Literary Links: The Kindle gets competition; Book club weighs 'Mustard Seed'

Works of fiction, book news and interesting tidbits to read...before you read.

Dustin Wax at Lifehack.org asks, “Are You a Productive Reader?” What do you think? Should reading necessarily be “productive?” Would that prevent it from being pleasurable? Or can it be both? Which of his suggested techniques do you follow? [via Lifehack.org]

A common complaint against Amazon’s Kindle is that the screen is not backlit, making the black-and-white screen difficult to read in certain circumstances. Watch out, then, for the Magical Hybrid E-Paper LCD, purportedly coming out this fall. [via Gizmodo]

Speaking of e-book technology, check out Feedbooks.com: “A universal e-reading platform compatible with all mobile devices where you can download thousands of free e-books, publish and share your own content, and create customized newspapers from RSS feeds and widgets.” [via Feedbooks.com]

This past February, The New Yorker started a book club readers’ coöperative. The coöperative's June selection will be The Weight of a Mustard Seed, by Wendell Steavenson. [via The New Yorker]

Speaking of book clubs, John Valeri at Examiner.com has posted a three-part series on starting a book club. Looks like a good idea for a pet project to kick off this summer! [via Examiner]

And just for fun, take a look at Charles Dickens’ new (completely fake) product line. [via YouTube]

--Rachel Frier

Photos courtesy Flickr, Amazon

Voices: Love and War in 'The Book of Night Women'

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James is a love story; don't let the jacket information, or any other reviews you read fool you. It's wrapped in a story of slavery, for sure, but the book seeks to answer questions about the human heart: Is there real love on a plantation? Or, more specifically, can love exist between master and slave, white and black?

On Montpelier Estate, where the half-Ashanti, half-white Lilith is born in 1785, love is hard to find. Born to a teenage slave and a heartless overseer, Lilith’s mother dies and she is given over to the barren, unfeeling slave Circe. Circe don't love Lilith, or anyone else for that matter, and the child grows up lonely. She's headstrong and smart and brave. All these things she needs to be, as she matures amidst the ongoing battle Jamaica's white planters wage against their slaves in the late 18th century.

The book is written entirely in Jamaican patois. Patois, or patwah, generally refers to a non-standard version of a language, and in James's Night Women it means upon becomes 'pon, and pronouns like "that" are cast aside. Reading it was like music. There is a beauty in the shape and relationship of the words, and it is made even clearer by the contrast it creates with the actual content. Here's the first paragraph of the book:



Caribbean sugar cane plantations were notoriously violent and cruel institutions. The island that James creates is no different. The violence is compounded by the complete lack of morals. Slaves are taught to lie for their masters, masters lie to themselves, overseers lie on slaves, and slaves lie on slaves. Black women are never women or girls, but always cunt, bitch, niggerwoman. Punishments are doled out unjustly, and not for discipline. Whippings, gang rapings, lynchings, and burnings are for spite, jealousy, blind rage on the part of an old woman that gets tired of her husband coming home smelling like female niggers.

But slaves are not blameless. On James' Montpelier, skinfolk ain't your kinfolk, and can't be trusted anymore than the bosses. Field Negroes hate house Negroes, house Negroes hate master. A slap on the slave's cheek might earn the master or mistress a steady stream of piss in her next bowl of soup, or dog poo-poo in place of molasses in a sweet meal. The ruthlessness that the masters use against the slaves is turned around on them, unknowingly. But a lump of Negro spit in a cup of tea isn't near enough atonement for the misery the Wilson family inflicts on its hundreds of slaves. So, whether they be strong Ashanti that come straight from "the Africa," yellow-skinned mulattoes all tracing their lineage back to one raping overseer, or colony-born Negroes that don't know of a world not surrounded by the stalk of the sugar cane, everyone agrees that life in Jamaica on a sugar plantation is hell incarnate.

Lilith is born into all of this, a dark-skinned, green-eyed mulatto raised by Circe and Tantalus the mad nigger. Ever since Tantalus showed her the picture of the white girl sleeping with the white prince standing over her and staring at her with love, that is what Lilith wants. And damn if her "spiritedness" doesn't earn her some love, but it comes in a form that she doesn't expect. The man's white all right, but not the white she was expecting. Lilith and he love all right, but not the way she was expecting. And Lilith’s heart is hard, an unexpected side effect of her short, tormented life. The last few chapters find her having to make some hard decisions and ask herself some difficult questions. Their relationship, built on the mutual distrust and lies that slave and master share, grows but is stunted. She is haunted by her past, by her allegiance to the Night Women, and by the blood on her hands.

The book's namesake refers to a league of women, all connected in a way that only plantation Negroes can be, who meet at night with the plot to be like Saint-Domingue and form a free black community. Their leader is Homer, an old, battle-worn, austere house slave that runs the roost at the Estate's great house. She saves Lilith from death and harm whenever she can, and appreciates the girl's bullheaded qualities. But Lilith and Homer are slaves and so their bonds can only be so strong; it's nothing for one to snap on the other or watch the other head to a horrible fate.

At 432 pages, the hardcover edition is a surprisingly fast read. The book is vulgar, yet beautiful with plenty of look-away, flinch-worthy chapters that beg you to keep reading. James is an exceptionally gifted storyteller with an ear for the voices that make a character come to life. He's been compared to everyone from Toni Morrison to Zadie Smith, but his novel stands on its own two Negro feet.


-- Whitney Teal

Lit Talk: Kramerbooks' Miguel Aldaco

Of all those in the book community, none is cooler than the hipster bookstore employee. Knowing that he'd have the scoop on the indie bookstore scene in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood, we went to Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe and asked a few slightly random questions of one Miguel Aldaco. The answers are below.

Nicole Crowder: I was curious about your tattoos. Can you tell us about those?

Miguel Aldaco: Yeah, I got these in San Francisco. Basically, I love monkeys, as you might be able to tell at this point.

Whitney Teal: Do you have a monkey, like a pet monkey?

Miguel: (laughs) Oh no, I would never do that. They’re not meant for pets. They’re basically—you have this guy, right, he’s a little bit in flux. He’s got the Bible, he’s got the booze. But you have this guy walking away from him, but also walking toward him at the same time.

Nicole and Whitney: Very cool.

Nicole: How long have you been working at Kramer's?

Miguel: A year and a half.

Nicole: What brought you here initially?

Miguel: Basically, my girlfriend was looking for a job. We just spent two years in the Middle East. She got her Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies so we figured why not come out here. But I think we’re having a tough time adjusting to the city even after this long. I think we’re thinking about moving to New York, to be honest.

Whitney: So does everybody. It’s the type of city people think about moving to all the time.

Miguel: (laughs). And then you get here and you’re like “maybe not.”

Whitney: So you were in San Francisco before you moved here?

Miguel: Yes, well technically I was living in Oakland.

Nicole: What kind of clientele do you see coming in and out of Kramerbooks regularly?

Miguel: Pretty mixed. To be honest, since we’re in a gay-friendly neighborhood we get a lot of that situation. I mean, really, everybody to be honest. It’s a tourist destination which is one thing that is kind of interesting. On the weekends we get a whole different crowd than we do during the weekdays. Different kind of folks all over: some kind, some not-so kind (laughs)

Whitney: You mentioned that Kramer’s is a tourist destination. Do you know anything about the history of the store or why people flock to it so much?

Miguel: Well, we were known back when the Clinton administration was in. We were subpoenaed by Kenneth Star to release the information about the books that Monica Lewinsky bought for Clinton. I don’t remember the exact name of the book, but the owner is in the other room; He knows the whole story. You could ask him. I think they’ve been here 20 years or something like that [Kramer's celebrated it's 30th anniversary in 2006].

Nicole: Do you have recommended titles that you like to read or a lot titles you’ve seen people buying lately?

Miguel: Yeah, one of the things that’s been kind of hot right is the book called Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo. I don’t know if you guys have seen that. It kind of gets into the idea of the way we’ve been handling aid being sent to Africa is totally wrong. She does it without getting personal and being really aggressive about the situation, but just kind of recommending what should be corrected. It’s been a pretty hot seller. There is another that’s my favorite book right now. It’s called Motherless Brooklyn [by Jonathan Lethem]. It’s about a kind of a tourettic detective. It’s more just about him trying to work his way through each situation. We all have our issues when we’re interacting with people, but for him it’s just so extreme. If he were me, he’d be tapping you on the shoulder constantly or something like that. It’s pretty hilarious, too. It actually gets pretty funny. It’s a tale of fiction, but it’s quite good.

Nicole: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, Miguel.

Miguel: My pleasure.

If you're interested in visiting Kramer books yourself, here's where you can find them:

Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe
1517 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

--Nicole C.

Voices: Candide by Voltaire

Voltaire’s short novel, Candide synthesizes the main conflicts that brewed and erupted during the Enlightenment of the 18th Century: reason vs. rationalization.

Born François Marie Arouet in 1694, Voltaire’s formative years were spent in Paris, where he contributed to what would become the city’s long-standing reputation for protesting government and church doctrine. Francois Marie Arouet often expressed his detest of the French government’s lack of willingness to act on behalf of the poor. He worked as an assistant to a lawyer in Paris, was appointed as a secretary to the French ambassador in the Netherlands, kicked out for presumably trying to elope with a French refugee woman named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer, and thrown in and out of jail and exile by the French government—all before his mid twenties! It is after his incarceration inside the Bastille in 1717 that Francoise Marie Arouet assumed the pen name, Voltaire. Historians and writers have attributed the adopted name to many aspects of Voltaire’s early life, including its semblance to the name of his family’s boat “Airvault”. However, most feel the pen name speaks to “voltage” and "speed", and Voltaire’s penchant for quick wit and sharp retorts. He developed a taste for satire, and this interest—coupled with a growing anger over the lack of equality amongst men during 18th Century France—made Voltaire a key player and dangerous threat to challenging traditional thoughts.

At a time when the religious authorities had much more involvement in political policy, much of the leading thought was that everything happens in a rationalized way—for the good of all things. Enlightenment thinkers—Voltaire in particular—saw fault with this idea for a number of reasons. For one, rationalization was used as an enabler for church and aristocratic despotism. The aristocracy used the idea of rationalization to promote ongoing chains in noble rule. Church doctrine condoned prejudice and fear tactics by having witch hunts and public persecutions against persons with different religious ideologies. With this, there was a sort of blissful optimism that French society co-signed with because the church and the aristocracy wrote these acts off as being necessary. It is that sentiment exactly that Voltaire satirizes in Candide (optimism) through his blissful protagonist of the same name. At a time when science and theoretical ideas were developing, many Enlightenment champions found scientific evidence of why there were natural disasters, or why people died, to be more reasonable than simply saying they were means working toward the same good ending.

Published in 1759, Candide is about satirizing blissful optimism (or blissful ignorance as Voltaire might describe it) and hypocrisy. It is not wholeheartedly about one person, though Candide is the protagonist, but rather a cross section of groups that Voltaire wishes to criticize. Each character represents a different part of that cross section. Candide is the Every Man. Voltaire paints a portrait of a kind-hearted and naïve young man living in a castle with little to no worries. He has an equally naïve mentor named Pangloss who is well versed in “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” who schools Candide in the belief that everything is the “best of all possible worlds.” According to Pangloss, there can be no better world than the one we are in. If there were, we would be living there. It is evident that Voltaire is comparing Pangloss to and taking jabs at the famous philosopher Leibniz, who believed that God created the world, and thus created the best world possible for humans to live. The Grand Inquisitor that Candide encounters plays the role of the hypocritical church. Other characters like Martin leverage the philosophical rationalizations by interjecting more realistic viewpoints of the world.

With Candide, Voltaire essentially creates a tape recorder without a stop or pause button. Characters who are otherwise innocent endure terrible misfortune after misfortune. Voltaire’s delivery is stark and unyielding until the very last page. He in no way tends to mollify the plight of his characters. When they are mutilated, burned, tortured, raped, subjected to cannibalism, and all together left for dead Voltaire takes three paragraphs to allow you to collect your nerves before moving on to the next blunder. It’s not because he does not not care about or want a better outcome for his troupe; Voltaire is simply taking jabs at philosophical doctrine that waves its hand over human atrocities and says, “But it’s for the good of all things”.

In viewing Voltaire’s work and whether or not one agrees with his stance on rationalization over reason, the answer seems relevant. In reading any type of history on people, it is important to understand the context or the time frame in which the events occurred. The way most people view optimism in the 21st Century is not the same view of optimism—wayward or not—that Voltaire was lashing out against during the 18th Century. On the whole, churches in the modern Western world are not burning heretics at the stake for the public good. There is a larger divide between religion and politics, and knowledge across all fields is much more expansive.

The pace of Candide is steady, and Voltaire keeps your eyes wide and mind racing with every page. He strips back layers of society and removes comfort bubbles, and lays everything bare. Landscapes that started out lush eventually become barren battlefields. Even though Voltaire approaches the misfortunes of his characters in a raw manner, there are still pockets of soul and sympathy. When Candide, beaten down and near exhaustion, happens upon a dying Negro slave he feels the most empathy because he recognizes a man who is essentially helpless and innocent, and that despite being so he is not immune to the horrors of the world.

Despite satirizing optimism, Voltiare is not against it, as is evidenced by the book's ending. Candide stands in a garden reminiscent of the Garden of Eden and says to his surviving troupe, “Let us cultivate our garden.” To borrow a quote from Dr. George Hahn, Professor of British Literature Studies at Towson University, “And the book's final work is in a garden—where Candide now keeps his feet on the ground, unlike Pangloss, whose head is in the clouds. Thus, Voltaire affirms reason over rationalization.”

Oh Snap!: Fashionable Bookworms

Fashion blog couple Hanna & John from Sweden have been spotted indulging in new novels all across Europe. The couple vacation together in between semesters, and can most usually be spotted with a good book in tow. Check 'em out here

Literary Links

Works of fiction, book news and interesting tidbits to read...before you read.


New York City's library system faces 22 percent budget cut. (Library Journal)

"Ava's Apartment": a short story by Jonathan Letham. (The New Yorker)

Wintergirls, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, is possibly triggering, definitely thought-provoking, says Jezebel. (Jezebel)

The right to write about it: Hurricane Katrina in poetry. (Bookslut)

Ain't no stopping Colson Whitehead (p.s. Amazon calls his novel, Sag Harbor, the best of the month of May). (Omnivoracious)

Lifestyle Gumbo: Eatonville, Florida

[Eatonville restaurant, Washington, D.C.]

A delightful new restaurant has opened up here in Washington, D.C. this week. Now, we have restaurant openings all the time in our fair city, but this one is particularly special: It's inspired by Zora Neale Hurston!

Yes, Eatonville, which opened on Tuesday, May 12 in D.C.'s U Street Corridor is named after the legendary writer's Florida hometown and features Florida swamp-certifed dishes like Fish and grits (served with the fish of the day, buttery grits and collard greens), shrimp and sausage etoufee, and of course lots of crispy chicken, mashed potatoes and Cajun fries.

I had a chance to check them out on Saturday night, along with two of my friends. We were planning to go to Busboys and Poets (a fantastic, literary U Street institution that I'll write about later, I'm sure), but saw Eatonville and thought it might be a great change of pace.

It was packed, and we ate outside until it began to rain. Then we were moved to a long, family-style table with other patrons who had got caught in the torrent. My food was great (I was a little afraid to order the fish and grits that I wanted, so I opted for the safe choice of crispy chicken and cajun fries. Greens were also in the entree, but never arrived with my food.) The wait staff was very friendly, and I will definitely go back to sample other dishes.

[Zora Neale Hurston]

Sidenote: I just purchased a copy of the first Hurston biography in 25 years, Wrapped In Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd. I'm just a couple of pages in, but I'm definitely on the fence. Boyd's writing is extremely poetic and flowery, but I wonder if that takes away from the fact-based nature of the genre?

If you are at all of fan of Hurston, please, please, please get yourself to D.C. to take a look at Eatonville. Even if you don't eat, the beautiful imagery (all inspired by Hurston's life and works) are enough to keep you entertained.

Eatonville
2121 14th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
202.332.ZORA


Check out this video, from EatonvilleRestaurant.com. The restaurant is searching for a few countrified chefs and decided to catalogue their quest on their Web site. Here's episode 1:

Eatonville Chef Search episode 1 from Electric Communications on Vimeo.

Voices: Silver Lining: A Letter to You

Thankfully, in the middle of our feeling disturbed or bothered or anxious or stagnant there is a silver lining to every situation that will bring all things into clarity. Recently, when my mind felt like it was being scattered to the four winds, I found the silver lining in one of the "happiest places on Earth": the bookstore.

I went to Barnes & Noble after work one Friday and gathered as many books as I could hold. Books I've wanted to read for a long time but never got around to. Books I've fingered and thumbed through over and over just because of their pretty covers. I had collected Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, Andrea Levy's Fruit of the Lemon, and lastly, Maya Angelou's Letter to My Daughter. It is this book that dug a little hole in my mind and nestled itself in the crevices of my thoughts and whispered a secret: you are human and you are free to live with wonder in your eye, courage in your spirit, and unabashed love in your heart. All of which are virtues that sometimes take longer to manifest themselves, but are nevertheless always present.

With her trademark sense of cool, Maya Angelou reveals her own life lessons with a soft yet unshakable voice. She's incredibly candid with her personal stories of being beaten by a lover, having a child out of wedlock at a young age, knowing her mother's unconditional love, and learning that being a philanthropist does not always equal being charitable.

My personal favorite was a short anecdote about how Angelou experienced her own shortcomings in humility. In a chapter entitled "Senegal", Angelou speaks of how she ventured to Senegal to visit a couple who operated in the upper echelon of the artistic and intellectual circles. She was the guest of honor in their home during a dinner party they had arranged. Angelou talks of how she walked among the dinner guests and made her way into a room that had a decadent carpet on the floor. Her mind flashed back to a woman she had known in previous years who would not allow her maids to walk on her good carpets, declaring that if anyone is going to wear down her good carpet it will be her family and friends. Angelou commences to walk across this beautiful carpet belonging to her Senegalese friends, showing that a carpet is meant to be stepped on. The guests look at her and offer hospitable smiles. Angelou finally steps away from the carpet after her attempts did not encourage more people to join her. The maids come in and roll up the carpet she had walked on, but they replace it with another--one more beautiful this time. The maids then begin placing silverware and plates and decadent dinner entrees onto the carpet, and Ms. Angelou begins to feel her face and neck burning with embarrassment realizing she has just walked across the dinner table. She offers this timeless piece of advice to women and girls everywhere:

"The epitome of utter sophistication is simplicity. In an unfamiliar culture it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons."

Letters to My Daughter offers poetry and prose from one of the most giving and candid literary figures to stir up the richness inside every woman. She treats your ills with laughter, stimulates your mind with questions, and fills your heart with joy knowing that you are armed with a slightly stronger arsenal to keep you encouraged in the world. It is, among other things, a book about values and about knowing when to fight for yourself. It is also about about being daring in the face of adversity, lessons in judging others and measuring ourselves against pillars we were not meant to.

The following is a picture of a video clip that Amazon.com has provided of Maya Angelou introducing her book. If you click the following picture, you'll be directed to the video.

The Big Read

One of the biggest initiatives to help promote reading across the country is now underway. The Big Read is happening in cities large and small, and currently 208 communities are participating as the events kicked off in September 2008.

For readers in D.C, our events take place during the months of April-May with the official kick off of The Big Read D.C happening on April 25th at 11am. Writer/Co-producer of The Wire George Pelecanos will be present. The Humanities Council of Washinton, located at 925 U. Street NW started reading and discussing Carson McCullers' The Heart is A Lonely Hunter on April 1st. But be not weary oh ye anxious bibliophiles. This coming Tuesday, April 7th, at King Jordan Student Academic Center, First Floor G Area, Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002 there will be another discussion of this novel. Here's a link to the list of events happening in D.C concerning The Big Read. I would love to check out the film "Deaf Characters in Popular Films: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" showing at the MLK Library on April 21st or the Dance performance happening just a few days after.

The site also lets you check what others communities across America are reading, and even offers radio clips, essays and interview excerpts for you to engage in. One of my favorites is the radio clip of Alice Walker speaking about the woman whom she helped the world rediscover: Zora Neale Hurston.

Later this year, Uptown Literatti aims to be a contributing member to The Big Read's initiatives, so be on the look out for a big announcement in the summer.

The Amazon Wish List

Dear UL readers, here is something else that you must, must know about me: I am a listmaker. I have lists for everything. Grocery lists, to-do lists, things to do before I'm 25 lists, books/stories I want to write lists, movies I want to see lists, jobs to apply for...if it can be done, then I will list it.

So, the Amazon Wish List has become a virtual smorgosboard of inspiration for me. Not only can I keep track of all the fabulous books I hear about on NPR (which never seem to make their way to my home!) or friends, I can also remember that I have to snag a pair of Vera Wang for Kohls' cute purple gloves.

If you don't have one, get one immedately. It really helps to relieve some of the anxiety you feel when you know there's good stuff out there that you keep forgetting to do/read.

Some of the books on my to-read list are:

The Book of Night Women, Marlon James: An NPR find, this book sounds fascinating. I'll actually be reading it, God-willing, once I finish The Stranger by Albert Camus.

Said the Shotgun to the Head, Saul Williams. I'm not a fan of poetry, but I am a huge Saul Williams fan. He's the sexy, artsy hustler of my dreams.

The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling. I'll admit that I had no idea one of my favorite childhood movies was a book. After Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wintz named their firstborn Bronx Mowgli, I was inspired to read the inspiration.

Click here for the full list. What books will you put in your to-read wish list?