Counterbalance

#LATFOB Maybe Not for Me

So - it's the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend, starting right about...an hour ago. I'm not yet there. I should be. There is a panel at 11am with David Shields that I very much want to see. It may not happen. I'm learning to be okay with this.

In past years, I tried very hard to serve as a guide to every panel and every author insight during these busy two days in LA. This year, it will have to be different because this year, I have...work...so so much of it...to do this weekend that I'm struggling with how to do both, realizing I can't do both in a big way.So I'm learning to accept that my coverage of LATFOB this year will be...so much less than it usually is. And that's ok. Right?

I've created a catch-all column at left for LATFOB 2010 - I'll be adding my own links here as well as the links of many capable others whose work is covering this event, writing books, being fabulous authors, etc. In short: if your job involves books, it is far more likely this weekend that your coverage will trump mine. If you want to stay up to date, check the column at left later today. I'll update as I go.

I'll also be tweeting, but surely some work tweets (and the lamenting of work tweets) will seep in. Consider yourselves forewarned. Here's the thing though - you'll notice that there is no column at left for LATFOB 2009. Why is that? Oh, yeah, I was working like a madwoman and was a mess and a ball of stress. So, today represents leaps in progress.

And with that...I need to dash out, hair still wet, dogs as yet unwalked, coffee not yet consumed. Let's see if I can make it to that 11am panel. David Shields, I'm coming for you.

Update: made it to the Shields panel, which was Rebooting Culture: Narrative & Information in the New Age. Great panel, more on that later today. Also, several of you rightly asked where you might follow me on Twitter for my #latfob ranting. You can follow me @calliemiller. 

If There is Something to Desire...

I'm falling a bit in love with poetry again. For the umpteenth time. Not sure if it's the amount of time I have, or if it is more that I want to immerse myself in language again - not just story. Could be the mad rush of reading I've just completed for this weekend's LA Times Festival of Books (I've got another post to link to on Graphic Novels, I'll do that tomorrow), but I'm feeling plotted out and structured out and, well, poetry just feels right. Right now. Here's what's healing me at the moment:

If There is Something to Desire
by Vera Pavlova
I discovered this book on a lark as I was perusing the poetry section, casting about for something to recast the overly structured, overly plotted world I've been immersed in. I'll be honest: the cover grabbed me. Being a type junkie has it's downfalls & I do like a nice cover. Yet, a nice cover doesn't always = nice contents, so I'm oh so happy to find that in this case, the cover was just the precursor to more greatness within.

While this is Pavlova's fifteenth book of poetry, it is her first in English and I find that utterly fascinating. The language is so spare, so perfectly economical while also evocative that I'm in awe & a bit delighted & a bit in love with language again. She conveys much with just a few simple words. Not overly vainglorious (ha!) words that shout "hey look at me using these massive words in a poem that only has three sentences"  - I hate that.

More than anything else, I find the poems in this collection to have just the balance of warmth, wit and wisdom I'm seeking right now. Not overly cynical, but a clear-eyed look at the world as it is, a desire to appreciate what we can, a nudge to enjoy life for what it is, a demand to make more out of it than we currently are. I might be heaping too much upon Pavlova, but that's what I'm getting out of this slim volume at the moment. I realize I may be projecting.

The Book of Questions
by Pablo Neruda

Not mind-blowingly original, I know. Yet I find myself coming back to Neruda again and again. While I've read many of Neruda's poems throughout the years (and read more criticism and biographical works about his work), I've never taken up the infamous Book of Questions. My current need for spare language and big ideas seemed perfectly suited to the themes of this volume, to the big questions asked and not answered. Such as:

Is the sun the same as yesterday's
or is this fire different from that fire?

                   -and- 

Will our life not be a tunnel
between two vague clarities?

                   -and- 

And why did cheese decide
to perform heroic deeds in France?

What I've found so far is that this volume is less about poetry for me and far more about taking time - and creating the space - to think. Really think. Neruda's questions have slowed my pace and has somehow gotten me back to a more contemplative (if sometimes cheeky) mode...the very mode needed for writing longer fiction. So, yeah, I'm digging Neruda at the moment. Again.

LA Times Book Prize Fiction Nominees Surmising

So - all that "on the down-low" reading I've been doing? Yeah, it's for the LA Times Festival of Books & the Book Prizes. I've been doing an unhealthy amount of literary posturing, guessing, and mumbling about it over at LAist and I'll be covering a few more categories in the coming weeks before the awards are announced on April 23rd. My most recent post examines the Fiction Finalists. Go on over, check-it out and then let me know what you think.

Previously: LA Times Book Prize First Fiction Nominees Surmising

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?