Busy scissors
Work for the day job has picked up so that I can’t tell daylight from dark. I doubt there’ll be much to see around here early this week.
If you’re looking for reading material, please try some other websites and check out Lauren Cerand’s weekly event listings (“The Smart Set”), below.
As usual, [...]
The Smart Set: Lauren Cerand’s Weekly Events
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that appears Mondays and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please submit details to lauren@maudnewton.com.
MONDAY, 2.28: I’m a sucker for a good cultural study: The Half [...]
Wish us luck
That’s all for me for the day. Now I have to go take certain people to get their wisdom teeth removed. We’re looking forward to a weekend of painkillers, pureed foods and mind-wrenchingly bad television.
Maud will be back on Monday, or as soon as she gets the locks picked, whichever is faster.
The smackdown is nigh
Over at TMN, the contenders for the final championship round have been revealed with this decisive semi-final victory for … just go see yourselves. The thrilling conclusion of the Tournament of Books is just around the corner.
Remains of the day
Did blogs help Home Land’s sales? Laurie Muchnick muses on it in Newsday.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Purple Hibiscus, talks about her work on The Age.
I’ve never heard of Brit author Chris Paling, but this interview suggests I soon will. And I already resent him for writing eight novels during his daily commute to his [...]
Ogre Pride Day isn’t until June, though
I’ve made plenty of jokes about the right’s fanatical fear of gays, and how every other week, someone is issuing a hysterical cry about another cartoon character being gay or gay-friendly. It’s a relief, frankly, to know that I don’t need to work so hard at pointing out how ridiculous it is. The Traditional Values [...]
Go ahead, judge it
Book covers!
Just plain bad book covers
Book covers with robots on them.
Real romance books with really bad covers. Check out “Moment of Truth”. Is that what they call it now? Maybe actually getting laid is called “Harmonic Convergence” these days. Gosh, I am getting old.
Longmire takes real romance covers, and does a little creative editing [...]
Some movie remainders
Jonathan Lethem calls for sexier sex onscreen in Nerve. For what it’s worth, I am completely on board about Donald Sutherland’s buttocks. I would line up for the first matinee.
What happens when you wake up and realize you just spent the last ten years of your life becoming a sell-out? More encouragement for those who [...]
I hear Satan gives wicked wedgies too, when not working at Amazon
Some browsing the other day on Amazon.com led me to the work of a former teacher of mine, Rebecca Brown, author of works such as The Terrible Girls, Gifts of the Body and The End of Youth. Rebecca’s writing is sort of like if Samuel Beckett, Shirley Jackson and Monique Witting had a bouncing baby [...]
Until Monday
That’s it from me for the week. Fellow tea-towel fiction hater Annie Reid (of Vancouver, Canada) takes over tomorrow and most Fridays.
Happy weekend, everybody.
No dancing, for any reason, not even for books
I don’t dance. Ever. At least not since my violent high school theater days when the choreographer saw how poorly I did in rehearsals and rearranged curtain calls so that I could stand, frozen, as everyone else danced.
So, no, I’ve never battled the urge to dance in front of my books, particularly not [...]
Pamphlet desired
“Blogging: the new Amway. We always knew it’d come to this.”
Mailer & Sontag sittin’ in a tree?
Right-wing provocateur David Horowitz has compiled a slipshod “guide to the political left” at Discover the Network. In this view of things, Norman Mailer and Susan Sontag are equivalent members of a “network” because they both opposed the war on Iraq.
But Mailer, alleged “leftist provocateur,” voiced his opposition to the war most [...]
Plot makes the finals, barely
Andrew Womack names one of the final contenders today at The Morning News’ Tournament of Books. Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America barely squeaks by Cynthia Ozick’s Heir to the Glimmering World.
Henry James’ crystal ball
At About Last Night, Laura Demanski compares Brigid Hughes’ editorial stint at The Paris Review, culminating in the Board of Directors’ recent announcement that it would not renew Hughes’ contract, to a story by Henry James:
Hughes by all accounts had been trying to keep the prestigious but not popular journal steered as near as possible [...]