Literature
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Book Banning Attempt
This year my old high school distict has had a bit of publicized controversy. A man named Dean Audet petitioned to have The Perks of Being A Wallflower banned. “Last time I checked it is illegal to distribute pornography to minors,” said Audet, who objects to sections that he says include young people having sex, graphic instructions on how to masturbate and child molestation. He has sass, I’ll give him that. Get a class full of teenagers, tell them that somewhere in the story there are graphic instructions on how to masturbate, and watch the percentage of students completing the book skyrocket. Anything that gets kids reading is a good…
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Annual Book Sale Haul
A local newspaper here organizes a huge annual book sale, which happened this past weekend, and it’s always one of my favourite events of the year. Which is a little sad, but let’s not dwell on that. All of the books are donated, and the proceeds go to local literary programs, so it’s a good excuse to buy way too many books without any guilt. It’s $1 for a trade paperback, $2 for a larger paperback, and $3 for a hardcover. Over 500,000 books were donated this year, and they made $158,150 ($2,000,000 since first starting the sale seventeen years ago). It’s a two-day long event, and until mid-afternoon there’s…
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In Memoriam
My father passed away a week and a half ago. I don’t normally go into anything too personal here, but in a way he’s very relevant to this weblog. I’ve never met someone who read as much as he did. It was what he loved to do, more than anything else. He would always have a book or an e-reader with him. I like to think I read quite a bit, especially when I’m really enjoying a novel, but he kept up the pace constantly for his entire life. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen read in a casino. He could read fast too. He’d often recommend a series…
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Terra Trailer
I don’t really like the recent trend of book trailers. I’m not against them, but they just don’t do anything for me. Mitch Benn has released a trailer for his upcoming debut novel Terra, but instead of a blurb and a dull animation, he’s had several comedians, actors, and writers read the first chapter. What a great way of publicising your novel and getting people to actually listen. This is the sort of trailer I could get behind. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the novel, as well. [via]
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Book Porn
My favourite annual used book sale was yesterday, and I think I did quite well. I usually feel guilty acquiring new books these days, considering I have dozens kicking around here that I haven’t yet read, but this is for charity you guys. Jeez, have a little heart. Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee Atonement by Ian McEwan Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle Their Eyes Were Watching God is on…
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Navel-Gazing
He was always doing that these days. Everything he saw became a symbol of his own existence, from a rabbit caught in headlights to raindrops racing down a window-pane. Perhaps it was a sign that he was going to become a poet or a philosopher: the kind of person who, when he stood on the sea-shore, didn’t see waves breaking on a beach, but saw the surge of human will or the rhythms of copulation, who didn’t hear the sound of the tide but heard the eroding roar of time and the last moaning sigh of humanity fizzing into nothingness. But perhaps it was a sign, he also thought, that…
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Work vs Play
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on…
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Truth in Fiction
Salman Rushdie on why we shouldn’t write off science fiction and fantasy when looking for stories with an insight into human nature.
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Gaiman and Pratchett
On the back of my father’s copy of Good Omens was this photo. I read it in the mid-nineties and remember thinking how perfect it was for the book, how hilariously rock star they looked, and how I needed to grow Pratchett’s beard someday. Neil Gaiman wrote this about it: It was taken in Kensal Green Cemetery in February. Terry borrowed the white jacket from our editor, Malcolm Edwards, and grumbled that it did nothing to keep him warm on a very cold day. “Sometimes you have to be cold to look cool,” I told him. “It’s all right for you,” he said. “You’re wearing a leather jacket.” “You could…
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John Irving at Home
Time Magazine did a fun feature showing John Irving at home with snippets of him discussing his writing technique and life. I haven’t read any of his books yet, but I really enjoy little peeks into the lives of authors, and I’d love to see more of these.