PW:Why Buy a Bestseller? A post by Bud Parr, "The Culture of Impatience And The Real Market," makes me wonder why we find popularity appealing in a book (any artwork or entertainment I suppose). Does a story seem more interesting to you after you learn thousands of others--faceless, nameless readers--bought it and, by inference, liked it?

I think it lends credibility to it for me. For instance, The Kite Runner and The Time Traveler's Wife have been on bestseller lists for a long time. When I notice them again, I think they must be halfway decent, maybe even good. I want to read them sometime, and since I'm a slow reader and buyer, sometime takes a while.

But The Da Vinci Code is working against this feeling. The more I'm exposed to it, the more I dislike it, so when I see it again on a bestseller list, I am reminded that even lousy books sell big if they push the right buttons. This cooperates with my growing distrust of bestseller lists in general, and at the end of the day, I go to sleep unimpressed by any title I saw on any list.

And yet--great books will sell, won't they? Quick readers will rejoice over a new, wonderful novel and tell their friends who may buy it soon and influence someone's list, and thus Gilead sold 345, 000 or so last year. Word of mouth is how books are sold, right? Maybe bestseller lists are the faceless equivalent of hand selling or personal recommendation. Attention: This week, hundreds of readers like you bought Mama's Gravy Is Too White, by Amos Picklebeer. It may be the one you are looking for. Give it a try for 10% off. - phil

Tags: bestseller, books, novel, bookselling  ¶ 5/31/2006 10:19:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Fatherhood and The Buddha I listened to couple podcasts today, one from Chronicle Books. Professionally nice, funny, dealing with the protocol for vomiting on the rollercoaster and details of a travel guide to the no-doubt lush paradise of Phaic Tan. While browsing the Chronicle Books site, I found a book on fatherhood called, Crouching Father, Hidden Toddler.

Experienced dad and aspiring guru C.W. Nevius expounds on the ancient concept of wu wei (i.e., going with the flow) as well as some handy tips picked up from kung fu movies. An array of short essays ponder on such koans as what is the sound of one child napping?

Deep. What is the sound of one child napping? I feel peace washing over me simply as I'm trying to remember it. - phil

Tags: fatherhood, zen, humor, parenting, funny  ¶ 5/31/2006 09:55:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: I Think I'll Name My Next Child Damien Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, says, "Let the 6/6/06 Madness Begin!" His new book, Man of Sin, which deals with the biblical statements on the Antichrist, is now available. Looks like a great book. There's certainly a need for clarity on this subject. - phil  ¶ 5/31/2006 12:53:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Austen, Austen, Everywhere in the UK Jane Austen's Persuasion is raining from the skies in Portsmouth, England, and the Hampshire County Council loves it. "Richard Ward, the head of libraries, said: 'This is a simple, but brilliant idea and hopefully will get people reading and encourage people into our libraries.'" - phil

Tags: jane austen, books, libraries, Persuasion, England, classics  ¶ 5/31/2006 12:27:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Dan Brown John Zmirak reports on a conversation:

But Ted didn’t rise to the bait. He just shook his head. “Dan Brown’s not anti-Christian. He’s not anti-anything. I doubt he’s pro-anything, either, except pro-Dan Brown. That book has as much of an agenda as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hockey. Dan Brown doesn’t have enough conviction to make a decent agnostic. . . . But he wanted to be a novelist. He kept pestering me about it, so finally I gave him this paperback, Writing the Blockbuster Novel, by Albert Zuckerman. It’s a paint-by-numbers guide on how to write a page-turner.

[by way of Will Duquette] Tags: dan brown, thriller, writing, Da Vinci Code  ¶ 5/30/2006 11:41:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Vote for the Great American Novel Power Line has picked a fight over the greatest American novel. Many have chosen to jump on Steinbeck.

But you, yes, you can vote every 24 hours here in the sidebar poll. Will you choose The Sound and the Fury? My Antonia? To Kill a Mockingbird? Let me know. I choose Moby Dick, but seriously, I don't know nothing about voting for no novels. [by way of Books, Inq] - phil  ¶ 5/30/2006 11:19:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Indigestible Also from the NY Times article on literary fiction, Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, states the bottom quarter of a publisher's list is "where much of the best writing is, the work of the odd, uncooperative, intractable, pigheaded authors who insist on seeing and saying things their own way and change the game in the process. The 'system' can only recognize what it's already cycled through. What's truly new is usually indigestible at first."

Tags: writing, books, publishing, writing  ¶ 5/30/2006 12:01:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Publishing the Literary Stuff What does it take to sell literary fiction? This NY Times articles reports the system from publishing house to bookseller is "impatient."

In a market dominated by the big chain stores, if a novel doesn't sell a healthy number of copies in the first two weeks after its publication, its chances of gaining longer-term momentum are slim.

"In the post-9/11 world, we've found it has, until very recently anyway, been more difficult than previously to get the common reader to take a chance on new writers," said Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which publishes Jonathan Franzen and Nadine Gordimer, as well as Marilynne Robinson. "The pressures on literary books are growing, as an ever smaller number of books continues to sell more and more broadly."

I'm not a good test case for the market, because I'm a slow reader which contributes to being a slow buyer; but with books and movies I like, I don't want to run out at get them. Rarely do I feel strongly about a book or movie that I want to buy it soon after its release; I almost never act on that feeling. So booksellers are not serving me by demanding fast sellers, which is another reason I must rely on blogs for my literary understanding. [by way of Arts Journal again] - phil

Tags: books, bookselling, literary fiction, fiction, publishing  ¶ 5/30/2006 12:00:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Those Cartoons Again The June issue of Harper's Magazine reprints those inflammatory cartoons again with a few related one, and Canada's biggest bookseller pulls the issue from its racks. For a bit of context, The Globe and Mail newspaper reports that the founder and CEO of this bookseller pulled Mein Kampf off the shelves, calling it "hate literature." [by way of Arts Journal] - phil  ¶ 5/29/2006 11:16:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:I Am Fierce; Hear Me Squeek! Somedays, I feel like this Siberian Tiger. I'm sure he's wise beyond his years and has something very important to shout about. [alternate link] - phil  ¶ 5/29/2006 05:53:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Dada Da Duh Dadaism was a nihilistic movement from the early 20th Century. “The literary manifestations of Dada were mostly nonsense poems—meaningless random combinations of words—which were read in public,” according to the Columbia Encyclopedia.

In honor of this foolishness, I submit this poem culled from the blogosphere. My methods were to choose the second word from the first entry on a blog found by clicking the eighth link in the blogroll of the preceding blog. I began with this blog. If I ran into a blog twice, I chose the sixteenth link in the blogroll. If a blog won’t load, I clicked randomly. After a bit, I changed my methods entirely (Why do some blog have not blogrolls?)

This bosses the suggests think Geographic
Washington dogg eu em gasolina
Companhia many book towards Down
Weman probably its USS Neverdock
To haven’t you're difference am curriculum

first

Inspiring, no?

Perhaps a blog mutation of Dadaist poetry is random linkage. Let me run with that thought a bit. I just searched for a good quote from Bertie Wooster and found this instead. One thing lead to another . . .

• Double whammy for soybeans this year? Soybean growers are bracing for a soybean aphid population explosion
• Tags: population
• EFF: Fighting for Bloggers' Rights
• Shell Refuses to Meet MEND's Demand
• The thing about reading a Shakespeare play for the first time is that it all seems so familiar.
• Underwear is everywhere, but mostly underneath!
• Some very very big name authors (like Bill Clinton for example) don't have literary agents, they have a lawyer who negotiates for them and gets paid by the hour. MUCH cheaper, even at DC law firm billing rates.

  ¶ 5/29/2006 10:48:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Have a Happy, Happy Day On this holiday weekend with the summer approaching and daily schedules potentially changing, Sherry offers a list of 100 happy, double plus good things to do. In case I sound too silly to be serious, get out the list. It has many great ideas. I know my girls would so enjoy building fairy houses they would do it inside and outside for a year.

Another time-filler I've enjoyed on occasion is Dadaist poetry. I don' t think poem will resemble you at all, but it can be fun to see the hints of meaning in random words. I'll post an example in a few minutes. - phil  ¶ 5/29/2006 08:48:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: The Da Vinci Code Breaker, by James Garlow Even though I am predisposed to dislike The Da Vinci Code, reading James Garlow’s The Da Vinci Code Breaker has given me many more reasons. The book is an easy dictionary for names, places, and terms referenced in or related to Dan Brown’s novel. Though it appears to be written for the reader who is already familiar with the novel, I haven’t read it yet and didn’t find The Code Breaker less easy to understand.

I do have a copy the novel, because a colleague who enjoyed it pushed it my way. I’m not sure I will be able to handle working my way through it. After reading just the opening pages, I heard myself asking why would a professional assassin decide to shoot his victim in the stomach and the head instead of the head alone. It was his decision to make, the victim pinned to the floor in front of him, and he thinks he should use two bullets to kill him instead of one. Then the narrative makes a big deal about the evils of dying from a stomach shot.

James Garlow is more impressed with Brown’s writing, saying “his novelist skills are strong.” On Brown himself, Garlow says he seems “extremely bright.” But Brown attempts to pass off historical hoaxes and poor research as fact and many readers have believed him.

From the history recorded in The Code Breaker, I think Brown’s infamous “fact” page should read:

The Priory of Sion is a hoax imagined by French fascist Pierre Plantard in the mid-1950s. Plantard fabricated documents, Les Dossiers Secrets, and hid them within the Paris National Library, attempting to establish the fiction of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene and their bloodline which led to Plantard being in the family. Plantard admitted under oath that he created the Priory of Sion, but I, Dan Brown, think it’s a cool idea, so I am running with it in this novel.

Opus Dei is a lay-oriented Catholic organization founded by Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in 1928. It has 80,000 members around the world, and the founder wrote a book with some freaky statements in it (I think Roman Catholics are all flakes anyway), I’m making them the bad guys in this novel. Get a load of their expensive new headquarters in New York City.

I have not read Holy Blood, Holy Grail in preparation for this work, and I do not acknowledge a book by such a title exists. I think it's a hoax.

Garlow says that hosts asked him during interviews for his preceding book, Cracking Da Vinci’s Code co-authored with Peter Jones, why he was attacking a work of fiction. The reason is Brown claims that only the story is fiction. All the historic details, he says, are true. Garlow says the average reader can’t tell the fiction from the fact, which I can understand completely because so many tiny details are untrue.

1. Do you know who founded Paris? A Gallic tribe called Parisi. Brown gets that wrong.
2. Do you know how many glass panes are in Le Louvre Pyramide? It isn’t 666. The museum reports 673.
3. Brown describes La Pyramide Inversée as having a tip “suspended only six feet above the floor”; below it is “a miniature pyramid, only three feet tall.” The tips of these two structures are “almost touching.” Doesn’t a yard’s distance seems a little far for “almost touching”?
4. That miniature pyramid is described as coming “up through the floor,” but a close observer can see that it actually sits on the floor and can be moved aside for sweepers.
5. Leonardo Da Vinci did not name his famous painting Mona Lisa, so he wasn’t sending a message through the title. Brown says L’isa is an alternative name for Isis. The Code Breaker states that it isn’t. The English name Mona Lisa was given to the painting by a Da Vinci biographer many years after the artist’s death.
6. Leonardo made notes while painting The Last Supper in which he refers to the figure at Jesus’ right hand as a man, clearly from the artist’s context to be the Apostle John, not Mary Magdalene.
   

Details like these wouldn’t make up the text of many books if Brown hadn’t boasted his accuracy at the start of his novel and in interviews afterward. I don’t doubt he believes the hoax and that he thought he got many minor details right; but The Da Vinci Code and his other novels suffer, at least a little bit, from careless research.

But The Code Breaker reveals more disturbing errors or hoaxes which many people will assume to be true. Why make up stuff like this?

1. The Vatican, which Brown says ruled Christianity and suppressed the true accounts of Jesus’ life in the fourth century, existed only as a simple church at that time. It was not building its new power base, as Brown claims.
2. The books and letters which make up the New Testament were not declared God’s Word by a council. Most of them had been accepted by disciples of Jesus since the time they were first circulated.
3. Brown says English is a pure language, free from the corruption of the Vatican. This is idiotic. The English language comes to us from the German language, so wouldn't German be far more pure than it? Also, many English were imported from the Norman French.
4. Finally, in a section which makes me laugh from a literary perspective, main character Robert Langdon states the church burned five million women as witches over several centuries. The Code Breaker points to sources which record only 55,000 witch trials which resulted in executions and over 20% of the convicts were men. Many of these trials were done by common people, not the Catholic Church.
   

The Da Vinci Code Breaker calls itself “an easy-to-use fact checker,” and I agree. Not only does it include corrections to the novel, but it also describes why the Gnostic writings were rejected, how the Bible was assembled, and other writings or recordings on the issues distorted in The Da Vinci Code.

Tags: Da Vinci Code, dan brown, history, books, church history  ¶ 5/29/2006 12:51:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Review of The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, By Colin Duriez The latest biography from C.S. Lewis scholar Colin Duriez impresses me as a blog-style work. It does not have a flowing narrative which attempts to tell the story of Lewis’ life or, worse, attempts to reveal “the secret” of his success. The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, subtitled “The Indispensable Biography of the Creator of Narnia; Full of Little-Known Facts, Events and Miscellany,” has the feel of third-person diary.

Duriez offers many details from Lewis’ life in the chronological order they occurred with few contextual notes from the past or present. Each chapter is labeled with the years it covers, and after several paragraphs introducing those years, the biography flows according to the date. He includes plenty of historical context in each section, noting the deaths and births of pertinent individuals and events of that year, which may be valuable to literature students who need to be reminded no author writes in a vacuum.

The CSL Chronicles has other context too, lists mostly. For example, the January 31, 1919, entry notes: “This evening, upon invitation, Lewis joins a literary and debating society of the college, the Martlets, as secretary. Membership is limited to twelve.” For context, an explanation of the Martlets with a list of papers delivered by Lewis to the group is on the following page, including this note:

There was another but short-lived undergraduate society, called the ‘Inklings’; in the 1930s its name was transferred to the later famous circle of friends around Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis and Tolkien did attend the original undergraduate ‘Inklings,’ but only as invited dons.

Duriez leaves many details unwritten, perhaps an irritation to readers who already know a good bit about Lewis; but I think this biography is respectably complete. I know I’ve learned some things (but this is also my first Lewis biography to read). For instance, I was disturbed when, earlier this year, Lars referred to sadism in Lewis’ letters before 1918, but a note in The C.S. Lewis Chronicles suggests it is evidence of the impact of the abuse Lewis suffered while in boarding school under the care of madman. Such perversion was a part of his imagination as it were.

I recommend this small, fragmented biography to readers interested in Lewis or his Oxford friends. I think it would be especially useful to trivia fans. - phil

Tags: C.S. Lewis, narnia, biography, Inklings  ¶ 5/27/2006 09:48:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Excerpt from The C.S. Lewis Chronicles March 11 (Wed), 1936
Charles Williams receives his first letter from Lewis, in appreciation of his novel, The Place of the Lion. Lewis invites him to attend an Inklings meeting (the first recorded use of the name). Williams, who has been delighted by the proofs of The Allegory of Love, replies immediately: "If you had delayed writing another 24 hours our letters would have crossed. It has never before happened to me to be admiring an author of a book while he at the same time was admiring me. My admiration for the staff work of the Omnipotence rises every day. . . . I regard your book as practically the only one that I have ever come across, since Dante, that shows the slightest understanding of what this very peculiar identity of love and religion means. . . ."

Spring 1936
Lewis and Tolkien discuss writing time and space stories. Tolkien recalls in a letter [no. 294] that Lewis had one day remarked to him that since "there is too little of what we really like in stories" they ought to write some themselves. "We agreed that he should try space-travel and I should try time-travel. . . . I began an abortive book of time-travel of which the end was to be the presence of my hero in the drowning of Atlantis."

Tags: Charles Williams, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, authors, books, biography  ¶ 5/27/2006 09:45:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Silly Saturday Surveys I hope to blog a good bit today, though as usual it may turn out to be at the end of the day. In the meantime, I could dig up more sword imagery. Instead, I'll offer these Internet quizzes for you.

Many people ask me--they even approach me on the street--out of the blue, "What Stars Wars Character Do You Think You Would Be?" I always give them the same answer:

I am Qui-Gon Jinn
Overall, I'm a pretty well balanced person. But maybe I focus a little too much on the here and now.I should think about the future before it's too late.

Qui-Gon Jinn		68%
C-3PO		63%
R2-D2		58%
Lando Calrissian		58%
Han Solo		58%
Mace Windu		58%
Darth Vader		57%
Obi-Wan Kenobi		57%
Chewbacca		56%
Boba Fett		56%

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)
Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Quiz

It may be the long cloak I always wear and the saber-like device I carry.

And on the theological side, bands of men in red capes often stop me to ask where I stand in their little theology survey. I think they're with the area lodge, but they never offer me any almond logs or parade tickets. The answer I give them is stand up:

I am a Reformed Evangelical. I take the Bible very seriously because it is God's Word. I hold to TULIP and am sceptical about the possibilities of universal atonement or resistible grace. The most important thing the Church can do is make sure people hear how they can go to heaven when they die. John Calvin is my man. I think the biggest problem with most churches is they make a big deal out of minor truths or half-truths.

Reformed Evangelical	86%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan	71%
Fundamentalist	68%
Neo orthodox	46%
Roman Catholic	36%
Charismatic/Pentecostal	36%
Emergent/Postmodern	29%
Modern Liberal	25%
Classical Liberal	21%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
I found both of these quizzes on Gid's blog. [Let me also say officially in an authoritative way that I am proud of the fact that I have published this post 6-7 times. Hello, you wonder RSS readers!!]  ¶ 5/27/2006 10:44:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: The Dane With Lars going to the Tivoli Festival this weekend, I submit this Medieval Danish style two-handed sword for your enjoyment. The Dane: a limited edition from Albion Swords, "a sword made for armoured fighting . . . very stiff, nasty and aggressive." There's only conceptual art available at this time.  ¶ 5/26/2006 05:20:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Christian Fiction in Print Mr. Bertrand links to the few print journals that publish Christian fiction and announces that he will be editing fiction submission for a new journal, called Relief, A Quarterly Christian Expression.

Speaking of journals, I plan to review a new one, called GrendelSong: a Fantasy Magazine of folklore and mythology after I receive the review copy of the first issue in a month or two. - phil

Tags: fantasy, magazines, short story  ¶ 5/25/2006 08:31:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Brought to You by General Electric Also in the Haaretz.com interview referenced below, Raveh Sagi states:

I have an idea for an initiative: I would like to see financial corporations or large industrial firms adopt an author. Let Elite or Strauss or the Israel Electric Corporation be involved in book publishing, even if it's a one-time grant to authors. Like sculpture by an Israeli artist in the lobby of a large high-tech firm - they'll sign on a book that's published.

Anything wrong with that idea? Anything right with it? - phil

Tags: fiction, writers, authors  ¶ 5/24/2006 11:26:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Basic Evil Raveh Sagi, a new writer in Israel, writes about the Holocaust from the common German's perspective, whom he casts as a victim: "There is a tendency to think the Nazis were monsters; when a father murders his daughter and buries her in the forest, he has to be a monster. He can't be like us, because if he is like us, it means we are also harboring such evil."

But he is like us, he says, and we do harbor similar evil. "You can't separate the Holocaust from the circumstances in which it occurred. But there is a basic evil in man, and, in my opinion, what makes us human are our constant efforts to block this evil." [by way of Nextbook.org]

Tags: writers, authors, monsters, evil, humanity, Holocaust  ¶ 5/24/2006 11:11:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:The Machine Within You Several months ago, Steve Talbott wrote:

During 1994-1995 I wrote a book suggesting that the emerging culture of the Internet was infected by a massive and potentially disastrous confusion between our full human capacities and the technical capabilities of the new digital machinery. It's not that the technical capabilities had nothing to do with us. Quite the opposite. The point was that they lived first of all within us: we had to conceive the computer and be capable of thinking like a computer before we could build one. And that's exactly where the danger lay. This thinking and the machine it spawned were extremely one-sided expressions of ourselves. If we continued investing our energies in such one-sidedness, allowing the rapid spread of digital machinery continually to reinforce our own imbalance, then (so I argued) we would eventually descend to the level of our machines without even realizing it. And we would mistake our own descent for a glorious ascent of the machine to a human and then a superhuman level.

The ultimate threat, I claimed in The Future Does Not Compute, was not the operation of the machine "out there" in the physical world, but rather the ongoing amplification and imperial aggrandizement of the machine within us. This is what makes the externalized technology so extremely dangerous.

  ¶ 5/24/2006 10:17:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Praise for Ann Tatlock I just noticed this comment in a Publishers Weekly review of Ann Tatlock's Things We Once Held Dear, published this year: "Tatlock is one of Christian fiction's better wordsmiths, and her lovely prose reminds readers why it is a joy to savor her stories." That's the kind of writer I'm looking for. I'm going to have to pick up Things We Once Held Dear. - phil

Tags: Ann Tatlock, fiction, writers, authors, Christianity  ¶ 5/24/2006 12:40:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Reforming Coffee's Governing Policies The U.S. Government hopes to reform the international laws of coffee trading. According to this report:

The reforms . . . would prioritise environmental sustainability in coffee cultivation, strengthen the contribution of the private sector and help small producers manage the results of "unpredictable market conditions".

Coffee export prices have fallen more than 65 percent below historic averages in recent years, mainly because of over-supply.

The way I understand it, a country like Vietnam can flood the market with lousy coffee, make a little money, and force poor Mexican farmers to sell their beans far below cost. If the farmers can't make enough on their crop to buy food for themselves, they will consider risking their lives by crossing the U.S. southern border in the hope of finding a decent job.

Everything touches everything else, doesn't it?

In case you are wondering, the U.S. is the world's largest coffee importer.

Tags: coffee, border, mexico, immigration  ¶ 5/23/2006 12:24:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Get Caught Reading Tags: books, reading, fun, literacy  ¶ 5/22/2006 09:55:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Fantasy in Modern Setting Sometimes I think of how traditional fantasy elements could work in an modern day setting or how new wizardry and ancient weaponry could be woven into a story set in modern America without being cheesy or focusing on the dark side. I don't want vampire romances or werewolves as heros or horror stories in general. I probably want what's called magical realism.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Are stories like this on the shelf at my neighborhood bookstore?

Tags: fantasy, books, fiction  ¶ 5/22/2006 12:59:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: BookExpo John Freeman of the National Book Critics Circle comments on last weekend's BookExpo America.

Steve Leary, a librarian in Washington D.C., reports on an abrupt abortion of a panel discussion entitled, "The Best American Fiction Since 1980: Results and Analysis from the New York Times Book Review Survey."

Also the President of the American Library Association gave suggestions to the nation's libraries, one of which being to replace old books with eye-appealing new ones. I know this has to be done at some point, but is she suggesting this needs to be a budget priority?

MORE: The folks at First Book have posted some photos of convention, kids, and authors. If you have any doubts that the cover sells the book, walk the floor with 100,000 books around you. Of course, the cover isn't the only seller, but I think it's the primary one in a place like this.

Tags: BookExpo, books  ¶ 5/22/2006 12:02:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Can a Novel Be the Best of All? On Conversational Reading, I noticed this opinion on ranking books in order to designate one as the best from a professional critic who did not participate in the NY Times Best of the Last 25 Years list. Laura Miller says: "Ultimately, novels are so diverse that once they attain a certain level of quality, they really can't be meaningfully ranked against each other."

I think I agree, but I don't think it's a part of me yet, maybe because the whole question is out of my league.  ¶ 5/22/2006 12:01:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Nominated SOB   ¶ 5/22/2006 12:00:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: An Alternate List Perhaps you are already aware, but in case you aren't, Book of the Day is calling for an alternate list of best books in the last 25 years. She asks anyone who blogs about books to nominate and vote. I think Toni Morrison's Beloved is a good choice from the NY Times list and maybe should be the winner of a list like this, but for other potentials I nominated Walker Percy's The Second Coming and Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.

What do you think?  ¶ 5/21/2006 10:32:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:The Day No One Read a Book Author Brenda Coulter comments on the report of a day when readership will be far below the level of published books, that is, "Authorgeddon."

In related news, here's a column from a "video game addict." He says he would rather play Call of Duty 2 than watch most movies or TV. Of course, new technology has some disadvantages, such as live audio from "bozos with microphones."
  ¶ 5/17/2006 12:53:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Publicity Apparently other lit-bloggers have been receiving new invitations for review books and press releases like I have. I thought they had been getting a steady stream of them already, and I was just wading into the flow. As the profile for Brandywine Books rises, I would think down-and-out publicists and editors in New York, Chicago, and Ringgold, GA, have our name on their lips at least once a . . . um, a week, maybe . . . probably having seen our URL scrawled on bathroom stalls in the Hiltons and Barnes & Nobles and like places. We spare no expense on our advertising campaign.

Have you received more invitations from publicists recently? Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network asked a publicist about these "cold call emails." The answer: it's a challenge to respectably promote the books you love in a world of hype. - phil  ¶ 5/17/2006 12:35:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: A Bibliolexicon Danielle of A Work in Progress notes a list of terms for book-related habits or emotions:

• Bibliobibule--One who reads too much
• Biblioclast--One who tears the pages from or otherwise destroys books
• Bibliodemon--A book fiend or demon
• Bibliognoste--One who is knowledgeable about editions, colophons, printers, and all the minutiae of books
• Bibliographe--One who describes books
• Biblioklept--One who steals books
• Bibliolater--One who worships books

That's the first seven as a teaser, so go to her blog for the rest. While I know I am a bibliophile, I wonder if I am something of a bibliomane and maybe even a bit bibliophobic. Why can't things be simple?  ¶ 5/16/2006 09:00:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Related to Link Leak Virus Over the weekend, I lost my internet access at critical moments of free time which spanned the gaps between shepherding my little family, making coffee cake for a Sunday School snack, making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for another snack option as well as part of the reception food at the ballet recital this evening (my little, tutu-clad girls are the cutest things), a few errands including a birthday gift purchase for the three year old, and reading the exciting parts of L.B. Graham's Beyond the Summerland. Though I saw that M.E. Strauss had linked to BwB as a "Link Leak Virus," I could not respond right away, though I was prepared. Thank you, M.E. Let me mark up a few links myself found during a recent and reckless blog browse.

1. under odysseus appears to be blogging through the trials in Homer's Iliad using a modern voice.
2. Bubbles in my Head blogs on writing and literature matters
3. Toni McGee Causey blogs at electric mist and has a three-book deal with St. Martin's Press to work through.
   

In related news, a new site, Blogs with a Face, hopes to build the blogger-reader relationship by linking to blogs through images. They picked BwB to one of their first 200 or so links. What do you think of this idea? BwB is in the fourth row on the right. - phil  ¶ 5/15/2006 11:25:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Best American Fiction NY Times names Toni Morrison's Beloved as the best work of American fiction in the last twenty-five years. I'm not qualified to answer questions like this. I have read Beloved though, and I enjoyed her style, story, everything but the sex.

I see that the Grumpy OB from across the sea doesn't approve, and he links to other big lit-bloggers who likewise complain. "I really cannot be bothered with this. Especially when I find that one of the top dozen or so is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Anyone who thinks that Toole's book is one of the 'best' books of any period longer than three days, in a bad week, is just plain certifiable, and no two ways about it."

Over at the Literary Saloon, editor M.A. Orthofer notes that he reads about 200 books a year, which makes 5,000 books over the past 25 years, "but I've read a mere two of the titles that received multiple votes."

Is this how the classics are determined, the right people casting their votes? - phil

Tags: fiction, books, best books, American  ¶ 5/15/2006 01:00:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: DV Code Not Changing Many Minds Barna Research reports that only 5% of Da Vinci Code readers claim the book changed their beliefs or perspectives. One our of four readers said the book was valuable to their spiritual growth (compare that to the same response by three out of four readers of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord). George Barna said that many survey participants said The Da Vinci Code confirmed what they already believed.

Tags: Da Vinci Code, dan brown, Jesus, books, fiction  ¶ 5/15/2006 12:49:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Nonfiction recommendations? Ella of Box of Books doesn't read much non-fiction and wonders what might pique her interest. Most of the non-fiction I read is boring as she says, but there are points of interest. - phil  ¶ 5/15/2006 12:18:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: More "Reality" TV News Maybe if I watched the shows posing as "reality," I wouldn't be surprised by the news of upcoming shows; but since I mentioned the superhero wannabe show, I feel more inclined to mention the news of show about singer/actresses who hope to land the role of Maria in a new London performance of The Sound of Music, staged by Andrew Lloyd Webber. "How Do I Solve A Problem Like Maria?" will ask TV viewers to vote on the best person for the role.

Did people not get enough of this in grade school? - phil  ¶ 5/12/2006 12:03:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Dear Blogger, Regarding Intolerance Imperfection only is intolerant of imperfection. [This post is taken from Francois Fenelon's letters.]

It has seemed to me that you have need of more enlargedness of heart in relation to the defects of others. I know that you cannot help seeing them when they come before you, nor prevent the opinions you involuntarily form concerning the motives of some of those about you. You cannot even get rid of a certain degree of trouble which these things cause you. It will be enough if you are willing to bear with those defects which are unmistakable, refrain from condemning those which are doubtful, and not suffer yourself to be so afflicted by them as to cause a coolness of feeling between you.

Perfection is easily tolerant of the imperfections of others; it becomes all things to all men. We must not be surprised at the greatest defects in good souls, and must quietly let them alone until God gives the signal of gradual removal; otherwise we shall pull up the wheat with the tares. God leaves, in the most advanced souls, certain weaknesses entirely disproportioned to their eminent state. As workmen, in excavating the soil from a field, leave certain pillars of earth which indicate the original level of the surface, and serve to measure the amount of material removed—God, in the same way, leaves pillars of testimony to the extent of his work in the most pious souls.

Such persons must labor, each one in his degree, for his own correction, and you must labor to bear with their weaknesses. You know from experience the bitterness of the work of correction; strive then to find means to make it less bitter to others. You have not an eager zeal to correct, but a sensitiveness that easily shuts up your heart.

I pray you more than ever not to spare my faults. If you should think you see one, which is not really there, there is no harm done; if I find that your counsel wounds me, my sensitiveness demonstrates that you have discovered a sore spot; but if not, you will have done me an excellent kindness in exercising my humility, and accustoming me to reproof. I ought to be more lowly than others in proportion as I am higher in position, and God demands of me a more absolute death to everything. I need this simplicity, and I trust it will be the means of cementing rather than of weakening our attachment.

  ¶ 5/12/2006 08:40:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: And If Necessary, Use Words Today, I told someone about that famous saying of Francis of Assisi: "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." I knew I hadn't said it right, so I looked it up later. That's always dangerous, you know, looking into things to make sure you're correct. By looking into this quote, I discovered it isn't a quote of Francis at all.

In this Q&A column, a Franciscan says he heard the quote for the first time after being in the order for 28 years. In 2000, a friend of his asked several scholars about it. No one can link it to Francis despite the statement being very much like one he would make. - phil  ¶ 5/10/2006 09:47:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: I Did Get #2 Right The Wall Street Journal offers what they call a "moderately difficult quiz" on U.S. Presidents. - phil  ¶ 5/10/2006 09:40:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: The Book Reviewer Code Elephant Walk points out a piece on the secret language of book reviewers. Shocking and hilarious! - phil  ¶ 5/09/2006 01:19:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Writing for One Mary Demuth, whose debut novel Watching the Tree Limbs was released in March from NavPress, writes about why she writes fiction and how one reader email blessed her.

I am a better writer when I delve into parts of my soul I'm afraid to share. But that seems to be God's path for me, to write about hard things like racism and sexual abuse and difficult relationships and Pharisaism.
. . .
When I get emails like this, I wonder if I wrote that book for an audience of one, to shed light through my feeble prose. And then I remember the Audience of One I am really writing for--for God's eyes, for His glory, for His fame.

  ¶ 5/09/2006 12:45:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Have You Ever Seen a Handseller? Have you ever seen a handseller, that is, someone selling books by hand or personal recommendation? The Publishing Contrarian has, once upon a time.

. . . About three weeks later, I walked back into BookHampton. This same woman was sitting at the cash register. When she saw me, she lit up, reached under the counter, pulled out a book and waved it at me. You guessed it: Fire in the Lake! She hadn’t known my name. She hadn’t known if I’d ever be back in the store, but she had special ordered this book and reserved it for me: “Save for tall woman with great tan.” I bought the book.

I think I've experienced this in my favorite Chattanooga used bookstore, A Novel Idea on Frazier Ave. I may have been a handseller myself once when I recommended some Mark Twain to a woman in Waldenbooks who was looking for something interesting for her son.

In the Contrarian's comment thread, someone from Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC heartily recommends handselling as the foundation for his business. "Without our service," he says, "without making the customers feel they’re part of our family, without hooking our customers up with the right books, we’re doomed, dead, out of commission. Without service, we’re just a miniature Barnes and Noble." [by way of Books, Inq] - phil  ¶ 5/08/2006 10:33:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Don't Hold Back Properly focused zeal is beautiful as Dee Stewart points out in "Singing in Full Voice."  ¶ 5/08/2006 01:12:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Vermont College Literary Auction This just in: The literary journal of Vermont College has put several items on eBay for a fundraising auction. I saw a leather-bound edition of Soldier's Three by Kipling, but this could be more interesting: "A signed copy of the manuscript pages of Bret Lott’s novel-in-progress, Ancient Highway (due from Random House in 2007), excerpts of which have already appeared in Georgia Review, Colorado Review, and Gettysburg Review. Signed confidentiality agreement required." Also:

This auction is also the premiere of the Stinehour Broadside Award. The Stinehour Broadside Award Series of limited edition, signed and numbered broadsides will be available exclusively through the Fundraising Auction, while supplies last. Broadsides offered in the auction will begin with number ONE of 100, and continue on a consecutive basis as bids are won.

More details here.  ¶ 5/08/2006 12:50:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:The Consultant in the Hat Author Stanley Bing recommends some business books in the Wall Street Journal. Here's what he says about that inspirational corporate classic, The Cat in the Hat:

This little tale, which appears to be a book for children, is actually a clever evocation of what happens to a corporation when a management consultant is hired by absent, clueless senior management to evaluate its organizational structure and to effect change. Beginning slowly, the Cat proceeds to take everything apart, make a total mess and get everybody in potentially the worst trouble in the world--all at no personal cost to itself. By the time the Cat leaves, it has frightened everybody, and very little has changed except the mind-set of the protagonists, which has been forever disrupted and rattled. Students of business etiquette will draw their own conclusions about the kind of behavioral standard called for in dealing with such situations.

  ¶ 5/08/2006 12:27:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW:Reality Show Will Showcase Superhero Wannabes The great superhero creator of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, will search for a new character or actor or something through a reality TV show called, "Who Wants to be a Superhero?"

I wonder if The Tick will audition.  ¶ 5/06/2006 05:51:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Butterfly I don't browse photo blogs regularly. I probably should since I enjoy good photography and their are many good photographers blogging their imagery. Today through BlogExplosion, I found NaturesPixel with a gorgeous photo of a dew-dabbled butterfly.  ¶ 5/06/2006 02:26:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: 16 Blocks I rarely go to the theater for a movie, partly because I don't want to see most movies and $7-9 is too much for a movie I don't believe in before I walk in. But tonight, my sweet wife and I went out for dessert, talked a bit, looked at kitchen wares, and watched Richard Donner's 16 Blocks in the $2.50 theater. It was very good--my kind of action movie.

The trailer tells you everything you need to know, but I'll sum it up. Bruce Willis plays a disgraced, hungover detective who is assigned the responsibility to take a prisoner, Mos Def, sixteen blocks to the courthouse to testify before a grand jury. On the way, he discovers that certain cops want the witness dead. The bad guys are wearing white hats and badges in this movie which focuses on characters instead of gunfire.

From production notes I found on the Warner Brothers site, I learned the story and great dialogue come from screenwriter Richard Wenk. "I was intrigued by the idea of a man who had everything and quit, who meets a kid who's never had anything and never gives up, and exploring how they would affect each other over the course of 118 minutes."

Wenk conducted extensive research with New York City detectives and police officers to achieve the level of verisimilitude the story demands. "The theme that kept coming out in our conversations was that they all have lines they will not cross," the screenwriter explains. "You don't always know where that line is, but when you get to it, that's when you can't go on any more. And you break."

Again, this is my kind of action movie. It avoids oppressive foul language probably because of strong writing giving the actors real thoughts to communicate. Several times the story grows quiet to give the witness time to talk about his hope for a bakery in Seattle or for a debate on who should be trusted. Then it jumps forward with another step in the mindgame. This one is worth seeing.  ¶ 5/05/2006 11:16:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Wept Over the Doll Since Mr. Bertrand quoted a designer who hated Chip Kidd's design on The Little Friend, a concern I'm sure has kept you chatting at the water cooler this week, I thought I should link to a little description of the design at the AIGA Design Archives, where Chip Kidd thanks a friend for "the antique, worried-­looking baby mannequin head, which I spied in her atelier one afternoon and wept with relief."

He wept over it. I wonder if that's the passion of a great designer coming out.  ¶ 5/05/2006 11:07:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Anne Tyler Interview in USA Today Author Anne Tyler, whose new novel from Knopf is Digging to America, responded to an email interview with USA Today. The paper asks the 64-year-old author why she doesn't do book tours or accept personal interviews. She said she can't write for a while after talking about writing, so she avoids it for productivity's sake. She talks a little about her new book, her family, herself, and what's she has been reading.

I loved Elizabeth Strout's Abide with Me. I bought it because I so admired her first novel, Amy and Isabelle, and this one, a story about a widowed minister with two small children, took hold of me from the first sentence-especially the first sentence, which may be the best opening line in recent literature.

- phil  ¶ 5/05/2006 05:06:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

PW: Time to Pay Up The authors who sued their own publisher over plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code are having trouble paying the £1.3 million in defendant legal fees, not counting their own legal expenses. The judge has accused them of wanting "money to spend without making any attempt to pay off their liabilities."

I guess some people think its worth hurling into bankruptcy in order to make fools of themselves before the entire world. Where's the MasterCard commercial for this?

(Note I am using a new titling identification on this post. That's how you know it's me posting, though I suppose I could sign all of my posts too.)
- phil  ¶ 5/05/2006 10:17:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Most Translated Sci-fi Author and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard has surpassed all other authors, not in twisted beliefs and cultic deceptions, but in language translation. Hubbard's works have been translated in 65 languages, more than the unofficial numbers for Rowling's works or The Diary of Anne Frank.

In other news, Philip Roth won the PEN/Nabokov Award for, and I paraphrase, "a fat lot of readable stuff." The crowd stood for a several minutes during the awards ceremony, clicking martini glasses and uttering bully to each other.

Tags: l ron hubbard, philip roth, authors  ¶ 5/04/2006 09:53:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

The Essential Difference From James Taranto's Best of the Web comes this contrast:

Great Orators of the Democratic Party

• "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
  
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin D. Roosevelt
  
• "The buck stops here."--Harry S. Truman
  
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy
  
• "I was recently asked about the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. When it comes right down to it, the essential difference is that the Democrats fundamentally believe it is important to make sure that American Jews feel comfortable being American Jews."--Howard Dean

  ¶ 5/04/2006 05:19:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

On This Day of Prayer From The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions [my web source]

My God, I feel it is heaven to please Thee, and to be what Thou wouldst have me be. O that I were holy as Thou art holy, pure as Christ is pure, perfect as Thy Spirit is perfect! These, I feel, are the best commands in Thy Book, and shall I break them? must I break them? am I under such a necessity as long as I live here?

Woe, woe is me that I am a sinner, that I grieve this blessed God, who is infinite in goodness and grace! O if He would punish me for my sins, it would not would my heart so deep to offend Him; But though I sin continually, He continually repeats His kindness to me.

At times I feel I could bear any suffering, but how can I dishonour this glorious God? What shall I do to glorify and worship this best of beings? O that I could consecrate my soul and body to His service, without restraint, for ever! O that I could give myself up to Him, so as never more to attempt to be my own! or have any will or affections that are not perfectly conformed to His will and His love! But, alas, I cannot live and not sin.

O may angels glorify Him incessantly, and, if possible, prostrate themselves lower before the blessed King of heaven! I long to bear a part with them in ceaseless praise; but when I have done all I can to eternity I shall not be able to offer more than a small fraction of the homage that the glorious God deserves. Give me a heart full of divine, heavenly love.

Tags: prayer, christian, faith, spirituality, puritan  ¶ 5/04/2006 07:50:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Christy Awards: Celebrating Christian Fiction The finalists for this year's Christy Awards are available on christyawards.com. I would think from the litblogs I read that Levi's Will by W. Dale Cramer (nominated in Contemporary: Stand-Alones) and River Rising by Athol Dickson (nominated in Suspense) are favorites to win their categories. Both books are published by Bethany House, so I assume David Long was a cog in the wheel somewhere.  ¶ 5/03/2006 10:54:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Liberals Oppose Traditional Families At least, the most visible liberals appear to think traditional morality is hateful condemnation except where it may give them leverage over their opponents. In today's Best of the Web, James Taranto points to a Time magazine article on a book written by a faithful liberal Democrat, Caitlin Flanagan:

This month Little, Brown published a collection of my essays about family life called To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. It's written in the spirit of one of my great heroes, the late housewife writer and feminist Erma Bombeck. It's not a book about social policy or alternative lifestyles or anything even vaguely political. It's a book about how much I miss my mother, who died recently, and about the struggles I have had fighting breast cancer without my mom around to help me. It's a book that pays tribute to the '50s housewife instead of ridiculing her.

Somehow, that angle smells conservative Republican to all the reporters who have interviewed her, and she blames her party for building that image. "Most of the 60 million people who voted against George W. Bush have lifestyles more like mine than the Democratic Party would like to admit." Yes, Democrat leaders seem to praise radicals and offer ridiculous solutions. They want to restrict the prosperous and liberate the self-destructive. This is why I have two perpetual questions around election time:

1. Why do moral people, who are not liberals like Caitlin Flanagan but believe Democrats may have one or two good ideas, continue to vote for liberal Democrats?
2. Why do non-liberal Republicans believe they must pander or compromise with liberals to win elections?

Tags: books, democrats, republicans, politics, morality  ¶ 5/03/2006 10:01:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

How Can You Do It? "When one’s not writing poems—and I’m not at the moment—you wonder how you ever did it. It’s like another country you can’t reach." - May Sarton (1912–1995), author and poet, born May 3.  ¶ 5/03/2006 09:49:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Misunderstanding Each Other Maybe Frank Wilson has a strong comment regarding an Italian writer's criticism of American readers and publishers: "Conclave of the self-important"  ¶ 5/03/2006 02:40:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Shakespeare Would Have Loved It Hamlet as performed by yellow bunny Peeps.  ¶ 5/02/2006 10:57:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Prejudiced or Willing to Believe In an article on The Da Vinci Code, Alexandra Alter asks why are fussing so much over fiction?

According to the Barna Group, a Christian research and polling agency, 53 percent of adults who read The Da Vinci Code report that the book has helped their "personal spiritual growth and understanding."

"An amazing number of people were reading it as this exciting guide to church history," said Carl Olson, coauthor of The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in the Da Vinci Code. "A lot of Christians have been thrown by the novel."

They've been thrown because they never believed or they suffer from a pitiful education and lack of interest in the Scripture. If someone writes a pot-boiler based on the idea that Stalin was a maligned but noble leader of last century who never killed or starved anyone, will they believe that too? (Now that I think of it, lots of people have bought into global warming fiction already. May the Stalin thing isn't too far off.) I assume the ones who have been thrown by this novel were prejudiced on Jesus' history or that they were willing to believe the easier message. They claims Christian beliefs out of social convenience, not personal conviction.

But the writers of the Bible anticipated this and others kinds of nonsense. Here's the close of a letter from the apostle Peter.

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:14-18)

Tags: da vinci code, fiction, truth, Christians  ¶ 5/02/2006 09:38:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Why Do Readers Dislike Self-publishing SlushPile.net addresses the disdain for self-publishing, saying it isn't the books so much as it is the authors. Self-publishing, they say, is a legitimate option for some, but for many, it's an avenue for their disappointment with mainstream publishing.

The current mainstream method of selecting books for publication, editing them, and distributing those texts is archaic, inefficient, ineffective, often ill-informed, and frequently unfair. I won't deny that. But, it remains the system that we have. Does that system pump out horrendous books that are the literary equivalent of roadkill? Absolutely. Does that system overlook and ignore worthy authors and genius books in favor of celebrity crap? Definitely. Nevertheless, it is still the system we have and the system we all understand.

And printing your book outside that system is probably not the way to go, especially if you rant about that being your only option, unrecognized and unappreciated genius that you are.  ¶ 5/02/2006 12:40:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Artists: Can't Live With or Without Themselves The Wall Street Journal has five novels on the purgatory of being an artist.

1. "The Unknown Masterpiece" by Honoré de Balzac
2. "The Masterpiece" by Emile Zola
   
3. "The Horse's Mouth" by Joyce Cary
   
4. "The Midas Consequence" by Michael Ayrton
   
5. "The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone

  ¶ 5/02/2006 12:00:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

The Little People of Ann Arbor The signs of fairies adapting to urban sprawl have been seen in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A reporter has spotted the doors of their houses.

The entryways are Thumbelina small and are so subtle and incongruent that they're easy to overlook – or dismiss. At first glance, you might mistake one of the eight doors for an electric socket or a mismatched brick. But look closely and you will see evidence that, yes indeed, something very little could live in there.

Tags: fairies, fairy, urban sprawl, art, fantasy  ¶ 5/01/2006 09:35:00 PM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

The Way to Happiness: Beat It I've learned that Will Duquette has been a member of photo.net for a few years now, so I looked him up there and discovered The Way to Happiness--so to speak. Good shot, Will. I like it. They should put something like this in the Monopoly revision.  ¶ 5/01/2006 11:54:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

Speaking of Male Ego Sometimes I think I don't understand men--that is, Dawn Treader's comments on Pride & Prejudice, the recent movie, seem to be common among men, though perhaps only certain types of men, and I don't understand it at all. I like Mr. Darcy. I understand how one can appear to be aloof or proud when he is actually uncomfortable with the first steps of society or of the beginning of light conversations. And he's noble and generous, when he can overcome his awkwardness.

His best friend is Mr. Bingly. What's not to like about that? [by way of Semicolon]

Tags: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen  ¶ 5/01/2006 12:36:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

In Italy "For wheresoe’er I turn my ravish’d eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground."

from a letter by essayist and poet Joseph Addison, born today in 1672.  ¶ 5/01/2006 12:22:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

The Witness by Dee Henderson Summary: A woman, who is running for her life, attempts to keep her trouble away from her family.

This romantic suspense novel is Henderson’s 14th work. Her next one, Before I Wake, will be released in October, which I suppose gives her enough time to write light, movement-focused stories like The Witness. For light, clean entertainment meant to be consumed in a couple nights, you may want to look into it. (I agreed to review The Witness for Active Christian Media, formerly Mind & Media Publicity)

For my taste, I expected more than superficial romance and more complicated suspense. The story jumps up for a good start, but it slows to a steady walk until the end, even for what should have been the suspenseful parts. Most of book is spent on dialogue like this:

“I’ve still got some work to do to make sure there are safe secondary locations nearby if needed and arrangements made to have dogs on the grounds, but that won’t take much beyond your money to solve.”

“Spend it, as much as you need.”

“I will. I’ll pick up the food from the caterers at four and have it set up by, say, six. Nothing fancy, just stuff that can keep hot easily . . .”

This comes from characters who, I hate to say it, sound like different voices for the same person. I suppose that superficially many of us look alike, so in print, we can sound alike too. But when different people are in difficult or dangerous situations, don’t they reveal how differently they think, even in light conversations? Murder is a difficult situation, I'd think.

Tags: christian fiction, fiction, suspense, books  ¶ 5/01/2006 12:10:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |

TaleSpin Festival in Two Weeks The Chattanooga Downtown Partnership is bringing national storytellers to the city May 12-14 for a storytelling festival. They say it will have "storytellers from various walks of life with themes that include youth stories, cultural stories, humorous stories, and historical stories."  ¶ 5/01/2006 12:00:00 AM ;   Criticize, Remark, Praise |