Latino Book Contest at Conversational Reading and An Earnest Post About My Favorite Independent Bookstore
To enter, simply email me a short description of your favorite independent book store. Make sure to include the city and state it’s located in, and why it’s your fav. Also include your mailing address (sorry, no entrants outside the U.S. and Canada, and no PO boxes) and make the subject line Conversational Reading May Contest.
I’ll pick five winners at random and announce here next Friday.
Here are the books:
1. B as in Beauty By Alberto Ferreras
2. Into the Beautiful North By Luis Urrea
3. Hungry Woman in Paris By Josefina Lopez
4. The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos By Margaret Mascarenhas
5. Houston, We Have a Problema By Gwendolyn Zepeda
I’m not sure if he’ll post all of the entries, but I hope he does. I enjoyed reading the Bookstores Category at Maud Newton, so it would be nice to have more of that, I think. After the jump, some memories of my favorite used bookstore.
Used Bookstore Finds: ‘Camels in my mouth and the cast of STOMP in my head’
A few years ago, I worked at a used bookstore in Fairfax, Virginia. I found a lot of interesting stuff tucked into various books or written on their pages as I sorted through the incoming boxes, but my favorite discovery fell out of a copy of Robert Olen Butler’s A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain: the following handwritten letter, dated 2/22/99, which I’ve done my best to type out below the picture.
Peter,
You deserve so much more than this loose leaf notebook paper but if I don’t say what I want to now I’m afraid the time will pass. As I laid next to you with a herd of camels in my mouth and the cast of STOMP in my head and a 20yr. marriage falling apart – I felt soft and safe and wanted. There was no way I was going to let any more abandonment and indiscretion into my friendship with you. I love your spirit, your genius, your unlimited style, your Whiting-Davis, your energy – just you Peter, The Person – and I am forever in your debt for how you watched over me.
Sincerely,
Your Queen Priscus,
Wini
I cannot bring myself to get rid of this letter. I’m fascinated by it. I hope these past ten years have been kind to Wini and Peter’s friendship.
If you have interesting used bookstore finds, feel free to email us.
New Websites
Sorry I’m posting twice in a row, but I feel that I must post this probably old news: you should know that Dave Madden and Rebecca Livingston admit to having new websites.
You ought to visit them!
Dave Madden has moved from here to here.
Rebecca Livingston, on whom I crush hard, has moved from here to here.
Update your links.
Hooray!
Reading Russia: One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I went through high school without having read One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. I read other common high school books, such as A Separate Piece, Catcher In The Rye, A Tale of Two Cities, and a few ones that strike me as odd for high school (Ridley Walker?), but never this one.
I finally read it in January, and I’ve just now got a chance to type some thoughts, which will be very brief, because I did not take notes as I read this one.
Like Night by Elie Wiesel and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, One Day In The Life tells in rather plain, unadorned language (as far as I can tell through the translation) of how a human copes under massive, institutional cruelty, though in this case Denisovich is ‘fictional.’ I’m assuming most of you are very familiar with this book, so I’m not going to really summarize it or anything: there’s the usual intense description of prison camp procedure, the remarking of odd traditions, the listing of ways one might die, etc. The main character must constantly position himself to survive the day. And what I found fascinating in these books is how the daily routine, the little microcosms of the camps, sometimes gave the prisoners respite. I’m thinking here of how Primo Levi’s background as a chemist helped him receive a work detail as an assistant in a laboratory, thus protecting him from the harsh winter.
Uncategorized / 4 Comments
May 12th, 2009 / 1:54 am
May 12th, 2009 / 1:54 am
Word Spaces (10): James Scott
I met James Scott at Sewanee last summer. He was my suitemate. He is from Boston, but I don’t hold that against him; one of the first things he told me was a story about how he had gotten into a bar fight a few weeks earlier. This frightened me. Our rooms shared a bathroom, so I was careful to lock my door that night.
James Scott is a former fiction editor of Redivider, leads workshops at Grub Street, and has stories published in American Short Fiction, One Story, Saint Ann’s Review, online at Lost Magazine, Flatmancrooked, and other places too.
The following is his Word Space with text and photos.
Tin House Giveaway and Sexy Stories
In a few hours, I’ll wake up and tour a handful of houses that my wife and I are thinking about seriously purchasing. We’re looking at a ‘move’ this summer, and I’m looking at my bookshelf and wondering how many books I’d like to carry around in big boxes and how many books I can afford to give away.
So it’s about time for another HTMLGIANT giveaway promo contest thing. What I’d like to do is offer four back issues of Tin House: the Winter Reading issue (30), the Evil issue (31), the Hot and Bothered issue (32), and the Fantastic Women issue (33). To be eligible, all you need to do is email HTMLGIANT your full name and mailing address by Noon CST on, let’s say, Tuesday the 12th. If you don’t hear from me afterwards, then that means the random integer generator did not favor you. But look out for more giveaways this summer, as I’ve got a shelf of books that I can’t pack up.
These four issues are pretty good. Highlights include Steve Almond’s essay “Condifreaks,” which is basically letters to Almond regarding his resigning from Boston University after the administration invited Condoleezza Rice to speak at graduation (he responds to them as well); an interview with a former member of the Manson Family; and, basically, the entire Fantastic Women issue, with stories by Aimee Bender, Miranda July, Kelly Link, Lydia Millet, etc.
I need to part with these issues, but wish to give them to someone who will enjoy them. So if you’re interested, please don’t hesitate.
Sexy writing after the jump.
Wigleaf Top 50/2009
Scott Garson has posted the Wigleaf Top 50 little stories for 2009. Darlin’ Neal, the selecting editor, writes in her introduction:
In choosing the final fifty, I looked for story. I looked for some sort of sense of completion, some sort of narrative movement. What drew me were shapes that offered more than a trick, more than a scene that cries to go on, more than a one-note joke. I discovered pieces, ends in themselves that take my breath away with sorrow or resonant laughter, leave me with lingering memories.
I’m not going to list any names here because I don’t want to type the names out, and I’d feel like I ought to list all fifty names. Many of the names on the list are no surprise (not a bad thing), and there are a few stories on the list from some old pros as well.
New this year (correct me if I’m wrong?) is the long list, the two hundred stories that Scott sent on to Darlin’ Neal to judge. I like having this list and the Top 50; both are a good map of what’s happening right now, a good reading list for those who haven’t caught up yet, like me.
So yes, congratulations to the Top 50ers, and thanks to Scott Garson and Darlin’ Neal for their time/effort.
Uncategorized / 19 Comments
May 6th, 2009 / 1:15 pm
May 6th, 2009 / 1:15 pm
Literary Doppelgangers: Jonathan Safran Foer and Brian Chase
James Scott points out this doppelganger: Jonathan Safran Foer and Brian Chase, drummer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
What do you think?
Seems like there’s a missing mole in there somewhere.
Jimmy Chen Month at HTMLGIANT
Not to be outdone by Writers’ Bloc, which has declared this week to be Jimmy Chen Week, we’ve declared the month of May to be Jimmy Chen Month here at HTMLGIANT.
Literary Doppelgangers: Brett Easton Ellis and Benicio Del Toro
Ryan Bradley tipped us off to this latest doppelganger. According to Dark Horizons, Benicio Del Toro might play Brett Easton Ellis in a movie adaptation of Lunar Park.
Is this a case of true literary doppelgangerism? Or is it just, like, movie news?
I don’t know. Brett, what do you think?
I think he’s interested just because he’s rarely offered Anglo parts. I think that’s one of the reasons it was very exciting [to him].
