Lifestyle Gumbo: Authors Dig Good Food, Too.

Cookbooks and books about food sell by the millions each year, and even those who don’t cook are often fascinated by food-related titles. (Check out such books as Skinny Bitch, Eat This Not That, and The Pleasures of Slow Food, among others.) Many book-lovers are food-lovers as well. But what about authors? Well, it turns out that they love food just as much, and often talk about the food their characters are eating.

Natasha of the Maw Books blog has collected quite a few recipes from her interviews with favorite authors. As she explains on her blog:

One of my favorite things to do while interviewing authors is to ask them to either share a recipe from a food/meal that was featured in their books or a personal favorite. Later, I make the recipe, take photos, and blog about it! I honestly blame it all on Katherine Center when her main character was eating a delicious Mexican Tomato Lime soup and I seriously wanted to try it. When I asked Katherine for it, she said it was her favorite soup and I’m not kidding when I say it’s now mine!

Check out the recipes… and eat them while you enjoy your favorite books! [Via Maw Books blog]

--Rachel Frier

Photo: Maw Books blog

Around the Web: Call Girls + Governors

Nothing like a night out with the girls, smellin’ like a paperback. A company has taken it upon themselves to bottle “new book smell,” ostensibly for spraying on a Kindle. [via Lemondrop]

Nerve reviews The Girlfriend Experience, through the eyes of a real high-end call girl and client. [via Nerve]

Sick of men selling them underwear, a group of Saudi Arabian women is campaigning to allow women to be employed in stores, currently illegal. Twenty-six women were just trained to fit and sell underwear, a small step in the right direction. [via Jezebel]

In honor of Governor Mark Sanford’s weekend spent “hiking the Appalachian trail,” The Daily Beast compiles a list of the most disastrous presidential trips of all time. Cheney is honored with a spot. [via The Daily Beast]

This Is Facebook: rumor has it that Columbia Pictures has a new fictional documentary in the works about that ubiquitous, life-consuming social networking site. I swear I’ll just watch it for five minutes… [via The Frisky]

Tie-dye may be the answer for cheap and breezy summer apparel. Check out Essence’s favorites. [via Essence]

-- Allison Geller

Photo: Lemondrop

Hedes & Dekes: New Zealand School Offers Bribes for Books

A New Zealand boys’ school is taking drastic steps to get boys to read more: bribery. Rongotai College in Wellington offers boys a can of soda if they can prove they’ve read two books, a voucher from Subway for five books, and a movie voucher for ten books. The dedicated few who are able to read twenty books get a mobile phone voucher.

No mention of the quality of the reading students must do in order to receive their prizes. Is Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopy Pants rated as highly in this program as The Odyssey? Also, the math seems a bit odd: two books for a can of soda, and twenty books for cell phone minutes? Perhaps the program will yield a side study of what incentives are really important to kids these days.

The school claims that the program is effective, and says that the number of books borrowed from the library has doubled since its inception. Yet to be seen, though, is whether these students are forming life-long habits, or are learning that reading is only worth doing if there’s a prize attached. [Via The Guardian]

--Rachel Frier

Photo: Panoramio

Literary Links: Mijac in Paperback; Cursing in Kiddie Lit

In memory of a lost loved pop star: The R.I.P. Menagerie of Michael Jackson Book Covers. [via Inkwell Bookstore]

Looking for a book recommendation? Consider the source (and then check out BookSeer.com). [via Book Ninja]

Do the publishing industry’s low starting salaries limit the literature produced? Willing Davidson thinks so, and notes class division in the industry as well. [via Galleycat]

Jay Walker explains why billions of people are trying to learn English—“the world’s second language.” [via TED]

Allegations of plagiarism are old news… and new news, apparently. This time, Chris Anderson’s in the dog house. [via Smart Bitches]

Bella Pagan reviews the inaugural David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy. [via Orbit]

In an interesting twist on literary sales, the BBC poetry series leads to a sudden and unexpected spike in copies of poetry volumes--like Sylvia Plath. [via Galleycat]

Children's author Lenore Look discusses the difficulties of using appropriate cursing in children’s books. [via Bookslut]

E-reading is not without its drama and difficulty. Choosing a device, finding a power source, keeping the publishing industry on its feet—so much to fret about! [via Dear Author]

--Rachel Frier

Photos: Inkwell Bookstore, Cita en Hawaii

Lit Talk: Author Shilpa Agarwal

Shilpa Agarwal, a Mumbai-born professor at the University of California, comes from a family uprooted by the Partition of India in 1947. Her intimacy with this displaced, disenfranchised generation has informed her first novel, Haunting Bombay, which deals with the literal and figurative ghosts of a Bombay-based family in the 1960s. In this interview with Uttara Choudhury of India’s Daily News and Analysis, the author discusses the Mumbai community and the mechanics of writing ghost stories.

***

Choudhury: Would you describe your book as a snapshot of Mumbai or a ghost story?

Agarwal: It is a ghost story set in 1960s Bombay, so I would say it is both. A reviewer on Amazon said it reminded him of Toni Morrison's Beloved as it brings the weight of history, the past and supernatural elements into the writing.

Choudhury: Have you lived in Mumbai?

Agarwal: I was born in Mumbai and my parents came to America when I was very little. I've spent many summer vacations there with relatives. When I was in Duke's, I did a study-abroad program in St. Xavier's College in Mumbai. I feel it is a city of my roots, so it was very natural for me to set my book there. I feel connected to Mumbai, although I have grown up mainly in America.

Choudhury: Is the supernatural in your book a metaphor for the dispossessed?

Agarwal: Yes, absolutely. I have always been intrigued by the idea of utterance -- who is empowered to speak and who is not -- within a family, a community or a nation. What would happen, I wondered, if we could hear the voice of the child who drowned in Haunting Bombay or the child's ayah who was banished after she was blamed for the death? Their versions of the truth haunted me, and my story took a supernatural turn.

Choudhury: While writing the ghost story did you get spooked?

Agarwal: Absolutely! It's funny, because I have always been afraid of ghost stories. I never really realized I was writing one when I started. I have two little girls, so I used to wake up at dawn – 4:30 a.m. was the quiet part of the day where I wasn't 'mommy' but just me, the writer. I would be in my office typing away, and I would light this candle near my computer. Sometimes, I would be tapping away and I would glance up at the candle wondering: is it flickering weirdly? I would then do this shoulder-check -- turn my head around gingerly.
Choudhury: You are right on trend with a cool film trailer for your book.

Agarwal: So much of the word-of-mouth and attention is on the internet. I think people respond to books in different ways. Some people are intrigued by reading a summary, others by book covers. My husband James is in the digital field so the book trailer was really his idea.

I wanted the trailer to provide an artistic glimpse into the novel, to give not just a narrative arc but set the mood for the world in the story, something that spoke of mystery but could also project the literary quality of Haunting Bombay.

I put together a one-page script, aiming for a 90-second trailer and approached my director-friend Shishir Kurup. We got help from unexpected sources -- my sister-in-law who runs a visual effects studio and my brother-in law who designed the sound.
Choudhury: How long did it take to write the book?

Agarwal: I started in January 2000, when I was pregnant with my first child. There was a lot going on in my life, but my novel started coming to me. I have been through many revisions and two children along the way. Through the years and doubts, I knew I would finish my book. I call it my third baby -- nine months each for my first two and nine years for my third.

***

Shilpa Agarwal has two upcoming readings in California:

Thursday, July 9 at 7:30 p.m.
The Booksmith
1644 Haight St.
San Francisco, Calif. 94117
415.863.8688

Friday, July 10 at 7:00 p.m.
Book Passage Café
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, Calif. 94925
415.927.0960

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo courtesy Shilpa Agarwal

Oh Snap!: Summer Reading

A stoop, a book, and a summer day. What more could you ask for?

-Allison Geller

Photo by Philip Greenspun/ Philip Greenspun

Lit Talk: Author Paula Uruburu

Those of us who occasionally (or frequently) scoff at photos of panty-flashing, brazenly drunk starlets in tabloids might be interested in Paula Uruburu’s new acclaimed biography, American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the “It” Girl and the Crime of the Century. The book examines the life of Evelyn Nesbit, a model and chorus girl, at once virginal and highly sexualized, who rose to fame around the turn of the century. The decline of her career, precipitating from her abusive husband’s murder of her ex-lover, was one of the juiciest scandals of the time. In this interview with Sarah Weinman of New York magazine, the author discusses biographical writing and connects the events of more than a hundred years ago to today’s starlet culture.

***

Weinman: I’ve been struck by how many news stories quote you for historical context about the Miley Cyrus photo flap.

Uruburu: I've become the resident expert on the degradation and lasciviousness of young girls [laughs]. Nothing's really changed in 100 years. I don't want to use the word serendipitous, but as I was writing the book — and it took ten years from start to finish — the parallels between Evelyn and current culture, be it Girls Gone Wild or Mean Girls or Britney and Lindsay, were hard to ignore. Evelyn's celebrity lasted from age 14 to 21, and her entire life was defined by that period.

Weinman: There are about 50 photos in the book, and many of them look surprisingly modern…

Uruburu: Yes, exactly! I've had a few people, who when they saw the book for the first time, couldn't believe the photos were taken more than 100 years ago. Some even remarked that they could see why someone was killed as a result of knowing her; she was that beautiful but also other. They're right, in a way: the fashion for models at the time was for a more voluptuous, more zaftig look. Evelyn was almost of the wrong time, being much slimmer and more like the flapper girls of the 1920s.

Weinman: Was it strange to immerse yourself in old New York, now that the city’s changed so much?

Uruburu: I say in the book several times that Evelyn's fate was subject to greater forces at work, and those forces — the clash of old money with new and the rich and powerful lording it over the poorer classes — are still at work. And when I finally finished the manuscript for American Eve and turned it in to my editor, the building where Stanford White had one of his apartments, which figures prominently in the book, collapsed! Before I had another chance to take a look, the building was buried in rubble. I felt this twinge of what was lost and what couldn't be brought back.

Weinman: This is the age of the fabricated memoir, and you relied heavily on Evelyn's two memoirs and a vanity-published account by Harry Thaw. How did you ensure that everything was accurate?

Uruburu: One of the reasons it took me so long to write the book was because I wasn't going to accept anything at face value. It was real detective work: Some facts were easy to check; others required much more legwork and a number of perspectives to put together a framework for what took place. I went back to the transcript of the trials, a total of 6,000 pages. I found a collector who owned hundreds of letters Evelyn wrote much later in life, when the need for an agenda probably wasn't as strong as it had been in her youth. Interestingly, Harry Thaw's book, which was published in 1925 not long after he was released from a mental institution, is very bizarre. It's pretty clear he was still angry and still had an ax to grind against Evelyn. And yet he corroborates dates and times even when it's not in his interest to do so.

Weinman: What lessons, if any, can today's starlets learn from Evelyn Nesbit? Can her story be viewed as a cautionary tale?

Uruburu: I hate to sound didactic and preachy, but Evelyn's story is a real metaphor for destruction. When The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, the movie of her life and the murder, came out in 1952, she described herself as "living in the everlasting now." Right now I feel like we're in a culture of the everlasting now, where an actor who starred with Bonzo the chimp can become president and the Terminator ends up as the governor of California. The hypocrisy of celebrity culture is that the private is now public and nothing is sacred anymore. So I guess I do want American Eve to be a cautionary tale for parents, those who would sacrifice their children on the altar of the feeding frenzy of fame.

***

Paula Uruburu will be discussing her book on the following dates:

Wednesday, July 8 at 4:00 p.m.

The Museum of the Gilded Age at Ventfort Hall
104 Walker St.
Lenox, Mass. 01240
413.637.3206

Wednesday, July 22 at 6:30 p.m.
New York Public Library
455 Fifth Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10016
212.340.0833

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo of Urubur by Robert Ecksel

Oh Snap!: Out of the Shadows

A book, and a ray of light in the darkness.

--Allison Geller

Photo by banjhing / al fritz ermac via Flickr.com

Hedes & Dekes: Literary Awards Around the World

Neil Gaiman's young adult novel The Graveyard Book has been shortlisted for the 2009 British Fantasy Award. (One has to feel some sympathy for the other nominees—being up against Neil Gaiman, whose most recent novel has already received the coveted Newbery award and others, must be pretty daunting.) [Via McNally Robinson]

As we wait for the winner to be announced at the British Fantasy Convention, to be held September 18-20 in Nottingham, U.K., it seems only right to celebrate some other recent wins.

· On June 16, East German authors Erich Loest, Monika Maron, and Uwe Tellkamp received the prestigious German National Prize award. The German National Foundation said the writers "represented three generations symbolizing, personally and with their literary works, the multiple fractures in German history." [Via DW World]

· On June 17, at a ceremony at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, Kathy Rooney, the managing director of Bloomsbury Publishing, was awarded the £3,000 Kim Scott Walwyn Prize in recognition of her professional achievements in publishing. [Via Guardian UK]

· Last week, Toronto writer Pasha Malla won the $20,000 Trillium Book Award for his book of short stories The Withdrawal Method, and Jeramy Dodds of Orono, Ont., won the $10,000 poetry prize for his collection Crabwise to the Hounds. Dodds was also a nominee for the Griffin Poetry Prize, awarded earlier this month. [Via The Chronicle Herald]

· Also last week, Glasgow author James Kelman, a former Booker Prize winner, won the £30,000 Scottish Book Award for his novel Kieron Smith, Boy, a story chronicling the life of a young boy in post-war Glasgow.[Via BBC]

--Rachel Frier

Photo Graveyard Book: The Graveyard Book; Photo Kim Scott Walwyn: Book Trust UK

Literary Links: Bad Advice + Flawed Kindles

Spend enough time in the self-help section of the bookstore, and you might come across the 24,504 Worst Pieces of Advice Ever Published. [via Cracked]

A group of artists called INK has manufactured 40 books that previously existed only in the literary worlds of other books. [via Bookslut]

Shared Worlds recently picked their top five real fantasy/sci-fi cities. Is your city on the list? [via Inkwell Bookstore]

A notable flaw in the Amazon Kindle download system: Some texts have a limited number of downloads, and that number varies from text to text. [via Gear Diary]

Sadly, not everyone can be a winner. Fuse covers the list of books that didn't quite make the Top 100 Picture Book Poll. [via Bookshelves of Doom]

--Rachel Frier

Photo: Cracked

Oh Snap!: Bombshell with a Book

Reading can be glamorous, as Marilyn Monroe so effortlessly demonstrates.

--Allison Geller

Photo: drx.typepad.com

Lit Talk: Author Cristina Henriquez

One of the oldest adages about writing is “Write what you know,” and Cristina Henríquez proves that this is at least a good place to start. Her highly acclaimed first novel, The World in Half, follows a young woman who is, like Cristina herself, a Chicagoan with roots in Panama. However, the novel departs from this autobiographical starting point to explore the journey of Miraflores, the narrator, down to Panama to pick up the pieces of her broken family and her divided self. The characters compel and the prose delights. Below are excerpts from her interview with Oxford American, in which she discusses writing, envy, superstition, and home.

***

Oxford American: Why do you write?

Cristina: Honestly, I have no idea. Why does anyone do anything? Because he or she is drawn to it through a combination of genetic disposition and environment. I just like it. I like stringing words together on a page—a surface that's flat, a tool that's ordinary—to create something that's full and alive and that tells us about ourselves. I'm fascinated by the idea that we share this language, we use it every day, and yet how a writer orders the words on the page and how he or she chooses those particular words can so drastically make meaning and change meaning.

Oxford American: Does reading great writing by others inspire or deject you?

Cristina: Mostly it inspires me. Occasionally, it pummels me with the idea that plagues every writer I know from time to time: I will never be able to write like that. But mostly it provides inspiration.

Oxford American: The all-knowing Wikipedia says that "all writers are superstitious." What is your pet superstition?

Cristina: I have a few. I can't sleep when a closet door is open. I refuse to listen to the flight attendants when they do their safety demonstration because somehow I believe that by listening, I'm jinxing the flight. If I don't get any e-mail the first time I check in the morning, I think it means I'll have a bad day. I'm sure there are others, but those are the first few that come to mind.

Oxford American: Even the greatest writers must endure a period of writing juvenilia. What happened to cause you to grow beyond the "struggling-young-writer" stage and find your own voice?

Cristina: I think what happened was I found my material. I found Panama. I had been writing stories set in the United States, and they all sounded like terrible rip-offs of the writers I was reading and admired: George Saunders, Kurt Vonnegut, Jason Brown, Aimee Bender. Then I read a story by Sandra Cisneros and I realized that there was a whole side of myself that was untapped. I hadn't written about Panama because I wasn't sure I had the authority to. I was only half-Panamanian, after all, and I had never lived there. But reading her work made me at least want to attempt it. And when I did, it just felt so different. It was like making this giant leap. I had never read a single other story set in Panama. For me, it was uncharted literary territory in the way that the United States wasn't. There was so much freedom in that.

Oxford American: Mira struggles with her identity and at one point says that she doesn't know where her "home" is. Her Panamanian friend, Danilo, says home "is where you feel most like you belong." Where is "home" for you?

Cristina: This is the second time in my life I've been asked this question and I don't think I'm any closer to being able to answer it now than the first time. I've lived in Delaware, Florida, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Texas, and Illinois. I've spent extended portions of my life in Panama. And yet, where is home? Is it where I live now? But I've only been here for three years. It doesn't feel any more like home than any place I've been. Is it where I primarily grew up and where my parents still live? But when I go back there, I hardly recognize it anymore. The best I can do is to say that home for me is with my family—my husband and my daughter. When I'm with them, I feel at home.

***

The full interview is available here. Cristina Henríquez will be reading and signing books at the American Library Association Annual Conference at the following date and location:

Sunday, July 12 at 11:00 a.m.
McCormick Place
2301 S. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Ill. 60616
312.791.7000

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo by Cheryl Diaz Meyer / Dallas Morning News

Hedes & Dekes: University Presses vs. E-publishing. The Battle Wages On

Last week, an AP article seemed to suggest that university presses are about to go the way of the Titanic. The article’s grim assessment of the situation faced by Louisiana State University Press, among others, would make it seem that all such presses have become great dark financial voids, sucking in money without returning revenue. As publishers worldwide brace against impending doom, fearing replacement by e-publishers and other upstarts, LSU Press’s example seems a veritable Thánatos.

However, Jennifer Howard at the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that it may not be quite so. Reporting from the annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses, Howard has a more optimistic outlook: “The meeting, which ended Sunday, was more a study in resilience and adaptiveness than it was a death watch.” Presses are looking for new ways to function, and making chances to help ensure their survival. The financial situation facing university presses is still far from ideal, but they’re not going down without a fight. Let’s hope they can set an example for the rest of the publishing world. [Via Chronicle of Higher Education]


--Rachel Frier

Photo: Google

Around the Web: Alice in Crazyland; Homeless to Harvard

He did it with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and now he’s moving on to Alice in Wonderland. Trust Tim Burton to take the already strange to a new level of creepy. [via Jezebel]

Sometimes the best books take us places we wouldn’t go ourselves. Like strip clubs, for instance. The best and worst of stripper memoires. [via Double X]

Remember Miranda Priestly’s rant in The Devil Wears Prada about high fashion eventually reaching the masses? Let’s hope it’s not true when it comes to these men’s looks from Milan Fashion Week. [via The Frisky]

The inspirational story of a young woman from Los Angeles who now goes to Harvard. Proof that not all Ivy Leaguers were born with a silver spoon in their mouths: She was raised without a home. [via Essence]

According to Feministing, Away We Go is a “go” for those looking for a little quirky fun at the movies. [via Feministing]

Blogging can be a dangerous business. Just ask Perez Hilton, who claims that Will.i.am attacked him outside a club in Toronto. [via LimeLife]

A new report states that despite post-election criticism, the Obama admin has been appointing over 50% women or minorities. [via Jezebel]

--Allison Geller

Literary Links: Books on Bodies

Inspired by Esquire magazine cover featuring Bar Refaeli, check out some favorite literary quotes written on half-naked hunks! [via Lemondrop]

Save the date! ThrillerFest 2009 is coming to NYC July 8-11. [via Thriller Writers]

Looking for free reads online? Take a look at this list, for starters. [via Genre Reviews]

Calling all dog lovers! Join the Dog Days of Summer contest. [via Literate Housewife]

From Book magazine, a list of the 100 best characters since 1900. [via Stuck in a Book]

--Rachel Frier

Photo: Lemondrop

Oh Snap!: The Little Things

Nothing like parking yourself on a bench for a good read. So what if it's just to look at the pictures?

--Allison Geller

Photo: Mookio via Flickr.com

Lit Talk: Author Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Carlos Ruiz Zafón is a Barcelona native who lives and writes in Los Angeles. Originally a young adult fiction author, he switched to “adult” fiction in 2001 with the bestseller The Shadow of the Wind (or La sombra del viento), to which his latest novel, The Angel’s Game (or El juego del ángel) functions as a prequel. The novel emphasizes the power of the written word and has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe’s work, with its themes of love and obsession and its penchant for the supernatural. In an interview with Three Monkeys Online, Zafón discusses the global nature of books, his works, and his literary philosophy.

***

TMO: You often mention British, French or Russian writers among your influences. Which Catalan or Spanish language writers have inspired you most?

Zafón: Yes, it is true that most of my literary influences tend to come from other traditions. I really cannot explain why that is. I am not really aware of specific influences coming from either Catalan or Spanish authors, although I admire and enjoy reading many of them, from Perez-Galdos to Merce Rodoreda and many others. There are many Latin-American authors as well whose use of prose and narrative devices has been very interesting for the last few decades and has generated a school of its own. I guess in a way when a writer reads she/he tends to internalize and analyze things and therefore everything has an influence, an impact and a consequence. In my case, for some reason, since I was a child I’ve always felt more attuned and interested in authors that came from other traditions. In fact I don’t think of literature, or music, or any art form as having a nationality. Where you’re born is simply an accident of fate. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be more interested in say, Dickens, than in an author from Barcelona simply because I wasn’t born in the U.K. I do not have an ethnocentric view of things, much less of literature. Books hold no passports. There’s only one true literary tradition: the human.

TMO: The ambience in some of your work, with fog, snow, and so on, is very northern. I’d guess Stevenson and Conan Doyle are among your favorite English language writers? Who else do you admire in terms of scene-setting and description?

Zafón: Too many to mention, I guess. I tend to like some of the great 19th century writers, especially Charles Dickens. That said, a great deal of my influences come from the cinema rather than from literature. Visual storytelling is very much part of my wiring.

TMO: The Shadow of the Wind is set in the early Franco era. The logical next step might have been to pick up where you left off chronologically. Instead, in your latest novel, The Angel’s Game, you’ve written a prequel going back another generation or so. Why?

Zafón: I never meant to write a sequential saga, or a series of sequels of sorts. The idea is to write stories around this literary universe centered around the cemetery of forgotten books, exploring this gothic, mysterious universe through different characters and storyl ines. As you say, perhaps it would have been more commercially advisable to do that, to write a straight sequel and pick up the story where we left it, but it was never my idea to do so and I think it is more interesting to play around with the narrative spaces and lines to pull the reader into a fictional universe that plays by its own rules.

TMO: The history of Catalonia/Spain is well documented from the Civil War period onwards ,but outside of the country itself, there is little focus on the earlier part of the 20th century. Was that in your thoughts at all? Has the Franco era has been done to death in terms of both history and literature?

Zafón: It would be hard to overstate the impact and significance of the Franco era (40 years) after the war. The Spanish Civil War is the most significant event in modern Spanish history, and it would be naïve to think it is been already covered, although probably it generated almost as much bibliography as World War Two, to which in many ways it’s a prelude. You’re right that outside of Spain there isn’t much focus on earlier Spanish history, but then again we could say that of almost any nation. We seem to live in a world where forgetting and oblivion are an industry in themselves and very, very few people are remotely interested or aware of their own recent history, much less their neighbors’. I tend to think we are what we remember, what we know. The less we remember, the less we know about ourselves, the less we are.

TMO: Does fiction have to be historically accurate?

Zafón: No. Fiction has to be effective, moving, stimulating, seductive. Fiction has to tell a good story in the best possible way. Then it can choose to be emotionally honest and accurate or not. History writing should be accurate, on the other hand, but that’s another long debate I guess.

***

You can check out the full interview here, and if you’re in any of the following areas this week, you can catch Zafón himself:

Monday, June 22 at 7:00 p.m.
Harvard Bookstore
1256 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, Mass. 02138
617.661.1515

Tuesday, June 23 at 7:00 p.m.
Nicola’s Books
2513 Jackson Ave.
Ann Arbor, Mich. 48103
734.662.0600

Wednesday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m.
Bagdad Theater & Pub
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, Ore. 97214
503.236.9234

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo: The Age

Oh Snap!: A Moment in Time

A woman absorbed in a book: a timeless scenario, from way before this lovely picture was taken in 1890.

--Allison Geller

Photo courtesy the National Media Museum/Flick

Lifestyle Gumbo: [This is Not a] Cafe...But You'll Think It Is

On May 7, Washington, DC, welcomed a new café catering to its vibrant independent writer/artist scene. The April 24 press release announces: “this is not that CAFÉ, an art project that reclaims the traditional function of the coffeehouse as a place for social interaction and idea exchange, transforms The Phillips Collection’s café space into an environment where visitors have a direct experience with art.”

The brainchild of members of Vesela Sretenovic, the Phillips’s new curator of modern and contemporary art, this is not that CAFÉ serves as somewhat of an “experiment station” to engage artists and revitalize the museum space and forge links with living artists. Says Sretenovic: “I hope to create small, focused exhibitions that are visually and conceptually compelling, and that put beauty and risk in play.”

this is not that CAFÉ, operating “inside, outside, and alongside the establishment,” bridges the gap between art and community. Built upon components created by New York-based dB foundation members Greta Byrum, Annabel Daou, Kareem Estefan, Tom Russotti, Danny Snelson, and Elaine Tin Nyo, CAFÉ creates a playground from wall collages, board games, a library, and both real and fake foods. The café has four main artistic components:

-Wall evokes a Dadaist café through the art of collage
-Food explores desire and satisfaction, with a menu of food items both available and unavailable
-Book invites writers and poets to contribute literary voices
-Game offers parlor games whose rules may change during play

this is not that CAFÉ opened May 7 and continues through December 2009.

[this is not that] CAFÉ

The Phillips Collection
1600 21st St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

202.387.2151

The Phillips Collection, “America’s first museum of modern art,” houses collections with works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, and Georgia O’Keeffe, among others. The museum is very active in producing educational programs for K-12 students and adult learners, and hosts concerts, exhibitions, and a variety of other cultural programs.

--Rachel Frier

Photos: Flickr

Bookmarks 6.18.09

Playwrights’ Platform Summer Festival of New Plays in Boston, Mass. (June 18-20, 8 p.m.) – Come support the aspiring writers of Playwrights’ Platform who have written the vibrant short plays constituting this summer’s festival. After each performance, the audience members will vote on their favorite plays and actors for the awards ceremony that concludes the festival. Who knows, there might even be a future Lorraine Hansberry in the group!

A Bilingual Reading of Pablo Neruda Poetry in Seattle, Wash. (June 20, 2:00 p.m.) – This reading, which will take place at Central Library, is perfect for English-speaking students of Spanish, Spanish-speaking students of English, hardcore bilingual Neruda fans, and lovers of the poet who have only read translations and wish to hear the exquisite music of his native tongue.

Sunken Garden Poetry & Music Festival in Farmington, Conn. (June 24, 6:30 p.m.) – This festival, which opened two weeks ago, will be held every other Wednesday evening until August 5, in the Sunken Garden of the historic Hill-Stead Museum property. Bask in the bloom of the Colonial Revival as you listen to readings by the Connecticut Poetry Circuit winners and Baron Wormser, and a musical performance by New York’s Uptown Trio.

Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. (June 24-28 and July 1-5) – The Folklife Festival is a multimedia, multicultural, enormously popular event on the National Mall. This year’s programs will include Giving Voice (focusing on “The Power of Words in African American Culture”), Las Américas, and Wales, and visitors can experience these cultures through food, music, dance, and, of course, storytelling.

Fresh Threads of Connection: Mother Nature and British Women Writers in Iowa City, Iowa (through July 26) – If you love the likes of Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte, head over to Iowa City’s Old Capitol Museum. The Fresh Threads of Connection exhibit, through the work and lives of ten female British writers, examines art, culture, nature, and these women’s relationships to the world and to one another.

--Emmaline Silverman

Around the Web: Star Faces and Sasha Fierce

Note to self: never fall asleep while getting a tattoo. I guess it’s easier than it sounds? [via The Frisky]

When you think “rabbi,” you probably think old white man with a long beard. But Alysa Stanton, the first black female rabbi, is defying all sorts of stereotypes. [via Essence]

The new recession-style wedding craze is to seem poorer than you are. This reverse ostentation manifests itself in expensive food that’s…made to look cheap. [via Jezebel]

While I have trouble with “weird” and “received” to this day, a new study proclaims a different word to be the most misspelled in the English language. [via Lemondrop]

You Are Sasha Fierce. Or, you can be, with a little inspiration from these Beyonce ensembles. [via Fashion Bomb Daily]

If Sacha Baron Cohen is good at one thing, it’s generating buzz and being ridiculous. Make that two things. [via Double X]

A blogger explores the wonders and mysteries of eHarmony, for the satisfaction of curious readers. [via Nerve]

--Allison Geller

Photo: The Frisky

Hedes & Dekes: Simon & Schuster Embrace the Digital Era of Books

Facing significant changes in the publishing industry, in conjunction with the recent economic downturn, Simon & Schuster publishers have been trying a number of new and different marketing techniques to try to get their books in the hands—or on the screens—of more readers. On Monday, the publishing company announced its new partnership with Scribd.com, through which it will sell more than 5,000 titles as e-books, making these texts available on computer screens, e-readers, and some mobile devices.

Says Trip Adler, Scribd CEO and co-founder: “We’re thrilled to offer our users a one-stop solution for discovering, sharing and buying written works of all kinds, including bestselling books by one of the world's top publishers.”

The new partnership will make available in e-text version such titles as Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown; The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory; Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin; and Pulitzer Prize-winning Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt.[Via Scribd]

--Rachel Frier

Photo: screen shot from Scribd

Literary Links: Vocab Workouts, Online Novels + Writing Tips

Beef up your vocabulary—see which weighty words from the New York Times are looked up most frequently by other readers. [via Bookslut]

Read chapter one of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, an on-line novel with new chapter updates every Monday!

[via Catherynne M. Valente]

A good opening line will immediately enthrall a reader… but a bad one can leave her rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles. [via John Wright]

Can you spot which of the seven types of bookstore customers you are? [via Rocket Bomber]

Apparently Dell publishers are making a killing marketing through Twitter, to the tune of approximately $3 million in sales! [via Dear Author]

--Rachel Frier

Photo: Images.com

Lit Talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

At the ripe age of 31, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has published two multi-award-winning novels and a recent collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck. Raised in Nigeria until the age of 19 (interestingly, in a home formerly occupied by Chinua Achebe), she has been commended for her stunning control of the English language and her intricate examination of tensions between new and old, black and white, man and woman. Below, she talks about her life, her language, and her art with Dr. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo of the Women’s Caucus of the African Literature Association.
***

Azodo: You hail from the Igbo country of eastern Nigeria. Could you tell us about your parentage, siblings, and grandparents?

Adichie: My father is from Abba and my mother is from Umunnachi, both in Anambra State. I grew up in the university town of Nsukka, where my parents worked. I did not know my grandfathers, as they both died in the Nigeria-Biafra war. My grandmothers were strong, interesting women. I am the fifth of six children.

Azodo: Why do you choose the English language as the medium of your expressive writing? What is your view on the use of indigenous languages by African fiction writers? Would you ever consider writing in the Igbo language?

Adichie: I’m not sure my writing in English is a choice. If a Nigerian Igbo like myself is educated exclusively in English, discouraged from speaking Igbo in a school in which Igbo was just one more subject of study (and one that was considered “uncool” by students and did not receive much support from the administration), then perhaps writing in English is not a choice, because the idea of choice assumes other equal alternatives.

Although I took Igbo until the end of secondary school and did quite well, it was not at all the norm. Most of all, it was not enough. I write Igbo fairly well but a lot of my intellectual thinking cannot be expressed sufficiently in Igbo. Of course this would be different if I had been educated in both English and Igbo. Or if my learning of Igbo had an approach that was more holistic.The interesting thing, of course, is that if I did write in Igbo (which I sometimes think of doing, but only for impractical, emotional reasons), many Igbo people would not be able to read it. Many educated Igbo people I know can barely read Igbo and they mostly write it atrociously.

I think that what is more important in this discourse is not whether African writers should or should not write in English but how African writers, and Africans in general, are educated in Africa.I do not believe in being prescriptive about art. I think African writers should write in whatever language they can. The important thing is to tell African stories. Besides, modern African stories can no longer claim anything like ‘cultural purity.’ I come from a generation of Nigerians who constantly negotiate two languages and sometimes three, if you include Pidgin. For the Igbo in particular, ours is the Engli-Igbo generation and so to somehow claim that Igbo alone can capture our experience is to limit it. Globalization has affected us in profound ways.

I’d like to say something about English as well, which is simply that English is mine. Sometimes we talk about English in Africa as if Africans have no agency, as if there is not a distinct form of English spoken in Anglophone African countries. I was educated in it; I spoke it at the same time as I spoke Igbo. My English-speaking is rooted in a Nigerian experience and not in a British or American or Australian one. I have taken ownership of English.

Azodo: Could you tell us about your literary itinerary, that is, your beginning, where you are at now, and where you are going in the future with writing?Adichie: I’ve been writing since I was old enough to spell. I fell in love with books as a child and writing remains the only thing I find truly meaningful. I cannot speak about where I am going in the future because I like to think that I will know when I get there.
***

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie can be seen at the following spots in the next couple of weeks:

Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Free Library of Philadelphia

1901 Vine St.Philadelphia, Pa. 19103

215.686.5322

Friday, June 19 at 7:00 p.m.

Harvard Bookstore
1256 Massachusetts Ave.

Cambridge, Mass. 02138
617.661.1515

Tuesday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 N. Harwood
Dallas, Tex. 75201214.922.1200

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo by Okey Adichie

Oh Snap!: Snoop Ponders Weighty Thoughts

Snoop is dead focused when it comes to his reading: How Good is Good Enough? by Andy Stanley, a book about Christianity and getting to heaven. Even rappers have to consider the Big Questions.

-Allison Geller

Photo:StudentHacks.org

Bookmarks 6.16.09

Po’Jazz at Cornelia Street Café in New York, N.Y. (June 18, 5:30 p.m.) – Po’Jazz is a perfect union of poetry and jazz, with a side dish of great food and drink. This Thursday’s program will feature Golda Solomon, “The Medicine Woman of Jazz,” along with readers Pam Laskin, Duewa Frazier, Rishana Blake, and Laura Modigliani.

Juneteenth Celebration in Washington, D.C. (June 19, 11:00 a.m.) – Celebrate history and freedom in the nation’s capital on Juneteenth with a day of poetry, music, drumming, and dancing. The festivities will be held in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library.

Book Swap Party at The Booksmith in San Francisco, Cali. (June 19, 7:00 p.m.) – In between books? Tired of everything in your bookshelf? Bring a worn-out favorite to The Booksmith this Friday and trade with other literary junkies as you schmooze over food and wine.

Magnolia Storytelling Festival in Roswell, Ga. (June 19-20) – Head down to the Peach State for a weekend of storytelling performances, workshops, and banjo music. As the festival is located in the heart of Roswell’s gorgeous historical district, it is also served with a good dose of local legend.

The Underground Poet’s Society National Poetry Conference 2009 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (June 19-21) – The Underground Poet’s Society is an Internet-based, African-American poetry movement where poets of all levels can share their work and exchange ideas. The movement can be experienced next weekend in the flesh at the National Poetry Conference. This event will include workshops, poetry slams (with cash prizes!), and hip-hop and neo-soul showcases, and will take place at the Bahia Mar Beach Resort.

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo: Clutch

Hedes & Dekes: Rare Manuscripts of Latin Text Re-discovered

On the recent death of his father, Joseph Sisto led the FBI to his father’s home to inspect his estate. Seem odd? Sisto knew that his father’s collection housed more than 1,600 rare manuscripts, and that most of these manuscripts had originally been stolen. (His father had paid for them, but they had once been pilfered from Italy and elsewhere in Europe.) The FBI will be working with the manuscripts’ country of origin to try to have these national treasures returned to their rightful owners.

But the discovery has significant implications for literary historians and museum curators around the world. Many of these manuscripts are the only exact copy of their text, and reside only within this collection. The items in Sisto’s collection will likely help to complete other collections in other museums. Also, Sisto’s translation work will prove invaluable to those interested in learning more about the content of these manuscripts – John Sisto (Joseph’s father) learned Latin in order to translate many of the text, and had worked through approximately 1,100 translations at the time of his death. [Via NPR]

-Rachel Frier

Photo by M. Spencer Green

Around the Web: Models, Hooters and Revolutions

Nikia Phoenix is a model to watch, and, umm, can we possibly love her freckles any more than we do?! [via Clutch]

We’re all too obsessed with ourselves to find a partner. Call it high standards or call it narcissism, but this new theory postulates it could be condemning us to singledom. [via The Frisky]

In these desperate economic times, a job’s a job. Read a self-proclaimed “Hooters girl’s” tell-all of the good, the bad, and the ugly of working at this hallowed institution. [via Lemondrop]

A great summary of the recent election and subsequent riots in Iran, including BBC footage of the chaotic streets of nation's capital city, Tehran. [via Gawker]

Want to wear your love of music on your sleeve? Check out these bracelets made from the guitar strings of musicians. Proceeds go to charity—we could rock that. [via Nylon]

The prolific Nora Roberts gets down and dirty with The New Yorker, about writing, womanhood, and success that deserves flouting in the face of the literary establishment. [via Double X]

One wouldn’t normally describe a corset as “tactical,” but that’s exactly what this clothing company does. Made for the empowered woman, this garment sports a pepper spray holder, among other features. [via Jezebel]

--Allison Gellar

Photo: Clutch

Lit Talk: Author Monica Ali

Born in Bangladesh and raised in England, Monica Ali is the worldly young author of the award-winning novel Brick Lane, which examines the British immigrant experience through the story of a Bangladeshi family. Her recently published third novel, In the Kitchen, begins with a mysterious death in a basement and goes on to examine the current crisis of London, with its social strata, its diverse population, and the increasing pressures of the modern world. The author continues her trend of social commentary while remaining true to her fast-paced storytelling and unforgettable characters. In this interview with Barnes & Noble Monica Ali talks about one of the things she knows best: books.
***

B&N: What was the book that most influenced your life, and why?

Monica: The Bell by Iris Murdoch. I was ten years old, I think, when my mother took me to our local town library and, instead of leading me as usual to the children’s or “young adults’” sections, headed for the main fiction department and selected this for me. I felt as if I had been initiated. I remember being riveted by this book. It invited me to engage with it in new and different ways to anything I had read before. I was delighted to have to wrestle with it. For the first time, I was aware of being asked to consider what lay behind the surface of the characters and their dialogues. Some of that dialogue would perhaps make me wince a little now. But as a young girl it excited me a great deal, and I kept on going back to those library shelves.

B&N: What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?

Monica: These are in no particular order, and the list would probably change a bit depending on which day you ask me. But today’s top ten is as below:

-Emma by Jane Austen – A favorite from my school days, and it would always hold its place my heart. Austen’s characters are always devastatingly good, and Emma is, for me, her best creation.

-A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul – His masterpiece. I love the blend of comedy and tragedy, and every time I read it, I ache afresh for Biswas.

-A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole – The author committed suicide after failing to find a publisher for this book, which went on to win the Pulitzer after his mother persevered in getting the book into print. It is the funniest book I have ever read.

-A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee – I picked this up from a bookshop display, knowing nothing about it, and bought it on a whim. I started it on the train on the way home and then read it through the night. Lee’s beautiful, understated prose is so finely controlled it makes me want to cry with envy.

-Wittgenstein by Ray Monk – I first read this on holiday sitting on a Portuguese cliff top overlooking the Atlantic. What I love about this book is how clever it makes me feel. Of course, it is Monk who is the clever one, allowing his readers to approach Wittgenstein’s work without the onset of a calamitous headache.

-Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – Scarcely need to explain this one.

-A Quiet Life by Beryl Bainbridge – Technically perhaps not her best book (I’d go for Every Man for Himself or Master Georgie) but a personal favorite. Bainbridge draws heavily on her own difficult childhood here and re-creates beautifully the tensions of an ordinary unhappy home.

-Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – I first read this in my early teens, dangling upside-down off the end of my bed. My mother used to come in and warn about the perils of all the blood rushing to my head, but I ignored her. I think I was trying to create a physical intensity to match the emotional intensity of that first reading.

-Swami and Friends by R. K. Narayan – My father introduced me to Narayan, and I’m still in love with his audaciously simple prose.

-The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene – I could have gone for a number of other Greene titles. Perhaps my fondness for this one derives from having read it in Mexico, where the novel is set.

B&N: What are your favorite books to give and get as gifts?

Monica: I get really excited if I think I’m going to introduce somebody to a writer they haven’t found before and I think they’ll love. My favorite books to get as gifts are any that the giver is messianic about.

B&N: Who are your favorite writers, and what makes their writing special?

Monica: I go through crushes. I’m a big Updike fan. He has a special gift of making the ordinary extraordinary. I was blown away by Annie Proulx when I first discovered her. I’d been reading Hemingway and Carver immediately beforehand and then gorged myself on her luscious texts. But I come back to Carver again and again. I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.
***

Monica Ali will be reading at the following locations in the next few days:

Tuesday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Barnes & Noble
1972 Broadway
Lincoln Center
New York, NY 10023
212.595.6859

Wednesday, June 17 at 12:30 p.m.
Bryant Park Outdoor Reading Room
42nd St. (between 5th & 6th Aves.)
New York, NY 10018

Thursday, June 18 at 6:00 p.m.
Writers on Record
Harold Washington Library Center
400 S. State St.
Chicago, IL 60605
312.747.4300

--Emmaline

Photo by John Foley/Opale

Literary Links: More Summer Reading + A Scavenger Hunt

Author of Twenty Boy Summer hosts an awesome 20 Things in 20 Days Scavenger Hunt! [via Sara Hockler]

Celebrate a Shakespearean Summer and take the challenge to read three of Shakespeare’s plays this summer. [via Livs Book Reviews]

Looking for some good summer reading? Check out this massive book giveaway. [via Book Dads]

Want to be entertained by some witty repartee while looking for a book for younger readers? Look no further. [via Mother Reader]

“So what if there was a TOB/Battle of the Books for the books with less star power?” [via YA Fabulous]

--Rachel Frier

Author Reading and Book Signing: Lucinda Fleeson

If you'll be in the D.C/MD/VA area this week,
author Lucinda Fleeson will be reading and signing copies of her recent autobiography, Waking Up in Eden: A Tale of Passion, Peril, and Earthly Delights in a Botanical Paradise.

Event details:

Lucina Fleeson Book Reading and Signing:
Tuesday, June 16th, 6:30pm
Downtown Barnes and Noble
555 12th St. NW
Washington, D.C.

UL will be in attendance. Hope to see you there!

Literary Links: Hipster Bookworms; Marilyn Monroe's Hardback

The Hipster Book Club, and the general hip-ness of reading. Prepare to be amused. [via Book Patrol]

Years after her death, Marilyn Monroe-themed book covers are still hot. [via Caustic Cover Critic]

Dickens' Little Dorrit's available any which way you want: on the Kindle, iPhone, paperback, and audibook. [via So Many Books]

At DoubleX, Rachel Cusk promotes The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy, her memoir of moving to Italy. She also discusses her two memoirs and her novels. [via Double X]

Jessa Crispin of Bookslut offers her thoughts on Rachel Cusk’s book promotion and interviews. [via Bookslut]

--Rachel Frier

Lit Talk: Author Carol Guess

Carol Guess is an ethereal-looking blonde with bright blue eyes and an extensive ballet background. She is also a feminist, a lesbian, a professor of English, and a novelist and poet who has recently published a book of prose poetry entitled Tinderbox Lawn. Set in the underbelly of Guess’s hometown of Seattle, the poems have been praised by Jen Currin as “a tea so sharp it cuts teacups to shards,” and Guess’s voice as “vulnerable and unbreakable.” Below are some words from the voice herself in a 2004 interview with Julia Bloch from Curve magazine, after the publication of her poetry collection Femme’s Dictionary.

Julia: You're an accomplished novelist, yet this is your first collection of poetry--are you new to poetry?

Carol: I began writing poetry long before I began writing fiction. In fact, I did my M.F.A. at Indiana University in poetry, not fiction. However, because my first novel was accepted before my first collection of poetry, I got tracked as a fiction writer ... but the lines between genres are very blurry for me. I'm interested in writing that crosses boundaries, that mixes fact with fiction, sense with sound.

Julia: Do you feel like you use a different muscle when you write poetry or prose?

Carol: I tend to work in short bursts, and from a really kinesthetic place--writing is somehow very physical for me. I'm really hyperactive--I used to be a ballet dancer--and when I write fiction I sometimes feel stuck and bogged down. Yet there are many stories I can't tell in the short stretch of a poem; that's when I turn to prose.

Julia: Talk about your title a bit.

Carol: As a femme lesbian, I struggle with questions about invisibility, so including the word "femme" in the title felt important. I was also thinking of the French word for "woman," and thinking about the way so many words are shaped by male notions about who can speak when, where and what. I wanted a title that made reference to my identity as a lesbian but also to my life as a woman who has defied patriarchal constraints.

Julia: The first poem in your book sounds like it could almost be a sestina. Do you like playing with forms?

Carol: I think of myself as using "ghost forms"--forms that can't be notated or recorded, but that suggest themselves to me while I'm writing. I love playing with repetition, using it to suggest the idea of form without actually adhering to the rules.

***

Those of you in the Chicago area (or who will be in the Chicago area for Pride Weekend) can catch Carol Guess at the following spots:

Thursday, June 25 at 7:00 p.m.
Fixx Coffee Bar
3053 N. Sheffield Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657
773.248.0841

Friday, June 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Women & Children First
5233 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60640
773.769.9299

Saturday, June 27 at 2:00 p.m.
Dancing Girl Press Studio Salon
Fine Arts Building, Studio 921
410 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605

--Emmaline Silverman

Photo by Elizabeth J. Colen