Here's a grimly amusing poem about "leprous daisies!"
Sometimes you just aren't in the mood to be uplifted much.

Poem 

by John Gray

To Arthur Edmonds

Geranium, houseleek, laid in oblong beds
On the trim grass. The daisies' leprous stain
Is fresh. Each night the daisies burst again,
Though every day the gardener crops their heads.

A wistful child, in foul unwholesome shreds,
Recalls some legend of a daisy chain
That makes a pretty necklace. She would fain
Make one, and wear it, if she had some threads.

Sun, leprous flowers, foul child. The asphalt burns.
The garrulous sparrows perch on metal Burns.
Sing! Sing! they say, and flutter with their wings.
He does not sing, he only wonders why
He is sitting there. The sparrows sing. And I
Yield to the strait allure of simple things.

New Post at Politerature

The latest post on Politerature starts with Carolina De Robertis's The Invisible Mountain and takes off into what literature is supposed to do. Shelley Ettinger and I continue to explore novels and politics, and have a gret time doing ig.

Foreverland Press is having a virtual Facebook Book party

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

to celebrate two re-issued books:

Meredith Sue Willis's first novel, A Space Apart
(originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons)

and Duff Brenna's memoir, Murdering the Mom.

It takes place Tuesday, March 26 all day. MSW will be there live 4 PM to 6PM Eastern Daylight Time.

To join the event, click here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/484498641620076/

Just One Green Bagel...

Andy said he only saw only one green bagel at Sonny's bakery  today, which is fine by me.  I am a purist about bagels.  I'm not even so crazy about bagels with everything.  Like many converts (I never ate a bagel till I was nineteen), I am a stickler for following the rules.  Plain bagel, plain cream cheese.  Well, vegetable cream cheese is good too.

No objections, however, to green beer because I don't even like beer so much.  Just don't muck with my good red wine.

Newsletter Books for Readers # 160

Meredith Sue Willis's

Books for Readers # 160

March 13 , 2013

 

My Very First Published Novel is Back as An E-Book:A Space Apart

(First Published by Charles Scribner's Sons)

Now in all E-Book Formats!

With a New Afterword
for Kindle
 for Nook
  for All E-Reader formats

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It looks better online! -- Read latest changes and corrections online -- MSW Home

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In this Issue:

Politerature!

More Politerature

Children's Picture Book for Passover

Joel Weinberger on Scientology Book

The E-Reader Report with John Birch

Announcements;  Good Reading Online and On the Air

Free e-mail subscription to this newsletter.

To create a link to this newsletter, use this permanent link .

For Back Issues, click here.

 

                                                                             

ANNOUNCING POLITERATURE!

Shelley Ettinger and I have begun a conversation about politics and literature at a site called Politerature.  There are book reviews (mostly of novels) and also dialogues between the two of us. Here's part of the "About Politerature:"

Politerature is an idea that begins with the assertion that politically informed literature can be of the highest quality. We believe that there are excellent books—some of them popular, others less well-known, some written in English, many originating in other languages—that express and embody political ideas. We believe that raising consciousness about racism or colonialism or women’s and LGBTQ oppression, about war and intervention, about class and unions, is a worthy task for fiction.  We intend to pay attention to the books that take on this task.

The crux of what we are seeking is to honor and develop a kind of literature that runs counter to the conventional wisdom that true art cannot be political. On the contrary, we believe that many books at all points on the ideological spectrum– including those we find abhorrent and those that insist they have no ideology– are, in fact, political. Our focus will be literature that is politically progressive and leftist: this is what we call Politerature. We are seeking books that rise to the heights of complexity in story, language, character, and political experiences and ideas. In cases where such books don’t reach the heights, we applaud the effort.

Finally, we assert that political fiction can open minds, inform, give insight, inspire, strengthen, and arm. We need these things.  Can books change the world? That’s one of the questions to be addressed here. We already know that we love books and we want to change the world. Those passions converge in  Politerature.....

I've had a busy couple of months getting the Politerature website/blog off to a start with Shelley Ettinger (and we are getting a lot of suggestions of politically progressive novels (including "Backchannel Contributor" below). I've also been preparing two old books for republication, my first novel, A Space Apart as an e-book and—coming soon—Blazing Pencils, a reprint of a book for young writers about writing fiction and personal essays. Getting books back into print and into digital format seems increasingly important to me for us writers who are in for the long haul. I don't know if it was exactly a choice in my case—getting rich as a flash-in-the-pan best selling author would no doubt still tempt me—but the game has changed drastically since A Space Apart was first published in 1979. I'm going for a longitudinal career—trying to have all my books available in whatever formats exist.
Meanwhile, I have been reading between projects and my teaching work. I want to recommend first the deeply engrossing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I read it as a borrowed library book on the Kindle so the photographs weren't as enjoyable as in a big format hard copy book, but the true story was plenty just as a narrative. It's about a poor woman named Henrietta Lacks who dies young of a virulent cancer, and whose cancer cells were grown and used, and continue to be grown and used, for vast amounts of research. Many many lives have been saved, but no permission to use the cells was ever given. It brings up endless issues of medical racism and who owns our bodies.
It is also a real page turner, and, in addition, a glimpse into the lives of people whose lives are damaged by poverty (and, underlying that, slavery and racism). The family is also, however, full of love and energy. Skloot builds relationships with them, and writes about their reactions to her, and hers to them. She worked on this research for a long time, and I wondered— as did the Lacks family— exactly what Skloot was living on. Also, she does not, to my taste, make enough of the role of syphilis in the story. It is likely that syphilis suppressed Henrietta Lacks's immune system and made her cancer even more invasive. And I also still don't get why you can do research on cancer cells and get results that are true for normal cells.
My last caveat is that while the complex issue of profit from sick people's tissue is central to the book, in the end Skloot more or less says, Well, kids, that's capitalism. I could have used more critique; I don't believe that the only thing that has advanced medicine over the years has been the profit motive.
Still, this is meant to be a recommendation of a fascinating book.

I also read Carolina de Robertis's novel The Invisible Mountain so I could say I'd read all the books on the Politerature banner , and I am so glad I did. Set Uruguay and Argentina, it is a three generation story that begins with family legends that have overtones of Cien Años de Soledad. I found that section least satisfying and liked much better the daughter who is a working class poet who runs away and becomes a kept woman (in Argentina) who parties with Peron and Evita. Her daughter becomes a Tupamaro and spends some terrible long years, more than a decade, in prison. The politics in this novel comes out of real lives naturally and easily: in one branch of the family, everyone is a communist. An uncle goes to fight for the revolution in Cuba. Che Guevera makes an appearance as a young doctor. All of this is simply part of the milieu, as is the suggestion that part of what finally ends the repression is that Uruguay has some history of the practice of democratic institutions, so even after many years of oppression and repression, there are those who remember a different political system..

Last, I want to mention Ross King's wonderful The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism. This is about the artists around Paris during the years before and after the Paris Commune of 1871. One of the strengths of this book for me is how it sketches in the background. I think I may finally have begun to get a mental outline of the various numbered empires and republics of France during the nineteenth century. The most powerful part of the historical background, however, is how Paris, shaken by losing the Franco-Prussian war, breaks out in the amazing and partly woman-led Commune, which is followed by terrible, bloody reprisals from the ruling class.
The heart of the book, of course, is the lives and work of the artists. It focuses on Manet as the representative of the future and Meissonier representing the past. It was a time and place when everyone knew everyone else—Manet and Courbet and Monet and Degas and Cezanne and the whole crew hung out in cafés together, along with the writer Zola (see Germinal on the Politerature banner above) and others. It was a time when the public was truly offended and shocked by paintings in which people wore contemporary clothing (Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe) or when a female nude stared back at the observer (Manet's Olympia above). A conventional painter of military triumphs like Meissonier got rich, but the future was with Manet and the others.

                                                                                                 --Meredith Sue Willis

Short Reviews and Books Received

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg is the memoir of the summer the author's teen-aged daughter became manic-depressive. It was very gripping, very New York City story, reading like a novel, with terrific momentum and wonderful city characters both on the streets and in the hospitals. The middle class family lives in a grubby apartment with broken air conditioners and a half-friendly half-exploitative landlord. Then there is the brilliant, horrifying mania of Sally, who, we learn from the afterword, has recovered, been sick again, recovered again, and so on.
Greenberg wisely makes it the story of one heart-rending summer.


Fred Arment's thriller The Synthesis is readable and fast-paced with the the main character repeatedly being chased and whisked off and saved by unknown people. There are conspiracies and conspiracies against the conspirators, with the main plot element a financial plan to stop history. Intrerestingly, Arment's nonfiction book released in 2012 is called The Elements of Peace: How Nonviolence Works. This is a guide to nonviolent conflict resolution with case studies of methods for maintaining or achieving peace. It would have been interesting to see some nonviolent conflict resolution in the novel. But maybe by definition that would not have been a thriller.





Smithereens by Susan Taylor Chelak is a dark novel about a teenager who has been desultorily playing at suicide when a mysterious girl from Kentucky arrives on the scene and moves in with her family. The narrator's mother used to send money to the girl. There are various mysteries, but mostly there is learning to be "bad" and a dark climax. I especially liked the stranger, Frankie. I'm a sucker for bad girl teenagers. It's a terrific capturing of a portentous, semi-suicidal world reminiscent of Stephen King and some of Joyce Carol Oates' work.



The mystery Black Water Rising is by Attica Locke, a Hollywood script writer who was reportedly named for the 1971 Attica rebellion. It's a fine book with a suffering sleuth hero, an African-American former SNCC defendant-now-lawyer, trying to make a living, getting sucked into dirty stuff. The plot turns on oil business and and a longshoreman's union struggle. There are several interesting racial subplots, and an interesting thread about the main character's relationship with a former SDS'er now mayor of Houston. I don't find this female SDS mayor particularly believable, but it's lots of fun. The novel is told in the present tense, which works because of its movie scenario chops, always telling us what we're seeing. It also works because of many substantial flashbacks, especially between the main character and the mayor. Locke does the man's point of view really well, and I like it that his religious, lumpily pregnant wife turns out to be good in a crisis, not just a convenient motivation for male protectiveness. And I really like the grungy Houston background!

New from Presa Press two new collections by Eric Greinke: Traveling Music and Selected Poems: 1972 - 2005.

THE E-READER REPORT WITH JOHN BIRCH: New Website Rivals Amazon as Platform for Promoting New Books.

A new website, Goodreads.com, allows devoted bookworms to share their favorite titles, rate books they have read and to share lists of what they plan to read next, and why. They can do this to every subscriber to the site, or to an exclusive homemade list of people they want to reach. Goodreads.com already has 15 million readers, and is adding members all the time.
According to the New York Times, it's "rivaling Amazon.com as a platform for promoting new books."
The site also plays host to roughly 20,000 online book clubs for every preference, whether you're only interested in, say, biography, novels about paranormal romance, or an individual author.
Believe it or not, there are more than 300 clubs devoted to Paranormal Romance alone!

Read John's latest posts on his blog:  www.JohnBirchLive.blogspot.com-- a growing collection of some of his short stories, articles and essays

DEBORAH GERSONY ON STEPHEN KING'S ON WRITING: A Memoir of the Craft

Deborah Gersony writes of Stephen King's Memoir/how-to-write book: "I was most interested in how he approaches the work—does he plot everything out carefully, start with a character study or a theme? What was interesting and made sense to me was that he starts with a difficult (or in his case demonic) situation that he happens to think of at random, puts one or two characters (thinly drawn at first) into it and then sees how they get out of it. As they emerge from their bad situation, their personalities and back stories emerge for him as well. He writes 2000 words a day. Research and the overall theme of the book (what he is really trying to say in the end) comes last and is important for the final revisions. He never seems to worry about endings, just let's them happen, somehow. Also, amazingly, he generally has an entire rough draft in 3 months! I haven't read many of his books, but I thought 11/22/63 was skillfully done, if a little loose and long. I think his down-to-basics approach is helpful for someone like me who hasn't written a novel before."

 

MORE BOOKS FOR WRITERS

Deborah's note led me to think about some of my favorite books about writing and literature. Some of them are practical guides, like the one I wrote, others are about the basics of literature (the very first book I ever read that taught me how literaure really works was Ciardi's How Does a Poem Mean?). There are also a couple of books recommended by students and friends that I haven't actually read myself. Also see one writer's recommendation below of a genre novelist with lots to teach all kinds of writers.

Booth, Wayne C.— The Rhetoric of Fiction
Burroway, Janet— Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft
Ciardi, John — How Does a Poem Mean?
King, Stephen —On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Anne Lamott —  Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Paglia, Camille — Break, Blow Burn (How her favorite poems work)
Sexton, Adam  —  Master Class in Fiction Writing: Techniques from Austen, Hemingway, and other Greats
Silber, Joan — The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long a It Takes.
Willis, Meredith Sue — Ten Strategies to Write Your Novel
Wood, James— How Fiction Works
Zuckerman, Albert—Writing the Blockbuster Novel

 

VALERIE MARKWOOD RECOMMENDS A NOVELIST FOR NOVELISTS TO STUDY

"Lee Child [is] an excellent mystery writer [and] a good example of great openings, structure, etc. He used to be in TV – production & script writing. I haven't read all of his books, but ... below are the ones I've liked & didn't.

Killing Floor
Persuaders**
Die Trying
One Shot
Trip Wire (n.g.) stopped after 10 pgs.
The Enemy (n.g.) stopped after 10 pgs. "

PHYLLIS MOORE ON MARGARET MILLET

Says Phyllis Moore: "I'm thinking [Margaret Millet] she grew up in WV. At age 18 she wrote a poem 'Silicosis in Our Town' about Hawk's Nest tunnel tragedy. She may have met or known Muriel Rukeyser as I found the poem in a book about Rukeyser's work on Gauley Bridge. Millet married Sender Garlin and they both were dubbed 'communist' as they were for the working class, etc. He was Jewish.
"She has quite a nice record of labor-type protest poetry. Her long poem 'Thine Alabaster Cities' is about the failure of the American dream and racial turmoil in Mississippi related to two legal cases. [One of her poems] reflects on the feelings the woman who accused Emmitt Till might have had after his death. So far, I can't find much about her except she and Sender moved to Boulder at retirement and he died there in 1999. One of their three children, a son, is probably the prominent Boulder attorney and activist, Alexander Garlin. His name matches. Her other son's name is Victor and her daughter's name is Emily. I'm trying to track down her WV roots through census records, etc."

"BACKCHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR" SUGGESTS FICTION WITH POLITICAL CONTENT

A regular reader and contributor to Politerature (a blog on progressive novels ) recommends taking a look at Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. It just won the National Book Critics Circle award. The article linked contains a link to a longer description of the book on the National Book Critics Circle website.
"Also," says Backchannel Contributor, "take a look at The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, which also won an award. I recently read it: powerful!" For an interview with Kevin Powers where he "talks ... about the frontline between fact and fiction in his The Yellow Birds ...." see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/13/kevin-powers-the-yellow-birds

 

JOEL WEINBERGER on Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright.

Going Clear was a surprisingly good read, which is surprising in its own right as I certainly went into the book expecting to enjoy it. However, as my expectations were to leave the book angry as I often do after reading about Scientology, I have instead found myself with a much more complex set of emotions about the Church and the religion, which I think is a testament to Wright's straight, (mostly) objective approach.
The book covers several major topics regarding Scientology in great detail: the history of the founder L. Ron Hubbard and his creation of the Church, the modern workings of the Church under the current (probably abusive) leader David Miscavige, and the story of Hollywood writer and director Paul Haggis. My only real complaint about the book is the Haggis portion of the story is effectively a rehash of the very well written New Yorker piece by Wright, and it doesn't really add much to the rest of the narritive he builds. But it certainly isn't bad, so my complaint here isboretty limited.
While presenting the history of the Church, Wright plays it straight the entire way. He does a good job avoiding editorializing, although his options are pretty readily visiblevin his presentation. The real key is that by presenting the facts straight, without common commentary that is heard about Scientology and it's beliefs, Wright is able to separate the "crazy" from the false and dangerous. And this is a vital distinction that is not made nearly enough, because the "crazy" portion is really no more crazy than any other religion, with resurrection, parting of seas, or visits to heaven (and I say this as a pretty religious fellow myself). Wright's presentation makes it clear that the real problems, of they are true, lie in the Church, not the religion per se (although the Church would greatly prefer if you didn't separate the two).
Wright's book makes for a very well written introduction to Scientology for outsiders. It requires no background in knowing what the Church is about or who this Hubbard guy is, as many articles do. It's a fascinating read even for someone like me who had a pretty strong interest in the Church's actitives beforehand.

READ ONLINE AND ON THE AIR

Check out this wonderful blog by a young writer named Jessica Ong-- it's all about a failing parent and growing up Chinese-American and much, much more.

ReamyJansen  had a good entry about book critics on Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle blog.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS, NEWS, CONTESTS, WORKSHOPS, READINGS ETC.

 

William Luvaas essay on revision at Glimmertrain: http://www.glimmertrain.com/b74luvaas.html "Talent can be overrated. Patience will more likely bring virtuosity and success."

 

There is a new website for Alice Boatwright's COLLATERAL DAMAMGE.

Standing on Both Feet: Voices of Older Mixed Race Americans...

.... by Cathy J. Tashiro is just out in paperback (Paradigm Publishers, 2013). It's about people of mixed race focusing on on an older population.    It's on Amazon Here and also available directly from the publisher here.

 

 

Gradually the World: New and Selected Poems, 1982 - 2013 by Burt Kimmelman...

..., will be published this fall officially but the book is up at the publisher's website (BlazeVOX [books[): http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/new-releases/gradually-the-world-new-and-selected-poems-1982-–-2013-by-burt-kimmelman-337/

 

Poems of Ecological Sanity & Climate Crisis

Hosted by Daniela Gioseffi Friday 7PM April 12, 2013 Free and Open to the Public Downstairs Auditorium Hall at Poets House 10 River Terrace New York, NY 10282 Please join eco-poetry.org for a reading, refreshments & talk regarding eco-poetics & climate change. Presenters include: Alfred Corn, D. Nurkse, George Guida, Fran Castan, Vivian Demuth, Burt Kimmelman, Gil Fagiani, Pat Falk, Daniela Gioseffi, George Held Eliot Katz, Maria Lisella, Rob Marchesani Nancy Mercado, Maria Terrone, Paola Corso, Juanita Torrence-Thompson   http://www.poetshouse.org/programs-and-events/other-events/poems-ecological-sanity

 

Aurora Project Spring Writers Retreat

Aurora Project Spring Writers Retreat, May 2-15. Call 304-342-1213 or email motherwit@suddenlink.net .

 

ON BARCELONA ....

On Barcelona is inviting submissions: "Looking, as always, for work. No reading fees, no contest fees, no SASEs, no guidelines." Email halvard@gmail.com

 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:

An email digest of magazines and publishers open to submissions: write CRWROPPS-B@yahoogroups.com to join the list.

 

ED DAVIS

Poetry Reading, March 22 I'll also be doing a poetry reading on March 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Montage Cafe in Greenville, Ohio. Poetry, food, and music--I'd love to see you there!    New Poems Published Three of my poems—"Aunt Hazel's Jewelry," "Communion," and "Footwashing"—have been published at the online literary magazine Blue Ridge Literary Prose and are available for viewing at blueridgeliteraryprose.wordpress.com.

Announcing the Tenth Annual 2013 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize

Submission deadline: April 30, 2013 Submit a manuscript of 48-84* pages of original poetry in any style in English. The manuscript must not have been published previously in book form, although individual poems appearing in print or on the web are permitted. Entries may consist of individual poems, a book-length poem, or any combination of long or short poems. Collaborations are welcome. Click here to read more. (Please note: Manuscripts longer than 84 pages may be considered, but please contact us before submitting.) CHARLES BERNSTEIN to Judge 10th Annual Contest

CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK FOR PASSOVER

The Passover Lamb by Linda Elovitz Marshall Illustrated by Tatjana Mai-Wyss tells the story of a farm family that happens to be Jewish. When a favorite sheep gives birth to triplets but rejects one of the lambs, the family has to decide how to save the lamb– AND make it to Grandma and Grandpa's for the Seder!
Based on a true story that happened to the author, it would be an especially terrific seasonal gift for a child you know– but a lovely story for anyone any time.

"I hereby release my Goodreads review under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License." -- Joel Weinberger

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ABOUT AMAZON.COM

The largest unionized bookstore in America has a webstore at Powells Books. Some people prefer shopping online there to shopping at Amazon.com. An alternative way to reach Powell's site and support the union is via http://www.powellsunion.com. Prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go to support the union benefit fund.

For a discussion of Amazon and organized labor and small presses, see the comments of Jonathan Greene and others in Issues #97 and #98 .

WHERE TO FIND BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS NEWSLETTER

If a book discussed in this newsletter has no source mentioned, don’t forget that you may be able to borrow it from your public library as either a hard copy or a digital copy. You may also buy or order from your local independent bookstore.

To buy books online, I often go first to Bookfinder or Alibris. Bookfinder tells you the book price WITH shipping and handling, so you can compare what you’re really going to have to pay.

A lot of people whose political instincts I respect prefer the unionized bricks-and-mortar bookstore Powells (see "About Amazon.com" above) that sells online at http://powellsbooks.com.  

Another source for used and out-of-print books is All Book Stores .

Also consider Paperback Book Swap, a low cost (postage only) way to get rid of your old books and get new ones by trading with other readers.

If you are using an electronic reader like Kindle, Nook, or Kobo, get free books at the Gutenberg Project—mostly classics, but other things as well. Libraries now lend e-books too!

RESPONSES TO THIS NEWSLETTER

Please send responses to this newsletter and suggestions directly to Meredith Sue Willis . Unless you instruct otherwise, your responses may be edited for length and published in this newsletter.

 

BACK ISSUES click here.

LICENSE

Books for Readers Newsletter by Meredith Sue Willis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.meredithsuewillis.com. Some individual contributors may have other licenses.

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BACK ISSUES:

#160 Carolina De Robertis, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Ross King's The Judgment of Paris
#159 Tom Jones. William Luvaas, Marc Harshman, The Good Earth, Lara Santoro, American Psycho
#158 Chinua Achebe's Man of the People; The Red and the Black; McCarthy's C.; Farm City; Victor Depta;Myra Shapiro
#157 Alice Boatwright, Reamy Jansen, Herta Muller, Knut Hamsun, What Maisie Knew; Wanchee Wang, Dolly Withrow.
#156 The Glass Madonna; A Revelation
#155 Buzz Bissinger; reader suggestions; Satchmo at the Waldorf
#154 Hannah Brown, Brad Abruzzi, Thomas Merton
#153 J.Anthony Lukas, Talmage Stanley's The Poco Fields, Devil Anse
#152 Marc Harshman guest editor; John Burroughs; Carol Hoenig
#151 Deborah Clearman, Steve Schrader, Paul Harding, Ken Follet, Saramago-- and more!
#150 Mitch Levenberg, Johnny Sundstrom, and Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns.
#149 David Weinberger's Too Big to Know; The Shining; The Tiger's Wife.
#148 The Moonstone, Djibouti, Mark Perry on the Grimké family
#147 Jane Lazarre's new novel; Johnny Sundstrom; Emotional Medicine Rx; Walter Dean Myers, etc.
#146 Henry Adams AGAIN!  Also,Fun Home: a Tragicomic
#145 Henry Adams, Darnell Arnoult, Jaimy Gordon, Charlotte Brontë
#144 Carter Seaton, NancyKay Shapiro, Lady Murasaki Shikibu
#143 Little America; Guns,Germs, and Steel; The Trial
#142 Blog Fiction, Leah by Seymour Epstein, Wolf Hall, etc.
#141 Dreama Frisk on Hilary Spurling's Pearl Buck in China; Anita Desai; Cormac McCarthy
#140 Valerie Nieman's Blood Clay, Dolly Withrow
#139 My Kindle, The Prime Minister, Blood Meridian
#138 Special on Publicity by Carter Seaton
#137 Michael Harris's The Chieu Hoi Saloon; Game of Thrones; James Alexander Thom's Follow the River
#136 James Boyle's The Creative Commons; Paola Corso, Joanne Greenberg, Monique Raphel High, Amos Oz
#135 Reviews by Carole Rosenthal, Jeffrey Sokolow, and Wanchee Wang.
#134 Daniel Deronda, books with material on black and white relations in West Virginia
#133 Susan Carpenter, Irene Nemirovsky, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kanafani, Joe Sacco
#132 Karen Armstrong's A History of God; JCO's The Falls; The Eustace Diamonds again.
#131 The Help; J. McHenry Jones, Reamy Jansen, Jamie O'Neill, Michael Chabon.
#130 Lynda Schor, Ed Myers, Charles Bukowski, Terry Bisson, The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism
#129 Baltasar and Blimunda; Underground Railroad; Navasky's Naming Names, small press and indie books.
#128 Jeffrey Sokolow on Histories and memoirs of the Civil Rights Movement
#127 Olive Kitteridge; Urban fiction; Shelley Ettinger on Joyce Carol Oates
#126 Jack Hussey's Ghosts of Walden, The Leopard , Roger's Version, The Reluctanct Fundamentalist
#125 Lee Maynard's The Pale Light of Sunset; Books on John Brown suggested by Jeffrey Sokolow
#124 Cloudsplitter, Founding Brothers, Obenzinger on Bradley's Harlem Vs. Columbia University
#123 MSW's summer reading round-up; Olive Schreiner; more The Book Thief; more on the state of editing
#122 Left-wing cowboy poetry; Jewish partisans during WW2; responses to "Hire a Book Doctor?"
#121 Jane Lazarre's latest; Irving Howe's Leon Trotsky; Gringolandia; "Hire a Book Doctor?"
#120 Dreama Frisk on The Book Thief; Mark Rudd; Thulani Davis's summer reading list
#119 Two Histories of the Jews; small press books for Summer
#118 Kasuo Ichiguro, Jeanette Winterson, The Carter Family!
#117 Cat Pleska on Ann Pancake; Phyllis Moore on Jayne Anne Phillips; and Dolly Withrow on publicity
#116 Ann Pancake, American Psycho, Marc Harshman on George Mackay Brown
#115 Adam Bede, Nietzsche, Johnny Sundstrom
#114 Judith Moffett, high fantasy, Jared Diamond, Lily Tuck
#113 Espionage--nonfiction and fiction: Orson Scott Card and homophobia
#112 Marc Kaminsky, Nel Noddings, Orson Scott Card, Ed Myers
#111 James Michener, Mary Lee Settle, Ardian Gill, BIll Higginson, Jeremy Osner, Carol Brodtick
#110  Nahid Rachlin, Marion Cuba on self-publishing; Thulani Davis, The Road, memoirs
#109 Books about the late nineteen-sixties: Busy Dying; Flying Close to the Sun; Looking Good; Trespassers
#108 The Animal Within; The Ground Under My Feet; King of Swords
#107 The Absentee; Gorky Park; Little Scarlet; Howl; Health Proxy
#106 Castle Rackrent; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; More on Drown; Blindness & more
#105 Everything is Miscellaneous, The Untouchable, Kettle Bottom by Diane Gilliam Fisher
#104 Responses to Shelley on Junot Diaz and more; More best books of 2007
#103 Guest Editor: Shelley Ettinger and her best books of 2007
#102 Saramago's BLINDNESS; more on NEVER LET ME GO; George Lies on Joe Gatski
#101 My Brilliant Career, The Scarlet Letter, John Banville, Never Let Me Go
#100 The Poisonwood Bible, Pamela Erens, More Harry P.
#99   Jonathan Greene on Amazon.com; Molly Gilman on Dogs of Babel
#98   Guest editor Pat Arnow; more on the Amazon.com debate
#97   Using Thomas Hardy; Why I Write; more
#96   Lucy Calkins, issue fiction for young adults
#95   Collapse, Harry Potter, Steve Geng
#94   Alice Robinson-Gilman, Maynard on Momaday
#93   Kristin Lavransdatter, House Made of Dawn, Leaving Atlanta
#92   Death of Ivan Ilych; Memoirs
#91   Richard Powers discussion
#90   William Zinsser, Memoir, Shakespeare
#89   William Styron, Ellen Willis, Dune, Germinal, and much more
#88   Sandra Cisneros's Caramelo
#87   Wings of the Dove, Forever After (9/11 Teachers)
#86   Leora Skolkin-Smith, American Pastoral, and more
#85   Wobblies, Winterson, West Virginia Encyclopedia
#84   Karen Armstrong, Geraldine Brooks, Peter Taylor
#83   3-Cornered World, Da Vinci Code
#82   The Eustace Diamonds, Strapless, Empire Falls
#81   Philip Roth's The Plot Against America , Paola Corso
#80   Joanne Greenberg, Ed Davis, more Murdoch; Special Discussion on Memoir--Frey and J.T. Leroy
#79   Adam Sexton, Iris Murdoch, Hemingway
#78   The Hills at Home; Tess of the D'Urbervilles; Jean Stafford
#77   On children's books--guest editor Carol Brodtrick
#76   Mary Lee Settle, Mary McCarthy
#75   The Makioka Sisters
#74    In Our Hearts We Were Giants
#73    Joyce Dyer
#72    Bill Robinson WWII story
#71    Eva Kollisch on G.W. Sebald
#70    On Reading
#69    Nella Larsen, Romola
#68    P.D. James
#67    The Medici
#66    Curious Incident,Temple Grandin
#65    Ingrid Hughes on Memoir
#64    Boyle, Worlds of Fiction
#63    The Namesame
#62    Honorary Consul; The Idiot
#61    Lauren's Line
#60    Prince of Providence
#59    The Mutual Friend, Red Water
#58    AkÉ, Season of Delight
#57    Screaming with Cannibals
#56    Benita Eisler's Byron
#55    Addie, Hottentot Venus, Ake
#54    Scott Oglesby, Jane Rule
#53    Nafisi,Chesnutt, LeGuin
#52    Keith Maillard, Lee Maynard
#51    Gregory Michie, Carter Seaton
#50    Atonement, Victoria Woodhull biography
#49    Caucasia
#48    Richard Price, Phillip Pullman
#47    Mid- East Islamic World Reader
#46    Invitation to a Beheading
#45    The Princess of Cleves
#44    Shelley Ettinger: A Few Not-so-Great Books
#43    Woolf, The Terrorist Next Door
#42    John Sanford
#41    Isabelle Allende
#40    Ed Myers on John Williams
#39    Faulkner
#38    Steven Bloom No New Jokes
#37    James Webb's Fields of Fire
#36    Middlemarch
#35    Conrad, Furbee, Silas House
#34    Emshwiller
#33    Pullman, Daughter of the Elm
#32    More Lesbian lit; Nostromo
#31    Lesbian fiction
#30    Carol Shields, Colson Whitehead
#29    More William Styron
#28    William Styron
#27    Daniel Gioseffi
#26    Phyllis Moore
#25    On Libraries....
#24    Tales of the City
#23    Nonfiction, poetry, and fiction
#22    More on Why This Newsletter
#21    Salinger, Sarah Waters, Next of Kin
#20    Jane Lazarre
#19    Artemisia Gentileschi
#18    Ozick, Coetzee, Joanna Torrey
#17    Arthur Kinoy
#16    Mrs. Gaskell and lots of other suggestions
#15    George Dennison, Pat Barker, George Eliot
#14    Small Presses
#13    Gap Creek, Crum
#12    Reading after 9-11
#11    Political Novels
#10    Summer Reading ideas
#9      Shelley Ettinger picks
#8      Harriette Arnow's Hunter's Horn
#7      About this newsletter
#6      Maria Edgeworth
#5      Tales of Good and Evil; Moon Tiger
#4      Homer Hickam and The Chosen
#3      J.T. LeRoy and Tale of Genji
#2      Chick Lit
#1      About this newsletter

 

A Day in Washington

 

We went to Washington D.C. for just the day and met Joel there.  Pleasant ride on Amtrak, parked at Metropark, lovely feeling to be with him, just hanging out at the National Gallery (lovely small dark "cabinet" room with pictures including two great Vermeers, the Lady Writing a Letter and one of a woman with a balance.  Lots of other good stuff-- a Michelangelo David or maybe Apollo on loan from Italy, the only Leonardo on this side of the pond.  Stopped off at the National Portrait Gallery.   We had coffee with Phil and Jan and Daniel and met Sean.  And back home by 9:45 PM.  Loved walking around Washington, as always:  Capitol dominating all, the great public buildings. Napping on the train.

    Oh, and lunch in Chinatown!