Yeah, move over Steve McQueen

I’m not going to dissect this entire list The Essential Man’s Library, but if you expect me to believe that any book by the Demigod of nerdy highschool girls is going to make me manlier, you must also expect that from the new B-52’s single. There are definitely a few others that I wouldn’t suggest and some noticeable exclusions, but the Robbins book is the only one I can say is definitely nonsense. But I do really like some of the torn up covers they post for the books.

While there has been a backlash against how Brooklyn is supposedly the epicenter of literary brilliance, my man Garth Risk Hallberg talks about how the burrough does pretty much rule all. Plus, at the end he talks about how he wishes people could buy books somewhere like an old D.C. hardcore show.

The Guardian talks about how many damn books judges have to read for literary prizes. It’s insane.

And speaking of insanity, did you watch that part where Fred from the B-52’s is on that Segway?

Litkicks highlights five of the best kids books, and actually nails one of my favorites.

Will Philip Roth be Obama’s running mate? It’s a good idea. If there’s one thing racist Appalachians love, it’s the Jews.

And finally, via Conversational Reading, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s new book may be a sham. The guy who spilled the literary beans is being contradicted by pretty much everyone right now, though they admit Marquez may be working on some book. The article theorizes that the book may be under wraps to cut into any plagiarism, but my theory is that he finished the book, told his friend, handed it in, and everyone agreed it royally sucked. We’ll keep you updated on this increasingly sad tale, and try to point out as many parallels between Gabo and Michael Jordan as possible.

We already know who was swankier

Slate is continuing their procrastination “issue” with a story on two great novelists who couldn’t finish a second book because they were either too writer-blocked or because they loved being lazy. Maybe not lazy, but they sure could have worked a little harder on their follow-up novels (Ok, maybe 2,000 pages by Ellison was enough, and at least Capote put out some excerpts). This seems to come down to the biggest problem most procrastinators have- a desire to be perfect. With both writers seeing their lives skyrocket with their debuts, it’s understandable they would have sophomore slumps. But seriously, we’re talking 20 years for a follow-up to In Cold Blood and a mind-numbing 40 years for a follow-up to Invisible Man. That is just sad.

The NY Times reminds us that even 50 years ago people in the literary and art communties were dumb jerks. Of course it also shows us that 50 years ago a bunch of totally sweet stuff was coming out and Shia Labeouf wasn’t born yet. They also talk about Nam Le’s new book, The Boat, which should be noted as an amazing debut by an Asian guy who has a thick Australian accent. And here’s a sample.

The Complete Review criticizes some new dumb thing Doris Lessing said. If she lives for another five years, she may be able to piss on every nice thing anyone’s ever said about her.

The Onion talks about the melancholy lives of the main characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. Heartbreaking.

Elmore Leonard has a son who has a book.

And finally, The Guardian talks about the new slushpile. HarperCollins has set up a poorly titled website called Authonomy that allows you yourself to read the terrible works of writers who want a book deal. Then you get to talk about how bad they are while imagining how flawless your debut novel will be once you can find some spare minutes between CSI’s. I appreciate the idea behind this site, but I don’t actually think anything extremely good will be highlighted. No offense to the average person, but if you think the next Cortazar is going to be lauded while Alice Sebold junior is shunned you have lost your damn mind.

Looking for someone who isn’t a coward

Like Scott from Conversational Reading, I read Death in Venice at a way too early age to understand a lick of it, but from what he’s saying about Doctor Faustus I’ll breeze through the entire Austen oeuvre before I ever pick up anything by this egghead. Read Scott’s small discussion on the book here, and riddle me this- is Scott’s criticism that the book is merely a bunch of pontificating under the guise of a novel something that should be considered a detriment? I would say:
Yes- If just writing thinly disguised essays was Mann’s plan, he should have just bitten the bullet and written them while taking full credit for whatever ideas he expounds on.
No- The novel cannot be held to a strict standard without losing the fluidity and evolution of literature.
Which one do you agree with? How about neither?

Some nice guy named Bill Bixby pointed out my “basic division” of 90 typos in a 245 page book is not two typos every page. How in the hell I originally came up with that I’m still trying to figure out.

In better news, The LA Times trashes James Frey’s new book. Trashes it so hard that now I actually feel a little bad for the guy. This is all I wanted in the first place, and now I’m starting to regret my ill will towards the millionaire liar who is loved by hundreds of thousands of people.

Seriously folks, what part of Monkey works at bar don’t you understand?

Here are a couple of similar articles- Paper Cuts talks about books that help you write books, and Booksquare talks about selling that book you wrote thanks to the book you read about writing books.

And finally, this Slate article talks about novels involving procrastination and brings up two names I’ve talked about recently- William Gaddis and Thomas Bernhard. It also intimates that procrastination is some sort of “living death” where the procrastinator sloughs off work because he has no desire to confront life. So, we started with Thomas Mann and ended up with this horrible revelation. Please, for your own sake, watch that monkey working in a bar.

Hope this time he’ll put on a shirt

First of all, shouldn’t Bright Shiny Morning have a comma? Secondly, Janet Maslin loves the book to pieces (I know you got that) even though her actual description of the book still sounds awful. At Publishers Weekly, Sara Nelson calls it a trainwreck and a page turner. I won’t totally rail on the book, but I’ve read that it’s littered with wacky factoids about Los Angeles. I don’t know if I’ve ever really gotten into a full-on rant about how much I hate this Wikipedia-as-literature tripe that Pahlaniuk and other pseudo-social satirists think is actually an effective device and I won’t today, but who’s with me? I want to read Gaddis not City Search.

Luckily there are other writers out there who are willing to write actually truthful memoirs and this brief interview (via Bookdwarf) with A.M. Homes shows that honestly, who are these people with blown up memoirs trying to fool? Also, Homes’ short story Do Not Disturb is something you should seek out. Brilliant.

Via Sarah Weinman, a wanna-be novelist writes a book about a cop that can’t be killed by bullets and then gets shot to death. The worst parts about this:
1. People are really loving the book.
2. It was finished four days before his death
3. He was an auxiliary policeman, which apparently means he was a really nice volunteer who wanted to clean up the streets but also didn’t carry a gun.
4. Auxiliary policeman can’t carry guns no matter what.
5. The book is about a wolfman.

The Elegant Variation already gave away some Amis book, but they also link to this review for Underworld I’ve never seen. As Mark mentions, there is a big difference between the Amis then and the Amis now.

Please note that even though up above I said I want to read Gaddis, I haven’t actually read Gaddis.

The Booker cubed has been shortlisted to six, and I for one am very happy to not see Life of Pi on there. Maybe I’m being unfair to the extremely popular book, because I haven’t read a word, but it just didn’t seem that good. Someone, please tell me how I’m doing the literary world a great disservice by flipping off Yann Martel. Also, my vote for the winner is Disgrace because it’s the only book on there I’ve read.

And finally, via The Millions, here is a nice piece about everyone’s favorite past time- burning books. There isn’t much to say about the piece, except that it has some of the books the Nazis really were into burning, and it talks about how Helen Keller was a socialist. Did you know that? You did? Why didn’t you tell me? That’s crazy.

I am happier than this child

I assumed, miracles notwithstanding, that last night my laptop, headphones, and copy of The Great Gatsby had been stolen by some heinous ne’er-do-well (that’s the Gatsby talking). But instead my friend Marcus got it mixed up with his drag costumes and accidentally took it home. Seriously. So anyways, I’m ecstatic to relay this information to you on this old gray mare and now it’s time for some serious literature talk… right after you read about how to smoke weed out of a human skull.

This story from the NY Times has a part talking about the term “Rotflmao”, where the writer finds out it’s not a cool term anymore. It’s awesome because typing that was never cool and also because I’m pretty sure “Roflmao” is the preferred term.

That reminded me. Remember when there was Whoomp, There It Is and a Whoot, There It Is?

This has even less to do with books.

This guy disses Dumas in a real nerdy way.

And the Telegraph also talks about Lorrie Moore who I must admit, I pretty much adore.

Martin Amis wrote a weirdo Bond novel once. I wonder if at any point a character drinks alcohol.

Via Conversational Reading, The Scottish apparently hate reading. The Scottish also hate being called The Scotch.

Interview with Mark Sarvas, via Bookdwarf. Our own interview is on its way in the nearish future.

And finally, it seems like the road to Hell is paved with novels written by the internet. Here is a brief overview of the Wikipedia-like project of a community-based novel plus humiliating opening lines. But the real fun comes from the sociological study you can read here. The book sucks, I’m sure, but along with many other people I’m very exicited to see what other brilliant or, more likely, train wreck novels these ideas can produce.

Wrong Gabbo

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, who swore he was done writing, is ready to throw another book in our faces. Is it going to be good? Uh, I doubt that very much. His last book was tossed on the literary furnace pretty viciously, and when he descibes the new book as a “novel of love” I’m not exactly salivating. But we’ll keep you up to date on the book’s evolution and when the probably bad title is revealed, we’ll let you know.

Via Conversational Reading, I found the Believer’s shortlist for novel of last year. They’ll reveal the winners next issue, but if you didn’t see it before, please check out my brief interview with shortlister Jesse Ball

* Samedi the Deafness, Jesse Ball (Vintage)
* Sunless, Gerard Donovan (Overlook)
* Zeroville, Steve Erickson (Europa Editions)
* Generation Loss, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer)
* African Psycho, Alain Mabancko (Soft Skull)
* Remainder, Tom McCarthy (Vintage)
* The Revisionist, Miranda Mellis (Calamari)
* The Power of Flies, Lydie Salvayre (Dalkey Archive)
* The Meat and Spirit Plan, Selah Saterstrom (Coffee House Press)
* An Ordinary Spy, Joseph Weisberg (Bloomsbury)

The Guardian talks about Augie March not being that great and then starts talking about picaresque novels, one of my top ten least favorite words.

Ed takes on the Princeton University Press.

And finally, I went into reading this article (via Booksquare) about airport book covers with a lot of cynicism, but then right off the bat they mention Flowers in the Attic and I think “Yeah, I can perfectly picture that book cover in my mind. More than most books I own. Damn.” So, nice going, guys. Your tactics actually work, even if I don’t buy anything from you. The rest of the article talks about books and discuss their covers. It gets a little boring, but do any of you buy books at the airport? Do covers ever attract you in that viper den?

Is also, apparently, a monster

Via Conversational Reading, here is some more talk about how the Russian absurdist was awesome. Like so awesome one of his friends would get wasted and pee on the floor and all Kharms did was keep a mop on hand. But there are so many other wicked crazy things he did and wrote in this article I expect you to just read it and say to yourself “Yeah, that guy just ruled my face”. Also, I feel it necessary to post this small story from Kharms that I keep on my desktop because, well, it rules: There was a redheaded man who had no eyes or ears. He didn’t have hair either, so he was called a redhead arbitrarily. He couldn’t talk because he had no mouth. He didn’t have a nose either. He didn’t even have arms or legs. He had no stomach, he had no back, no spine, and he didn’t have any insides at all. There was nothing! So, we don’t even know who we’re talking about. We’d better not talk about him any more.

This article by Shalom Auslander, via Bookslut, rules for these reasons: It’s funny and quick and makes me think he really has a point about how anger fuels the creative outlets of this world. It does not rule for these reasons: System of a Down and Bill Hicks aren’t good.

Anyone wanna give me a quick schooling on why you would use a dash instead of a semicolon or vice versa?

You into skulls? On a related note, you into Skulls?

And finally, apparently the filthy internet is taking attention away from filthy books. Book challenges in America keep dropping probably since parents are too busy sweating over GTA IV and Two Girls One Cup to care what teachers are giving their illiterate children. So, I guess we can call that a victory. But then again, when they came for the gay penguins I said nothing…

I also have some humorous things to say about your physical appearance

Ok, so in this insane, rambling interview Bloom bellyflops on Harry Potter, Maya Angelou, Stephen King, a million other people, calls himself “Professor Moldy Fig” and then brags about how he’s never heard of People magazine. Man, what a dick. Oh, and the liar thing. He said he used to read a thousand pages an hour and now only reads 500 pages an hour. He does this with serious literature and retains everything. What a lying liar who lies a lot. He should take Pat Robertson on in a leg press contest. Why do old people think they can make up obviously fake stuff and people aren’t going to call them on it? I can’t wait until our elders actually understand what the internet is.

That last bit of sweetness came from my friend Tim, and this story about Princeton University Press editors swilling moonshine while checking for typos came from The Syntax of Things. Seriously, people, we’re talking a 245-page book with over 90 spelling and grammar errors. Time for some basic division- at least two typos Every Page. Princeton said they gave it to an inexperienced copy editor, and by that I assume they mean “We just threw the thing in the printer. You guys read this stuff?”. They then fall back on their hundred and three years of not one typo ever or something. Any bored nerd wanna go through their collections and prove them wrong?

Mondo… Mondo Freaks.

China keeps pissing me off in the weirdest ways.

And finally, writers need to be readers. They need to be. Sorry, but the idea that reading will make you unoriginal or derivative is merely an excuse made by unoriginal and derivative writers. The point is that nothing is wholly original (here’s your blatantly obvious tip for the day) and to spend your life worried that every word you write may have a passing parallel to something jotted down by John Banville is just going to drive you crazy. And what does it matter; Bloom’s gonna hate it anyways.

He can’t cause he’s dead

You wanna get bummed out? When Bernhard won an award, he accepted it by saying “Everything is ridiculous, when one thinks of Death”. Damn. Oh, and he also hated pretty much everything and wrote a 155 page book that was one paragraph. So, I don’t know if this means you should read him or pray you never her his name again, but I’m pretty fascinated by the guy. Here is Paper Cuts talking a little more about the “quality” of Bernhard’s “bile”. How gross is that?

Here’s a bunch of junk from The Guardian that says some crap about 9/11 and spews some garbage involving modern writers. I don’t mind reading opinions about stuff that is obviously not true, but my problem with these blog posts is that there is such little substance to even argue against I wonder why they just don’t do more book reviews. Is it just so I’ll link to it? Is my daily linking to The Guardian keeping it in the black? But anyways, if you want to hear another angle on the tired “people aren’t good writers anymore like back in some imaginary golden age that most of us weren’t around to actually witness” canard, then dig in.

I didn’t know Maud Newton was a writer but she is and here is the proof.

And finally, Sarah Weinman has linked to twenty rules for writing detective stories. I keep telling myself to read more detective novels, especially the Hammett’s and Chandler’s, but I’ve yet to get to any. I know I at least to read another Ellroy book, but anyways these twenty rules pretty much nail every problem with every bad detective story ever. It seems to be so thorough, in fact, I wonder how someone couldn’t write a great detective book by just following these rules. My only problem with any of these is the rule against knockout drops. I mean, I’m pretty sure knockout drops should be allowed.

I feel bad he’s so bald

I understand that the author of Gomorra needs to live in hiding, guarded by armed men and worried every day may be his last, but he gets to hang out with Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan while sipping champagne and munching on beluga or some other fancy stuff my undignified ass would never get a chance to eat. Supposedly living in hiding is “worse than death” but it’s not like he couldn’t go live in Iowa and be fine. Granted, Saviano doesn’t speak English but he obviously has time to learn. It’s not like he has to go grocery shopping or do his laundry. So, I guess sorry.

Also, from the NY Times, here’s Nabokov’s son talking up his paycheck.

Also, some guy from Random House is stepping down. I don’t care.

I just finished J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace last night and as it was the first of his books I’ve read I have to mention how good a writer he is. Many of you probably already know this, but seriously, so good. He’s not a flowery prose guy, at least in this book, but his use of language just floored me. Here is a nice overview of the book with many excerpts and I highly encourage a first or second look.

Anyone know where Jaime is?

The Guardian talks about being crazy obsessed with books. Hoarding books is cool, but I’m more into extreme hoarding mostly because “extreme” is part of it.

And finally, via Booksquare, Keith Gessen’s novel about sad literary men may actually, get ready, be about sad literary men. That’s right, people are trying to figure out which characters in his book are, I hope you’re sitting down, based on real people and who those people are. I understand that Gessen and his n+1 crew are like the American Apparel of literature right now, but how is this a topic of conversation whatsoever? If I were Gessen I would do everything in my power to pull myself out of this Easton Ellis-type situation where your debut becomes so tied to a specific time that the book ends up not mattering as much as the soundtrack for the movie adaptation. But then again I don’t think I’d really like this book or the guy so what do I care.