Off to the Poe Houses

"If you would like to get to know the author better this weekend, you have an astounding number of options, as there are restored Poe houses in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City (the Bronx), and Richmond, Virginia. And if that phrase—“The Poe Houses”—sounds odd, then go ahead and pronounce it “The Po’ Houses,” because all were poor houses in Poe’s day, and remain modest houses in poor neighborhoods today."GOOD

On Naked Girls Reading (Banned Books) «

"If you haven’t heard about “Naked Girls Reading ,” the incomparable Michelle L’Amour started this racket back in Chicago, and it’s spread to Dallas, Key West, Seattle, Milwaukee, Phoenix, and Sao Paolo, and now—to New York City, thanks to our friends Nasty Canasta and Jonny Porkpie at Pinchbottom Burlesque. Tonight, we’re at Madame X, a full-on boudoir of a venue, with a chaise longue on a raised stage behind black bars, like a New Orleans gallery, and the audience is sequestered in plush mushroom seats, gazing up longingly, and pushed back SRO along the bar, peeking over each other for a view."

Top 10 vampire novels

Kevin Jackson's top 10 vampire novels "If you're thinking of staying safely indoors this Halloween, writer and vampire expert Kevin Jackson has selected the finest and most frightening bloodsucking stories to curl up with"

National Novel Writing Month

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

The battle for Jack Kerouac's estate

When Kerouac died, he left everything to the woman he had loved most throughout his live - his mother, Gabrielle. When she died five years later, she in turn left everything to Kerouac’s third wife, Stella Sampas - setting in train the events that led to Stella’s family managing the Kerouac estate for the past 19 years.

Now that legacy has been sensationally called into question, with a ruling by a Florida court that the will that Gabrielle signed, leaving everything to her daughter in law, was, in fact, a forgery. More

Sam Weber / Lord of the Flies

A new edition of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, illustrated by Sam Weber comes out in December.Via

Literary Rags

My new wardrobe:

Many more at Literary Rags
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Drunken Haiku

"Twelve thirty last call
What the ####,want to drink more
Off to roam the night"

More at Drunken Haiku

The final twist in Nabokov's untold story

Vladimir Nabokov was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now, 30 years after his death, his last novel is finally to be published. But should it be? On the eve of his death, fearing it was imperfect, he instructed his wife to destroy the manuscript, sparking a fierce controversy that embroiled family, friends and the literary establishment.More about Nabokov's posthumous novel Laura

Francesca Simon's top 10 antiheroes

"'I have always loved books about rebels and non-conformists, people who swagger through life with a fierce edge and a stubborn refusal to behave themselves. No one in these books would ever win Miss Congeniality or Mr Nice Guy. Their faults definitely exceed their virtues.
'I'm also partial to selfish, and self-obsessed characters (no surprises there), so I've picked some favourite anti-heroes and heroines. Let's face it, we all need to let our inner imp out sometimes.'" More

Essential Blogging

Via Libraryland

The Red Book

Take a look at pages from The Red Book by Carl Jung

"During the first world war, Carl Jung embarked on an extended self-exploration he called his 'confrontation with the unconscious'. At the heart of this exploration was The Red Book, a grand, illuminated volume which he created between 1914 and 1930, in which he developed the nucleus of his later theories."

HOWARD'S END IS ON THE LANDING

"Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on my shelves, I encountered dozens of others that I had never read, or forgotten I owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired me to embark on a year-long voyage through my books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know my own collection again. A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, my eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in my home, neglected for years." Susan Hill

I also have tens, if not hundreds, of unread books on my shelves. At times I can almost hear them crying out for attention. Book buying is an addiction of mine, albeit one of the more benign ones, and I question whether I could address it in cold turkey fashion. I'll have to buy this book to find out how she managed it :-)

Lionel Shriver: I sold my family for a novel

When Lionel Shriver wrote a novel based on her family, she expected 'a little aggro'. But all hell broke loose and the rift with her parents has yet to heal.

(I read the book awhile ago. Here's what I thought of it.)

The Culture of the Interrobang

"Is the combination question mark and exclamation point a sign of the times?" Read more at GOOD

Loving Che

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Loving Che is Ana Menéndez's first novel. The narrator is an unnamed Cuban woman raised in Miami by her maternal grandfather. She knows little of her mother who sent her off to America with her grandfather when she was just a baby. All she knows of her mother Teresa is that she sent her off with a Neruda poem pinned to her blanket.  As an adult, after her grandfather's death, she returns to Havana hoping to find her mother but her search comes up empty. Some time later she receives a package without a return address. From the writings and photos it contains she gradually pieces together the story of her mother's marriage to an academic and her adulterous affair with the revolutionary Che Guevara. The chaos of revolutionary Havana is the backdrop of their erotically charged relationship. But is it real or merely a figment of her artist mother's active imagination?
This book is about the loneliness of the expatriate, the longing for identity and the reliability of memory. It's a romantic love story and a mystery with a dreamy feel. I have an interest in Cuba, in Che and the revolution so I enjoyed this novel. I only wish I'd read it in Cuba.

Tails of the unexpected

Roald Dahl's children's books are full of barely submerged misogyny, lust and violence. The new film version of Fantastic Mr Fox is an ideal introduction to this fabulous, cruel world.

10 Coolest Bookstores in the U.S.

When you take a moment to step back from the instant point-and-click culture of the Internet, you’ll realize that sometimes the best learning can take place behind the book stacks. As with all things, and especially education, balance is key, so take a break once in a while to visit (and support) your local libraries and bookstores who have worked hard to establish themselves as valuable resources for your hobbies, guilty pleasures, life questions, adventures and of course, education. Here's a list of the 10 coolest bookstores in the United States that you should be sure to visit if you haven’t yet.

Via

On This Day

Charlotte's Web was published. Among children's books, it continues to hold its place at or near the top of the 'best of' lists, though White's pre-publication fear was that his 'hymn to the barn' would be too low-key for most kids. And he was sure about the film: 'The story is interrupted every few minutes so that somebody can sing a jolly song. I don't care much for jolly songs. The Blue Hill Fair, which I tried to report faithfully in the book, has become a Disney world, with 76 trombones.'
More

For Nina Sankovitch, a Book a Day, Every Day

Last Oct. 28, on her 46th birthday, Nina Sankovitch read a novel, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog,” by Muriel Barbery. The next day she posted a review online deeming it “beautiful, moving and occasionally very funny.”

The next day she read “The Emigrants,” by W. G. Sebald, and the day after that, “A Sun for the Dying,” by Jean-Claude Izzo. On Thanksgiving she read Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Isaac Newton; on Christmas, “The Love Song of Monkey,” by Michael S. A. Graziano; on July 4, “Dreamers,” by Knut Hamsun. When seen Friday, she was working on “How to Paint a Dead Man,” by Sarah Hall.

Read more here

The Late Age Of Print

Seen at clusterflock

For him that stealeth a Book from...

It was traditional in medieval times when books were all hand written manuscripts to letter a curse into the book to prevent theft.

For him that stealeth a Book from this Library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy, and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for Mercy and let there be no sur-cease to his Agony till he sink in Dissolution. Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever and aye.

-Curse Against Book Stealers, Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona

forestgrove via Libraryland

On This Day

On this day in 1925 Elmore Leonard was born in New Orleans. Leonard's view of his villains and born-to-losers: '. . . I don't think of them as bad guys. I just think of them as, for the most part, normal people who get up in the morning and they wonder what they're going to have for breakfast, and they sneeze, and they wonder if they should call their mother, and then they rob a bank. Because that's the way they are. . . .'

Aurora's Motive

Aurora's Motive is a short (115 page) novel based on a true story that took place in Spain in the early part of the 20th century. It was translated from the German work by Erich Hackl. The story begins with Aurora Rodriguez killing her daughter, Hildegart, and goes on to explain the events leading to the murder. Aurora's father raised her as an intellectual equal. This was very unusual in the patriarchal Spain of that era and left her ill equipped to deal with that bourgeois society after his death. She determined to have a daughter and to raise her eugenically to be a socialist, a feminist and a world leader. She placed an ad for a sperm donor in the newspaper, conceived a child with the help of a sailor/priest and gave birth to her daughter, Hildegart. Aurora's childrearing techniques were unorthodox and criticized by many but produced a prodigy of enormous intellect. Hildegart attended law school at the age of 13 and by the age of 17 was famous for her socialist activism and her campaign for sexual freedom and equality. She then met H.G. Wells and decided, after some hesitation, to join him in England where she would study with Havelock Ellis, a sexologist. When Aurora became aware of her diminishing influence on Hildegart, through whom she lived vicariously, she tried in vain to make her see the error of her ways and change her mind. She bought a gun and shot her daughter as she slept. Hildegart never realized her mother's singleminded political vision. Aurora was charged with the crime, convicted and jailed. She was later transferred to a psychiatric institution it is believed that she lived on until 1955.
The author packs a lot into a slim volume and the novel proceeds at a breakneck pace towards the foregone conclusion. It's a powerful indictment of political fanaticism.

The Heart Fails Without Warning

An exclusive short story by Booker-winner Hilary Mantel

Roger Ebert's Journal

Took inventory. This must have been in June, winter in the southern hemisphere, and it had been raining steadily for most of a week. I was virtually alone in the student residence; the others had packed off for vacation. With an umbrella and plastic slicker I'd ventured out once or twice to the Pig and Whistle, where I favored the Ploughman's Lunch, but to sustain life I'd laid in a supply of tinned sardines, cheddar and swiss cheese, Hob Nobs, apples, Carr's Water Biscuits, ginger cookies, Hershey bars, biltong, sausage and a pot of jam. I had a little electric coil that would bring a cup of water to a boil, a jar of Nescafe, a box of sugar and some Instant Postum.More atRoger Ebert's Journal

The Death of Bunny Munro

‘She looks like she has been designed solely with a compass,’ is Bunny Munro’s description of a waitress from early on in Nick Cave’s new novel, a book which equally seems composed of big, simple and often inelegant shapes. Bunny Munro is a door-to-door salesman of beauty products whose life is thrown into confusion with the abrupt and unexpected death of his wife. His days are normally spent over-indulging in fast-food, booze and (above all) affairs with his clients and anyone else who strays into his path, but now he has to cart around his son with him: the naive but infinitely receptive Bunny Junior. His father’s world is one of grotesquely exaggerated dimensions, a stylised over-indulgence which reminded me of Money by Martin Amis in all its rather implausible, pornographic excess. But this is a shorter and simpler book by far.

Libraryland

List of 886 Palindromes

List of 886 Palindromes:
Palindromes are words, phrases or sentences that read the same backward as forward. Some of them don't make much sense, some are quite cool.

A but of stressed desserts fo' tuba.
A car, a man, a maraca.
A Dan, a clan, a canal - Canada!
A Danish custard - drat such sin, Ada
A dank, sad nap. Eels sleep and ask nada.
A dim or fond 'No' from Ida.
A dog! A panic in a pagoda!"
Lots more here

Things to do with books

M0re at Offbeat Earth
Via

The Wild Things by Dave Eggers

Book cover design for The Wild Things by Dave Eggers

"Dave Eggers' The Wild Things, is 'based very loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay co-written with Spike Jonze."

Read an excerpt from it here.

Wish You Were Here

This is Stewart O'Nan's novel of the Maxwell family on their final vacation at their summer cottage in Chautauqua, New York.

Emily, the recently widowed mother, has decided to sell the cottage. She takes the last trip there with her sister-in-law, Arlene. The two women have a relationship that borders on antagonism. Meg, Emily's black sheep daughter, is struggling through a divorce. Her kids have been damaged by her alcoholism and emotional volatility and they are missing their dad. Ken, Meg's brother, is a bit of a milquetoast who is viewed as a failure by his mother and his wife, Lise. He's given up a "real job" to pursue photography. Their son exhibits borderline disturbed behaviour and his older sister is a bit of a dowdy misfit who develops a crush on her female cousin.

I picked up the novel because I have vacationed in Chautauqua and I read O'Nan's The Good Wife and liked it. I like this one too but I read it on a trip to Argentina and think I would have enjoyed it more had I read it on my deck at home.

O'Nan describes the irritable chafing that occurs between members of a family thrown together on what is supposed to be a happy vacation. Ken's wife, Lise, suffers most. She is jealous of the relationship Ken has with his mother, Emily, and his sister, Meg, and spends the week waiting for the holiday to end. Ken is the peacekeeper. Arlene, a retired teacher, also does her best to smooth the rough edges. We learn that she had a tragic love affair that left her hurt but not terribly embittered. Meg just doesn't give a damn. She says what she wants and smokes pot to make up for the alcohol she can no longer drink. She misses her husband but can't see the part she may have played in driving him away. The kids are mostly a mess. Whether this is transient angst or something more serious remains to be seen.

Nothing happens (not that I'm complaining). I kept waiting for the poor old spaniel to die or the sidebar abduction story to explode. But this is like real life and the focus is on the conflict that lies beneath the surface in families. The novel's authenticity resonated with me, sometimes uncomfortably; I'm glad I read it.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

I read Sedaris' latest collection of self-obsessed essays while I was in Buenos Aires. It was an ideal book to read on a trip and I enjoyed it immensely. Several of the stories had me laughing out loud, not the omg/lol type but the snorting, tears running down the cheeks type that makes a girl really unattractive. My husband kept stealing the book when I wasn't looking. I could tell he had taken it because I could hear him laughing out loud in the next room. There are a few of the priceless vignettes about his early family life that always amuse and charm me. The one that nearly did me in on the plane to Mendoza concerned a catheter. I almost needed a catheter myself because I damn near wet my panties.

A Brief History of Winnie the Pooh

Click to see Photo Essay

After more than eighty years, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, an authorized addition to the classic children's series, is set for release on October 5. A quick look at how it all began.

Via

Secondhand bookshops

"The best places to browse for books in Britain, as selected by Anna Tims"The Guardian