Snippets
NYTBR has got some interesting stuff going on this weekend, mostly in the form of its bylines. They’ve got William T. Vollmann reviewing Crossers by Philip Caputo, August Kleinzahler on a new biography of Thelonious Monk, Amy Bloom on a book about feminism (When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present), and George Packer on Mark Danner’s Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War. Plus, you know, a bunch of other stuff. The usual run of whatever, plus as near as I can tell there seems to be only one new entry this week into the NYT’s famous vortex of nobody-gives-a-shit. That would be David Kamp (The United States of Arugala) reviewing the new Michael Chabon essay collection, Manhood for Amateurs (yikes!) which features that infamously stupid essay about childhood that made everyone hate him. Anyway, here’s the beginning of the Vollmann review:
Once when I was so weak with amebic dysentery that all time not spent on the toilet was passed in bed, I found in my host’s house one book in a language I could read. It was one of those storm-tossed but ultimately upbeat women’s romances, a genre I had not yet sampled. I read it, then read it again and again, since there was nothing better to do. If I ever have the luxury of repeating such an experience, I hope to do so with a Philip Caputo book. For how many decades in how many used bookstores have I seen “Horn of Africa” standing steadfast, a Rock of Gibraltar compared with the mere boulders of Ken Follett and Sidney Sheldon? And only now, with a half-century of my life already over, have I finally learned whom to turn to for a good potboiler in my next wasting sickness!
Palette, cleansed.
There’s also an interesting–if rather anemic–profile of Padgett Powell in the Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/magazine/18powell-t.html
There’s also an interesting–if rather anemic–profile of Padgett Powell in the Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/magazine/18powell-t.html
Don’t know how I missed that, but thanks for the tip. All Padgett is good Padgett, so far as I’m concerned.
Don’t know how I missed that, but thanks for the tip. All Padgett is good Padgett, so far as I’m concerned.
I’m at work right now and there’s a hotel guest here reading a copy. I keep creepin’ around the area to see if she’s finished so I can snag
I’m at work right now and there’s a hotel guest here reading a copy. I keep creepin’ around the area to see if she’s finished so I can snag
Snagged.
Did they totally kill off the best-selling poetry list? Or am I fabricating it’s existence completely?
Snagged.
Did they totally kill off the best-selling poetry list? Or am I fabricating it’s existence completely?
they should introduce the term ‘chabon syndrome’ for any one with immense talent gone to seed at what should be their prime, for no good reason (i.e., drugs, alcohol, oprah).
they should introduce the term ‘chabon syndrome’ for any one with immense talent gone to seed at what should be their prime, for no good reason (i.e., drugs, alcohol, oprah).