In his introduction to Paul Auster's reading at the Brattle Theatre last night, poet and Phoenix contributor William Corbett compares Auster's lastest novel, Travels in the Scriptorium, to an episode of the Twilight Zone. In the opening of the book, Mr. Blank finds himself in an empty room, and begins to be interrogated by people, people who turn out to be characters he's created. Click on the download link, below, to listen to Auster read.

LISTEN: Paul Auster, January 30 at the Brattle Theatre
download

 

1/31/2007 7:16:52 PM by Nina | Comments [0] |  

The choice is yours, friends.

British novelist MARTIN AMIS told the Guardian that he has “a god-like relationship with the world I’ve created.” — and he is indeed a literary deity when it comes to inspiring a troop of stylistic disciples (Will Self, Zadie Smith) and traitorous critics (John Updike). In House of Meetings, he returns to life during the gulag, with Soviet Russia as his setting and two half-brothers and the woman they adore as his main players. It’s a slim volume that Publisher’s Weekly decided has a “bullying tone”; one would hope Amis doesn’t throw any punches when he demonstrates his command of the English language (again) at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

Did that Radar exposé about the naughty behind-the-scenes antics among Mickeys and Minnies at Disney theme parks make you feel a bit funny? Well, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination may not reinstill your faith in the Disney ideal. Fairy-tale prince he was not, but NEAL GABLER’s comprehensive biography (hailed as “the definitive Disney bio” by Newsweek) will tell you the good stuff, too — the astonishing innovations and creative breakthroughs that made Disney the Dream King. Wish upon a star at the First Unitarian Church, 3 Church St, Cambridge | 7:30 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

1/31/2007 3:29:43 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

MR. VERTIGO

“Writing is no longer an act of free will for me, it’s a matter of survival,” says PAUL AUSTER. Known primarily for his postmodern series of experimental detective stories, The New York Trilogy, Auster gear-switches to the fable in his latest novel, Travels in the Scriptorium. Trapped in a spare room, protagonist Mr. Blank doesn’t know who he is or who his captors are. Or, it figures, what he’s done to warrant punishment. Get meta about Auster at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

1/30/2007 2:55:10 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Political satirist and diehard libertarian P.J. O’ROURKE, author of such self-explanatory gems as Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts To Explain the Entire U.S. Government and Peace Kills: America’s New Fun Imperialism, winds up for a new round of economic bitch slapping in his latest, On the Wealth of Nations. Here he cuts to the concepts and makes Adam Smith’s long-winded manifesto against mercantilism seem like an accessible bit of light reading. He’ll read, sign, and make figurative love with the free market at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St, Brookline | January 29 | 6 pm | $2 | 617.566.6660.

1/29/2007 3:14:27 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

In her mouthful of a new novel — American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott*, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work — SUSAN CHEEVER explores the scholarly atmosphere brewing in mid-19th-century Concord, back when Alcott, Emerson, et al. lived as neighbors, muses, platonic pals, and, of course, lovers. There’s triumph and tragedy to be gleaned from these authors as well as their books, and Cheever feeds the rumor mill at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 6:30 pm | free | 800.542.READ.

*We'd just like to note that Little Women totally saved our life, but in a much more meaningful way than the Shins did for Zac Braff. Cannot friggin' believe he let Mandy Moore slip away. Idiot.

1/24/2007 4:28:23 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Hey pop-culture savvy kit kats. We made an embarrassing mistake over at our other gig. Silly us!

To recap:

Former Guided by Voices bassist and biographer JAMES GREER was married engaged to Sonic Youther* Kim Deal, he used to write for Spin back when it put bands other than My Chemical Romance on the cover, he’s originally from Boston, and his first work of fiction, Artificial Light, is meta to the extreme, with three books-within-a-book forming the story’s ambitious narrative plus a character named Kurt C- who fronted for a band Greer refers to as N. Despite the prose tricks and the unconventional style, Greer treats the Midwest’s alternative-music scene with the sort of seriousness that might impress even C. Love. He reads at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | 7 pm | free | 617.566.6660.

*Of the Pixies and the Breeders, not Sonic Youth. Snap!

 

KIM DEAL:
Was Engaged, Not Married, to Greer

KIM GORDON: 
Sonic Youther, Thurston Moore's boo

We regret the error, sincerely, and we've sufficiently been shamefaced by someone who felt the need to write in and tell us we made him wince -- wince! -- as a result of us mixing up the coolest Kim in rock music with the other coolest Kim in rock music. We will now get our head out of our ass and go memorize every Breeders song ever written as penance. Totes.

1/23/2007 4:36:50 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Otherwise, why would the venerable broadsheet allow this literary fuck up?

Washingtonpost.com is publishing fiction for the first time, serializing the debut novel of Post Business section reporter David Hilzenrath.

The book, "Jezebel's Tomb," is a thriller set in the present-day Middle East. It features a journalist who investigates a bombing and tries to track down a mysterious 2,000-year-old document that may hold a dangerous secret. It is a biblical mystery reminiscent of "The Da Vinci Code."

Hey, check out the doozy of a book jacket!

Blech. We wonder about these Wash Postie.comers and their reasons for serializing a fiction novel by one of their own business reporters -- instead of say, opening the opportunity to a new writer, an established (way more talented) novelist, or a 12-year-old who drafted his first copy of a brand new Star Wars tribute. Anything but another Da Vinci Code rip-off. Anyone but someone who already writes for the newspaper -- an investigative financial reporter, no less. We're all for career crossovers, and yet...what the eff?

Dave, you're one crafty bastard:

After he was turned down by publishers repeatedly in 2005, "a light bulb went on," said Hilzenrath, 41, a 19-year Post veteran. "There's a better way: Use the power of the Web for promotion and the power of on-demand publishing to reduce the upfront cost," he said.

Yes, we thought so. And now we're so bored we can't even get through a full chapter excerpt, available free every Monday. Go read one yourself here, if you care. Or email David and tell him you're not jealous of his online book deal. Even if he did research the thing for 10 years. Poor dude.

1/22/2007 2:23:17 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

SHE'S ELECTRIC: Calvin and Alice

We were caught staring, weepy-eyed, at the above photo of CALVIN TRILLIN and his wife, Alice, in which they look like the happiest, you-wish-you-had-their-relationship couple we’ve seen since the glory days of Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson. But really, we couldn’t help ourselves. Neither can Trillin — he’s written about his life with Alice throughout his career at the New Yorker. After her death, he wrote the short yet sweet About Alice, which offers even more insight into her creativity, smarts, wit, and beauty; it’s tender and funny stuff, minus the sap. Trillin pays tribute to his lady love with Christopher Lydon at the First Unitarian Church, 3 Church St, Cambridge | 6:30 pm | $14.95 [includes a book] | 617.661.READ.

1/18/2007 10:27:41 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Cambridge-based novelist ALICE HOFFMAN s one of those deeply psychological writers who we depend on to bore into the individual minds of an ill-fated family. Once there, she unearths the sort of romantic desperation and weird, mystical secrets that most households would do anything to keep hidden. For her 19th novel to date, Skylight Confessions, Hoffman focuses on just how much an event of complete randomness can determine one’s fate. At 17, Arlyn Singer decides she’ll marry the next man who walks down the street. Too bad it results in a completely screwed up union, a physical (but not spiritual) death, and several dysfunctional kids raised in a creepy Connecticut house called The Glass Slipper. Court destiny when Hoffman reads and signs at Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut St, Newton | Jan 16 @ 7 pm | free | 617.244.6619 and at the Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | Jan 17 @ 7 pm | free | 617.566.6660.

1/16/2007 11:41:14 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

It’s not that we need Hollywood gossip to lead a fulfilled life -- but it sure does help keep things interesting when taking back overdue library books registers as an 8.8 on our personal Richter scale of scandal. What a shame JAKE HALPERN doesn’t quite see it our way. This frequent All Things Considered commentator explores the dark side of celebrity in Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America’s Favorite Addiction, the research for which included partying with professional assistants (we can’t prove they included Lindsay Lohan’s former one, who is now said to be happier working for Jessica Biel) and making nice with Rod Stewart’s biggest fan (could it be his daughter Kim, formerly engaged to a certain Laguna Beach player with a horrible singing voice?) Build a roaring bonfire out of your US Weekly back issues and revive what’s left of your brain cells when Halpern reads at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | 7 pm | free | 617.566.6660.

1/10/2007 10:17:35 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Sharon, the more active half of Word Up, sent me an email this afternoon about literary hot shit Marisha Pessl, author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and her latest appearance in the New York Times, looking super-sultry in a photo accompanying a piece about, ummm, I guess the paint set her hedge fund manager husband gave her?

The first couple grafs attempt to provide some semblance of a literary/philosophical tone in frameworking why painting appeals to Pessl — “When things are not relative, we can’t say, know or grasp what they are…Why else has the word ‘like’ become an all-purpose teenage interjection of approximation and uncertainty?” — but the whole thing’s more of a… I’ll just transcribe the quick email exchange:

SHARON: I still love the book, but I’m starting to get really annoyed. I wonder how many people she knows at the NYT to get all this attention!

Is that fuckmeboot photo really necessary?

NINA: Gross me out the door! Honestly, I just said ewww outloud. For real, doesn’t it sort of belittle a “serious” writer to have a piece about some present her rich-ass husband gave her? I mean, I get it that it’s great to be, you know, all hot and stuff for selling books, but I wonder if she isn’t a little worried that people MIGHT take her a little less seriously as a writer. Despite everyone saying how great the book is, I don’t think I could open it now without picturing her languishing in an armchair in four-inch knee-high boots, or “slash painting” or whatever the fuck.

1/8/2007 6:40:50 PM by Nina | Comments [1] |  

If those strict, binding legal contract-savvy folks at the CIA have their way, that is. Newsweek's Periscope reports that the agency blocked the publication of Plame's book by telling her that she can't mention or discuss her employment since she was hired as a "nonofficial cover" officer posing as a private businesswoman. We wonder what NYT reporter Judy Miller thinks about these shenanigans.

So Val says bye bye to her fatty deal check from Simon & Schuster...for the time being. She could go Spy-fi Sydney Bristow and beat every editor at S&S to a bloody pulp any minute now.

1/8/2007 4:44:10 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Today's New York Times books section led with another piece about the slow death of indie book stores. This one, entitled "A Princeton Maverick Succumbs to a Cultural Shift," profiled Logan Fox. He's the owner of Micawber Books in Princeton, NJ, and even though he randomly looks like he's flirting with you in that posed photo, he's actually completely devastated that his store has been forced to shut itself down.

The majority of the article made us feel quite sad, which takes a lot considering the media has been crying over the chain bookstore takeover since forever. Especially the lede, in which Fox sincerely laments the fact that even his own employees would rather discuss Project Runway than their new favorite book:

"It kills me,” Mr. Fox, 53, said over coffee on Friday afternoon, shaking his head. “The amount of time spent discussing culturally iconic shows has superseded anything in the way of books that I can detect. Discussing books is very much one on one. It just hurts me.”

Despite being avid readers, we, too, are guilty of perpetuating this behavior.

While we don't normally expect the Gray Lady to make us reconsider our priorities, she's done it today. And now we're all cranky, wondering if our lives are meaningless.

So this the year we're finally going to read The Sound and the Fury and Trinity, even if it means missing our new favorite show that we haven't seen yet. Swear.

1/3/2007 5:20:02 PM by ccarioli@phx.com | Comments [1] |  

BLOGGER-IN-TRAINING: Another author falls victim to the lure of instant publishing

We've spent part of our late morning reading about local author Steve Almond and his offspring Josie over at his new Baby Daddy Babble blog. It's interesting and witty stuff -- seriously. But just for the sake of clarification, let's get one thing out of the way. Blogs are okay so long as they've got the seal of coolness approval from Nerve, but they're definitely not appropriate when people start one to talk shit about you and your writing.

Glad we've slapped ourselves straight. Of course, none of this has anything to do with the fact that we have read and reread the stories in My Life in Heavy Metal countless times. This half of Word Up completely adores that book -- about as much as these people loath it, not to mention Almond himself. This link will take you to an excerpt from one of our favorite stories in the collection. Prime reading for a post-NYE day of distraction. Decide for yourselves if Almond's worth his contrary bloggishness.

1/2/2007 1:40:20 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |