Books/Mags/Blogs

As promised, and after many delays, Kate Atkinson, the first choice of the LitBlog Co-Op’s quarterly “Read This” read for her book Case Histories, has taken the reins over at the Co-Op. Cleverly, she posted in the middle of the night, thinking nobody would notice. We will not tell her about RSS… In her first post, she discusses controversy and reviews and the idea that to be British is to be controversial. Okay, not quite, but let us have our little fantasy. Second post addresses questions…in answer to the question of where she falls in the publishing spectrum, she says: […]

Yesterday, we noted with interest that the Los Angeles Times hired a new book review editor. As these things often go, one person in our vicinity expressed (extremely) mild interest, which we took as encouragement to further the discussion. Said discussion quickly degenerated into a lively debate about men and white suits (a surprising number of men admitted they would consider wearing said white suits; women approved as long as the word linen was included in the description). Then our Internet connection took a sleep cure and we moved on to other topics. We will allow more learned souls to

Reviews are funny things — or rather, the fact that they’re not funny is a funny thing. You have your dry recitation of the facts and figures of a book. You have your pretentious intellectual elite (our favorite!) analysis of homoerotic subtexts in Shane. You even have the biting, scathing, rip-roaring review. But it’s rare when the reviewer goes off and has a little fun, bringing the story to life in the process. Which is why Michiko Kakutani’s review of Indecision (by Benjamin Kunkel, though that may be in dispute) made the strongest case for a book we’ve seen in

Our dearest* Edward Wyatt (who went and got himself an excellent headline this time out) takes a look at a bad cover and how it was made right. We can only speculate about what was being smoked in the cover-decision meeting, but for the person who put Rick Moody and Conan the Barbarian together in the same thought, we salute your boldness. Of course, our salute means nothing when it comes to visceral reactions to bad covers. The He-Man pose didn’t work for the target audience, and, rather than standing back and watching the book sink into oblivion, the art

We will freely admit that we held no high hopes for the much-publicized Peter Pan sequel (though we did enjoy the cheerful cynicism that accompanied the decision). After all, why did we need a sequel? Isn’t it enough to let the story end. Yes, we’re still processing the finale of Six Feet Under, a series we feel will not succumb to a reunion show. Geraldine McCaughrean won the chance to write the Pan sequel, thereby assuring that the Great Ormond Street Hospital continues to own the rights to the character. While the book isn’t finished, she’s suggested that we’re not

What with it being August and all, it is hard to find interesting industry news. Especially since analysis of The Traveler has di–oops, not so fast. We have one more angle — oh sure, it’s been touched upon, but now the showdown between Elisabeth Kostova (The Historian) and John Twelve Hawks moves to center stage. Okay, it’s really more a look at how two books with (apparently) equal prospects fared in the market. It’s a tale of publicity tours and lack thereof. Of publishers who see the potential for a breakout novel and take appropriate steps. Of how readers respond

We were sitting with the sister, waiting for a haircut, when the conversation turned to the book we were reading. We described the plot and the underlying social issue — it was, ahem, an unabashed issue book all dressed up in literary credentials — and how the characters faced said issue. Granted, the sister is young, but her first and only thought was, “It sounds depressing.” Yes, that was true. For all the lyrical writing, for all the insight into a mysterious (to us culture), for all the conflict, there was an overriding sense of depression from which none of

While we are fundamentally opposed to doing stuff like research around here, sometimes research cannot be avoided — it comes knocking at the door, asking if we’d like to play. No, no, we say, knowledge only muddies opinions. Mostly research goes home; sometimes it parks on the front porch, holding its breath until we agree to listen. Such was our experience with so-called upperbacks. We found them amusing, if a bit pointless. Sure, the eyes need help as one gets older (just as hair color needs help), but did that require the introduction of a new, higher-priced book format? We’re

It has turned out to be one of those weeks — the sun is shining (far too much), the traffic is flowing (far too slowly), and there’s not a enough caffeine in the world to raise our heart rate above sluggish (far too depressing). We knew we’d hit rock bottom when we actually caught our mind in a grocery store parking lot, thinking, “Maybe it is the humidity.” Thankfully, we always have the media to rescue us. You’re never alone as long as Slate publishes odes to TV Guide. Who knew that the publication, before the Internets took over and