Michael Janairo

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  • Why book awards matter

    This is from the Elegant Variation: an interview with John Freeman, the president of the National Book Critics Circle who has also published book reviews from time to time in the Times Union (and, yes, I am a member of the NBCC).

    But to get to the point of your question, we should care about awards first and foremost because they help us decide what to read. There is an obscene number of books being published every year, every month, and awards are like these giant, all-reading, all seeing friends (we hope), which can whisper in your ear and say, hey, you gotta read this.

    Morrison To stay valuable, though, they have to pick good books. They have to get it right, to put it crudely. I like to think the NBCC has got it right often enough to earn readers’ and booksellers trust. We awarded Toni Morrison long before the Nobel committee got to her, and Edward P. Jones before the Pulitzer tipped him. We awarded W.G. Sebald and John Cheever and Louise Erdrich when Love Medicine was passed over by other prizes and Frederick Seidel before he began to gather the cult following he has now. Richard Powers was a finalist four (!) times. We’re the only book prize organization to highlight the brave work of Robert Fisk or William T. Vollmann for Rising Up and Rising Down. None of our judges are paid. We do this because we love it and so the lists you see are the distillation of enormous passion and respect for the work that goes into writing a biography, a collection of poems, a novel, or, say, a 3000 page “essay” on violence.

    For the complete interview, go here.

  • Notes on Richard Ford’s visit

    ford_richard.gif“Writing novels is easy if it’s the only thing you do,” Ford said last night during the Q&A session following his reading from his latest novel “The Lay of the Land.”

    He spoke of his influences in creating the first-person present-tense narrative voice of Frank Bascombe as including “The Moviegoer” by Walker Percy; “Something Happened” by Joseph Heller (which Ford said has been unfairly overlooked); and “A Fan’s Notes,” by Frederick Exley — which also happens to be one of my all-time favorite books, and should be on the bookshelves of most New Yorkers, considering the subject matter of a sports fanatics obsession with the New York Giants.

    Doing some googling, I discover that Ford has talked about his influences before.

    That said, he probably had heard many of the same questions before but, like his writing, he was generous in his speaking, clear in articulating his ideas and patient with his audience.

    NYSWI Director Donald Faulkner asked Ford about his decision to use long sentences that convey so much without falling apart, Ford responded at length that it was a conscious decision to create a sense of an overflowing of information and ideas. Then he added, “Or maybe I’m just old” and have lost the ability to edit myself. (It was a funny moment among many last night.)

    At one point, he used the term “organic” in explaining the process of having Frank Bascombe cry at one point, and then trying to write a logical reason why — or at least a believable reason why — his character would be crying. Then he stopped himself and said that, of course, nothing in writing is organic, it is all constructed by the author and that he has the power over how you respond to his writing.

    The event was a last-minute addition to the NYSWI series, Faulkner said, crediting Susan Novotny at the Book House for putting it together. Maybe that’s why the event was held at the Campus Center, and even then the seats weren’t full. Though the audience was quite appreciative of a very entertaining evening.

    A final note, keep an eye on this site http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/olv11n2.html#journal that Donald Faulkner aims to use to give patrons of the NYSWI an inside look at what’s going on. It’s interesting stuff.

  • Coleen Paratore’s sequel to “The Wedding Planner’s Daughter”

    cupid.jpgThe Capital Region children’s book author Coleen Paratore has a new book out, the Cupid Chronicles, a sequel to the hugely popular Wedding Planner’s Daughter. She also has a slate of appearances. You can read more about it on her Web site.

    ►Sat, Jan 20

     Book House, Stuyvesant, Albany, 2-4 pm

    ►Sun, Jan 21

     Borders, Crossgates, Albany 1-3 pm

    ►Sat, Jan 27

     Barnes & Noble, Colonie, 2-4 pm

    ►Sun, Jan 28

     The BookMark, Latham, 1-3 pm

  • Events on Saturday, Jan. 20

    Can’t get enough Richard Ford? Maybe you missed him at NYSWI? You can catch him tonight at Northshire Bookstore at 7 pm at 4869 Main St., Manchester Center, Vt.

  • Manga Simpsons?

    the_simpsonzu_by_spacecoyote.jpgA post from The Beat — which is all about the world of comics — seems to suggest that this could be a reality. The post is here. And the original post is here. The credit for the image above goes to spacecoyote.

  • The CIA, book awards and the Nobel Prize

    The Galley Cat at mediobistro has this fascinating post about book prizes in general and Doctor Zhivago in particular:

    It really does seem like every other day there’s a new award announcement that goes out to the press, and almost as frequent is the backlash. V S Naipaul (paraphrased by Nilanjana Roy) once said that the Booker was “destroying literature” by looking for good, commercial books that died very quickly, while France’s Prix Goncourt rewarded “antiquated” books. Then there’s Gore Vidal, who pointed out that there are now more American book awards than writers. And Peter Whittle at the Times of London belives

    Earlier this week, the Sunday Times reported that Boris Pasternak‘s Nobel Prize win for DOCTOR ZHIVAGO owed much to the CIA and British intelligence, who secretly facilitated the accolade to embarrass the Kremlin, which had banned the novel. “I have no doubt whatsoever that the CIA played a key role in ensuring Pasternak received the Nobel prize,” said Ivan Tolstoy, a respected Moscow researcher who wrote a book about the the matter, which includes excerpts from a letter by a former CIA agent describing the operation that followed.

  • New children’s and YA authors unite

    Here’s an interesting site worth checking out: http://classof2k7.com/. There’s also a blog here. This site includes info about Rose Kent, from the Capital Region.

    A Novel Approach to Debut Authors

    The Class of 2k7 is a group of first-time children’s and YA authors with debut books coming out in 2007. We’re helping to promote each other’s books with this joint Class of 2k7 website as well as a collective blog, newsletter, forum, chatroom, and brochure. Our authors hail from 20 states and D.C. representing an extensive range of genres and publishers.

    We’re just getting started, but there’s already been a great deal of enthusiasm about the idea. And you might get to meet some of us during one of our 2007 regional tours, where cooperative book signings and workshops will bring more attention than any one of us could hope for alone. I look forward to hearing your ideas on how we can make the Class of 2k7 even better and leave a legacy for those who come after us in the Classes of 2k8, 2k9, and beyond. Thanks!

    Greg R. Fishbone,
    Class President

  • Expand your word power

    I can’t take credit for this. A friend has described the Books Blog as a “blook.” This made sense to me, because if a Web log can be a “blog” then a Blog on books can be a “blook.” Then I did some research and found that “blook” has been used for a few years now to describe books based on blogs or books published on blogs. But I don’t see why the word can’t have a third definition for blogs about books. Anyone care to back me up on this? Click “more” to read my research on the word.
    (more…)

  • Events for Friday, Jan. 19

    ford_richard.gif

    From the New York State Writers Institute Calendar:

    January 19 (Friday): Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford
    Reading – 8:00 p.m., Assembly Hall, Campus Center, Uptown Campus


    Richard Ford, novelist and short story writer, is the author of “The Sportswriter” (1986), winner of the PEN/Faulkner award, and “Independence Day” (1995), which received the Pulitzer Prize and a second PEN/Faulkner award.

    His most recent novel is “The Lay of the Land” (2006), which the “New York Times” listed as one of the 10 Best Books of 2006.