon Lish be without Carver's concepts, his words, his story ideas? Where would Carver be without Lish's ruthless red pen? More to the point, why is Tess Gallagher so hell-bent on showing the world a product that probably isn't nearly as good as it turned out to be in final form? Carver may not have been the brilliant minimalist he's pegged as in literary history, but clearly, he had issues with the style he is credited with inventing:

Also in the Lilly Library is a seven-page letter, dated July 8, 1980, which Carver wrote to Mr. Lish as he readied “What We Talk About” for the printing presses. In it Carver pleaded with Mr. Lish, “Please do the necessary things to stop production of the book.”

Tricky, tricky. Being edited is a difficult, often very painful process, but the truth is--for the most part--the work almost always benefits from it. Although, doesn't the author have a right to his own legacy? This whole situation is just so CARVER-y though--the drama, the darkness, the uncertainty. God, we need a drink! And a cigarette. Except we don't smoke. SIGH.

Final thought: In J-school, a professor we had, who spent years writing features for the Wall Street Journal and had two non-fiction titles (that actually sold well!) under his belt told us that he didn't know shit about writing a book until his editor "taught" him how. As in, they had a lot of conversations about the subject and the pitch and the this and the that, and over the course of their relationship, he learned how to write the book he wanted to write--from his editor. Who else is doing this? How far does it actually go?

Penguin is teaming with Amazon.com for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. They're taking submissions through Nov. 5, and the winner receives a publishing contract and a $25,000 advance from Penguin! If only we had participated in last year's NANOWRIMO. We're a bit more preoccupied by short stories lately, although Stephen King's Sunday Book Review essay made us think twice:

"Last year, I read scores of stories that felt ... not quite dead on the page, I won’t go that far, but airless, somehow, and self-referring. These stories felt show-offy rather than entertaining, self-important rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open, and worst of all, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers. The chief reason for all this, I think, is that bottom shelf. It’s tough for writers to write (and editors to edit) when faced with a shrinking audience."

Does that have anything to do with the rise of MFA programs? Because they make everyone sound the same, and too workshop-y?

We couldn't even find N+1 the last time we checked the local chain bookstore, but it seems the anti-McSweeney's lit mag now has a Version 2.0, called Paper Monument, and it's all about art.

Does anyone want to start a photo-copied zine with Word Up? We're open to title suggestions.

The new Oprah's Book Club pick has not yet been revealed, but Publisher's Lunch informed us that the publisher is Vintage. Also, that James Wood's first New Yorker book review piece, "Desert Storm," is up and online. There's a new best-seller list (for trade paperback fiction) included in The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Fall is here, but it was A Model Summer, don't you think? We thought the crisp air would bring more literary motivation, but it's harder than we thought: this is so true.

A piece in the New York Times' business section today about author Ayn Rand and her economic legacy got us thinking.

We read all of Rand's fiction back in high school, when we were feeling rebellious and anti-establishment and hating on adolescent suburban sheep (even though, duh, we were one of them). And while we don't live by her philosophy, we've long been fans of her writing. This has gotten us into trouble before. People who deem themselves literary taste-makers have yelled themselves blue in our faces trying to explain why Rand is a horrible writer who deals in primarily in clichés. Plus, she has no morals, and how can we stand that? We try to defend her.

Well, we say. The Fountainhead is a beautiful book, and when we try to explain why, we wind up talking a lot about Rand's aptitude for description and her ability to zoom into the hearts of her characters. Yes, she makes people villains and heroes, and most people in the real world aren't all Bad or all Good, but if you sit down to read one of her books, it's just something you have to expect of her style. You accept that, and you can accept the liberties she takes. Then - for us, at least - you can really take pleasure in what she has to say, whether you agree with it or not. If you ask us, she earns that right in the way she can weave a plot and a mystery. The Fountainhead is a true thriller, as are most of her novels.

Oh, and let's skip all the scary-creepy stuff about her affair with her (former) intellectual heir Nathaniel Brandon. We know. We read her biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand (written by Brandon's ex-wife Barbara), and if you care to learn the gossip, you can read it too.

What's more interesting to us, though (more interesting than gossip - we must be turning over a new leaf!) is that tons of high-powered CEOs and government figures have been harboring this secret passion for Objectivism in the years that Rand's novels have continued to sell and sell and sell. Rand's philosophy is a controversial one, which could explain why they're secretive about it - although it's common knowledge that recently-shamed Alan Greenspan counts her as one of his mentors.

But beyond that, is it possible that the movers-and-shakers of the business world could ever get together - not just at informal meetings - and do what Rand envisioned in Atlas Shrugged? Pull back, stop the motor of the earth, trample self-sacrifice, and rule by self-interest? We think perhaps, yes, although it's also just as possible that they would be doing it for reasons that Rand would despise.

Here's Part I of a conversation Rand had with Mike Wallace in 1959. We think she sounds a bit shrill at times, although we're fascinated by the fervor and belief you can practically see burning through her eyes. Not so unlike the religious fanatics she derides, if you ask us, but form your own opinion:

The New York Times T Style magazine has a lovely slideshow up that attempts to merge the contextual style of classic literature with a proper dress code. Our one gripe: where are the ladies? Click on the image above to view the rest of the spread.

HarperCollins will be publishing Frey's new novel, Bright Shiny Morning.

Publisher Jonathan Burnham said that "Mr. Frey was a “media lightning rod” but that “my opinion about James Frey and whatever he did is beside the point.”

“What matters is this is a very, very good work of fiction, and it very much stands up on its own.”

 See, Oprah? Even liars can succeed in publishing if they're good writers.

From the New York Times Sunday Book Review, here's David Oshinsky's great essay about Knopf's biggest (and most regretable) rejections.

See for yourself.

I cite A Wrinkle in Time as one of my favorite books of all time. This is sad news. You can read the New York Times obituary here.

Local favorite Pagan Kennedy (Confessions of a Memory Eater, The First Man-Made Man) discusses MySpace's literary communities in this week's New York Times Book Review podcast. Subscribe!

She also penned an interesting essay for the newspaper on the same topic, which you can read here.

On MySpace, we are friends with Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Anton Chekov, Jack Kerouac, Blue van Meer (Special Topics in Calamity Physics), and several other writers/characters we admire. Any authors in your Top Ten?

A few things we've been enjoying in lately:

The New York Times' Paper Cuts blog, maintained by the estimable Dwight Garner. He's on vacation now, but there are some wonderful recent entries here on what commuters read (or shouldn't read) on trains, as well as popular Christian sex manuals (which Garner doesn't think are much of a turn-on).

Maud Newton's excellent guest-blogged series on independent bookstores. Great stories and gossipy tidbits.

Hari Kunzru's short story "Magda Mandela," which appeared in the Aug 13 issue of the New Yorker. It's fantastic.

The latest batch of postcards on PostSecret. They've got a new book out, as well.

"The Shit-Kickers of Madison Avenue," an older Talk of the Town piece by Lillian Ross, might just be our favorite thing ever (in recent memory, of course).

Speaking of Ross, have you read Picture? We did, and we're kind of ridiculously obsessed with it, still.

Apparently, Nick Hornby wrote a YA novel titled Slam. It's sitting on our desk. We're not sure what to make of it yet.

For the long weekend, we've been saving the following, which we will read under the covers, AC on, in lieu of BBQs and shopping sales: Rishi Reddi's Karma and Other Stories, Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith (out this January by Canongate, we started it yesterday, snap judgement: odd but pretty?), and the new Vogue. Plans to buy Maus II as well -- a trip to the Harvard Book Store is in order.

What are you reading?

See you in September.

Love,
Word Up

The NY Times noticed the recent commercialization of Jane Austen on Sunday:

How did this early-19th-century novelist become the chick-lit, chick-flick queen for today? It is not only because she is an enduring writer. So is Melville, but bumper stickers and T-shirts read “What would Jane do?” not “What would Herman do?” A few other female writers have achieved pop culture celebrity: Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath for the drama of their suicides, the Brontës for the gothic romance of their novels and the contrast to their quiet lives. None inspire the warmth, fanaticism — or merchandising — that Austen does.

She has entered pop culture more thoroughly than other writers because she is almost spookily contemporary. Her ironic take on society is delivered in a reassuring, sisterly voice, as if she were part Jon Stewart, part Oprah Winfrey. Beneath the period details, the typical Austen heroine offers something for almost any woman to identify with: She is not afraid to be the smartest person in the room, yet after a series of misunderstandings gets the man of her dreams anyway. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to spot a potential movie audience for that have-it-all fantasy.

Becoming Jane, the heavily fictionalized biography of Austen's one-and-only romance (which, in real life, didn't work out) is out on Aug 10.

Every girl in the world is Elizabeth Bennet, but is Anne Hathaway Jane Austen? We think yes.

The NYT's Sunday Business section asked, "What makes a best-seller?" and this three-page musing is their version of an answer. No real revelations, per se. What I found most fascinating was Shira Boss's interwoven explanation of what might have made Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep such a runaway hit:

When Ms. Sittenfeld was writing the novel, she recalled, colleagues said, “The boarding school book has already been written. Why are you doing it again?”

But after it became a best seller, Ms. Sittenfeld said, she heard the opposite: “Of course it did well! It’s a boarding school book!”

The publisher of “Prep” attributes the success, in addition to the story, to a catchy title and book cover and creative marketing and publicity. A team of four publicists made belts that matched the cover for giveaways, and sent splashy gift bags (holding pink and green flip-flops, the belt, notebooks, lip gloss) with the galleys to magazines. The pitch letter included photocopies of the publicists’ own high school yearbook photos.

So it goes like this, then? Free stuff x cute packaging + (decent story + marketable author) = best-seller.

Too bad my galley of Katherine Taylor's Rules for Saying Goodbye didn't come with a cocktail shaker! FS&G, you may have dropped the ball on that one. Jury's still out on whether that will effect the tempermental BookScan numbers...

Just as soon as we're done pouring over Avril Lavigne's manga, "Make 5 Wishes" Vol. 1, we'll be heading over to TIME. They've got an excerpt of George Tenant's slam-dunking At the Center of the Storm. There's also an interview with Tenant up. Of course, Kakutani weighs in over at the NYT.