My 2010 List of Lists
I wanted to do one of those Best of 2010 lists, but it’s too hard because I read a fuckload of books in 2010. A heaping fuckload. PhD school has me reading at least two but sometimes three books a week, plus secondary materials that amount to about four or five scholarly articles a week, not to mention my own research amounting to about two books and about a half dozen articles a month. Plus, I teach about two books a month plus secondary materials, which I always re-look at before entering the ring. That’s just for school. For fun, I probably read between two/four books a month. When I say “read” I mean from beginning to end, every single word (I don’t “skim,” I actually internally vocalize every syllable — so, I’m also a very slow reader). I certainly abandoned a good amount of books I disliked. So the other reason I couldn’t really do justice to a “Best Of” list this year is because I didn’t get to read many of the books that are appearing on other best of 2010 lists. I also didn’t read very much poetry. I got a lot of catching up to do.
Anyway, I decided to make a list of lists, which might more accurately express my reading practices over the course of 2010.
Do These Right Things
The Emerson Review is looking for excellent writing for their next issue. Submissions are open until February 1 and they are interested in poetry, nonfiction and fiction. Send them something grand.
Issue 10.6 of DIAGRAM is live with writing from Nayelly SJ Barrios; Bridget Bell; Jody Brooks; Christopher Bundy; MRB Chelko; Paul Cunningham; Jim Fisher; Trey Jordan Harris; Christine Larusso; Robert Hill Long; Bo McGuire; Rebecca Mertz; David James Miller; Rufo Quintavalle; Samantha Stiers; and Quintan Ana Wikswo.
Ricky Gervais explains why he is an atheist.
I’ve been really interested in this post by Kevin Smith where he talks about success and work that doesn’t feel like work. I believe many successful people can relate to the sentiments Smith expresses in his post. When we consider successful people, we rarely pay any attention to how or why the success was achieved. We focus on the success itself because it is the success that is visible not the why of the success.
Spike Lee has released a book, Do The Right Thing, with behind-the-scenes photos, interviews, reflections from Lee and more.I’m looking forward to reading this book. I loved the film.
Jason Sanford offers a message to a writer who did not do his due diligence.
I admire writers with discipline. Laila Lalami took a year of silence, where she decided not to submit her work anywhere or agree to any requests for contributions. Instead, she simply focused on reading and writing.
Shane Jones engaged in an exchange with Poets & Writers wherein he discussed his writing process for one of the magazine’s features and then things got interesting.
I love this bag and want one quite badly.
Salvatore Pane shares his fiction workshop syllabus for next semester and suggests more teachers do the same.
It is the end of the year. Many people in many places are making end of the year lists summarizing where they went, what they did, what they read, loved, hated, and on and on and on and on. What’s on your list?
Cook Food Everyday
Last year, a Boston DIY gal pal started spreading the word she was putting together a cookbook for charity. 100% of the proceeds go directly to the Greater Boston Food Bank, and the book’s been featured on the Cooking Channel. I’m in it but under the penname nicnasty with no bio just in case people hated my recipes. The other recipes and writing in the anthology are by some pretty awesome vegans, food critics, vagabonds and good-hearted cooks. My sometimes band Mind Yeti (I’m on the kazoo, wazaa) played the book release and we sold 150 copies the first night. Kristina is the editor and food expert so she can better explain all of it than I can below because I am not an expert at all.
Cook Food Everyday,
Nicolle Elizabeth
Dethcicle
I worked with Sean Kilpatrick to make Dethcicle. I hope it looks okay in your browser, and I hope you enjoy it. It probably looks like shit on your Windows computer at work, and I can’t wait for you to tell me.
Our first publication is a Blake Butler story titled RICKY’S SPINE.
I feel like the piece-of-shit week between our two most fucked holidays, when we’re pretending to answer important emails and pouring schnapps into drinks we shouldn’t be pouring schnapps into, is a good time to “edit some spreadsheets” and read online lit journals. Maybe suggest some good online publications/issues in the comment section? I like sharing.
Happy piece-of-shit week between holidays!
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyaMC09BHLI
Lishcast Moonfish Sleepingfish Bookmas
1. Iambik offers a free audio Q/A slash talk with Gordon Lish re: creation, editing, Beckett, Ginsberg, Tao Lin (for real), and various etc., in corollary with the release of his audio books.
2. Cinematheque Press has published a limited edition run of Peter Markus’s classic The Moon is a Fish in a limited edition of 84, with all proceeds going to support the InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit.
3. If you haven’t been following Sleepingfish’s vol iX sequence, you have some reading to do, including new short pieces by Robert Lopez, Jack Boettcher, Elisa Misto, and more more.
4. I got my mom Sebald’s Rings of Saturn and Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America/The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster/In Watermelon Sugar and J. Robert Lennon’s Pieces for the Left Hand for xmas. I disagree with Adam: books are the only gift I usually actually end up doing something with beyond the day it arrives.
What books did you get people? What did/will you get?
combine your abilities on the fly!
11.
well I sincerely cannot think of a way that the holidays, as we know them, have anything to do with art. except for the ways we are tested.
Lucy Corin
78. Soth takes photos worth eye-meat.
14. Christmas Eve flash (scroll down–it involves a ham) by Pamela Painter.
22. Hey, pick me up that Thomas Pynchon first edition for $51,000.
00. What are the best books that fit in a stocking? I’m going Big World, but you?
