Tag: books

Favorite Collections of Collections (of Stories)

Near 700 pages, The Stories of John Cheever is the latest collection of story collections I have acquired, albeit on loan from the local library. This volume begins with “Goodbye, My Brother” and ends with “The Jewels of the Cabots.” It is organized chronologically–in the order the stories were written. This differs from some other collections that simply take the original short story collections, as titled, and place them next to one another in the book, maintaining the original story order within each section–Eudora Welty’s Stories, Essay, Memoir comes to mind.

Below is a list of my favorite hefty collections. What are yours?

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Get Your Time Travel On

I conducted an informal survey (as informal as they get–meaning a social networking call for opinions) of what books, which have involved time travel, folks have enjoyed. Responses included The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger), A Wrinkle In Time (Madeline L’Engle), Time’s Arrow (Martin Amis), The Anubis Gates (Tim Powers), The Time Machine (H.G. Wells), A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain), and 11/23/63 (Stephen King).

One of the best books I’ve read in a long time is Felix Palma’s The Map of Time. I can’t say anything except that it is incredible. I fear any characterization would taint or spoil it. Go in blind. I promise it will be good.

On par with Palma, but owning a bigger piece of my heart, is Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I am delighted and frightened by the news that the mini-series will finally be produced. Thank god it’s at least the BBC taking on this ambitious task.

For a sexier and lighter page-turner, I’ve enjoyed Diana Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. I absolutely flew through the second book, and was depressed the third is not out yet.

The pastiche of Clark’s book gives the text a timelessness–the whole book feels like an artifact. Palma also immerses us in the past, and then the further-past. Harkness begins her trilogy in the present day–but later, the threads of time must slip. Go get your time travel on!

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New American Fiction, Swamplandia!, & the 2012 non-Pulitzer

“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,”  by Karen Russell, was one my favorite stories I discovered in college. I first encountered it in the The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, edited by Ben Marcus. If I recall, there was also a stellar Wells Tower story in there: “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.” And how could I forget Padgett Powell’s “Scarletti and the Sinkhole”? This collection very much shaped my taste, in that it was the first story anthology I’d read where I loved the majority of the stories chosen by the editor. I sought out additional works by several of these authors.

However, it was only in the last month that I stumbled across the hardback story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, at my public library. Then, I got an email that let me know it was finally my turn to check out Swamplandia!, Russell’s 2011 novel, which was also a NYT Best Book of the Year. I think my name had been in that library queue for over a year.

You may recall the minor frenzy resulting from Karen Russell, Denis Johnson, and David Foster Wallace being snubbed by the Pulitzer board. The New Yorker published a letter from the Pulitzer jury explaining what happened.

I had to return both Russell books in three weeks, as others had requested them. Swamplandia! picked up quickly, and I couldn’t put it down. What was wonderful was being immersed in this absolutely bizarre, yet real, world of the Ten Thousand Islands. I say, go read it–at the very least, put it on your summer reading list.

I wonder if that fact that the novel is told from an adolescent perspective held it back–if the characters were not teenagers, but adults, would it have appealed more to the Pulitzer judges? Obviously, the story cannot exist in any other context, with different main characters, but I’ve thought about this: Why do some adults have such an aversion to reading fiction that is in a teenage or adolescent perspective? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s the case for some readers. What assumptions do these readers make? Are they, in some ways, correct?

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On Writers: Biography

I don’t consider myself to be well-read when it comes to the genre of biography. However, I stumbled across two wonderful recent biographies this past year, thanks to the “New” shelf at my public library. Both are tomes. Both had sections that were hard to push through at times, due to being so dense with information. However, I loved them both, and I’d recommend them to anyone with even a cursory interest in the writer.

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Is Memoir a Dirty Word?

Is Memoir a dirty word? Do critics shun the genre?  There seemed to be a period there where nearly everyone had published a memoir; simply having a pulse was enough motivation to put your life on the page. Sort of how nearly everyone I met in my twenties claimed to be a photographer.

Who can forget the James Frey scandal? “Memoir” is, indeed, a contract with the audience: I will only lie about small details.

Many folks have knocked the genre. Hanna Miet sums up the debate in her article “Lies, Truth, and Memory: The Memoir Debacle”:

One of the most recent inflammatory articles was The Problem with Memoirs by Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, which called for “a moment of silence” for the “lost art of shutting up.”

Genzlinger laments the “bloated” genre, which used to be dominated only by writers who had achieved something (that Genzlinger deems) extraordinary.  Today, he says, “memoirs have been disgorged by virtually every­one who has ever had cancer, been anorexic, battled depression, lost weight. By anyone who has ever taught an underprivileged child, adopted an under­privileged child or been an under­privileged child. By anyone who was raised in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s, not to mention the ’50s, ’40s or ’30s. Owned a dog. Run a marathon. Found religion. Held a job.”

Then Genzlinger, who has never written a memoir, goes on to list four prerequisites for writing about your life, while reviewing four recent memoirs in the process. (And hating on all but one of them, obviously.)

In Get Me Up Close To the Lives of Others at HTML Giant, Roxane Gay says there is an inherent problem with blanket dismissals like Genzlinger’s — a problem with “Problem With” articles. “The ‘problem’ with dismissing memoir, and particular memoirs written by young writers or chronicling the ordinary life is that it assumes we can only become worthy reporters of our lives, and chroniclers of our memories through aging or experiencing something profound,” Gay said. “There is undoubtedly a certain wisdom that comes with age or experiencing something profound but there is also wisdom to be found in ordinary experiences.  Neither writing nor remembrance are easy tasks and as such I have a real respect for writers who take the journey inward regardless of what inspired that journey.”

Slight and poorly written books exist in all genres. Discounting the whole genre seems rash.

I realized I judge the genre as well, even though I didn’t think I did. I figured this out when I noted I only read memoirs in the summer. Once summer comes and I have two weeks off of work, I find myself browsing the New/Popular section at my local library and picking up memoirs. It’s easier to sit at the kitchen table and read while also conversing with a child about Phineas and Ferb plotlines if the reading is swift and entertaining, rather than challenging. And “challenging” is not the correct word here, but I hope you know what I mean.

Here are three memoirs I’ve read so far this summer:

The Source of All Things: A Memoir by Tracy Ross

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel, which is a graphic memoir

In The Millions, Jennifer Miller writes “In Defense of Autobiography.”

What do you think? Is memoir a dirty word? Have you read any great books from the genre lately?

—Amber

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Support Local Writers

We should support our local artists, whether they are writers, musicians, or painters. This is a sound philosophy, even if it is sometimes difficult to follow: we can only be so many places at once, afford so many babysitters, stay up late so many nights of the week. We’ve all been there, I’m sure. I want to support my friends’ band, but why are they playing at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday? That reading sounds great…let me find a sitter. However, we can read on our own time—how perfect! So buy some books and magazines and support your local artists. The following list will get you started.

For this post I’m focusing on our local writers and their works that have been published this year. What do I mean by local writer? I’m including those who currently live in Georgia, as well as those who have lived here in the past. Many writers have been to school and /or taught in Georgia, while many current Georgia writers have deep roots elsewhere.

BOOKS

Stephanie Perkins now resides in Asheville. I am super excited to read her debut YA novel, Anna and the French Kiss (Dutton) which comes out in December 2010. Her second book, Lola and the Boy Next Door is set to come out in the Fall of 2011. About Anna:

“Very sly. Very funny. Very romantic. You should date this book.”

— MAUREEN JOHNSON, NYT bestselling author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and Scarlett Fever

 

 

Josh Russell gave us the fantastic Yellow Jack (W.W. Norton, 1999) and now My Bright Midnight, A True Story (LSU Press, 2010).  

“I’ve been waiting for more of Josh Russell’s NOLA since Yellow Jack, waiting patiently, most of the time, and now it’s paid off. This book flat out kicks ass in its New Orleansness but also in its humanness, a novel firing on all cylinders, amazing characters, killer details, lyrical language and a plot that keeps the pages turning. A book worth the wait and worth its salt, a novel to read and reread, to savor, to treasure.”
—Tom Franklin, author of Hell at the Breech and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Ben Spivey’s debut novel, Flowing in the Gossamer Fold, has received blurbs from Brian Evanson and Gary Lutz.

“Ben Spivey’s alluringly melodial debut novel of a marriage gone asunder unreels itself with the indisputable logic of dreams and delivers, along its phantasmagoric and dazing way, emotional clarities that feel entirely new.”

–Gary Lutz, author of Stories in the Worst Way and I Looked Alive

SHORT FICTION

 Much of this short fiction news is lifted from The New South’s Writing Workshop news page. Visit the site for more news.

Sonya McCoy Wilson published the “The Rigor Tree” in Diverse Voices Quarterly as well as “Brown Paper Bags” in TimBookTu (July 2010).

Karen Gentry’s story “Treasure Island,” which appeared originally in NÖO Jornal, has been selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 [Very] Short Fictions 2010.

John Holman’s story “Credentials” (which first appeared in Mississippi Review) has been reprinted in Fictionaut. Holman’s profile of the South’s best bird appears in the Oxford American‘s Best of the South 2010 (May ’10, Issue 69).

Josh Russell’s story “Young Woman Standing Before a Window” has been published in Epoch (Vol. 58, Number 3).

Dionne Irving’s story “Florida Lives” was a finalist for the Mid-American Review‘s 2009-2010 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award.

Cheryl Stiles has published a work of creative nonfiction, “Systems Failure,” in Southern Women’s Review. This essay is part of a book length manuscript of essays entitled On Nelson Street.

If you have additional news, corrections, or links you’d like me to add, please leave the information in the comments section of this post. Thanks for reading.

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June 2010 Books

I’ve gotten a surprising amount of reading done this month; it is only June 11th, thank goodness! I have huge anxiety about the summer months disappearing before I get anything done and I have to go back to full-time teaching in the fall. I’m coming to realize, as I always do, that my word count goals are unrealistic and that I have so much more to figure out about my characters’ temperaments, relationships, obsessions. When I’m stuck in a vague place, say the middle of This Novel, I take a break to read, to immerse myself in other stories.

I’m thinking about how to create and maintain a gothic atmosphere throughout This Novel, how to create darkness in a love story, how to balance desire and control in my characters’ relationships.

When my son and I made our first summer pilgrimage to the library, I came away with books by only one author: Joyce Carol Oates. I’d wanted to pick up some of Oates’ novels anyway, but the books I chose were also influenced by the fact that my son was standing there waiting, having already chosen eight children’s books, which he so patiently held in his little arms. So I grabbed what looked good, what I hadn’t already read; there was no time to browse. This month of June:

Read

Reading

To Read

Each of these works has been wonderful. I forgot how quickly I could move through some novels (this must be Pynchon’s fault). First Love and Beasts had a great effect on me; I’ll give them their own post later, as I’m still thinking about the connections they have to one another. I grabbed The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis off of the New Titles shelf; I remember liking her in grad school and I have not been disappointed. I always look forward to Tin House. Tinkers was an impulse buy on Amazon; I was drawn in by the idea of the New England home the protagonist built himself, the idea of channeling the dead, and the Pulitzer win never hurts. One Amazon reviewer discusses a connection between Paul Harding and Marilynne Robinson, at Iowa. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I loved Robinson’s Housekeeping.

All of these Oates books are great ‘summer reads,’ whatever that seems to mean to people these days. Go read!

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Love: Mo Willems

We made our first summer pilgrimage to the library. We got non-fiction books about tornadoes, Ancient Egypt, and knights. We chose several fiction books, but as I suspected the two Mo Willems books are the favorites. We love the Elephant and Piggie books.

Now we also love Knuffle Bunny.

And Leonardo the Terrible Monster.

Willems’ books can speak for themselves, so I won’t bother listing all of the honors and awards his works have received. Trust me: the praise is well-earned.

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May Chatter: Books

I’ve had several folks recommend I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I just saw a full-page ad for Stieg Larsson’s trilogy on the back of the latest issue of The New Yorker. It sounds like a lot of fun, and here’s an opinion on it that connects back to our earlier discussion of bad writing. Whenever this book becomes available at my library I’m going to check it out. It is currently at the top of the NYT Paperback Mass-market Fiction Bestsellers and Paperback Trade Fiction Bestsellers lists.

The Pregnant Widow, by Martin Amis, is another book getting plenty of publicity. There’s a review in the New York Times as well as an article at Salon that counters several critics: “Martin Amis’ New Novel: Why the Haters are Wrong.”

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The Decade: Catchphrases, Books

I had never heard of “the ask” prior to reading the first item below; now, I’ve heard “the ask” on POTUS six times today. Take a look at Rosenbaum’s criticisms and word play; digest and mull over some of the newest clichés; he gives us his opinion on what’s stale versus still salable. The second item is a list of lists; you need not surf any further in search of book lists.

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