Leafing Through

Death of an Author or So it goes part 2

They say that famous people tend to die off in sets of three.  Last week Kurt Vonnegut died, this week both Paul Erdman and David Halberstam died. Paul Erdman, specialized in writing novels that were based on financial trends his book The Silver Bears was turned into a movie starring Michael Kane. He was president of a Swiss bank and was imprisioned when his bank was involved in a curency scandal. At that time American citizens were shocked that a bank president would actually serve time. 

David Halberstam died tragically in a car crash. He was one of America's top journalists, he won the Pulitzer for reporting on the Vietnam war. He also wrote many novels. To name a few The Best and the Brightest, and Summer of '49, which I just saw at a thrift store. I would have picked it up but I just don't care about baseball. He was however a fantastic historian and I hope to pick up some of those books when I can.

So it Goes.

Walt n' Emily

                                    

Get out your black silk dresses and scraggly beards for the Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson look alike contest! It takes place at Fireside books in Palmer this Friday at 7pm! Are you excited? Because I am.  I love Emily Dickenson, Walt's pretty cool too but the man didn't know how to stop. I wish he'd have left the original Leaves of Grass alone and not "revamped" it over and over and over again. He's like George Lucas and Star Wars: leave it ALONE! Sheesh. Anyway, I need to get my butt in gear and find my crinoline!  

Sherman Alexie

4 Time World Heavy-Weight Poetry Bout Winner, Sherman Alexie has written another book. Flight is his first novel in ten years. Has it been that long really? To me it seems as if I was just buying Indian Killer. In truth, I only read that abut 7 years ago, but still.  But that was in 1996. All his other works have been either poetry or short stories.  Have I told you how hot he is? Seriously hot. I've had a bit of a crush on him since I read his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. I also saw him speak a few years ago and he was hilarious. I think that's one of the things that I love most about him, his humor. He can write something so sad and tragic and horrible and then in the same paragraph make you laugh outloud. His books are definatley worth a read. Also watch the movies.

So it Goes

Kurt Vonnegut died today, November 1922-April 11, 2007. I was very sad to hear this. I love Slaughter House Five, it's so sad and strange, and beautiful. A few years ago my husband bought me a signed edition of Galapagos. Kurt Vonnegut stands out as one of America's most important writers. It was he who helped bring the fire-bombing of Europe to light. He has a wonderful way in a story of switching from past, to present, to future. As pure coincidence would have it, the day before his death was announced, NPR interviewed Sherman Alexie about his new novel Flight, a novel about a time traveling half-Irish, half-native American foster kid.  He had all these ideas and as he says " I couldn't figure out how to connect them all," he went back and read SH5 again (which is also a time travel novel about violence), "If Vonnegut can do it, I'll try, desperately." You should listen to the interview. It's very good.

He was a wonderful writer who will be missed.

So It Goes.

A Novel View Update

Recently I posted about A Novel View, one of my very favorite little bookstores. It was in a great little house downtown for years.  Then, due to multiple events they were forced to move. They decided to move in to share space with the Cook Inlet Book Store, a locally owned book store that specilized in Alaska books. I thought that it was a great idea and that I could kill two birds with one stone by going to both at the same time. But you know what? It didn't happen. I kept meaning to go but for some reason it just didn't seem appealing. Then Cook Inlet declared bankruptcy and Novel View was forced to find a new home and FAST! (Let's not talk about how I think that they screwed Pat over). The owner of the building at least let her stay until the end of March.

Well Pat has found a new home. It's located at 335 E street, previously known as Sweet Basil Cafe (they've moved to Northern Lights). It's such a great location! It has nooks, it has crannies, it has character and a fantastic location, just half a block from the Saturday Market! It isn't in such plain sight as the little house but it's still so much of a better feel for them than Cook Inlet. Who knows, maybe fate was just waiting for Sweet Basil to move out. They moved out JUST in time for Pat to move in.

You should go and check it out. It's SUPER cozy and cool. Plus their prices are very reasonable.

Kicked Out of Bed for Eating Crackers

Funny story from Robb.

Ok, he wasn't actually kicked out of bed for eating crackers. His story goes a little like this:

I recently showed Robb the beauty of Anthony Bourdain and he's gone a bit nuts with the whole thing (This is something I would have done if I had more time). On a recent excursion to the public library he picked up three or four Bourdain books, one of them a cookbook.  He had been having a frustrating day, his piece of crap computer had screwed him over yet again. I think the thing has something personal against him. Anyway, he decided to do a little reading in bed before he went to sleep, the bed that his sick wife was attempting to sleep in.

But he was having a good time reading his Les Halles cookbook, when disaster struck:

Someone had TORN OUT THE PAGES!

What kind of sick, sick, evil person would tear out pages in a book, let alone one from the LIBRARY! It's the library! It makes me light-headed to even think about it. French onion soup recipe? Gone. Steak frite recipe? Gone! There has to be a special hell just for people who destroy library books. I'd say they'd end up somewhere between book burners and members of The Choir. I'm serious. First of all, they've destroyed a book, second they destroyed a book that belongs to the public, it's not theirs, it doesn't even belong to a store that could order a new one. The public=Me, do you know how insane I am about keeping books looking new? They just destroyed MY book, I am the public, that's my book that they have trashed. If I ever caught someone destroying a library book, I would most likely go to jail for a long time. How hard is it to get a piece of paper and just copy the stupid recipe from the book? Lazy! That's what it is! I'm a lazy bastard but come on people!

Robb was mad, so mad that he used the M.F. word profusely and I'm guessing loudly. His wife (trying to sleep and recover from a horrible cold) kicked his angry ass out of bed.    

Stranger Than Fiction

I was estatic when I first heard about this movie.  Emma THompson, in a movie about books? What devine inspiration! I don't believe that there is a single Emma movie that I havent loved.  So what the heck is Will Farrell doing in a thinking movie? Don't get me wrong, I often enjoy his movies, especially Anchorman, but he's not really the thinking movie kind of guy.  Wrong. So Wrong! I love this movie. It had pacing where right where you thought that Ferrell was about to strip to his underpants and start yelling he doesn't. He's sweet, and thoughtful and interspective, in other words: he's an actor. A real actor! Even with all of the talking in the movie I'd describe the film as a whisper, delicate, quiet. 

SPOILER WARNING!

Did I like the ending? Yes, but it took me awhile. At first, I wanted him to die. Why didn't she kill him? He was willing to sacrifice himself for her book. Her masterpiece, her best book ever, the kind of book that would change the course of people's lives. Why?! Oh the humanity! It' isn't as strong as an ending to her book or the movie for that matter. I think that's the point though. The stronger ending may not be what is best all the time.

Banned Book Wednesday

      Yesterday, I didn't have time to do a banned book. However, I had stopped by the library and just happened to look in the "Free Book" bin. I usually don't bother, as it's mostly magazines and such. However, here it was, waiting for me. A  used copy of Sons and Lovers! All for me! It's tattered, worn, broken and faded. They replaced this one with a newer copy. I love that this banned book came to me in this manner because it means that it was well read and is still read enough for the library to replace it. It even has that smell that a book takes on after it's been in a library for years and years. You know the one I'm talking about, that slightly musty, papery wonderful library smell. Oh do I love that smell.

D.H. Lawrence

Born September 1885, he became one of the most controversial writers of the 20th century. His father was a coal miner and heavy drinker. He was allowed to go to High School through winning a scholarship and later went on to university. In 1912 he met Frida vonvon Richthofen, the professor Ernest Weekly's wife and fell in love with her. Frieda left her husband and three children, and they eloped to Bavaria. Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers appeared in 1913 and was based on his childhood . In 1914 he and Frieda were married.

During the First World War Lawrence and his wife were unable to obtain passports and were targets of constant harassment from the authorities. They were accused of spying for the Germans and officially expelled from Cornwall in 1917. The Lawrences were not permitted to emigrate until 1919, when their years of wandering began. Lawrence's best known work is Lady Chatterly's Lover, first published privately in Florence in 1928. It tells of the love affair between a wealthy, married woman, and a man who works on her husband's estate. The book was banned for a time in both UK and the US as pornographic.

Banning of the Book

While Lady Chatterly's Lover is certainly more famous and more widely banned D.H. Lawrences other books have come under fire due to the "obsenity" of Lady. Many times his books are all banned due to the fact that people refuse to read ANY of them.  While this is fading with time, his books are becoming more and more mainstream and seen as classics some high schools are still banning his books. This seems completely insane to me. It ranks up there with banning Shel Siverstein's children's books because he occasionally drew cartoons for Playboy.

You Too Could Be a Winner

As soon as I am done re-reading this book I'll have some sort of contest (not sure yet what kind) and one of you will be the lucky winner of the book!

t.c. boyle

Finally, I have a chance to blog about this week's events.  Tuesday! Tuesday, Tuesday, one night only! t.c.boyle at the Wendy Williamson auditorium. He was so amazing! Tall, skinny, not super serious like all the photos. Funny and serious at the same time, he read from his book Tortilla Curtain. Also he read a funny/serious short story that he had written. I'm not even sure that it has a title, it was great. There was a question and answer period after the reading which I was dreading, usually these are filled with horrible, dribbling fans that ask asine questions that aren't really questions. "Do you think that in your book it would have been better to have featured the lizard rather than the bear?" It's just an opinion disguised as a question, in reality they're saying "aren't I a super smart individual? Wouldn't you want to be my friend Ms./Mr. author?"  However, there were really only about four questions and these were actually valid. Then the book signing.  He TALKED to everyone. Really talked to each and every person, he didn't even have a table, just stood there chit-chatting with everyone who came through.  He now ranks up there with Sherman Alexie with my top favorite authors that I've gone to see. He was wearing red converse shoes, AND he was cool, not just an older person trying to be cool.

t.c. boyle

Born December 2, 1948 in Peekskill, NY as Thomas John Boyle. When he was 17 he changed his middle name to Coraghessan (an ancestral name). He's married to Karen, has a daughter and two sons. He currently teaches English at the University of Southern California.

Awards

Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines award, 1977, for fiction; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1977; St. Lawrence award, 1980, for Descent of Man;Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize, 1981, for fiction; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1983 ("Water Music"); Paris Review , John Train prize, 1984, for humor; Commonwealth Club of California, silver medal for literature, 1986, for Greasy Lake; Editors' Choice, NY Times Book Review 1987; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1988; PEN/Faulkner Award, 1988, for World's End,  Commonwealth Club of California clubgold medal, 1988. for World's End; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1988;  PEN/Faulkner Novel of the Year award, 1988, for World's End; O. Henry Award, 1988, for "Sinking House,"  1989, for "The Ape Lady in reirement;" Prix Passion novel of the year, 1989, for Water Music;  PEN Center West  Literary prize, 1989; Editors' Choice New York Times 1989; Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree, 1991,  State  University NY;  National Academy of Arts  and Letters;  Howard D. Vursell Memorial Award, 1993, National Academy of Arts amd Letters, 1993; Best Americaan canor prose excellence, D.H.L.:  State University of New york, 1991.