lit randomness: hobart, christopher miller, china underground & more

We try to do Lit Randomness every Mon. and Wed. Persistence in randomly set dates is a virtue!
NEW WEBSITE=6 DAYS

Games Issue: At Hobart.
If you haven’t checked out the bonus material for Hobart’s Game Issue, it’s a damn-fine treat, perhaps a blessing that’s not in disguise, but right there out in the open. Pieces on Ninja Hunter, Magic the Gathering and less nerdy stuff too, if that’s stuff is nerdy. Hobart is awesome as always.

Fav. fiction about authors, by an author (Christopher Miller) who has a fictional book (Cardboard Universe) coming out about an author: At Conversational Reading.

China Underground Intro by Zachary Mexico: At Pop Matters.
Looks promising. Soon to be out from Pop Matters/Soft Skull

Bookshop conversation about Word in Brooklyn: At Bookslut Blog.

lit randomness: eggers, punk fiction intro, greg ames, poets’ beards and more

We try to do Lit Randomness every Mon and Wed.

Dave Eggers, of McSweeney’s notoriety, and his brother Toph (yeah, that brother from that book) do their first interview together to promote their new book on Cold Fusion: At Paste. BTW, help save Paste.

Intro by Johnny Marr to new punk fiction anthology: At 3am.

Interview w/ Greg Ames, author of Buffalo Lockjaw: At Maud Newton.

All-time 10 ten best and worst mothers in comics: From Newsrama (h/t Fangirls Attack)

Poets ranked by beard weight: At Journey Round My Skull (h/t Bookslut blog)

The Millions’ Staff must-have subscrip list: At The Millions.

missed it the first time: Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler

An occasional series to review books that are several years old and Deckfight has never read before

To describe Italo Calvino’s classic If on a winter’s night a traveler as difficult is the same as saying that dog barks or babies cry. It’s that obvious and sometimes the difficulty of it is that annoying. To approach the book without that mindset will cause all to fail. It demands patience, it demands long attention. In some ways it may be the best literary theory book ever written (not the ‘theory’ word), because of his knack for illustrating tough concepts into imaginable situations. That he does all of this with the second-person (choose-your-own-adventure style) is both confounding and genius. He challenges the notion of reading, the concept of books, and the idea of authors and readers at every turn while somehow also concluding it.
The conceit is that Calvino writes ten different beginnings to story, each with a portion of a title that then makes a longer sentence. The plot is that a character named “you,” indicated as the reader is on a quest to find and connect these stories together, each time running into a new story and more difficulty. Along the way, you meet several different readers and people who each approach books and the concept of books differently. There is the person who derives meaning from books by the frequency of how many times a certain word is used. There is the sculptor who uses books as his material. There are the scholars who argue constantly over proper translations. Like the best soapbox prophet, he is still somewhat of a pariah. Unfortunately all of his ideas presented here still seem new and fresh even though it’s thirty years old. The literary world still hasn’t caught up with him. Calvino manipulates, warns and challenges us without few ever fully engaging him. He is either one of the best ever or the craziest ever. Or both.

more lit randomness: Meno and Wareham at LargeHearted

Largehearted does a series on “Booknotes” where an author talks about what they were listening to. Always good.

Wareham “Black Postcards”
Meno “The Great Perhaps”

Lit randomness: Ben Greenman and Rhett Miller, Baum on Twitter, Jimmy Chen and small presses

Lit Randomness is something we try to do every Mon and Wed. Always looking for links to interviews, stories and other etcetera.

Ben Greenman author of the new Please Step Back and Rhett Miller: At Largehearted.
Curiously, just found out about Greenman’s work, and here’s his funny reading tour rider over at McSweeneys.

Dan Baum, Twitter and the New Yorker: At his Twitter and American Prospect (h/t Media Bistro). Interview w/ Baum: At Baby Got Books.

Jimmy Chen and small presses: At Dogplotz. His new one of fiction is Typewriter at Magic Helicopter Press.
Been reading a lot over here, where Chen apparently contributes some stuff as well. UPDATE: And it’s Jimmy Chen wk (or it was) at this website that looks like this one. WordPress Doppelganger.

Lit Randomness: Joe Meno, FC2, David Peak of Ghost Factory, Komunyakaa and Calvino

Totally missed this Joe Meno interview back in Feb. at About.com about his new book, The Great Perhaps, a somewhat anti-war novel with heavy influence from Vonnegut, according to the interview. Anyone who puts out a book with Akashic and Punk Planet will always have a place in my heart. I haven’t read Meno’s new one yet, but I’m sure it’s awesome like blueberry pancakes on a Sunday.

The best: “It’s set in 2004, just in the few weeks before the presidential election, and there are all of these questions about war, and about terrorism. It’s just this really weird, complex moment about people struggling with these big questions. And what seemed to happen was that people were overcome by fear, and resorted to these really simple answers.”–Joe Meno. His website is here.

FC2 picked a new winner for its contemporary fiction prize and publication. I recently just checked out Sukenick’s 98.6 and thought I didn’t quite agree with all going on, liked the intent and FC2. I’m sure Amelia Gray will carry on the tradition of experimental wonderment. (h/t HTML Giant)

Interview with David Peak, editor of Ghost Factory: At Chicago Examiner.

Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa: at KCRW.

Been diving into If on a winter’s night a traveler, and here are some new Italo Calvino stories: at Conversational Reading.

Lit Randomness: Andrei Codrescu, Seth Godin and negative book reviews

As I try to do every Mon and Wed, here’s Lit Randomness. Send links over to deckfight [at] gmail.com.

Interv. w/ Andrei Codrescu: At 3 A.M.
I was introduced and then inundated with Codrescu while living in NOLA…but he still always offers a quality perspective. His new book is The Posthuman Dada Guide.

The best: “You should live in at least seven countries for a minimum of one year in each before you are seventeen, and must speak and write at least five languages in order to be a half-decent poet.”–Codrescu

Seth Godin on what authors should do to promote themselves: From Godin’s blog (h/t booksquare).
The best: “Far better to obsess about a little subset of the market–that subset that you have permission to talk with, that subset where you have credibility, and most important, that subset where people just can’t live without your book.”–Seth Godin

Why book critics won’t stop: At the WSJ. (h/t book bench)

Finally downloaded Ben Tanzer’s new book from CCLAP. It’s been out a couple of months, but will review it soon.

Monday Lit Randomness

The Wire Symposium: I don’t know how long this has been up, but there are some tremendous essays about The Wire over at Please Don’t, inspired by each writer’s favorite scene from the show.

Perseus Book Group is putting together a book in 48 hours as a collaborative process at the 2009 Book Expo, called Book: The Sequel. That’s kind of a good idea with a stupid name (h/t Booksquare).

Here’s the NYTimes review of Colson Whitehead’s new one Sag Harbor. The parts the reviewer hated about the book (i.e. excellent descriptions of ice cream) were the ones that made me want to read it.

Wednesday Lit Randomness: Johnny Cash and of course, Elizabeth Strout

William Walsh and Michael Fitzgerald are the authors of Questionstruck and Radiant Days, respectively. They both have a couple of books out, but author Ben Tanzer starts it off right by asking about Johnny Cash. The interview was part of Orange Alert Writer on Writer Series.

The best, from William Walsh:
“Johnny Cash wasn’t the only celeb at the San Q when I was doing my time. Also in residence was John Cheever, researching and writing what would be his second-to-last novel, Falconer. He was a very pleasant man with a fine purple nose. Johnny the Cheeve, we called him. Loved his cats and shared his smokes. I declined two offers for parole, at Cheever’s request, so I could stay on to help copyedit his rangy manuscript.”

Oh man, what a productive prison.

What kind of a blog would this be without any posturing towards the Pulitzer? Elizabeth Strout won for Olive Kitteridge, a novel I know nothing about and not many other people do either apparently with very few scant interviews (or maybe that’s more of a reflection on media’s coverage of books…). But Litagogo posted some audio links and Millions saw the book climbing their ranks back in Feb. Ah, here’s an interview Strout did back in December with Failbetter.com.

Update: Should novels be more like The Wire? From the New York Observer.
The best: Is the point of writing fiction in 2009 to represent, as accurately as possible, the way the world really works?

interv. w/ Haruki Murakami

3AM has a good piece with Haruki Murakami, whose most recent is What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

the millions bookstore atlas

The Millions gave us their great walking tour of NYC bookstores, and now they need some help in updating the rest of the bookstore map. Check it out, add your own town, or research another one.

Richard Ford on his character, Frank Bascombe

For whatever reason, I really like Richard Ford’s trilogy about Frank Bascombe. Maybe I’m obsessed with age and time and place, as I also really enjoyed Updike’s Rabbit adventures.

In this article from BookForum, Ford talks about how Bascombe never was meant to be an “everyman” which I call BS on. Bascombe is the quintessential everyman–his suburban life with a culmination into real estate along with estranged family circumstances. Of course some of his events are eccentric for purely humorous reasons–but at the same time they portray an endearing American-ness to them. Which is to say if a book, a character strikes a chord with the vox populi like Bascombe, it’s okay if he’s an everyman. An everyman to express what we’re all feeling.

The best: “If it seems that fear played a large part in conceiving these three books, it might just be that fear plays a large part in any work that aspires to the lofty condition of literature. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure, again. Fear of not, at least, trying to meet the challenge of one’s youthful aspirations.”-Richard Ford about his trilogy on Frank Bascombe.

What’s next for books?

With the Kindle should we start burning books?

The headline for a Slate/Big Money article on the Kindle reads:
“The Kindle Revolution: Digital readers will save writers and publishing, even if they destroy the book business”

Of course, in typical journalism fashion, the deck on this title is way over the top. Destroy the book business…really? It will not destroy the book business or even printing businesses–it will reconfigure them. Once again, the book biz needs to take a clue from the music business. CDs are losing ground, but vinyl because of its permanent/sit-down and listen quality are up. Records with cool art can do something for hardcore fans that a CD can’t. And MP3s are there for the casual or the throwaway factor.

A friend of mine last night was telling me he downloaded the Kindle App for his iPhone. We both talked about how we would gladly read a nice looking and well-constructed book of one of our fav. titles, but some books we have a casual interest in. That’s where the Kindle comes to play.

So books need to emphasize what they do best–permanence. Gravitas. Really important stuff. The frivolous read (i.e. the airport paperback) will tilt in the Kindle/iPhone’s favor due to demographic and portability sake. But there’s gotta be room for the limited/special edition Pynchon somewhere…

review of ’swamp thing’

From Salon, there’s a good analysis of Alan Moore’s 1st anthologized edition of Swamp Thing from the mid-80s. Just in time for The Watchmen release.

BTW-I’m kind of new to reading Salon, I usually prefer Slate, but their book stuff is some of the strongest out there.

The best: “Long before anyone had started using the pompous term “graphic novel,” long before Moore became the reclusive genius behind “From Hell” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and, of course, the about-to-be-a-massive-motion-picture “Watchmen,” came his remarkable mid-’80s run on “Saga of the Swamp Thing,” which redefined both the audience and the narrative possibilities of comic books.”

interv. w/ Benjamin Parzybok

I don’t know who Benjamin Parzybok is either. His book, Couch, sounds kind of cool though in this interview from Bookslut. The story is inspired by trying to move a couch from a secondhand store across Portland.

The best: “People were interacting with us, they wanted to sit on the couch or know what we were doing. I began to think how the phenomenon of a collective act — in this case moving a couch — would change someone who felt like an outcast.”-Benjamin Parzybok

interv. w/ richard nash of soft skull press

Conversational Reading is doing a series of interviews with small(ish) presses to determine how the recession is hitting them. This one is with Richard Nash of Soft Skull Press who says that his press had a great year. I mostly know Soft Skull from Matthew Sharpe’s stuff, but Tim Wise is quite a controversial fellow. (Thanks to HTML Giant).
The best: I believe that times of social disruption are tremendously fruitful for writers who are basically creating little social laboratories in which society gets to act out the changes.

the new west? deadbeats and authors

I guess I’m pretty easy to characterize as this article from the New York Observer interviews a couple of my most recent reading choices–including Ferris of Then We Came To The End and Bock of Beautiful Children. Maybe male authors are attracted to these characters, because that’s all we know. Books on high society aren’t interesting anymore and interesting stuff about the legal system or government has been given over to too much genre. In a lot of ways, what the article describes is a version of the modern western: bad guys still trying to find their place in the world. I’m kind of surprised Ferris was included–his “anti-hero” is more humorous and is not necessarily the central character.
The best: Mr. Howard said he does not get irritated when he sees young authors compared to Mr. Palahniuk, and thinks it’s natural that young writers would be attracted to drawing these kinds of characters. “There is so much pressure, I think, for young people to be adjusted and to get with the program these days that the fact that somebody like Chuck is out there saying ‘uh-uh’ is being taken as liberating,” he explained. “And obviously, if that sort of feeling is in the air, a lot of other talented young writers are going to channel it themselves.” (h/t Largehearted).

interv. w/ john brandon

Interview with John Brandon, author of Arkansas, a book from McSweeney’s that I’m sure is the best book from ‘08 that I have not read. It is probably the best book I’ve heard of in the past three days. (From identity theory).

…voyeurs of Christianity

The Slate review of the book, “Rapture Ready!” by Daniel Radosh is an interesting critique. It still fascinates me about the many misconceptions that non-Christians have about Christians, and Radosh’s book is another example of that voyeuristic glare. “The Year of Living Biblically” is another recent example, as well as Beaujon’s “Body Piercing Saved My Life.” All of these reinforce and subvert the stereotypes of Christianity. Though I haven’t read Radosh’s book, what the review doesn’t seem to get is that not all Christians act this way, though some do. Just like not all people who need clothes buy from the airbrush/stencil store in the mall. But some do.

Some Christians are well-aware of the cheesiness of Christian bookstore, trade shows, and silly rip-off stuff, but some Christians like it, much like how the general culture eventually co-opts underground culture.

That, of course, is not an excuse. I firmly believe that it is okay for general culture to steal from the underground, but Christians should seek originality in their creativity. Like in Exodus 36-40, all of the craftsman and artists and comedians should seek a grander effort in creating art that worships.

I guess the positive of all of this is that people are interested in Christianity, even if it is to make fun of it. Perhaps something will seek through. And believe it or not, maybe a Prayer of Jabez doylie or a cheap knock-off rock song is actually encouraging to somebody.

…Memoirist Augusten Burroughs

Memoirs are a hawt topic these days, with all kinds of scandal going on and such. Thoroughly enjoyed this piece from NY MAG on Running with Scissors (and now, cash) author Augusten Burroughs. The author set out to disprove them, and it was humorous about what Burroughs didn’t remember, but was scary what he did.

Having a good memory is apparently a talent that society fails to properly recognize, or at least are skeptical of. How Burroughs describes the author of the mag piece at the end is eerie.

…CREEM magazine book and controversy

…Bill Holdship from the Detroit Metro Times puts the best spin on this stuff. He has a healthy respect for the past, while understanding some of the quality that came out of the 80s incarnation of CREEM as well. He understands nostalgia, but sees the opportunity Here’s part 1 and part 2.

Bill’s best point is that Lester Bangs was the only genius that came through there, and has the most enduring legacy. It’s hard for a journalist to transcend the copy that’s given to him–only a few manage to do it well. And Bangs created a legacy with very little ancillary material–it was only his magazine writing, not some novel or investigative report that he did.
And thanks to Stomp and Stammer for helping me come across these articles.

…comics, Kavalier & Clay cont’d.

Couple of days ago, I referenced Chabon’s Kavalier & Clay, because I was reading it for class. Wash Post has posted a couple of reviews that deal directly with that novel as well–one is a review of a biography about Joe Kirby, the comic book artist who was a main influence for the story of Kavalier & Clay. Kirby created a cover of Captain America slugging Hitler, which is what Kavalier draws the Escapist doing in Chabon’s novel. Also, Kirby was ripped off by his employers, which is also mirrored in Chabon’s Kavalier & Clay.

The second book reviewed confronts the idea of comic censorship, also dealt with in Kavalier & Clay.

In the class discussing Chabon, the professor noted how a student once said that Kavalier & Clay is “faction”–the use of a false narrative linked by true events. The hearings, EC comics, and Werthem’s Seduction of the Innocent are all mentioned in Chabon’s novel.

Chabon: Kavalier and Clay, etc.

Thought I would dig up some Chabon interviews, because I’ve been reading Kavalier & Clay for class. I had listened to the audio book version about four years ago when I was a pizza delivery person (um…I also worked full time for Americorps), anyway audio books provided a good diversion to handing over hot pizza. I think I also consumed “The Bell Jar” for the first time doing that.

Here’s a more recent one from the AV Club.
Here’s one about a comic book character from Kavalier & Clay.

Book stealing

This Stranger article about books being stolen is great. He notes that the most popular books stolen are “anti-man” and that Bukowski is tops. Unfortunately, I read a lot of the most popular books stolen.