Counterbalance

Lit Bits & That Book Everyone Loved (Except for Me)

It's been awhile, hasn't it? This is why.

But CEO or no, I haven't stopped reading and having far afield opinions on all things bookish. And so I've reminded myself (for the umpteenth time) that I don't need to cut out the readerly parts of myself just because another part of myself is really busy. Is this a return to regular blogging here? Probably not. But let's not end the party before I've arrived. Let's just consider this the RSVP and see how we do.

Litty Bittys

Some lit bits that I've been mulling over as of late:

• Remember when I re-read all of Murakami in the lead-up for 1Q84? That was awesome. So why am I so reluctant to read 1Q84? Is it in some way related to why I won't read DFW's Pale King? Is there a support group for last and/or most recent novels that we are afraid to read for unclear but very powerful reasons? Tell me I'm not alone.
• I've been power-reading recently and I note that my superstition about completing a book and needing to start another immediately following (and I mean immediately; as in, moments after) is as strong as ever. I've recently made my way through Panorama City by Antoine Wilson, Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas, The Map and the Territory by Michael Houellebecq, This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, All That Follows by Jim Crace, Luminariaum by Alex Shekar, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil.
• I've moved on to NW by Zadie Smith. The thing about Smith in general is that I read her less for her plot and characters and more for her uncannily spot-on observations of daily life. I often find when reading her I have a lot of "yes! exactly that!" moments. 
• I snarkily tweeted about Houellebecq here and here.
• I really want to make the LA Novels Project happen. I read so many of the novels on the list but was stuck with how to execute a digital exploration of the novels that would be interesting to all five of you. I'm all ears.
• It's a way off, but I'm crushing on the Making of the Great Bolaño: The Man and the Myth event put on by LAPL on May 16th. Reserve now. (Also, funny. Have been thinking of a re-read all Bolaño marathon. But, that could be too whoa for my life right now.)

The Book You Raved About & I Didn't

So. You know all those incredibly glowing reviews for Narcopolis? There are twenty-nine rave snippents included at the beginning of the paperback. Everyone I know (and respect a good deal) really loved it. I, of course, didn't get it. Not even a little bit. And you know me. I can read a book with no plot and characters I could give two nuts about as long as there are a few lovely sentences to keep me unraveling the thread.

What magic was I missing? It felt like one long heroin dirge to me. I was intrigued by Mr. Lee and rather enjoyed his backstory. But that's where my interest started and stopped. Is this book revalatory because it is not what we've come to expect from an "Indian novel," as the jacket copy suggests? To wit: "Narcopolis completely subverts and challenges the literary traditions for which the Indian novel is celebrated." 

The Guardian exclaims "Nothing like this exists in Indian literature."

So, that makes it somehow magical beyond all comprehension? Dear, dear friends adored this book. I feel like I don't know them anymore. What. Did. I. Miss? Again, I'm all ears.

Lit Bits & A Bit About The Vanishers

Several writers I admire have recently written pieces I enjoyed quite a bit:

• Walter Kirn's GQ piece explores the requisite (or not) empathy a presidential candidate must exude in order to win hearts and minds. Money quote: "My theory is that in the Oprah-haunted '90s, when self-help had supplanted public-policy as the preferred path to widespread human betterment, the press needed an apolitical way to talk about politics. They made it about feelings. They made it about identifying, relating. They forgot about Harvard and Yale, the will-to-power, the ruthlessness that is ambition's twin, and finally they forgot about us. They forgot that we want to salute, not share a hug, and that we don't mind a little remoteness if its offset by wisdom, strength, and intellect." Indeed.
• Jim Hanas interviews Douglas Rushkoff over at Co.Create and they get into an interesting conversation about the role reversal of artists & technologists. And branding. Since I spend the majority of my days working with clients on branding and being authentic in their digital communications with customers, this struck me as spot-on: "[But] it’s not about creating a mythology around the way a product was created, so it’s no longer 'these were cookies made by elves in a hollow tree.' That’s not the value of the brand. The value of the brand is where did this actually come from? What’s in this cookie? Who made it? Are Malaysian children losing their fingers in the cookie press or is this being made by happy cookie culture people?"
• Roger Boylan at Boston Review offers a considered look at The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes in the context of the Barnes back list. Appropriate because I just mooned over Barnes yesterday? Perhaps. But also: "Stylistically, Barnes’s stock-in-trade is quotidian realism, leavened with mild satire and total recall of the feel of the past, frequently of that moment when adolescence becomes adulthood and youthful hope yields to reality." Could this be why I uber-pine for that time when I discovered Barnes? Certainly.

Heidi Julavits has written a new novel, The Vanishers, which kicked so much ass it's crazy:

• I've read three novels since. Can't stop thinking about The Vanishers.
• It was sly and silly and smart and sad all at once - my favorite kind of novel.
• It reminded me of the most exhilarating bits of The End of Mr. Y  by Scarlett Thomas. (They are not so similar, really, but my experience reading both novels was similar. Another world that I could perhaps not relate to, but that I some how could entirely. Giddy all the while.)
• I was fully immersed in the other-worldly world she created but loved, loved, loved how she managed to weave in some rather naked truths about our relationships with others and ourselves in a way that felt honest and true and revelatory.
• It is very possible I dug this novel so much because it accessed some of my own hidden truths about my relationship with my mother (before and after her death) and the relationship others willed me to have with my mother (mostly after she passed) not to help me in any way but to help themselves grieve.
• It could also be that I've hated every novel I've picked up this year that wasn't in some way related to Murakami and so I may simply be glad to have my book loving vibe back again or it may be that Murakami has altered my perspective in such a way that I simply cannot love a novel that is entirely of this world.
• And so. There is much more to say here and though I intentionally shy away from "proper book reviews" I may well write a separate post on The Vanishers once I've had time to digest it all.
• Then again, I may not, so consider this firm praise and a "buy" recommendation. Please read it. Would love to have a chat with you after you're finished.

Lit Bits and A Bit About Lingo

Lit Bits:

• Joan Didion will be in LA on November 16th. I cannot recall another time in my life when I've purchased a ticket so soon after opening an email newsletter.
• The UCLA Writers Faire is this weekend on the 28th.There will be mini-workshops and mini-panels.
• I'm in the last days of my re-read all Murakami novels project and I'm floundering a bit on many fronts. I don't really want it to end. I very much want it to end. I probably should have written about each book as I completed it. I should have taken academic-style notes. I'm glad I didn't do anything of the sort. More on this shortly, in a separate post.
• My Read More, Write More, Share More, Learn More project will launch next month, rather than in August planned. This month threw me a few curve balls of the family illness/funeral flavor so I'm a bit behind.
• I clearly like to deem my literary meanderings as "projects." Hmmmm...
• I'm casting about for another re-read project. With Didion coming into town and her new book out this fall, that seems an obvious one, no? Yet in light of the re-hullaballoo around DFW's language (and my obvious liking of and usage of it, much to others chagrin), I could just as easily be lured away from Didion in favor of DFW. Suggestions welcome.

A Bit About Lingo:

The bit about lingo became long enough that it made more sense for it to be a separate post.

Lit Bits & A Bit About Crit

The tech-y bookish bits have been piling up. A few bits that have caught my eye and have worked their way into my thinking about my not-so-secret social reading project:

• Publishers Plan a Joint One-Stop Book Site: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and Hachette Book Group have announced the impending launch of Bookish.com which is intended, it seems, to be a "one-stop book site" though I struggle to understand how it can truly be one-stop if, you know, all the books you'd ever want aren't actually represented on said one-stop shop site.
• Kobo Rides the Shockwave of Interest in E-books: Eoin Purcell directed my attention to this bit on Kobo: "It took us 10 months to get to a million users, and about 90 days to get to 2 million,” CEO Michael Serbinis said in a recent interview. “Getting to 3 million took about 60 days, and we are close to 4 million now.” These figures and this ramp up says as much to me about e-books as it does about so many clients I work with --> how scalability is often getting over that first initial hurdle of customers and then the next thresholds are infinitely easier to achieve. I've seen this in every industry and am somewhat pleased to hear the same growth is happening for Kobo.
• Interesting Problems in Publishing Series: Eli James at Novelr started an excellent series about several much-talked about "problems" in publishing but pulls together disparate information in a way few do when chatting about these problems at cocktail parties and conferences. Well worth your time. I'm not sure I agree with every point or possible conclusion, but there is much to be considered here. The first two posts: Disruption and That 99c eBook Thing & Writers Are the New Publishers.

I've also read some excellent pieces recently that have turned my attention to something of a sore subject for me - the critical analysis of the critical analysis. The takedown of the takedown. I will post about this on Wednesday, but here are two pieces that I've enjoyed reading and that have sparked ideas I'm still struggling to sort out:

• What Criticism Might Be: Darby at Thumb Drives and Oven Clocks succinctly and eloquently says what I've been wondering and unable to clearly state for over a year. Well worth a read and has informed my further thinking on the subject.
• Freedom Revisited: Matthew Specktor and Joshua Hardina at Los Angeles Review of Books not only take another look at Franzen's Freedom (I know, I know) but take a look at why we all got so annoyed with the previous looks.

There are other bits, of course, and I'll share them once I've at least gone a full round one with this lit crit bug so I can begin to sort out why I'm so damned annoyed by the takedown of the takedown these days.

Lit Bits and A Bit About Singles

• It seems New Yorkers are digging the Google eBookstore far more than others. LA is up there though - go, us!
• There's TED. There's TEDTalks. As if these things weren't already designed to take up a good chunk of your time and brain power, there's now TEDBooks.
• Are there too many eReaders on the market for our own good?
• Turns out Nook is key to B&N's business plan. Shocking.
• The list of Amazon singles is not yet compelling. Other than the TED books, of course.

Lit Bits and A Bit About Big Red (or Blue or Gray) Books

• Kindle offers lending and a Facebook group springs up to swap Kindle books with strangers. Will be interesting to watch this develop.
• How many things can you find that are wrong with this 5 E-Book Trends that Will Change the Future of Publishing post? I'd say way more than five, but that's just me. Days later, this still irks me.
• I'm so focused on the reading I didn't finish in 2010 that I'm a bit slapped up side the head about how good 2011 reading is looking. Colm Tóibín, DFW, Chris Adrian, Joanthan Evison, Donald Ray Pollack, Julian Barnes, Nicholson Baker, Marisha Pessl, Haruki Murakami, Péter Nádas and so many more. To simply scan The Millions' list of writers with something new out this year is...whoa.
• I'm still working my way through the NYT Why Criticism Matters piece. You?
• I'll be starting The Instructions tonight as part of the roundtable discussion we'll have here in the coming weeks. I can't help but feel I (and by extension, you) have bitten off more than intended. But it's the beginning of the year, and if we can't find the momentum for this feat now, will we ever? I'll be posting intial thoughts and some broad outlines of what we could do for discussion and posting if we choose. It's up to you.

Lit Bits & A Bit About Big Reading

A few links worthy of further investigation that I hope to investigate...further...in the coming days:

• The now heavily-linked-to David Mitchell NYT piece: David Mitchell, The Experimentalist Some haven't picked it back up since they read the first few pages, others swear it is genius. Consider this my official promise not to read any press or any reviews about this book until I've had a chance to tackle it on my own terms.
• Garth Risk Hallberg at The Millions tackles a subject that has been much on my mind lately: to pick Dhalgren up or no. In the age of quick news snippets and online marketing folks touting short, snappy posts (I'm one of them and guilty of such recommendations to my own clients), I feel there's a time coming soon when it will be all the rage to savor long blog posts again. To do the long essay. To embrace the crazy long novel. I picked up a lovely used copy of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren from a favorite but now-closed used bookstore years ago and every few months it calls to me from the shelf. I've not yet succumbed to the call, but Hallberg's post has me tempted anew.
• Chad W. Post at the excellent Three Percent has written a post that pulls together all the disparate articles & studies & research about how the aforementioned short, snappy posts with their oh-so-convenient hyperlinks are not only changing how we read, but what we retain and...most compelling to me...what we think about what we've read. There is so much here and is the beginning of what looks to be an ongoing series of posts. I also hope it is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about this. My secret (now not so much) hope? This leads us back, in some way, to longer forms.  What We Talk about When we Talk About the Future of Reading is a must-read.

Update: Matthew Cheney has a fantastic response to Hallberg's Dhalgren post. I'm more tempted now than ever.

Lit Bits & A Bit About Keeping Your "For Work" Reading on the Down Low

• This makes me completely crazy. Wolf Hall? Really? Pfft.
• The only saving grace in the mess that was this year's Tournament of Books is John's list of books he can't wait to read by the time next year's tournament rolls around.
• I'm still thinking about National Poetry Month and...well...I'll let you know if I decide to do something amazing.
• The LA Times Festival of Books is around the corner. I will begin fretting about panel scheduling soon. 
• I'm reading Marisa Silver's short story collection Alone With You. I'm not loving it as much as I'm supposed to. I liked The God of War, so I'm perplexed. I blame 2666. Nothing since (other than business books, see below) has taken hold of me. I miss being taken hold of by a book. I need to fix this immediately, but I'm now afraid to pick up nearly every book in the TBR pile for fear it will be more of the same. I'll give the rest of Silver's collection another go and I'll keep my last tidbit of Bolano crack (The Savage Detectives) nearby just in case. 
• I am tempted to re-read all of Nabokov or similar. Might cure what currently ails me.
• I've been doing a ton of reading for specific posts for other outlets (not that I'm an outlet, but you get the point) and it occurs to me that I've been very secretive about it all - not posting about my thoughts post-read, not listing the "read" books in "What I'm Reading Now"...not even in the Read in 2010 column to the far right once I've finished. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm curious to know if you all do the same?  If you're reading to review or in some way discuss (for what I do can hardly be called reviewing) a book, do you keep it separate from your own book blog? Am I being nutty about it and so should start including it all here as well? Hmmm...
• Same is true for actual business books. I never list those, though I read many for client work. This blog has never really been about reviewing Crush It, or the latest Seth Godin book, but I read them all. Do you care? Or do you love, as I do, the total privacy the Kindle offers in that I can be reading the latest techie business book and no one has to know?
• Also. The iPad. I'm predisposed to hate it on spec. But...call me ever so curious about what it will mean for books & book publishing. You?

Lit Bits & A Bit About Brevity

I'm not typically one for brevity, but as I feel my way through my post-employment/striking out on my own world, I find that the longer posts I'd planned, or even the longer discussions I'd hoped to have with others in real life, are somehow usurped by my own monkey-mind that swirls and swirls to such a degree that keeping things brief, short, and to the point seems to be all I can manage at the moment. Not brilliant for a would-be novelist, although I have entertained the thought of using this short-term inability to speak at length to my advantage so I can dash off an achingly spare short story. Something I'm never able to do with when my usual over-sharing faculties are in good form. 

But I digress. A good sign?!?!

As I weigh my options, I find I'm swinging rather drastically between several different "wants":

• Wanting to do nothing other than read & write all day (for really, I've missed these things for two long years and I'm eager to dive wholeheartedly back in)
• Wanting to contribute in a far more significant way to the ongoing discussion about eBooks, eReaders, and digital publishing issues.  I've worked in brand strategy & online marketing for fifteen years & along with nearly five years of bookish blogging and a lifetime of observing the publishing industry from many sides, I should be able to do so intelligently.  The catch?  I've spent the past two years focused on client deliverables & crazy 80+ hour work weeks so I've not been part of the conversation.
• Wanting to get those two years back.
• Wanting to not feel so behind. As if I've been under a proverbial rock and am only now picking up where I left off. It's a terrible feeling. I have to trust that all I've learned in the interim has adequately prepared me for whatever is to come, though I may not see it just yet.

And so, in this wanting and flailing and swinging about, I'm not getting anything done. I have hatched ambitious projects, only to set them aside. I have conjured fantastic roundtable plans & literary salon at my loft type plans & various let's save LA's libraries plans.  Just today I began a faint outline of a Celebrate Small Presses Month plan. None have come to fruition. So far. And I'm learning to be okay with that. For now.

But the ideas are finally flowing after a long spell of being so pressed for time and so focused on work that there was no room...not even for new thoughts to percolate, let alone the space and time to let them bloom into something tangible, completed.

For now, I'll take percolating. Quite soon, however, I'm going to need to see results. But hey, if I can knock out Bolano's 2666 in a few weeks with all the other things I'm trying to do at the moment, I'm confident I'll hit my stride soon.  Oh so soon.

Lit Bits & A Bit About Reading Resolutions

• Sad news in the Bookish LA world which I'm sure you're all well aware of by now - Glenn Goldman, owner & founder of the essential Book Soup, has died. The bookish crowd has written several excellent posts on the subject and I suspect more will be penned in the coming days.  The bits that spoke most directly to me include: David Ulin at Jacket Copy (where there are some lovely comment tributes as well), C. Max Magee & Edan Lepucki at The Millions and Goldman's LA Times obituary.
• Book Soup is also for sale. As I have the pleasure of covering bookish events each week, I see first-hand how the sale and/or closure of fine book stores affect not just our wider literary culture, but how they have a literal effect upon the number of readings in a given week, month or year that Angelenos can attend.  The loss of Dutton's was immense, the loss of so many other great bookstores added insult to injury, and I hope as I'm sure all of you do that the important work that Goldman started at Book Soup will continue on, regardless of who ultimately owns it in the future.
• The first Week in Bookish LA in 2009 is off to an ambitious start, with a load of events crammed into Thursday and Pinky's Carolyn's pick of the week, Denis Dutton (editor of Arts & Letters Daily) at the Central Library @ 7pm on Wednesday night discussing his book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution with Michael Shermer.
• Slumdog Millionaire is quite good, and I do love a good Danny Boyle jaunt, but it is not the best film ever made, nor is it the best film I've ever seen or even one of the best films I've seen in the past five years, as so many are stating.  I can't help but feel our need to have hope in these dark times is the reason the beat-the-odds message of this film resonates with so many, on such a deep level. I'm trying to think of a recent book equivalent, but can't come up with one at the ready. You?
• Not only do I love that Richard Nash at Soft Skull is asking for feedback on cover art preferences for Pasha Malla's debut short story collection, The Withdrawal Method, I love that I found out via @softskull.  Vroman's tweets regularly (@vromans) and I've gotta say, outside of my unwieldy Google Reader feed bonanza, Twitter is my main source for links, info, general vibe of a given day, etc. I wish more bookstores, readers & writers would get thee to Twitter.
• I'm not one who typically goes in for the reading resolutions that so many folks are making, but I can't deny the lure of mapping out a year of reading. There is something so controlledabout such a plan and reading for me (and I suspect most of you) is nearly the opposite of controlled. One book leads me to another, one author leads me to countless others, a conversation, a tweet, a dinner, a film...all lead me to something else.  While I like the idea of mapping out this chaos, I know it will never stick. Yet, still I find I want to jot things down.  See what I'm thinking of reading just to...see. Not resolutions per se, but maybe mini-resos that are...plausible.  As I expect to read several new books this year (some of which are known to me at this moment in time and so many that are not), I'll stick with the not-new ones I very much want to get to: re-read all of David Mitchell in prep for his forthcoming novel & finish up all of Bolano (only The Savage Detectives remains) so that I can properly tackle 2666.  That seems doable. Right?