[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
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Room, by Emma Donoghue, reviewed by Aimee Bender (New York Times)
I included a book trailer to this book in my last installment of this feature. This book intrigues me; it looks to do some interesting stuff with narrator and perspective. And it looks kinda creepy. This review is definitely worth reading in its own right, as Bender is no slouch of a writer herself.
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Zero History, by William Gibson, interviewed by Douglas Gorney (The Atlantic)
Nico mentioned this novel last time, but I wanted to point this out anyway. Rather than a review, this is an interview with the legendary sci-fi writer. I actually haven’t read very much of Gibson’s writing, but he still fascinates me. He’s got a very particular and insightful way of looking at the world, and this new book seems to express this nicely. All and all an intriguing interview, whether you are the type to read a book like Neuromancer or not.
Whether Ross came up with it or a Star-Tribune editor did, the title of this review, “A Pro’s Prose,” is clever. And I want to believe Ross in his praise of Burgess’s writing, because as he describes it, this book sounds like it plays in the same ballpark as Junot Diaz’s excellent The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And that’s high praise for a debut novelist. Here’s a snippet of what he says:
The following are consolidated into a single plot: drugs, dogs, “Street Fighter 2,” the Mets/Yankees rivalry, the Nas/Jay-Z rivalry, McDonald’s infuriating late-night drive-thru policies, and a gun. The main story is that Alfredo’s brother, Tariq, is being released from prison, and Alfredo must steal a pit bull for Tariq, so that he can participate in a dogfight. The plot is fun, original, addictive and totally negligible. The real draw is Burgess’ prose.
I’ll probably give this book a shot.
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As a bonus this week, here’s a sweet book trailer:
[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]
The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, reviewed by Dwight Garner (New York Times)
Hawking might be the smartest man in the world, and his A Brief History of Time is a book everyone should read, even if they have only a passing interest in science and philosophy. Hawking’s newest book takes on religion, as a consequence of asking how the universe began. A ballsy book that could probably only be pulled off successfully by this man, whose “body has been wasted by Lou Gehrig’s disease, while his mind is utterly intact, a pinging black box amid the physical wreckage.”
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Ape House, by Sarah Gruen, reviewed by Amy Canfield (Miami Herald)
This is a novel about a house full of apes. These are bonobo chimps that can talk to people with their hands. This quote from Canfield’s review makes me want to read this book: “Gruen sets up her premise with wit, using a couple of quotes. First we hear from Nim Chimpsky, a real-life chimpanzee who learned sign language in the 1970s: ‘Give orange give me eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you.’ That statement is followed by a message even more succinct: ‘Gimme, gimme more, gimme more, gimme gimme more’ — Britney Spears, 2007.”
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Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, reviewed by Troy Jollimore (Chicago Tribune)
I know I pointed to Freedom in last week’s installment, but this time I included it because I really liked Jollimore’s review. I just powered through this 550-page book in two sitings; it’s very good and you should read it too. I’ll be writing my own review for next week that will surely be the definitive take on the novel, but in the meantime, I like Jollimore’s ability to admire without leaving the faults unidentified.
The McNewspaper isn’t the best place to be looking for quality book recommendations, but this one seems pretty intriguing. Though to be honest, I picked this one because poor O’Brien’s author portrait made me chuckle. Click the link to see it; might as well read the review while you’re there.
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Bonus! This weeks best book trailer. The Room, by Emma Donoghue:
Recently, Apple’s been feeling its oats, and Steve Jobs has been picking fights with absolutely everybody, even bloggers who just want a portable porn pad. Here’s a breakdown of the two biggest Apple fights out there.
And by the way, Google’s launching its own ebookstore, which I’m guessing and hoping will use Adobe ePub formatting. Meaning neither Apple nor Amazon customers will be able to read Google ebooks. Because Apple hates Adobe, too! Why? Well, more on that after the jump… … Continue reading »
The New York Times has done it again. When Michiko Kakutani savaged Beatrice and Virgil in the Times‘s regular books section, I jokingly predicted that the paper would print a second, less harsh review within two weeks. Looks like I should have put this in writing, and bet Nico five dollars. Exactly two weeks later, Robert Hanks would have made me some money.
The Hanks write-up is more of a detailed summary than a review, and the analysis is limited to two pretty tepid sentences:
Although his ambition is admirable, the literary complexity and the simplicity of feeling Martel is aiming for don’t comfortably mesh. “Beatrice and Virgil” has its rewards, but the frustrations are what stick in the mind.
Though Virgil and Beatrice are sweetly engaging characters, the play in which they appear remains a derivative recycling of Beckett, and Mr. Martel’s efforts to turn their tale into a kind of philosophical meditation on the Holocaust result in a botched and at times cringe-making fable.
And, later
…they are another awkward element in this disappointing and often perverse novel.
These shenanigans are all too common in the Times. Akin to what reviewer Garth Risk Hallberg dubbed “The Kakutani Two-Step,” this might be called the Sunday Switcheroo. I first noticed this with Kakutani’s savage review of Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City, which she called a “tedious, overstuffed novel” full of “a lot of pompous hot air.”
Ten days later, in the Sunday Book Review, there was this glowing review, in which Gregory Cowles calls Chronic City “turbocharged,” “astonishing,” and “intricate and seamless.”
The old switcheroo!
Imagine these quotes next to each other on the dust jacket, and you’ll see the problem.
In both reviews, I agree with Kakutani more than the apology-review that follows. But I disagree with the practice. Readers look to influential reviews in the NYT, WSJ, PW, Chamberfour, etc., to find out if a book is good first and foremost. From time to time, certain books will be controversial and warrant reviews from those who both love and hate them. Lolita is such a book, as is American Psycho and, recently, Jonathon Little’s The Kindly Ones. These seem more like back-pedaling to undercut vitriolic reviews. Readers find Kakutani’s review in the regular Arts section, where she savages the successful author, and the second piece—by an unknown reviewer in the Sunday Book Review—weeks later. Which review are we supposed to believe?
Maybe issuing conflicting reviews is a NY Times policy, but it sure is confusing to readers (not to mention how confusing it must be for the authors…”They called my book “Intricate and seamless” and “a tedious, overstuffed novel?”).
But if it works for the New York Times, it may work for C4. In the days to come, you can look for favorable reviews to off-set our least favorite books. Sean will rave about Going Rogue. Nico will put up a post touting the value of the Amish-slice-of-life genre in Plain Pursuit. And Eric Markowsky, long missing in action, will come back from retirement to praise the works of Douglas Preston. Stay tuned!
Hello there, links fans. This will be the last actual Wednesday Links post ever (actually the last one was the last one).
We’ve been doing links on our new Twitter account for a couple weeks now, and we’ve found that to be a much better system than compiling links in a post every two weeks. It lets us be more timely and more plentiful with linkage, and frankly it’s easier, too.
We’ll still do links posts if stories emerge that fit that mold, but they’ll be shorter and irregular. For instance, Mike’s doing one today about the New York Times‘s Sunday Book Review. It’ll be shorter than an old Wednesday Links post, but longer and more involved than a tweet.
So let us know what you think of the new system. You can read a few tweets in the sidebar at right, and you can follow us (or just look through links if you’re not into Twitter) at our Twitter page.
I enjoyed this article about big P Publishing’s woes. (I have an MFA from Emerson, and I wish I didn’t. They exemplify the watered-down publishing industry at its very base level. Rumor has it, teachers can’t fail even atrocious theses–and they certainly exist. Of those hundred books, I’d bet 92 are babytown frolics.)
What’s the last great book you read? John Crace in the Guardian discusses how difficult it is to find a great a novel these days, because there are far too many books and publishers will tell you each and every one of them is mind-blowingly fantastic. I couldn’t agree more. Crace recommends genre fiction; meanwhile, on the Guardian’s books blog, a post about how shorter can be better for fiction. And then, crime novelist Ian Rankin discusses/defends crime fiction (via). I’m inclined to agree with all this, the only problem is that I’ve been reading all the Edgar award nominees—supposedly the best of the year in a genre that’s right up my alley—and not a single one of them has been great. It’s a nice theory, though.
Here isan article from the NYT about literature and cognitive science. Basically, it’s about how empathy relates to reading fiction, and how readers process interrelated or overlapping points of view. Or “what the scholars call levels of intentionality.” Read it.
Obligatory iPad and Amazon news—and lots of other stuff—after the break. … Continue reading »
The iPad is the talk of the town lately. Apparently Apple is building a stable of allies and partnerships in anticipation of the coming launch. Seems everyone wants to have an app ready for April 3, including Amazon. This isn’t that big a deal, really, as they already have an app on the iPhone with similar features. When all is said and done, the iPad will probably be pretty cool. Though anyone still dumb enough to buy a first-gen Apple product will probably over pay by hundreds, more if they go for this model (I’d just fake it). This week’s entry in adding a dumb name to an existing piece of hardware and calling it something new: the Infibeam Pi.
Everyone seems to be touting the Great eReader Adoption as an iPad-Kindle war, but the Nook still looms (and also sports an iPad app) and the Alex is still on the way (and still overpriced). However if terrible customer service like this around haphazard products is what can be expected from Barnes & Noble, the Nook won’t stand much of a chance. Perhaps I don’t really understand why international buyers can’t have an instant download over the internet already, but I guess Diesel-ebooks allowing instant international “delivery” of ebooks is a good thing. (Really though, what do mail carriers have to do with ebooks, and what does “an innovative and evolutionary free digital shipping promotion” mean?)
This year I’m once again a second round judge for the Amazon Breakout Novel Award. I obviously can’t talk specifics about the books, but it’s a pretty cool program so I wanted to stick in a link so more people could check it out. I like when the big guys open the doors for the small fries. You can see a full list of the entrants now, and if it’s run like last year’s was, more information about the books will be available once the short lists are narrowed down.
What do these three have in common? They all have absolutely no business writing or "writing" books.
News about books and ebooks from around the web:
Vapidity will continue to rule the bestseller list. Sarah Palin plans to “write” another book (get ready, Marcos), Lindsay Lohan has plans to hawk her crazed mutterings, and Hilary Duff just signed a contract to write a series of young-adult Da Vinci Code-style caper novels (I kid you not). Previously, we learned about reality star Lauren Conrad, who’s writing novels (plural) despite having never read a whole book in her life (which you should do, if you want to write one). Then there’s always Dan Brown, a terrible writer of stupid books (even his website wants to be a movie)… but he has 80,000,000 readers. And let’s never forget Douglas Preston, a horrible writer who’s so overprivileged and out of touch that he attacked his own readers for not paying exorbitant prices for his crappy books. Please help me solve this. If you like any of those writers, do me a personal favor: stop buying their books and watch TV instead. TV does mindless entertainment much better than books, and then books can go back to being carefully crafted works of the imagination, and not just paycheck tickets cranked out by illiterate uncaring morons and vapid celebrities trying to cash in on their fleeting fame. Publishing industry: I hate you. To wrap up this rant, here is a grossly unreadable article about nothing, written by an editor from Knopf. It’s a joke, right? Nobody’s that bad a writer, especially not a professional editor, right? Right?
Borders is broke and starting heavy layoffs. Three months ago, while discussing the Nook, I noticed that Borders notably had no plans to release its own ereader/ebookstore. I said this about it: “Oh, and also… remember Borders? I’d say they have about 2 years of financial solvency left. It’s going to be like a brontosaurus dying.” Based on my understanding of the financial gobbledygook in the article in that first link, that timeline was just slightly generous. Ebooks are the way of the future, bookstores. Don’t be shy.
Two weeks ago, the NY Times published this article by Motoko Rich about the prices of ebooks vs. paper books. It included this chart, which got everybody in a huff because it claimed that ebooks selling for as low as $9.99 will provide as much profit to publishers (not authors) as full-price, $26 hardcover books. Among the respondents: Gizmodo, GalleyCat, John August, and almost everybody else in the world. I just have one thing to add. Rich estimates the costs of printing and shipping at $3.25. Since online hardcover prices max out at about $15, that means, logically, ebook prices should max out at about $12. Since some new, hardcover, guaranteed bestsellers go for even less (like Stieg Larsson’s next one, pre-selling at Amazon for $11.50), ebook editions of those should come in at sub-$10. Which means maybe readers asking for $9.99 ebooks wasn’t so astonishingly entitled after all. Maybe the Macmillan/Amazon kerfuffle lost Macmillan more than it gained them. Maybe publishers should shut up about prices and windowing and all those other caveats, and just put their weight behind ebooks. Stop treating your customers like enemies, and maybe everything will turn out OK.
