Archive for the 'meta' Category
I need an intervention
Comments(5)According to this article (via Bookninja), I am a lit junkie.
And I’m an unapologetic one. Why, just last night, I stayed up until 1am reading one of the stupidest YA novels I have ever read, simply to satisfy my craving to get to the end. I wasn’t even truly reading, for the second half, just skimming as fast as possible through the utterly predictable plot “twists” to slump into the boring and stupid ending. An hour wasted, but I got my fix! (Though I did feel vaguely dirty when I woke up and it was on the pillow next to me.)
Fiction about Beijing
Comments(1)Quick link: as seen in Shelf Awareness, an article in the Guardian that lists the author’s top 10 books on Beijing. Here’s the list:
- Beijing Coma by Ma Jian
- Please Don’t Call Me Human by Wang Shuo
- A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
- The Uninvited by Yan Geling
- The Crazed by Ha Jin
- The Last Empress by Anchee Min
- Serve the People by Yan Lianke
- I Love Dollars by Zhu Wen
- The Dragon’s Tail by Adam Williams
- Beijing Doll by Chun Sue
Little-known fact about Bookavore: in an attempt to make my specialty as obscure and useless as possible, I not only got my BA in East Asian Studies, I also spent a year writing my honors thesis on a particular type of contemporary Chinese literature that I called the “body poetics literature,” of which Beijing Doll was one. To make it a soundbite: it was pretty much Chinese chick lit. But there’s a lot going on under the surface of the books, if you’re looking for it (which, having a thesis to write, I did). I’ve noticed a lot of people are surprised that the rising generation of Chinese aren’t pushing for democracy and reform–there are a lot of factors involved in this, of course, but if you want a look into some of the reasons why, read Beijing Doll (or the other two books I focused on, Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui and Candy by Mian Mian).
Anyway, of this list, I would also highly recommend I Love Dollars, and Please Don’t Call Me Human (or anything by Wang Shuo). Haven’t read Beijing Coma yet, but it’s in my stack to be read. I also am very fond of Xiaolu Guo, who is not on this list, author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, which I had as a staff pick for awhile and is recently in PB. She also has a new book coming out next month (I believe) that I adored, called 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. If I remember correctly, this was a book published in Chinese originally several years ago, and recently translated and published in English. Good great awesome, definitely recommended.
Cory Doctorow
Comments(0)Today, YA book group spoke with Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother. The conversation actually ended up being as much about politics as books, but if you’re read Little Brother, that probably won’t come as much of a surprise. Below, some selected quotes from the conversation (thanks to Cory for allowing me to re-print them; I have done minimal editing for the sake of comprehension and flow):
On reading and writing YA:
“My favorite author has always been Daniel Pinkwater, whose Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars may just be the perfect YA novel (though he also has a YA novel called Young Adult Novel that gives it a run for its money). However, I started writing YA after some of my writer pals got into it and showed me how much fun it could be — and how cool it was to have young readers, who engage with text in a way that adults rarely do, using it as both a guide to how the world works and something to argue with when it doesn’t match their views and experiences. The first one to help me see this was Kathe Koja, whom I got to know when she was writing “splatterpunk” graphic horror novels like THE CIPHER. She gave it up to write YA — actually let the horror books all go out of print, which I think is a real shame — and had nothing but good things to say about the experience (plus her fiction kicked 11 kinds of ass). Then my friends Justine Larbalastier and Scott Westerfeld (they’re married) started writing YA too, and they were clearly having a high old time at it — we stayed with them in Australia while I was passing through on a lecture tour on our way to Tokyo just as Justine was finishing up her second or third book, and we had all these great talks about what made YA fic work and how it was different from writing for adults.”
When we asked how writing YA is different than writing for adults, he linked to a recent essay he wrote for Locus Magazine (very good, definitely worth reading), and quoted from it:
“Writing for young people is really exciting. As one YA writer told me, “Adolescence is a series of brave, irreversible decisions.” One day, you’re someone who’s never told a lie of consequence; the next day you have, and you can never go back. One day, you’re someone who’s never done anything noble for a friend, the next day you have, and you can never go back. Is it any wonder that young people experience a camaraderie as intense as combat-buddies? Is it any wonder that the parts of our brain that govern risk-assessment don’t fully develop until adulthood? Who would take such brave chances, such existential risks, if she or he had a fully functional risk-assessment system? So young people live in a world characterized by intense drama, by choices wise and foolish and always brave. This is a book-plotter’s dream. Once you realize that your characters are living in this state of heightened consequence, every plot-point acquires moment and import that keeps the pages turning.
And also:
“Risk-taking behavior — including ill-advised social, sexual, and substance adventures — are characteristic of youth itself, so it’s natural that anything that co-occurs with youth, like SF or TV or video games, will carry the blame for them. However, the frightened and easily offended are doing a better job than they ever have of collapsing the horizons of young people, denying them the pleasures of gathering in public or online for fear of meteor-strike-rare lurid pedophile bogeymen, or on the pretense of fighting gangs or school shootings or some other tabloid horror. Literature may be the last escape available to young people today. It’s an honor to be writing for them.”
This is a long conversation, so I’ve posted the rest of it after the jump. Read on for his thoughts on Obama, American politics, and the three crucial things teens need to do if they still want to have rights when they become adults: Read more »
Book tattoos
My mom just sent me the a link to this recent article in PW about book-related tattoos and told me to blog about it. And I learned long ago to ALWAYS listen to my mom. Sooooooooooo.
If you could see me in person, my position on book-related tattoos would be clear, as during the summer, when I wear short sleeves, 3 of them are visible at all times. I love them! I think they’re pretty and some have meaning to me (some I just got the idea in my head and went for it). In chronological order: I started with the alphabet in my favorite font, Zapfino (a literary tramp stamp, if you will). “words, words, words” in a loop around my left wrist; do you know which play this comes from? “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” around my right bicep from “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. “it’s pretty, but is it Art?” on my left rib cage from “The Conundrum of the Workshops” by Rudyard Kipling. An Old English word that my mom and I got together. And the latest, only a few months old: Jules Feiffer’s ink drawings of Rhyme and Reason on the outsides of my breasts, and on my right rib cage, Reason’s quote, “Whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.” Coming up in the future: a half sleeve that has nothing to do with books, and I also plan to fill in my left leg from knee to ankle with my favorite children’s picture book characters (Eloise, Mr. & Mrs. Mallard followed by Jack Kack Lack Mack Nack Ouack Pack and Quack, Grumpy Bird, something from Tim Egan, &etc &etc). I’m working on a tattoo related to Alan Moore’s Promethea. And there’s a few more I think about from time to time. The only thing that ever holds me back is funds.
So yeah, I think they’re fun! Personally, I think the best reason to get a tattoo is because you think it would be pretty–”having meaning” is good too, I think, but it is ultimately an aesthetic decision. I get a little fussy when people talk down on tattoos that aren’t deep somehow. There is nothing deep about the alphabet on my back. It’s just purty, in my favorite font. The one that my mom and I share has meaning, so I’m not saying that’s a terrible idea, just that I dislike the sentiment I hear frequently that tattoos HAVE to mean something. That’s one of the cool things about book tattoos, because they have meaning on some level, but they’re not JUST about meaning. If that makes any sense. I’m rambling! Ignore this paragraph!
The most common question I get after “did that hurt?” (which: um…….yeah! and here’s the answer to the follow-up question, “what does it feel like?” It feels like exactly what it is, which is a very sharp needle going into your skin over and over very quickly) is, “Don’t you think you’ll regret that someday?” Usually said with a certain degree of smugness, as though I will suddenly realize my mistake! and be forever grateful that FINALLY somebody pointed it out to me! And yeah, maybe I will–although I hope to be struck down by a falling shelf of books if I ever regret inking myself with Shakespeare. But even if I do, I hope I can remain open-minded enough to remember that these were all important to me once, and on the strength of that alone, I won’t regret it.
Another thing I like about them in general is that they keep me off the straight and narrow. When I got the second one done (around my wrist), I knew that it would automatically disqualify me for a number of jobs–all jobs I would be miserable doing, but that I could see myself taking out of fear, confusion or a desire to please someone (a bad habit of mine). They’re a gift from my irresponsible self, keeping my responsible self from making my life miserable. Which is, at least somewhat, why I am a bookseller and not a–well I don’t even know what, some sort of job where you wear suits and heels and carry a Blackberry everywhere.
Hark!
I disappeared! I currently don’t have internet access at home, so I haven’t been able to update (I haven’t even been able to catch up on blogs!) But today, I brought my laptop into work so that I could update on my break, because I wanted post some links that have been sitting on my computer, and also to put up the pictures from Idlewild Books.
Okay, three quick links:
1. Another winner done on Jezebel’s Fine Lines feature: A Wrinkle in Time. Loved this, and was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the lines and scenes from the book that are burned into my brain were burned into many other brains.
2. A great article by Ma Jian on Chinese-American relations. Okay, maybe this is not immediately book-related, but I’m really looking forward to reading his new book, and it’s sort of about freedom of expression.
3. From Kash’s Book Corner, a brilliant article that starts: “Buying new books for the store, the crux of my job, can be an exercise in absurdity and futility. It’s an antiquated, inefficient system that hardly takes into account the invention of the personal computer and completely ignores the existence of the internet.” It only gets better from there. Great reading for fellow buyers and for folks who want to understand why the book business is the way it is (well, maybe not UNDERSTAND why, but at least understand the crazy).
Last Friday, I went on another Book Buddies expedition, this time to Idlewild Books. This issue of Shelf Awareness has an article about it. You might have seen an article about the store in PW, or on BoingBoing. After the cut, pictures of the store–they have great pictures on their website, as well, but I just had to take some of my own because I love the space. Also, a cat picture!
BEA: intermission
I will be posting an update about Saturday when I get home and have a way to get pictures on here, and have access to the notes I took. It was a crazy day! Short story: went to the graphic novel breakfast, walked around the floor and went to many booths, had a lunch meeting in the middle of a short food service worker strike, more floor, signings, more floor, signings, more floor, more floor, super swank Workman party, super loud PGW party, BEDTIME. Today was much more laidback, thankfully. Look for an update tomorrow. For now, I am vegging in front of the TV until I leave for the airport in an hour or so. Hehehehe, that’s right, a book conference has driven me to television.
BEA: Friday
My god, my shoulders are literally numb from lugging around tote bags full of books all day. Which I suppose is actually a pretty good problem to have, all things considered. It was a short day, or at least it felt like it. I’m feeling a little whiplashed.
Okay, I’m trying to think about my day chronologically, and I’ve already forgotten what I did in the morning. I stopped by the Bookazine booth to say hi, wandered the floor a little bit, and then finally met up with my friend Jill from Square Books (Junior). We went over to the ABA Lounge, which was a blessed oasis amidst the BEA chaos, where I got a cool pin from the ABFFE and looked some more at the IndieBound stuff (have you checked out that website yet? You should!) Then we wandered the graphic novel section, where I was excited to see a definite increase in children’s comics that look awesome.
Then it was time for lunch–ABA author luncheon! Lots of great BookSense pick authors from the last few years, as well as many of the nominees and winners of the BookSense Books of the Year. The author at my table was Lisa Tucker, of The Cure For Modern Life, a book that is in my TBR pile already. The speeches from the nominees and winners were great, but there were two definite highlights. First, Ray Bradbury was a guest of honor, and when he was introduced, he received an immediate and sustained standing ovation from everybody in the room. It was an honor just to be sitting two table away from him, seriously. And second, Khaled Hosseini, whose A Thousand Splendid Suns won BookSense Adult Fiction Book of the Year, gave a great little speech in which he said that he believes that there are many writers from Afghanistan who are better than he is, but who for various reasons have not had the opportunities he has, and until one of them wins this award, he will accept it for them as a proxy. (He also said he’d be especially pleased if the author was a woman.) Now, I have just totally mangled that, but rest assured, when he said it, it was lovely.
The afternoon was primarily devoted to waiting in lines for signed books, not the ABA membership meeting, I’m sorry to say–as I said to someone in the elevator, if I have to chose between a meeting and a signed book from Sherman Alexie, I’m going to pick Sherman Alexie every time. By the time I was done standing in line after line, I was drained, and we took the metro back to the hotel and here I sit.
But words are boring–don’t you want to see pictures of famous authors? Of course you do, especially because they are pretty much all very good-looking. Read more »
From LA
I only brought 2 books with me for the flight because it seemed foolish to overpack when en route to what is basically the biggest free-book-extravaganza of the year. 2 books was definitely not enough–should have been at least 3. I have really been enjoying the view out my window, though. As I type I am flying over mountains in Colorado. They have snow on top. This is a weird-looking country from the air.
55. Larry and the Meaning of Life by Janet Tashjian (Christy Ottaviano Books/Henry Holt, September 2008). YA fiction. This is the third book in a series (the first two are The Gospel According to Larry and Vote for Larry) about Josh Swensen, a 18-year-old boy who, by this third book, has already led an online revolution, faked his own death, and run for president. When we meet him in this book, he’s become a couch potato, exhausted and jaded from all of his work. He finds himself being pulled into orbit around a supposed guru who his ex-girlfriend is devoted to, and his summer goes from dull to over-exciting. I liked this book a lot, even though the ending was pretty hard to swallow. I like the use of footnotes 95% of the time, and Tashjian does a great job of fitting in references to Gandhi, Thoreau, and anti-materialism without coming off as preachy (it helps that she’s established Josh as narcissistic (though endearing). And I haven’t read the first two books, so this is a book that could appeal to readers who haven’t read a Larry book before—and will probably make them want to read the first two.
56. Goldengrove by Francine Prose (Harper, September 2008). Fiction. Picked this up because I really liked A Changed Man (which, curiously, I picked up the last time I went to BEA a few years ago). I didn’t find many similarities between the two books, but I still liked this one. [had to close my laptop before it died, here]
I wish I could think of more to say about Goldengrove, especially because there’s a bookstore in it (named Goldengrove) but I am now finishing this entry after an insanely-long ride to the hotel, which was just the capstone to a very long day. I am out of words. So I am going to go to bed, because I have a secret meeting to go to tomorrow, which is exciting, except for how it starts at 730am. Yeah, it is definitely bedtime.
Waiting in the airport
So I am waiting in the airport for a bus to take me to Newark, at which point I will get on a plane to Los Angeles, to go to Book Expo America! Yay! I am incredibly excited. And I will be sharing my excitement–I will update here at least once a day while I’m there, and I will liveblog any panel that the panelists allow me to.
I meant to blog all the books I’ve read lately before I left–the pile is getting a bit intimidating, and there’s a lot of great stuff in there–but was too busy having food poisoning this morning to blog. So instead, two links. Here’s an article on BEA’s attempt to go green, and here’s one bashing a stupid article that posits that the best way to change publishing would be to let Amazon print and distribute every book, ever. (Seriously.) You know you want to read an article that starts: “In an industry besieged by variables, there is but one reliable constant in publishing — everyone thinks they know how to make the business better (more profitable, more reliable, more efficient, or “fairer”, whatever that means in their perspective), and they are all wrong.”
Watch this space–BEA updates start tonight! Is there anything you really want to hear about? Let me know in the comments.
Jessica Stockton Bagnulo is a genius
For proof of this hypothesis I offer Exhibit One: Stimulating Reading. She’s asking people to donate part or all of their economic stimulus check to the opening of her future bookstore. Love it! I already spent part of my stimulus money on summer clothing at this cool store, but I’m going to be sending some money her way as well. You should do the same!
