Beyond Rivalry - booklists

Fall Books Preview 2008

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:10:00 -0400

(I'm posting this simultaneously at Worth Reading)

USA Today's 10 Talkers, offered with publication date, 'talking points' and a tiny excerpt each, includes books by Wally Lamb, Bob Woodward (The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008), Toni Morrison, Candace Bushnell, actor Alec Baldwin (A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey through Fatherhood and Divorce), the Laura Bush novel American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, TV talk show host Bill O'Reilly (A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity -- a memoir), Philippa Gregory, New York Times reporter Helene Cooper (a memoir of growing up aristocratic in Liberia), and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don't.

Bloomburg's Muse Arts notes that "It's going to take a big novel to compete with the U.S. election this fall, and publishers are eager to supply one. Three of the most heavily garlanded American writers -- Toni Morrison, Philip Roth and John Updike -- are leading the charge on bookstores." Others on the list include late Chilean-Mexican novelist Roberto Bolaño, John le Carre, Julia Glass, Kathleen Kent and Candace Bushnell.

The Washington Post previews 116 fiction and non-fiction fall books, with month of release and short summary.

New York Magazine offers several articles about various…

Books about Hurricanes

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 05:20:00 -0400

Who knew that NOAA has a list of fictional books, plays, and movies that have been written involving tropical cyclones and hurricanes? I found out accidentally today, looking for the title of a mystery, written decades ago, set in Palm Beach featuring a nurse and tycoon! (Haven't found it yet.) The list of about 65 works is chronological and starts with Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611), ends with Hurricane: a novel (2008) by Terry Trueman, about Hurricane Mitch in the Honduras.

Lamenting the Bestsellers

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:40:00 -0400

Tom Shone, in Intelligent Life's Summer 2008 issue, laments bestsellers lists in the UK and the U.S. The NYT bestsellers list looks pretty erudite compared with the UK's top sellers, which consist mostly of books by celebrities and reality-show has-beens, until we realise that the NYT shunted off the self-help and advice books to a separate list more than 20 years ago. When those are merged back in, the U.S. non-fiction bestsellers list is littered with books such as Stop Whining Start Living, Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?, How Come That Idiot's Rich and I'm Not?, and books with "you" in the title, such as Become a Better You, You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty, Are You Ready! To Take Charge, Lose Weight, Get in Shape and Change Your Life Forever. Then there's the wildly popular The Secret, whose main message is to think positively. ("To those who object that they have been thinking positively ever since Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, you haven't really been trying. Really concentrate: 'Look at the back of your hands, right now. Really look at the back of your hands: the colour of…

House Rules Booklist: If You Like House MD ...

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:00:00 -0400

... you might like these books, suggested by members of various library listservs.

The query I sent out was:

I'm looking for fiction that will appeal to someone who likes the FOX TV show, House MD, starring Hugh Laurie. The appeal factors could include medical diagnostics or medical mystery, interesting dynamics among medical professionals, cynical smart doctors, close co-dependent friendships between male doctors or men generally, an underlying belief that 'everyone lies,' and so on.

Here are the suggested authors, series, and titles. I haven't read any yet. I'd love additions, and comments if you have read them:

Ariana Franklin (pseudonym for Diana Norman). New historical thriller series set in the 12th century about cynical, smart female physician Adelia Aguilar who is brought to England to solve murder mysteries for King Henry II. She's a coroner. First in the series: Mistress in the Art of Death (2007). Last (and second): The Serpent's Tale (2008).

Eileen Dreyer. Standalone medical mystery thrillers featuring cynical, world-weary nurses and EMTs. Also writes a series featuring Molly Burke, forensic nurse and death investigator in St. Louis, MO. First in series: Bad Medicine (1995). Last: Head Games (2005).

Sequence (2006) and The Silent Assassin (2007) by Lori…

Dogs, Blog, and Elephants

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:45:20 -0400

I'll be back to posting soon. For now, I'm spending most of my computer time updating booklists -- recently finished adult crime fiction, children's historical fiction, children's bibliotherapy, and now only about 30 more lists to go!

Don't forget to feed an animal today, and if you want more reason to care for critters, read this elephant rescue story.

And watch out for barking spiders! :-)

Spanish Lit

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:49:47 -0400

The Guardian is going on a Spanish literature tour for the next month (India and Pakistan were last month). Read other people's recommendations for the best in Spanish fiction, drama, or poetry, or make your own reading suggestions.

So far:

Javier Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis

Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote

Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste; Territorio Comanche

Miguel de Unamuno: Niebla (Mist); La tia Tula

Carmen Martin Gaite's The Back Room; Caperucita Roja (modern day version of Little Red Riding Hood)

Javier Marias: A Heart So White; Tomorrow In the Battle Think On Me; Todas las Almas (All Souls); Dark Back of Time

Juan Marse: Lizard Tails; Ultimas tardes con Teresa; Si te dicen que caí; El amante biligüe; El Embrujo de Shangai

Federico García Lorca: Blood Wedding; The House of Bernarda Alba; 'El Romancero Gitano'; Yerma

Camilo José Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte; La Colmena

Ramon Llull's The Book of Blanquerna

Ramon J Sender's Requiem for a Spanish Peasant; Nancy's Thesis

Benito Perez Galdos's Torquemada; Jacinta and Fortunata

Antonio Gala's Pasion Turca

Napoleon Ponce de Leon's Five Black Ships

Manuel Pimentel Silves' El Librero del Atlantida

Miguel Ruiz Trigueros' La Noche de Arcilla

Carloz Ruiz Zafon's The shadow of the…

Thoughts, Reading, Doing

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:30:00 -0400

This week I seem to be trying to do too much at once, and not getting much done. Today I'd planned to work most of the day on my new library booklists site -- moving, reformatting, and link-checking a bunch of booklists to a new website -- and study French.

Instead, I added a new feature to that new website and added new content to that feature; I've read a lot of interesting articles online (more on that below); I pruned the wisteria to within an inch of its life, cut back the bleeding hearts which are finally yellowing, cut out some dying raspberry canes, and cut new arrangements for inside the house -- mostly hosta leaves and other foliage, as my garden is primarily shade and the local groundhog eats most of what flowers; swept the house and porch and did some spot-cleaning; took photos of a small beige-coloured frog that was clutching onto the wisteria; played with the dog; did some library blogging; made some phone calls; and updated the checkbook.

Some days I seem more able to stick to a to-do list (even if it's only in my head) than others. Lately, I have been on a de-cluttering…

On Not Reading

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:30:00 -0400

Guy Dammann in the Guardian Book Blog opines about "abandoning" books midway through, the guilt this might evoke in us (he refers to the common "notion that unfinished and unread books are objects of shame"), and how to decide whether and how far into a book to read.

I like Rebecca's response to the column, including the Reader's Comment she culled:

"Squatting on my top shelf, 3 paperback volumes of the unabridged Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, about 1500 pages each, the first volume creased on its spine about a fifth of the way in, the rest of volume and the other two spines immaculate. A message screamed out to the perceptive observer, 'Here is a man who likes to be seen buying impressive books but whose pygmy intellect cannot cope with any book that hasn't had a murder and a rooftop chase by page 100'."

Like Rebecca, I read a fair number of of crime novels, probably 5 or 10 for every non-fiction title I read, and I can spend a year reading one non-fiction book, if it hurts my brain and also inspires me to think, wonder, synthesise, make synapse connections.

I tend to be a much…

A Reading Blog

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:40:10 -0500

Now I'm thinking I should start a blog just to record and do link maps for books I'm reading.

Notes on Girardian Thought

noreply@blogspirit.com (mmw) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 09:30:00 -0400

Girardian Anthropology and Mimetic Theory

Due to length, my current, idiosyncratic notes on Girardian anthropology and mimetic theory have been moved here.