LitMinds Blog and Interviews

Tonight, we are pleased to be hosting Sir Alistair Horne at the Hillside Club in North Berkeley.  It's a rare public appearance by the British historian whose book "A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962" was published over 30 years ago. 

This particular title was out of print when Henry Kissinger recommended it to all those in the Bush administration managing (or bungling... as the case may be) the war in Iraq. Horne's book has been characterized as a timely analysis of western power's inability to win hearts and minds of a Muslim people.  He describes how that challenge becomes nearly impossible when that western power resorts to morally reprehensible measures such as torture during interrogations.

The conversation with LitMinds own Lewis Klaustner (formerly of North Berkeley's independent bookstore Black Oak Books) will be taped for air by C-Span.  We expect it will be an enlightening evening of conversation with several professors and graduates students of history and political science at the reception and in the audience during the Q&A.

You can find more information about Alistair Horne's book, recently reprinted by The New York Review of Books on the publisher's website including this:

"The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments...

The conflict made headlines around the world, and at the time it seemed like a French affair. From the perspective of half a century, however, this brutal and intractable conflict looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one—a full-dress rehearsal for the sort of amorphous struggle that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s and that now ravages the Middle East, from Beirut to Baghdad, struggles in which religion, nationalism, imperialism, and terrorism assume previously unimagined degrees of intensity."

The U.S. government has recently been criticized for its mismanagement of the war and its occupation of Iraq. Were the lessons that history had to offer ignored by those in charge?  Has the war for hearts and minds of the Iraqi people been irrevocably lost?  Is an expeditious retreat required?  We hope these questions and more will provide for an enlightening discussion.

For those of you who won't be able to attend in person, we'll keep you posted on details of the television broadcast. 

We are talking about this event on LitMinds.org's Literary Events board here.  

Posted by Christin at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Jenclair from Bossier, Louisiana describes herself in her blogger profile this way: "I am a 58 year old wife, mother, and grandmother who enjoys playing with fabric and plants."  We were impressed with her creativity!  She's done some real interesting quilting projects including "Garden Girl" (shown below) which we suspect is part self-portrait with her long flowing hair and book in hand!

In addition to the beautiful quilt creations, Jenclair finds she has a voracious appetite for books.  We were really pleased when she was one of the first book bloggers to join the LitMinds community, and so we invited her to tell us more about her blogging, reading, and quilting life in this interview:

1) Chinese Proverb:  "A book is like a garden carried in the pocket."   This is the quote that inspired the name for your blog, A Garden Carried in the Pocket. Why does this proverb resonate with you and how does it describe your personal experiences as a reader?

I don't remember when I first read this proverb, but it had immediate significance because books provide portable entertainment, pleasure, and knowledge. Like most people, I hate to be bored, but unlike most people, I rarely suffer from boredom because a book garden is portable. You can take a book with you anywhere, and then, the book can take you away into another world. We all spend a lot of time waiting in a variety of circumstances, a book can make the experience more pleasant.

2) You have eclectic reading interests but appear to gravitate towards the fantasy and mystery genres. What appeals to you about these book genres?

Escape. I began reading the classics early, majored in English, have a MA in English Lit, taught senior English, and now, I revel in reading lots of novels purely for fun--lots of mystery and fantasy. Actually, last year I read very little fantasy, although I've always loved it. This year, I happened to pick up The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente and found a revived interest in myth, fairy tale, folklore, and fantasy. Then Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings announced his Once Upon a Time Challenge, and I jumped in enthusiastically.

3) Your other interests include quilting and gardening and you keep another blog called, Bayou Quilts. A lot of people often describe quilts as telling a visual story. Can you share your thoughts about that? How does your enjoyment of reading connect with these hobbies?

All quilts are products of individual stories, but not all of the stories are visual. The process of quilting often provides the combination of busy hands and a wandering mind. Hands can be involved with needle and thread and thoughts can wander where they will. It is very relaxing.

Gardening also combines physical activity with the opportunity to think, to imagine, to ponder some of the questions raised by life in general and by what I read.

4) While you are a prolific reader, can you make a couple recommendations for books you read in the past several months that have really stood out in your mind?

• Voltaire Almighty by Roger Pearson
• Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta
• The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente
• The Bird Woman by Kerry Hardie
• The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor (in process, but marvelous)

5) As an avid reader, what do you like about the LitMinds community?

LitMinds generates "conversations." Reading the interviews, opinions, suggested titles, reading histories, and reading pleasures of others stimulates my thinking and my curiosity. Blogging as a whole transforms a solitary pleasure into a shared one. I think you've said it succinctly in the phrase "LitMinds community" -- a very nice thing to have.

You can find Jenclair's LitMinds profile here.

 

Posted by Christin at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Let’s admit it.  We are a culture obsessed with superlatives and lists.  Nowadays, wherever you look there is another, “The Best of…” or “The Top…”  Clearly, there is a reason we love our lists and rankings.   

Keeping in the spirit of celebrating readership and books, LitMinds interviewed J. Peder Zane, editor of the recently published, “The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books.”  This isn’t the first time that J. Peder Zane has explored the reading lives of writers.  As editor of “Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading,” and a book critic for over a decade, Zane has spent numerous hours thinking about authors and what makes a book noteworthy.  We asked him to share his insights into this matter of list-making frenzy and the allure of discovering hundreds of selected books by highly respected authors.  125 authors in all: everyone from Ha Jin, Scott Turow, and Joyce Carol Oates to Norman Mailer, Sandra Cisneros, and John Irving.

We hope you enjoy reading the LitMinds interview with J. Peder Zane and then get working on that Top Ten list of your own.  That is, if you haven’t made yours already.
 

1.  The Late Show with David Letterman has made the “Top Ten list” a popular and familiar format.  Even the FBI publishes its Top Ten Most Wanted list.  Do you think our society has an obsession with rankings and lists?  What is it about ‘the top ten list’ that made it best suited for your project of gathering writers’ favorite works of literature? 

The top ten idea made sense on various levels. First, people have always loved lists – I bet those cave paintings at Lascaux are rankings of the beasts. For good or ill, they tap into our basic desire to impose order, to name winners and losers.   

It also fit the book’s dual aims, of identifying, at once, a small and large number of great books. After I received the lists from all 125 contributors, I ranked and tabulated the results — awarding 10 points for a first place pick, one point for a tenth place pick. I tallied the votes to create 16 Super Top Ten Lists including, The Top Ten Works by Living Authors, The Top Ten Works of the 20th Century, The Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers and, the Big Kahuna, The Top Ten Works of All Time — “Anna Karenina” was first, followed by “Madame Bovary,” “War and Peace,” and “Lolita.”

But the real stars of the book are the 544 separate titles mentioned on those 125 lists. While drawing readers in with the Top Ten lists, my purpose was not to anoint a canon. The book’s message is not, here are the only ten books that count — but, here are hundreds of books that at least one distinguished writer considers among the ten greatest books ever written.
 

2.  Please tell us more behind your motivation for writing this book and your own top ten list. When you were assembling this collection, what were some surprises?  One chapter in your book describes the challenges some writers had picking just 10. What would you summarize as the major insight generated from this logistically-intensive project?

Although list making is an ancient art, it is particularly popular today because more information than ever is at our fingertips. Internet retailers like Amazon and the turbo-charged computers that turn even the smallest bookshops into mega-stores mean that almost every book ever published is now only a click away. But possibility can lead to paralysis; choice can cause confusion. When anything is possible what to do? Where to start? 

People today are desperate for guidance — that’s why figures like Oprah Winfrey have become so important in publishing. They have led readers to many fine books. Still, I wanted more: More books, better books.  When I asked myself whom I should turn to for advice about what to read, the answer was easy: writers. It’s hard to be a great writer without being a great reader.

Editing “The Top Ten” offered two big surprises. The first was the generosity of the contributors. Putting together a top ten list is hard work. It requires tremendous amounts of thought and reflection. It requires hardheartedness as you choose some and not others; this process can be especially hard for writers who hope that their works will not suffer such treatment.  And, whenever we declare our preferences we hold ourselves up for criticism.  The “Top Ten’s” 125 contributors were aware of all that and more, but submitted their lists because of an impulse stronger than all else: The desire to spread the good news about great books. 

The other surprising thing was how little difference there is between “great” books and “favorite” books.  If there were an objective standard of literary excellence, the contributors might have named 50 or 75 different books on their 125 lists instead of 544.  Indeed, there was an average of four unique titles per list; 23 titles that earned the top spot on one writer’s list as the greatest work of fiction of all time were not mentioned by anyone else!

The lesson is that there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to great books — there are only the books that matter to you.  Critics can make sound – and true arguments – about why “Moby Dick” is a better novel than “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, but that doesn’t guarantee it will be a better, more meaningful, and moving work for you.   

Limiting the writers to ten picks also forced them to think hard about their choices, to trim the fat, get to the muscle, and then cut and cut some more. Many writers found that my simple request was not so simple.  But in making those hard choices, they learned something about their taste and reflected on why some great books mean more to them than others.

That’s why I hope the book will inspire readers to make their own top ten lists.  That exercise is not a test of literary knowledge, but an act of reflection that reveals far more about ourselves than the books we select.  I hope that readers will come up with their own lists – not just jot down some favorites but also ask themselves “why these 10?”
 

3.  It’s been just over three months since your book was released, how have you felt it has been received?  Specifically, we were intrigued that your website encourages readers to submit their own top ten list.  Similarly at LitMinds, we ask readers and writers to share their favorites and create a list of what books they are currently reading, thinking about reading, and have previously read.  What has been your experience with the web as an interactive medium for continuing the discussion post-publication?  Any particularly notable reader or writer reactions to your book that you’d like to share? 

Oh, how things have changed.  When I published my first book, “Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading” (W.W. Norton), in 2004, the web wasn’t even an afterthought.  I was aware of only a handful of smart literary websites and all of our efforts were focused on generating print reviews.

Just three years later, everything’s different.  Reaching out to websites — offering them review copies, responding to their pieces — has been a major part of our marketing campaigns.  There is no substitute for newspapers, which remain the best way to reach general readers.  That said, the web has generated a far greater range of responses to “The Top Ten” than newspapers and magazines. 

A few examples: One of the best pieces appeared on the site Chekhov’s Mistress, whose operator posted his own top ten list with an intricate explanation of the various factors behind each of his picks.  Lisa Guidarini of Bluestalking Reader conducted a very smart interview with me and Scott Esposito posted a very sharp review of the book at Conversational Reading.
 

4.  LitMinds folks will surely be interested in your day job too.  You’ve been a Book Reviewer and have written a weekly column for the North Carolina newspaper: The News & Observer.  Can you tell us about the everyday perks and challenges of your position?  Can you describe for the LitMinds audience your take on the vibrancy of local literary scene?  Any new and notable authors that we should keep an eye on? 

Back when I was in college, I thought about working for a local bakery one summer. Everyone told me the same thing - don't do it.  You'll stuff your face with cookies and cakes and in about a week you'll be ruined on sweets forever.  I applied anyway, got the job and sure enough, I stuffed my face with cookies and cakes that first week and the next and the next and the next. 

Which is to say, sometimes you just can't get too much of a good thing.  That’s why I decided to become a book review editor - the book lovers’ equivalent to working in a bakery.

I'm only indulging a little hyperbole to say that every morning seems like Christmas.  I come in to my office at the News & Observer and there are piles of packages waiting for me - all bearing the latest offerings from publishing houses in New York and around the country.  I tear them open and dig in.  True, most of them are not wish list type books, but everyday brings six or seven new works that seem more than worthy.  I stack them atop the other stacks that surround my desk - if my workplace isn't completely soundproof at this point it is certainly out of sight. 

Indeed, the biggest challenge of my job is the daily need to muster self-restraint. At the News & Observer, we have the space to review about five books a week, though there are probably fifty works that I would love to cover.

North Carolina’s literary scene is particularly strong and tight knit.  They are also generous. I began the Top Ten by reaching out to many of them, including Fred Chappell, Clyde Edgerton, Lee Smith, Elizabeth Spencer, Louis D. Rubin Jr., Allan Gurganus, Haven Kimmel, Reynolds Price and G.D. Gearino. Their agreement to participate in the project gave me a legitimacy that made it easier to attract other writers.
 

5.  In your myLitMind profile you mention that you frequent two independent bookstores in Raleigh-Durham where you live: Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh) and The Regulator Bookshop (Durham).  We’re also big fans of the uniqueness that independent bookstores embody.  Can you tell us more about your relationship to these two bookstores?

To be honest, I don’t buy many books — lucky me, they come for free.  But I spend quite a bit of time on the phone with Molly, Sarah, Rene and Nancy from Quail Ridge and Tom and John at The Regulator, picking their brains about good books. They are great readers who spend their days talking with other folks who love books. While I appreciate their practical help in identifying worthy works, I’m inspired by their enthusiasm. Hearing them rave about this writer or that title reminds me that reading is, at bottom, an act of generosity, as we admire the achievements of others.

 

6. What’s your Top Ten List?

I prepared my list in 2005, before I reached out to the book’s contributors. I was mighty surprised to see that four of my top five picks were not mentioned on any of the 125 lists!

1. Absalom, Absalom!  by William Faulkner

2. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

3. Hunger by Knut Hamsun

4. The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata

5. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

6. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

8. A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley

9. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

10. Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon

As they sent their lists, many contributors noted that the list they were sending today, would probably change tomorrow. I can attest to that. Here’s my current Top Ten:

1. Absalom, Absalom!  by William Faulkner

2. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

3. Hunger by Knut Hamsun

4. The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata

5. With by Donald Harington

6. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

8. The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer

9. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

10. The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse

Click here to see J. Peder Zane's myLitMind profile.  And if you haven't already, register and create your own LitMinds profile to list your top memorable reads!

 

Posted by Christin at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over Easter weekend I flew up to French-Canadian city of Montreal to visit. There we had a chance to take a quick tour through ‘Vieux-Montreal’ a.k.a. the historic quarter and its pleasant art galleries, boutiques and independent bookstores.  It wasn’t an exhaustive tour of what the city has to offer but in a few short days we happened upon a few gems worth sharing with you. 

The most unusual and delightful find on our tour was Librissime, an art book store, that specializes in pubs that can be considered ‘objects d’art’ in their own right.  As they advertise you can buy books here for $9 up to $99,999. The owner was keen to point out to us the calf-skin-bound Italian imports, which re-print Dante’s The Divine Comedy in its three installments (I was afraid to ask the price tag the limited editions looked too expensive to touch… I feared I would crack the spine of the oversized tomes!). 

But the store’s an adventure in and of itself.  The family team (Papa bear Gilles, Mama bear Judith, and two baby bears: Noémie and Étienne) that opened their store just last year has a graphic-design aesthetic that makes the store welcoming and luxurious at the same time.  The first thing you see when you walk in off the cobble-stoned street is a ‘blackboard wall’ with a chalk-scrawled welcome message announcing the arrival of the latest assortment of art books. And, the store also offers a unique service: they’ll custom-design your home library!  Let your imagination run the gambit from post-modern to renaissance influences… they’ll select the books, place them on display and even decorate the shelves themselves with any theme you dream up.  Check out their detailed website for more photos of their colorful books and creative displays.

The second bookstore we hit in the old city is Librairie Raffin.  It’s actually a mini-chain of French-language bookstores in the Montreal metro area with a relatively modest selection.  But, the old historic building of their Vieux-Montreal location is inviting and conveniently located across from the science & technology museum.  It carries a decent selection of the latest Canadian titles in French and English. 

We skipped the larger bookstores: Chapters / Indigo are the Canadian box-store chains situated in the main shopping district in downtown Montreal.  We had visited them previously and didn't think they were worth the trip this time.  If you happen in one of these stores you can expect they’ll carry more Canadian & European titles than their US chain counterparts but they still lack the individual personalities that the independent stores exude.

Finally, we had a last stop at a tasty bookstore across from the supermarche’ in the district of Westmount.  Bon Appetit Cookbooks is run by Jonathan and Michelle, a husband-wife team.  He’s the chef and she’s the business brain.  The couple has a terrific specialty bookstore that hosts regularly visiting celebrity chefs.  The store is equipped with a full kitchen and offers near daily cooking demonstrations by Chef Jonathan himself.  From recipes for delectable ‘amuse bouches’ and my favorite sinful chocolate desserts, the cuisines you can sample here range across the continents including the latest fusion cookbooks that any urban chef should desire.  Check out their titles and event schedule on the store’s website at: http://www.bonappetitcookbooks.com/

We only had three days so this was certainly not an exhaustive search of the city's independent bookstore treasures.  If you have any recommendations for additional stops we should make next time we're in Montreal, please let us know.  Bonne chance and happy reading!

Posted by Christin at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Everyday we read the news reports about the internet revolution and the impact that new technology is having on our lives.  Considerably fewer stories, however, have surfaced describing the unique communities made up of the web designers, programmers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists behind these innovations.  Probably for good reason… most "Web 2.0 geeks" I’ve met are overly engrossed in the latest gadgets, programming languages, internet business models and special effects-laden Hollywood blockbusters  (e.g. The Matrix, The Minority Report, 300, etc.) to make for good character material.  Most, we might surmise, live fairly "ordinary" everyday lives…

But, a surprising new novel SoMa by Kemble Scott (the pen name of San Francisco Bay Area journalist Scott James) is set against a gritty backdrop of a relatively unknown world and sub-culture of tech revolutionaries.  Set in SoMa (a.k.a. San Francisco’s ‘South of Market’ neighborhood), this book is not for the prudish-at-heart. As a Bay Area local, I found the premise intriguing and yet unsettling familiar.  Who knew on a late-evening commute I should have been alert to fellow BART train passengers experiencing a wild ride through the ‘tunnel of love’?!

LitMinds invited the author to an interview to learn more about his book, which debuted on the SF Chronicle’s bestseller list.  We also asked the journalist-turned-novelist about his reading and writing life, including his recommended reads and pioneering online activities.

 

1. Your new novel, SoMa, delves into the gritty and tantalizing underbelly of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood.  Can you describe SoMa’s history and current cultural scene?  How did you research this subculture?  What has been the response so far to your book’s publicity of such an underground scene?

It seems like everyone you meet here in San Francisco has some anecdote about “the wild night I ended up in SoMa.” It’s the gritty warehouse district that’s also home to the city’s wildest clubs and bars. Since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, the area has become increasingly gentrified. The warehouses are disappearing, replaced by expensive modern housing and offices. It’s ground zero for a massive culture clash between rich and poor, past and present. That growth threatens the SoMa underground scene. My novel is set in 2003, and a few of the places I write about have disappeared since then.

Readers seem fascinated by the underground depicted in SoMa. The book allows them to visit these strange places and indulge in extreme behavior using their imaginations, rather than in person. Because the book focuses on the sexual underground, this means people can explore aspects of sexuality different from their own through the pages of the book. That’s quite an adventure, or quite a threat, depending on who you are. When readers talk to me about SoMa, they inevitably zero in on one scene that was particularly provocative to them. Each person picks something different from the book, which ultimately says something about his or her needs and desires.

Writing about these worlds meant talking to people who really live these lives. I’m a journalist by trade and I love hearing people tell their stories. I moved to SoMa in 1997 and immediately began noting what was happening around me. In 1999 I began to write about the underground in short stories that I published on the web. Those stories eventually led to the novel.

 

2. Tell us a bit about a few of the main characters in SoMa.  How do you feel they reflect the psyches of 20 and 30-somethings?  What experiences are specific to the Bay Area dot-com bust and the beginning of the 21st century versus more universal issues faced by people in their early adult lives?

When the dot-com boom hit San Francisco, the city was flooded with thousands of people fresh out of college lured by the promise of tech riches. It didn’t matter if someone had any skills, just being 23 somehow made a person instantly qualified to work in that industry. Many were paid handsomely for showing up at work each day to do little more than play with the office dog and hang out. On the surface it looked like companies were amassing hoards of twentysomethings on the theory that those who use the web would figure out what to do next with this remarkable technology.

We know now that many of these companies were simply scams by venture capitalist firms to bilk investors. But those twentysomethings went in as true believers. They were sold a bill of goods: you are important and valuable simply because of your age. When the dot-com world imploded, a whole generation had its self-esteem shattered. Two years earlier, employers threw buckets of money at them, and then no one would hire them for anything. In San Francisco, thousands of these people suddenly had endless amounts of time on their hands, accompanied with the painful realization that they weren’t actually the demigods they were told they were.

Talk about betrayal! That’s the setting as my novel SoMa unfolds. The characters are part of a generation victimized by a scam. They had their egos built up, and then it was all taken away. Stripped of the VC-manufactured lie, they must now find out who they really are. In real life, that moment of epiphany led thousands in San Francisco to pursue journeys of self-discovery. That’s what happens to the main character in SoMa.

 

3.  You have created a series of YouTube videos that tell a bit about the real-life places and events that appear in your novel, SoMa.  How did you come up with this idea?  What has been your process in creating these video pieces?  Do you have any other projects or ideas we might know about?

SoMa uses the exploration of sexuality as a way to provoke larger questions about life in this new millennium. Before the book came out, I researched how the media, especially the literary establishment, has treated other books that include sexuality. Let’s just say they didn’t get a warm first reception – even books that turned out to be wildly popular or culturally important. Editors don’t want to risk offending some readers, so it’s easier for them to review or feature other books.

I realized that SoMa would face this same wall. It comes with the territory. So I decided to take my case for the book directly to the readers. We now live in an age where I can do that. I created an online presence for SoMa that includes various web sites, a page on MySpace and videos on YouTube.

My work as a journalist has been in television news, so I thought it would be interesting to show people the real world places that inspired the book. It turns out I’m the first novelist to launch a book this way. The videos have been watched thousands of times and they’ve created all sorts of interest in the novel.

I’ve produced five videos so far. There are others in the works, but I’m also thinking of evolving the YouTube project into more of a “channel” that goes beyond the book. I’m also interested in what’s being called web 3.0 and new ideas like Second Life. Stay tuned.

It’s a good thing I did my own media. The establishment press treated the book just as I predicted. To this day, my own local newspaper The San Francisco Chronicle has yet to do a story on SoMa, even though it’s a local story written by a local author that’s been on the paper’s own bestsellers list twice in the first month it’s been out. Had the book explored shoes, instead of sexuality, it would get the cover of the lifestyle section.

 

4. You seem to have a strong affinity for using technology as a means to communicate about the literary world.  Among your writing pursuits, you have created an e-zine (SoMa Literary Review) and a weekly email-based newsletter (San Francisco Bay Area Literary Arts Newsletter).  Your novel also explores the world of emerging technology.  Can you describe your online writing projects and how they got started?  What has drawn you to these mediums?  How has your work with technology informed the ideas explored in SoMa?

There’s a metaphor laced throughout SoMa that involves technology. In some ways it’s the religion of this age. When the characters cry out to the universe for guidance or intervention, they don’t go to church. They go to Craigslist.

We live in an age where people can now express their ideas to the world without getting anyone else’s permission. Having spent my entire career in the highly controlled business of TV news, it was so liberating to realize that I didn’t need someone’s approval to publish my short stories. That’s why I launched SoMa Literary Review in 1999, and it has since become a safe haven for all sorts of emerging voices.

The truth is, freedom of the press has always belonged to those who own the press. Now we live in an age when just about anyone can publish their ideas, for good or bad.

 

5. In a recent interview, you discuss the vibrant literary scene that exists today in San Francisco.  This city has an impressive cultural legacy of writers.  If you were to create a reading list for someone interested in doing a literary journey through San Francisco, what books would you recommend?

San Francisco has an extraordinary literary history, but there are many writers living today who are doing incredible work capturing the city – and telling provocative and entertaining stories at the same time. All of these are novels, but they mix facts with fiction to enlighten readers about the city.

In Woman of Ill Fame Erika Mailman takes readers back to the Gold Rush days for the story of a prostitute pursued by a serial killer.

The six Tales of the City novels by Armistead Maupin chronicle life here from the 70s through the 80s. Those books are fun and addictive, and Maupin brings the whole story up to the present in his new novel Michael Tolliver Lives, which comes out this June. I was able to get an advanced copy and it is just wonderful. San Franciscans will adore him for writing it.

The Ultimate Rush by Joe Quirk hilariously tackles the 90s, as seen through the bike messenger/skater subculture.

In My Lost and Found Life Melodie Bowsher takes us into the jaded but highly entertaining world of spoiled local teens.

Forget the controversy over her use of a pen name, for capturing the city’s grit, JT LeRoy’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is quite devastating (in a good way).

For readers who want an unusual perspective, I recommend War Boy by Kief Hillsbery. Hillsbery invents his own version of English to tell a story from the perspective of a deaf and mute teen living in San Francisco. The entire book contains only one comma – and it’s on the very last page.

 

6. You have had a successful career in print and broadcast journalism, including obtaining a degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and winning three Emmy awards.  At what point did you start writing fiction?  How have your experiences as a journalist informed your writing of fiction?  What journalism work do you most want to be known for?

I’ve never had any patience for journalists who play fast and loose with the facts. If you call yourself a journalist, that comes with a responsibility to get things right – to spell names correctly, to quote people in the right context, to be fair, etc. Too many reporters today don’t follow or understand these basic tenets, and you see mainstream journalism in a freefall. Newspaper readership is plummeting. That’s no coincidence. If you treat journalism with all the ethics and standards of an opinion blog, then you negate the only reason for people to use mainstream media.

I decided to write about the world of SoMa because I thought it was fascinating. I figured that if I found the stories provocative, perhaps others would too. But in journalism, you name names. Did I want to do that? My goal wasn’t to expose or embarrass individuals, so I decided early on to write the stories as fiction.

In doing so, I freed myself to add perspective, metaphors, symbolism, introspection and a whole host of other writing tools never before available to me when working in journalism.

Still, I can’t get beyond my roots. My background in journalism requires me to get the facts correct, even in fiction. I research what I write, and have experts look at the early drafts to make sure I’m getting the details right. For example, for the sections of SoMa that involve drug use, I had a drug addict vet that part of the book. Even working in fiction, I feel an obligation to make things as real as possible. It makes it easier for readers to go along for the ride.

Check out Kemble Scott’s myLitMind reading profile here.

 

Posted by Christin at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been impressed at the voracious appetite many bloggers have for "reading challenges." Themes run the genre gambit for these marathon reading sessions in which avid readers challenge each other to read a series of books in a set time period.  Recently, Wendy Robards, a.k.a. Caribousmom blogger conceived of The Novel Challenge to help us all keep track of the various challenges happening in the literary blogoshpere.

Multi-talented, Wendy is a physical therapist and volunteers as part of a canine search and rescue team.  She also sidelines as an author and has participated five times in the annual National Novel Writing Month project (a.k.a. NaNoWrimo), which has now yielded a draft of a novel she hopes to polish for publication.  

LitMinds recently invited Wendy Robards a.k.a. Caribousmom, a.k.a. Writestuff, to tell us about her reading and writing life... 

1. You describe yourself as a ravenous reader and read about 8-10 books each month.  Where did this passion for reading come from?  What are some of your earlier, memorable moments with reading?

When I was a child, my parents always read good night stories to me and my two sisters. We had library cards at very young ages. I still remember my mother taking us to our small town library to borrow books. It made me feel so grown up and important going home with my stack of books. A love of words developed early on and I began writing poems and short stories by the time I was in the third grade. My grandparents on my mother's side are avid crossword puzzlers, and my 94 year old grandmother loves playing scrabble (she usually beats me!). My love of reading and writing fiction was nurtured by many teachers from grade school to high school. If I had to credit only one, it would be my high school English teacher, Chris Robinson, who opened my eyes to some wonderful literature and encouraged my writing tremendously. 

 

2. You recently created a new blog, A Novel Challenge, which shares the various reading challenges out there in the blogosphere.  Which reading challenges have you previously participated in and which ones are you currently involved with?  What are some of the more unusual or creative reading challenges you have seen?  What do you enjoy about these challenges?

I am amazed with the wide range of reading challenges out there! It's what gave me the idea for my new blog - I wanted a place where people could see all the challenges in one place and be able to link to the sponsors of those challenges with ease. People seem to like this idea based on some of the feedback I've been getting. I also started a Yahoo group for those readers who are as obsessed as I am about the challenges.  

Over the winter I completed The Winter Classics challenge (sponsored by A Reader's Journal) which was wonderful in that it motivated me to read some of the classics that have been sitting on my TBR stack for quite some time. Currently I'm participating in ten challenges - it has become somewhat of an addiction!  There are many reasons why I enjoy them. First of all, I am meeting some fantastic people who share my love of reading - people I probably wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise. The challenges also motivate me to read from the stacks of books I've bought but haven't gotten to yet (Jenn from Mizbooks has sponsored the very popular TBR Challenge which I can see myself doing every year). In addition, many that catch my eye are those that invite me to read outside my comfort zone (like The Dystopian Challenge) or to expand my knowledge to other cultures (like the Reading Across Borders Challenge) or to read authors who have been recognized for their literary excellence (like the New York Times Most Notable which I'm sponsoring).

The blogosphere is full of incredibly talented and creative people. The Something About Me Challenge hosted by Lisa at Breaking the Fourth Wall is an example of that creativity. Readers will be encouraged to nominate up to five books which they feel represent themselves in some way. Then participants will choose from these nominated books to create their reading list. I'm looking forward to getting to know many of my blogging friends through the books they will nominate.

 

3.  You work as a physical therapist and volunteer in canine search and rescue.  How do you see your love of reading and literature contributing to your work?

I tend to choose books which are character driven (versus plot driven) because I like to get inside the characters' heads and understand their motivations and emotions, and how events in their lives bring about personal change. These are the types of stories I also like to write. In Elizabeth Berg's wonderful book Escaping Into The Open, she writes: "As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing you need when inventing characters is empathy." I would agree.

I believe this same gift is important to be an effective Physical Therapist. By reaching an understanding of others - their emotional life, what motivates them, how they deal with stressful or life altering events - I am better able to treat the whole person and achieve more meaningful results for that person. Reading and writing literature from a point of empathy has helped me to nurture that trait in my work.

Recently I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. I chose the book partly because of the subject matter which deals with how a family reacts to the birth of a developmentally disabled child. The novel gives tremendous insight into the choices that people make and how this impacts them later in life. Additionally, Edwards' portrayal of a child with Down's syndrome was wonderful. By showing the joy that these children bring to their families, she goes a long way towards dispelling the myths people tend to carry around about disability in general. Because I work as a consultant to homes which service developmentally disabled adults, including those with Down's Syndrome, I found this book meaningful on many levels. 

Likewise, several years ago I read the novel Place Last Seen, by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman. The book is a deeply moving account of a family whose disabled child goes missing while on a camping trip. Told from several points of view, it explores the emotions of the searchers and how the parents deal with their devastating loss. As a person who has been involved with Search and Rescue both on the state and local levels, I appreciated this book tremendously. Of course I related to the searchers' emotions as I have been involved in several searches involving small children - but, what was more valuable to me was the chance to step inside the shoes of the parents whose child was missing. It gave me an understanding that perhaps I hadn't had before.

 

4.  For the last couple years, you have been a regular contributor of fiction and nonfiction pieces to The Piker Press.  For those interested in getting a taste of your writing style, which one or two pieces might you recommend they read?

I enjoy writing stories that will impact people on some emotional level. Many of my nonfiction articles are connected to my work as a volunteer in Search and Rescue because those events have touched me deeply in some way. One of those - The River Revealed - centers on a search for a young woman who drowned in the Sacramento River. What motivated me to write the story was the power of the river and how easily it could add to our lives, but how it could also so quickly take a life. I think this piece is pretty representative of many of my nonfiction stories in that I am usually drawn to irony or how life is made up of these bits of shadow and light. My writing is often strongly influenced by the natural world. Another nonfiction story, which spins around the idea of nature is Tawny Ghost, an article that touches on the controversy swirling around mountain lions in California.

Readers who enjoy short story fiction pieces would get a sense of my writing style by reading Filling Spaces - a story about internal emptiness and how two women try to fill that void. 

 

5.  You have written a draft of a novel through National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo).  For readers unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, can you describe what it is?  What was the process like for you and what do you hope to do in the future? 

NaNoWrimo is a wonderful and whacky invention spearheaded by Chris Baty whom I credit with teaching me how to write a novel. Essentially, it is a challenge for participants to write a 50K word novel during the 30 days of November. The format - having only 30 days to blow out a novel - forces writers to keep writing regardless of any pitfalls they may encounter along the way. I have participated in this challenge for five years, and managed to scratch out the first draft of a novel in three of those years. Prior to discovering NaNoWrimo, I wrote with an editor on my shoulder. I had attempted many novels, only to fail to get past the first 10K words. I edited and edited and edited until any ounce of creativity was smothered. To "win" at NaNoWrimo, writers must be willing to stuff their internal editor into a closet and gag him or her. It is a tremendously freeing and exhilarating experience and it allowed me to finally understand I must get the story down (in any messy form it spills onto the page) before allowing myself to be critical of it. I use this technique for all my writing now - and it has allowed me to finally complete stories.

The Piker Press actually evolved from NanoWrimo because a small group of writers (who had supported each other through the process) decided they didn't want the madness to end. So, I can credit NanoWrimo with one other milestone - it provided a venue for me to be published for the first time! I plan on participating in NaNoWrimo again. But, I have also come to realize that simply writing a draft of a novel - which feels like an incredible accomplishment - is not enough. I want to polish my completed drafts with the goal towards publication.

 

6.  In your LitMinds profile, you mention having an interest in African literature.  Can you discuss what draws you to this genre and share some of your recommended books?

I have had a fascination with Africa from childhood when I first read about Jane Goodall and her chimps. Of course, at that time, my understanding of Africa was mostly romanticized and probably had more to do with my love of exotic animals than anything else! As I've gotten older, my enchantment with this beautiful continent has become more focused on the people and customs of the region. The richness of the culture, the violence of the political upheavals, the extraordinary animals, the starkness of the geography - all these things compel me to read African literature.

African writers as a whole are wonderful story tellers. Their prose is typically lyrical, yet simple. For those readers just getting interested in this genre, I would recommend Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies' beautiful novels: Purple Hibiscus, and Half Of A Yellow Sun. Adichie is an amazing writer and I look forward to reading more of her work as she publishes it. No African literature reading list would be complete without the works of Chinua Achebe. His novel Things Fall Apart is a good starting point to appreciate his writing style. Recently I read Uzodinma Iweala's first novel Beasts of No Nation. Although Iweala was born in the United States, he has lived his life between the cultures of England, the United States and Nigeria and I think his will be an important voice in African literature. His first novel is a stunning portrayal of a boy soldier - unique and compelling, it is certainly not an easy read but one which is powerful and lasting.

 

You can see Wendy's LitMinds profile here. 

 

Posted by Christin at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, we added a new discussion board called Classroom Discussions that will be very active over the next three weeks with discussions between Persis Karim & her American Literature class about Toni Morrison's "Beloved." We wanted to share with you a little more information about the conversations you'll see appearing on LitMinds during this time.

Since the LitMinds community was conceived, we've been convinced (contrary to popular opinion) that reading and our increasing use of the internet do not have to be competing activities. LitMinds is rooted to the idea that the internet can enrich the reading experience.  The interviews we've done with so many avid readers who are blogging about books they're reading is proof of this... that the internet can enhance the reading experience!

LitMinds was conceived as a community that would also connect with a younger generation.  By inviting this university classroom's discussion to our boards, we think we will learn more about how LitMinds is received in practice by the next generation of readers. In this way, we hope LitMinds will evolve into an "online literary salon" of sorts for all generations of readers.

In line with these goals for the LitMinds community, we are happy to launch our Classroom Discussions board with Persis' class and to see how professor and students continue their classroom discussion online LitMinds-style!

Posted by Christin at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

You can tell an avid reader's reading preferences by the action figures she collects!  We couldn't help but chuckle when we recently read about Stefanie Hollimichel's purchase of a Jane Austen action figure that "I've been ogling... in the window of the library bookstore for the last three weeks..."  On her shelf they join her Shakespeare action figure and Chaucer Bobblehead among other literary faves.  But when it comes right to down to it, a reader has to draw the line somewhere: "There was a Poe at the bookstore too and I was tempted but not tempted enough."

Early to the blogosphere, Stefanie Hollimichel, started writing about her reading life purely for the joy of sharing it with others.  Her blog is written with an educated (yet genuinely friendly) voice that has attracted a modestly large following of fellow readers.

LitMinds asked Stefanie to tell us more about her blog, her reading habits and desire to make a career transition to librarian. (Oh, did we forget to mention?  Stefanie has an action figure of super-librarian Nancy Pearl on her shelf too!) 

 

1. Your blog, So Many Books, has been around since 2003 and was selected as a pick for the Guardian Unlimited Books’ Top 10 Literary Blogs.  What have you learned during the past three and a half years about having a successful literary blog?  What has surprised you since starting So Many Books? 

First, I had to check that I’ve really been blogging since 2003!  The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to just be myself. Seems easy enough, but when people besides my husband began reading my blog, I started worrying about what I was writing and what a book blog was supposed to be. I’d post a personal response to a book I was reading one day, worry no one cared, then post a bunch of newsy links the next day. Gradually it dawned on me how silly I was being and I started writing about whatever bookish things interested me at the moment. Sometimes I’d stop myself and wonder if I should really post what I had just written, usually a joke sure to make someone groan, and I’d do it anyway because no one was being forced to read my blog. If I can’t be myself and have fun, there is no point in spending all the time I do blogging.

The most surprising thing has been the sense of community. Reading is such a solitary activity and if you don’t know people who read as much as you do it can be pretty lonely. But in the online book community, reading is normal and no one thinks you’re weird for preferring reading to watching television.
 

2. You are currently involved in a couple reading challenges.  Can you explain these challenges and what inspired you to participate in them?  If you were to create a reading challenge of your own, what might it look like? 

Challenges are created by bloggers as a way to get a bunch of people to read similar types of books at the same time. And there is usually a prize of some sort involved as incentive to complete the challenge. For instance, the Once Upon a Time Challenge I’ve joined was created by Carl who loves to read fantasy. There are quite a few readers who hesitate at reading fantasy so the challenge gets a large number of people who wouldn’t normally read fantasy to dip into the genre. It’s also fun for people like myself who already read a healthy dose of fantasy to join the challenge and share favorite books and authors and hopefully discover some new ones too.

Since I seem to be reading a lot of ancient Greek works lately, I kicked around the idea for a while of having an “It’s All Greek to Me” Challenge in which participants would read books by Greek authors or that were set in Greece. But there were so many challenges already going on, people were starting to complain of being overloaded so I shelved the idea. I still think it would be fun so maybe I’ll hold it in reserve for another time.
 

3. What are some of your reading habits?  What makes your approach to reading unique and personal?  I noticed you have twelve books on your current reading list and a few different reading projects going on.  How do you juggle so many reading activities at the same time?

I read whenever I can which generally amounts to 1-2 hours a day, more on weekends. I love to read in bed at night. During the day I like to read while sitting on the bed. Even though I have a reading chaise, the bed is more comfortable because there is room for the dog who always has to be in the middle of things.

I don’t think my approach to reading is all that unique. What I think is unique, however, is my response to what I have read. This applies to every reader. It’s cliché to say it, but I really do believe that no two people read the same book. This is one of the best things about reading and why it is so much fun to talk about books with other people. If we all experienced a book in the same way, there’d be no point in talking about it. How boring would that be?

If I were only as good at juggling balls as I am at juggling books I’d have a great career at the circus! I like to have at least one nonfiction book, one classic, one contemporary or genre fiction book, and one book of poetry in progress at the same time. That way I always have something to read no matter what mood I am in. I choose much of what I read by whim and mood but at the same time try to be more deliberate, thus the long-term reading projects. Sometimes I get bogged down in a book and set it aside for a month or more and come back to it later, in the meantime I start a new book. I love starting a new book especially if I haven’t started one in a week or two. That’s probably another reason why I have so many books in progress.

 

4. You have expressed an interest in going to “library school” in fall 2007.  What has been your career and educational path to date and how has it led you in this direction?  Where are you at in the process? 

Back when I was eighteen and beginning college, I wanted to be a veterinarian because I wanted to be James Herriot. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that was a rather romantic and unrealistic view of things. I changed my major from biology to English because dissecting books seemed more appealing than dissecting cats and pigs. I decided I wanted to be a college professor but stopped with the M.A. in English literature because I was tired of school and tired of grad student politics. I’ve since tried my hand at lots of different jobs and for the last five years have been the resident techie at a mid-sized nonprofit in Minneapolis. I’ve learned much about information management on the job but last year I decided I needed a change. After casting around for a career that would incorporate the things I liked to do best, I landed on librarian. I’ve recently begun volunteering at the welcome desk of my city’s main public library. It’s my job to answer important questions like “Where’s the bathroom?” and “How do I get a library card?” And, I am in the process of putting together my application for Drexel University’s MLS program which I should be sending in sometime in April, so think good thoughts for me.

5. You read and review a lot of books.  Share a book that has greatly affected you and a specific person you would recommend it to (could be somebody famous or someone you know personally).  To whom would you recommend it and why? 

One of the most recent books that comes to mind is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s The Conduct of Life. It’s a very thoughtful and philosophical, yet practical answer to the eternal human question of how one should live. I’m going to cheat a little by saying I’d recommend it to all politicians and wanna-be politicians in hopes that it would help them get their priorities straight.

 

6. As an avid reader and literary blogger, what appeals to you about the LitMinds community? 

Aside from the fact that the site is nicely designed and easy to navigate, I like that LitMinds provides a place to connect with other readers and share our thoughts and ideas about the books we love so much.

 

You can find Stephanie's LitMinds profile here. 

 

Posted by Christin at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Jerome Weeks, former Book Critic for the Dallas Morning news, has recently recast himself a la "mock journalist" Stephen Colbert on a blog he launched late last year: book/daddy

We thought he had an interesting perspective to share on the state of the newspaper business and making a transition to the web.  LitMinds asked him about his writing life as "a newspaperman turned blogger" and his  budding aspiration to land a spot on cable TV.

1. The name of your weblog on ArtsJournal, book/daddy, is perhaps a bit unexpectedly cheeky.  Can you share the inspiration for this name?

It was a gang nickname I picked up while doing a stretch for armed robbery.

Actually, our DSL service switched from Comcast to Time-Warner -- that was the armed robbbery -- leaving us with that common, rather irritating task these days: devising a new e-mail address. By this time, all the good ones are usually taken; at least, all the good ones that are memorable variants on the name Weeks. It was my wife, Sara, who came up with "book/daddy."

As explained on the site, the name puns on both hip-hop and blues slang:  "mack daddy" -- meaning a top pimp -- and "bone daddy" -- meaning an erection. It's all very swaggering and phallic, which is probably why Sara thought it was hilarious for me. Just think of it as the male equivalent to Bookslut or Bookbitch.

But what about "LitMinds"? Surely someone has pointed out the implication that all your members are merrily sloshed?  [LitMinds Editor's note: Yes, it is a third meaning that does occasionally apply.]

2. You were the book columnist at The Dallas Morning News for 10 years. Your departure from DaMN resulted in some public outcry, in particular about the newspaper's decision to not run your farewell column, which was ultimately published on the National Book Critics' Circle blog, Critical Mass.  What message did you hope to convey in your final column?  How did you feel about the public's response to your departure?

I was very fortunate in the attention my leaving The Dallas Morning News received. To be asked to write for Artsjournal.com, which has thousands of arts administrator and journalist types reading it, and to have my departure covered in Publishers Weekly and protested by Pat Schroeder of the Association of American Publishers: Most first-time bloggers aren't greeted with such fireworks.

With the column, I hoped to convey the pleasures and frustrations of a book critic's job and of working at the News -- and to do this without rancor or sucking-up to the head office, while still slipping in a little of why I was leaving. Because of the newspaper's proposed cutbacks, because of the downward direction cultural coverage is headed at the paper, there was no way my position would remain the same. I'd be book critic, book editor, second-string theater critic, third-string movie critic and probably have to pitch in stocking the salad bar. Not a prescription for quality work. And these cutbacks were coming after years of thoroughly demoralizing changes -- the management flailings that every newspaper seems to be enjoying these days.

In short, the head office lost faith in what we do as cultural journalists, so we gave up any hope in their leadership: Nearly half the arts writers and editors left. Before we left, though, the departing writers were told we could pen a farewell column. But it would have to be approved. The past decade, the office atmosphere at the DaMN hadn't been as uptight as it was for years before, following hallowed tradition. As ad revenue skidded and the paper underwent a circulation scandal, though, it got rather Bush administration-like: unpleasant and beleaguered.

So I was pretty certain the column would never appear in the paper, no matter how restrained or modest it was. When Critical Mass kindly ran it after I left, the column got a tremendous response. And several bitter outbursts -- people saying I was gutless for not sticking it to the News, that sort of thing. Other readers did pick up on my ploy, though: If even this gentle farewell couldn't get in the paper, just how godawful paranoid is this place?

In an e-mail exchange months later, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the marvelous Nigerian novelist, mentioned that she thought it was perfect. Very gratifying, that was.

3. You have voiced support for the "big-city newspapers" and what they do.  In this increasingly crowded world of media, can you highlight the unique benefits of a big-city newspaper?  What publications do you feel emulate these qualities?

I've often been told by happy webheads that the internet is replacing the daily newspaper and is better at the job, anyway. Supplanting the newspaper, yes, replacing it, no. When it comes to cultural discussion, the internet is heading down two paths, more or less. One path includes all the solo sites or user collectives: the blogs, the YouTubes, the Wikis, etc. The other path is the corporate website, which is primarily a marketing engine. These needn't be the Sony-Viacom-Time-Warner mega-sites themselves, even much smaller outlets are essentially extensions of promotion campaigns. The method for mass-marketing media products these days is to flood the cultural outlets: The new movie or reality show or video game seems to be everywhere, including the internet. It's the giant, pop-culture version of the water-cooler chat: Gee, this must be important, everyone's talking about it.

Nowhere do I see on the internet something of a 'middle way' that does what the big-city paper does: Provide a reasonably competent level of cultural discussion, a discussion that takes the measure of local arts efforts but also puts them in the context of national and even international scenes, does this across the spectrum of the arts, does it all in one place, does it for a general reader, does it at relatively low-cost for that reader, does it with paid professionals who stick around a city for awhile, gain a feel for its history, become part of its cultural make-up. All of this is especially crucial for the live arts (theater, music, dance) and what I call the slow-impact arts (museums, books) -- arts that do not come with sizable ad budgets, high-speed delivery systems and the billion-dollar conglomerates that run them.

Artsjournal.com, for instance, is a terrific site, a must-read for most arts journalists. But it has no commitment to covering the arts in, say, Philadelphia or Miami. That's not what it does. On the other hand, if you're in Philly, it's easy enough to find a blogger who posts about the art museums and galleries there. If you go to her website, though, she's not likely to have an equally knowledgeable critic on local theater. Or classical music. Or local TV. You have to hunt and find those elsewhere, and how reliable and knowledgeable and convenient are they? You have to assemble what a daily newspaper used to do as a basic practice. And the critics still aren't paid. Good, consistent content costs.

This doesn't mean individual bloggers aren't tremendous critics or fine reporting services. I check GalleyCat for publishing news almost every day, and I read Scott McLemee (blog and weekly column)  and to humble myself with how little I remember about literary theory. But the only sites that offer all of what I detail above tend to be newspaper websites -- unfortunately so, because newspaper websites, on the whole, are dreadful, they're particularly dreadful when it comes to accessing or promoting their arts sections and the arts sections -- here we are, back with my departure -- are precisely what newspapers have been gutting lately. Driving away serious, educated, affluent readers must be a major goal of their business plan.

I'm not saying the internet can't eventually provide this kind of service. But if LitMinds' readers know of a website that does all that I've described, I'd like to hear about it. Otherwise, for the most part, what we have for thoughtful, local, cultural discussion in most American cities nowadays is, on the one hand, fragmented and narrow-focused no matter how intelligent or passionate (blogs) while, on the other hand, it's increasingly non-existent (PBS, NPR, commercial TV and radio, disappearing daily art sections, alternative weeklies that mostly cover the club scene and city magazines that cover restaurants and society celebs). This is pretty wretched.

4. When you started book/daddy you spoke of your desire to "return to the original motivating pleasures. To a level of discourse, lively inquiry and irreverent humor."  Do you feel that you have accomplished  this in your shift from newspaper columnist to blogger?  What have you discovered during these first months in a new medium and position?

It's not entirely what I expected. Because I'm not getting paid to blog, so the least I thought it could be is fun. Which it is. People think blogging is liberating (gonna be honest at last, gonna let it rip) or it's imprisoning (gotta feed the beast every day). It can be both those things, but that's not what's signally different about it. Blogging tends toward a brief, punchy, conversational style. And although that is fun, ultimately it's not nourishing, it's not the kind of writing I thought I'd also be doing: more involved essays or interviews, the kind of ruminating pieces that our increasingly pop-culture-obsessed, anti-intellectual newspapers and magazines are abandoning.

But those essays are hard work and, recalling Dr. Johnson's remark about blockheads, I like to get paid for hard work. Meanwhile, it's so much easier to find some news item to quip about. Partly, it's me -- I've realized that some of my better writing at the newspaper was done because I had to. For instance, I really don't care about Oprah. I don't despise her or think her influence on literature is entirely pernicious. Some of her picks have been fine. It's just that she really has little effect on my experience of literature, what literature does, what it means, how I think about it. In 20 years, people will wonder what all this was about. People already have to be reminded who James Frey is. But because there was such a tsuris over Oprah and Frey, the News wanted me to comment, comment on it now. Yet it wound up being one of the smarter things I wrote at the News. Multiply that by several dozen books over the years that I didn't want to read but had to, and you get the idea.

One accidental solution for this dilemma has been to break up a big essay topic into smaller chunks, keep returning to the issue in new posts -- as I did with literary thrillers, for instance. But for the most part these days, when I start reading something, and I don't like it, I stop. Why bother? I don't have to finish it. I pick up something I do want to read instead. Delightfully, this return to "original motivating pleasures" has led to a small orgy of fiction reading. Newspaper editors incline heavily toward non-fiction, especially political books -- they want to Ponder the Great Issues of the Day. But if all you do is tout the novels you love, you become boring; you're not thinking, you're a sales pitch.

So sometimes, what Ishmael Reed said is right: Writing is fighting. Sometimes, anyway. I just need to find a way to be irked into writing. It's a Zen marraige I seek: love on one side, aggravation on the other.

5. You are a member of the National Book Critics Circle, which gives awards every year for books in fiction, general nonfiction, biography/autobiography, poetry, and criticism.  Can you explain the process for selecting the book finalists and winners for these highly regarded awards?

There's this big lottery wheel in the secret NBCC casino that we spin.

Actually, there's little mystery to it. The board of directors splits into committees for the different fields (biography, fiction, poetry, etc). All members, whether on the board or not, can send in their own suggestions. If a book is nominated by 20 percent of the members who write in, it's automatically a finalist. Each of the committees then pick the other finalists. When they meet for the third and last time, they thrash out a winner (more info here).

I have profound objections to awards, but the NBCC's choices have generally been worth it, giving attention to books that merit it, certainly sharper, more challenging choices, on average, than what the Pulitzers or National Book Awards have given us. Eleven years ago, the late Gina Berriault won the fiction prize for her story collection, "Women in Their Beds." Although admired by critics, her work never got much ink. Or book sales. At the award ceremony, this intelligent, mature woman broke down crying. Other than grants or fellowships, it was the first major book award she'd ever won.

A moment like that makes up for a lot of crap that goes with awards.

6. In a previous interview, you shared an idea for a book-oriented television show.  Can you explain this project and what has happened with it recently?  How has this project helped you to consider reaching new audiences about the pleasures of books and reading?

It's "in development." Which, of course, is Hollywoodspeak for it's "in a dumpster." I had a very enjoyable lunch with an agent, discussing the idea, and that's it. But he did pay for lunch.

The inspiration came partly from frustration over the less than zero that commercial radio and cable TV do with arts and literature in America -- compared to European media. You can target educated, affluent viewers, but once channels like A&E and Bravo get bought by bigger media companies, they start aiming for the same wide, illiterate, American Idol audience everyone else does. You could probably make money with such a book show, but for the media guys, it'll never be enough money.

It is true that literature does not lend itself to video -- for obvious reasons. Particularly novels. What are you going to shoot? The most common solution -- Oprah does it, even PBS' American Masters and American Experience do it -- is making the author the story and not the book. As Yeats said, "All knowledge is biography." I don't think he was happy with that idea, though.

But what if the show were something of a tongue-in-cheek arts show? A spoof Charlie Rose show that managed to talk about arts and literature without being ponderous? I was watching Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, and he was interviewing some author, and the last time I'd seen him, he was interviewing another author. Many of the guests Stewart and Colbert have are authors -- a fact the New York Times figured out many months later.

So that became my model. Why not remove some of the politics (not all of it, of course), make it about both fiction and nonfiction and the arts, but keep the humor? You know, Studio 360 but with better gag writers?  Literature does not always have to be treated as a  BookTV snoozefest. Books and wit and rewarding journalism are not incompatible it would seem. Canadian TV has Open Book, an amusing show with an actual comic actress, Mary Walsh, as host to a weekly ad hoc book club. Sort of Bill Maher but with guests who've done the required reading.

OK, so perhaps books and humor and American media are incompatible. Because I don't live in Manhattan or LA and I don't lunch regularly at the Four Seasons with the big media dogs, no one's paying attention. I may have to try shooting a no-budget prototype with a webcam or something.

Great. More unpaid work.

But fun, right?

Posted by Christin at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Dinah Lenney is a well known actor as well as an accomplished writer of creative non-fiction, and now author of a new book, Bigger Than Life: A Murder, A Memoir. She received her B.A. at Yale and her Certificate of Acting from the Neighborhood Playhouse where she studied with Sanford Meisner. Her MFA in writing is from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she has published numerous articles and essays in national magazines, anthologies, and newspapers. 

Dinah is probably more widely known for her acting roles, in film and on stage, and more especially on television. On stage she has performed leading roles in plays ranging from MacBeth to The Vagina Monologues. On television she has appeared on shows such as Murphy Brown, Judging Amy, and South of Nowhere. She is best known for her portrayal of Nurse Shirley on the popular television drama series ER, a role for which she was honored by the Screen Actors’ Guild.

Dinah wrote a memoir about her family that revisits the fractures suffered during her father and mother’s divorce when Dinah was still a young girl. This book looks at Dinah’s family through the prism of her  at at father’s murder in 1997. While Bigger Than Life takes the murder as a point of departure, a jolt that forces her to reevaluate her family’s relationships, the book is also a brilliant and entertaining narrative examination of Jewish middle class life in New Jersey, full of poignant and funny anecdotes about colorfully flawed but embraceable people.

Dinah’s father, Nelson Gross, was a political figure with a dramatic life story. He was Republican member of the New Jersey State House of Assembly, a delegate to the Republican National Convention from New Jersey in 1968, and an assistant secretary of state in Richard Nixon’s cabinet.  In 1970 he was the Republican Candidate for U.S. Senator from New Jersey, and in 1974 he was convicted for campaign violations involving the 1969 campaign of Governor William T. Cahill. He spent 6 months in jail for that conviction. He was also a successful real estate developer, political fundraiser, and restaurateur in New Jersey. In 1997 he was abducted and murdered by three teenagers during a botched kidnapping and robbery. Dinah’s new book, Bigger Than Life: A Murder, A Memoir places the murder in the context of her family’s history.

Recently, Lewis Klausner approached Dinah to discuss her new book, writing, acting, and family.

Do you think of writing and acting as similar kinds of self presentation? The Dinah Lenney who appears in Bigger Than Life shares your life story, but did you also have to shape her as a literary character, perhaps the same way that you shape the character of Nurse Shirley?

See, this is so interesting to me, the acting-writing link… I didn’t think of myself as a literary character, no, not while I was writing anyway. But I do think acting and writing work on a person in similar ways – whether I’m going from the inside out or the outside in, in either case the goal is the same; to give the audience (or the reader) a full, round, idiosyncratic appreciation of the part… But writing in the first person as I did, with the urgency I felt, with that compulsion to get it all down – well, I kind of barfed myself on the page (pardon me), so I wasn’t watching myself, not at first anyway. Although similarly, at all stages of creating (and performing!) a role as an actor, it’s death to watch yourself; self-consciousness is to be avoided at all costs, which is why the best teachers say “acting is doing” not so different from the writing instructor’s admonition in the margins of every student’s work: “Show, don’t tell.”

It’s the details – the specifics -- that save both writers and actors every time. And as a craftsperson – after the fact – yes, I did have to go back and shape, in that way I was my own director, I guess, although I had teachers and editors all along the way, thank goodness… But I had to be tough with myself (was I tough enough? I don’t know…); as in, this little revelation can go… And this epiphany here might work for me but it won’t for anyone else… And this bit here makes me sound like I’m whining, whereas here I’m just plain showing off. In that way, yes, after the fact, I had to try to be objective about how to keep the reader engaged. With my journey. With me. An actor has rehearsal to work out those kinds of kinks. And I had the first three or four drafts.

 
Your father, it seems to me, was indeed a larger than life character. Had you not written about him, I feel I would still have some approximate knowledge of him from men in novels by Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. Did that make him easier to write about, or harder?

Once I got going, his huge proportions made it easier. Because even though I didn’t spend loads of time with my Dad (growing up as I did before the days of joint custody) he was a pungent presence in my world, he made sure of that (as if he had to…). And he was larger than life, yes, but in such human ways. He was himself -- always and unapologetically -- and it was good to reveal him in the writing – easy, yes! -- to find his essential person in the most innocuous moments…  

 
There is one part of the book that you had to imagine, the scenes in which your father was kidnapped and murdered. The rest of the book reports either your thoughts or scenes at which you were present. Do you see these as significantly different kinds of writing?

Absolutely. I’ve had trouble writing fiction since my father was killed. I love to read novels and stories, but my own attempts feel trivial and fake. That chapter – which is a fiction of sorts – a conjecture -- is as close as I’ve come since his death to writing a story. Not a great departure from the truth as I understand it, but I did sort of make it up, didn’t I?  

 
The murder and your father’s political career are the parts of your story that made the newspapers. But your book, it seems to me, is much more about family relations, about the ways children, siblings, and parents seek each others’ approval, or manipulate each other to bolster cherished myths about themselves. It seems often about how we strive to fit into our families in ways that will satisfy the hungers of our egos.  Was it healing for you and for the rest of your family to have this family history appear in print?

It was, of course, tremendously cathartic for me, a way of grieving and dealing with grief. But come to find out that part of my healing process – much delayed and unanticipated – has to do with the response from my family now that the book is out and they’ve read it. Because yes, I think it’s been helpful for some (not all!), and to hear from those people has been enormously gratifying. But there are others -- from whom I haven’t heard and never will most likely – who’ve been hurt or angered by the book. That can’t be helped, that’s the nature of the memoir beast.  My own mother, for instance, isn’t nuts for my version of events. Although she continues to be a hero about it…

 
One of the things that first brought your book to my attention were blurbs by two writers I admire, Sven Birkerts and Phillip Lopate. I then saw that you have an MFA in writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. How has the writing community helped you, how is it important to you? What do you think LitMinds can do to help emerging writers?

Well, I wouldn’t have finished this book without that community, that’s all, period, the end… Community – coming together to witness and discuss and respond -- it’s the best reason for school in my book, that and the discipline of reading and writing on a deadline. Look, I love school, I’d go to school all the time if I could, just to be around people who are as churned up by this stuff as I am.  I know – I’ve heard – that there are writers who work in isolation, who are entirely solitary. Not me, though, I rely on my peers, my writing and reading friends, somehow that connection makes the process all the more exciting and worthwhile for me -- and process is everything, isn’t it?

I think LitMinds gives its readers and writers a sense of belonging to a larger community of like-minded people – in that way it reflects and supports and inspires – and that’s a gift.

Posted by Lewis Klausner at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

LitMinds first met Lewis Klausner through his role as book events organizer at Black Oak Books.  Given his wealth of experience, we asked if he would interview authors and independent booksellers about their work.  Masha Hamilton’s conversation about her forthcoming book, The Camel Bookmobile, is the first of Lewis’ upcoming interviews.

Interview of Masha Hamilton, Author of The Camel Bookmobile

Journalist and novelist, Masha Hamilton has worked extensively as a foreign correspondent covering difficult and distant stories such as Israel and Palestine, Kremlin politics and life in Moscow, and the changes in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban government. Her new novel, The Camel Bookmobile, describes a lending library that travels on camelback to bring books to remote, semi-nomadic people in the Kenyan bush.  In order to do research for this novel she went to Kenya where she interviewed drought and famine victims in the isolated northeast near the unstable border with Somalia. She is also a licensed shiatsu practitioner and is currently studying nuad phaen boran, Thai traditional massage.

Lewis Klausner talked with Masha about her journalism, novel writing, world travel, and interest in learning about other cultures.

As a journalist and novelist, as a traveler, as a student of massage, you show a strong, interest in learning about other cultures, even in building understanding among cultures. How did you develop these interests?  Do you think your interest in massage influences you as a writer?  

I think I was always interested in the larger world, even as a kid, and my experiences as a journalist only heightened that interest. Covering conflict, I learned that though leaders often try to create a sense of “us” and “them,” the differences are not that delineated. I often felt like it was a whole bunch of “us,” with some of “them” scattered around. That made me feel that the borders we draw around ourselves are often artificial. Massage heightens my feeling of connection to people and hopefully, little by little, makes me more intuitive.

Your second novel, The Distance Between Us, draws upon your reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Your new novel, The Camel Bookmobile is based upon an actual institution in Africa that you researched, the Camel Library based out of Garissa in Kenya. Could you say something about the Camel Library itself, and about your own methods of blending factual research with the writing of fiction?

I waited until the book was finished, sold to HarperCollins and in the final editing stages before I traveled to Africa to see the real Camel Library firsthand. I didn’t want my journalistic tendencies to kick in too soon with The Camel Bookmobile. I wanted to listen to the novel’s characters, and allow the imagined story to take precedence and vibrate with its own resonance, before I saw the real Camel Library in action. Being there was a moving and amazing experience. It didn’t affect the story itself that much, but it did lead to the start of a camel book drive – you can see the donor site at www.camelbookdrive.wordpress.com. And the book drive has made the novel launch more meaningful for me.

For me, the voice is part of getting to know the characters and the story and comes directly from them. During the writing process, I try to sympathetically immerse myself in the characters’ world and mindset, so that’s how the phrases develop. I found with my first novel that it just takes a bit of time and focus, letting go of your own concerns and your own words in order to hear theirs.

There are traditionalist voices in Mididima that speak out against the library. They belong to people who fear the reforms or intrusions that the library might bring from the outside world. In the novel you treat these voices respectfully, though you also support the Camel Library project. How do you balance the advantages of modernization against the rights of indigenous cultures to survive?

I think it is a very difficult balance, and one that we as Americans are not always sensitive to. In fact Fi, the American librarian, in many ways illustrates Americans abroad at their best and their worst: well intentioned, but naïve. She demonstrates that even the best of goals, when coupled with cultural ignorance, can lead to mistakes with tragic consequences. In the end, all the characters are changed by the Camel Library, including Fi, who discovers that though the people of Mididima are largely illiterate, she has much to learn from them.

The women in Mididima, even traditionalist women like Matani’s beautiful wife Jwahir, express some frustration at the limits bush culture places upon them. The Camel Library might bring changes in gender roles, might it not?

In the novel, the indigenous culture emerges to take the upper hand. For the real life Camel Library, there is definitely a lot of interest in the Camel Library, but a strong commitment to local values – and the camel librarians make sure the books they carry into the bush will not disrupt or challenge those values.  

The Camel Library and LitMinds share some overall common goals. Both are about making the culture and conversation around books more inclusive and more lively. Have you got any thoughts about this?

Every month, it seems, we see another article or poll, which claims that books are passé, and of course, as an author and a voracious reader, that feels discouraging. Sometimes I imagine there is only a small group of us who love the written word – a group so small we could almost hold hands around a fire. But then, I see the Camel Library, and the excitement with which its books are greeted as they are spread out on grass mats under acacia trees, and a new site like LitMinds appears that grows interest in books, and I feel the polls are themselves out of touch. The best of books still hold deep, timeless truths and allow us to connect to one another beyond space and even time.

Thank you, Lewis, for your great questions.

Click here, to view Masha Hamilton's reading profile on LitMinds. 

Posted by Carrie at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Creator of The Millions (A Blog About Books), C. Max Magee, has covered a lot of ground in the world of reading and writing.  He’s conducted a study of online journalists as a part of the new media Masters program at Medill, Northwestern University's highly-ranked School of Journalism.  Through The Millions blog, Max writes book reviews and industry news, supplies an eclectic reading list called the reading queue, and involves many friends and his wife, Mrs. Millions, in his world of literary blog-ness.  And Max's "other job" is writing about the stock market for indieresearch.com.  

LitMinds asked Max to tell us us more about his varied reading and writing life. 

1. You recently celebrated the fourth anniversary of The Millions (A Blog about Books).  Congratulations.  From where did the name and inspiration for your blog arise?  Looking back on this time, what have been some of the more unexpected or surprising developments for The Millions?

Back in 2002 or 2003 in Los Angeles, my roommate at the time had begun blogging. He tried to get me into but I didn’t really get the point.  However, I’d been trying for about the hundredth time to keep a journal, and eventually it occurred to me that keeping a blog might help me write more regularly.  So I took a half-hearted stab at it and was starting to lose interest when I realized that the site could be a venue for discussing books, rather than an eclectic catch-all for nothing much. 

At the time I was working at an independent bookstore in Los Angeles and so was immersed in books every day, giving me endless material.  The little bits of feedback I got early on from people who were excited about what I was doing were enough to keep me going.

The blog’s name is a play on my own, Maximilian, but it is also meant to represent the uncountable things that are out there waiting to be discovered: books, people, nuggets of knowledge.

I continue to be surprised by the blog almost daily.  I think perhaps the most important development for The Millions was becoming a part of a larger community of bloggers and readers that discusses books online.  It’s been remarkable to watch the development of this amorphous and vibrant venue for literary discourse.  It has given me great faith in the health of the art of literature.

2. There are seven contributors including you on The Millions.  As the creator and most active writer on the site, you have set the blog’s literary tone and direction.  How have you gone about adding the other contributors?  How does having a blog with multiple writers compare to the single-author literary blog?

With one exception, who I met through the blog, my contributors are old friends of mine from high school, college, and afterwards.  I’ve talked books with many of these guys for years, so bringing that discussion “public” was an easy step.

I love having multiple writers for the blog.  Aside from taking a bit of the burden off of me, it keeps the blog from getting monotonous.  I used to worry that readers would get tired of hearing from me day after day.  Now we’ve got an array of voices bringing unique points of view to the table.  It makes for a much fuller, richer site.  To that end, I’ve been looking for a female contributor for the site for a while now, since we’re lacking that angle, but I haven’t found anyone yet.

3. You have developed a fairly sophisticated process for selecting your next book to read.  Can you explain how The Reading Queue works and why you have opted to use this tool to determine what you read?  Personally, I like your process, but I also think I might miss the experience of searching for and finding that next book based on my urge or interest of the moment.  How has The Reading Queue influenced your browsing habits?

It’s funny, after working in a bookstore and maintaining the blog, I don’t really shop for books like a normal person any more.  Books are passed along to me by people, or I’ll happen to spot a tattered copy in a thrift store of a book I’ve been meaning to read.  I’m constantly surrounded by books I haven’t read, and if I had to pick what to read next, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

The Reading Queue takes what was once an agonizing decision and makes it a nice little surprise.  And it also forces me to read more challenging books that I might otherwise put off.  Here’s how it works: I alphabetize my “to be read” pile by author and then assign each book a number.  When the time comes to pick my next book to read, I use a random number generator to decide for me.  It’s quite compulsive, I know, but it works for me.

The only time I read a book out of order is if a publisher or author has sent me an advance copy and I want to make sure I read and review it when it comes out. Those I bump right to the top of the list. But if I go buy a book or get one as a gift, it goes into the queue. Maybe I'll read it next week, maybe I'll read it in five years; the reading queue will decide.

4. You are also a writer about the stock market for indieresearch.com.  How does this work contrast to and compliment the literary leanings of your contributions on The Millions?

There’s really no overlap at all.  They are just very different.  However, my going to journalism school a couple of years ago certainly impacted all of the writing I do, helping me to write more quickly and get the point across better.  At the same time, I really enjoy the freedom the blog gives me to write in the first person and to be creative in ways that I can’t with the other writing I do.

5. You spend a lot of your time reading and reviewing books for a large audience of readers.  What is a recent book recommendation you have made enthusiastically to a friend, colleague, or family member?  To whom and why did you recommend it?

Again going back to my days as a bookseller, I’m a compulsive recommender of books, and I have several that I frequently suggest to people.  One of the best books I’ve read in recent months is Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! by Mark Binelli. It’s a post-modern madcap tale that conflates the lives of a pair of accused and executed anarchist with those of a slapstick comedy duo from the early days of cinema.  It’s a challenging book that also manages to be incredibly entertaining. 

A longtime favorite of mine that I have recommended to many people is The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis.  For those who have read all of Garcia Marquez and Borges, this book is another, and as yet relatively undiscovered, masterpiece of Latin American literature to delve into.

6. LitMinds is just getting started in building a community that connects readers, authors, and indie booksellers.  What do you like about the LitMinds community so far?

I applaud you on your efforts thus far.  The site looks great and is certainly inviting to the new user.  I think that going with a discussion-focused site is a great move.  Over the past few years literary discourse has blossomed online, and I think there’s plenty of room to tap into that.

You can find Max's LitMinds profile here.

 

Posted by Christin at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Overheard at the Jack Kerouac Alley dedication ceremony this past weekend:

North Beach accordion & guitar group wrapping up their set, "Thank you all for coming down to our neighborhood this beautiful spring afternoon." 

And next up, the Chinatown dance troupe captain, "And thank you for coming down to our neighborhood.  Now performing from our end of the alley... "

Neighborhood pride was in full swing this weekend at the inauguration of Jack Kerouac Alley, a small 20 meter-long side street sitting between the San Francisco historic neighborhoods of North Beach (home to many Italian-Americans and numerous coffee shops) and Chinatown (home to many Chinese-Americans and a fortune-cookie factory). 

The event was timely since this year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's best-known work "On the Road."  But the plan to close the alley to cars and install commemorative cobblestones was apparently the culmination of many years of lobbying by City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti whose bookstore is a literary landmark in its own right.

The new cobblestone plaques include quotes from other literary figures as well including Li Po & Confucius on the Chinatown side and Maya Angelou & John Steinbeck on the "western" side.  Some of our favorites quotes include:

"Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency." -- Maya Angelou

"The free exploring mind of the individual human is the valuable thing in the world." -- John Steinbeck

"Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes." -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

At the center of the refurbished walk is a spiraling quote from On the Road: "The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great I thought I was in a dream...'' 

Spinning around to read the quote with the murals on each of the side walls and the lanterns above you could surely feel like you are in a dream!

Since City Lights was just there at the alley's westside entrance, we couldn't pass up a visit.  We'd included the North Beach bookstore on our tour last fall of San Francisco Independent bookstores. 

Because of the special event City Lights was particularly filled to the gills for a warm Saturday spring day.  The two employees at the front counter looked harried as they fielded customer questions about the program of performances for the alley dedication, and pulled down Howl t-shirts in customer's requested sizes.  The usually sparsely-populated upstairs Beat Literature and Poetry room was filled with browsers peeking out the windows into the alleyway below where the Chinese dance troupe was performing.

Still the bookstore shoppers looked particularly serious as they browsed the New Releases, the California local authors room, and the English & American literature sections.  There were fewer folks downstairs where the theatre, film, arts, and political studies sections reside -- but all the same the place felt alive with the spirit of the old beatniks and counter-culture writers who must continue to haunt these hallows.  You have to wonder what they'd make of us now memorializing them in the stones of an alleyway!

Posted by Christin at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)