Between the Covers

Stephen King's summer reading recommendations

So because summer reading is my life this week, I finally checked out EW.com's "The Pop of King" in which Stephen King offers up some suggestions for summer reading. Let's just say his suggestions are...a bit different than mine.

For example: One of his choices is Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit. Now, I have not read Little Dorrit, so I should probably shut up about it, but it just does not strike me as pleasure reading (I blame this on having to read Hard Times in high school, an event from which I've only recently recovered). However, I am intrigued by King's declaration that the novel "explains the whole Bernard Madoff mess."

HIs other picks:

Shatter, Michael Robotham (suspense)

Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson (pirates!)

The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer (spies)

Drood, Dan Simmons (tangentially related to Dickens and very, very long)

Dog On It, Spencer Quinn ("canine noir," explains King)

Handle With Care, Jodi Picoult (legal/medical thriller)

To read the entire article, click here.

Sarah Palin gets help on her memoir

Guess that j school degree doesn't help much when it comes to writing one's life story. Seattlepi.com reports that Lynn Vincent, features editor of the Christian magazine World, will ghost write collaborate on the upcoming memoir of Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The story says that Vincent has "written extensively" about "hot button social issues" for World.

The book is due out in 2010.

 

Five worst books ever?

I admit it: I'm addicted to Facebook's Pick Five Whatever Things. This morning I came across "Five Worst Books Ever." Now, I'm sure there are many contenders that I simply didn't think of because I wasn't caffeinated enough yet, but here are my choices:

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt: Probably the biggest disappointment because, as a fan of The Secret History, I expected so much.

Hannibal, Thomas Harris: Overly florid portrait of our favorite serial killer, without any of the tough, gritty, straight-to-the-point chills of The Silence of The Lambs.

Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris: Not sure how he did it, but this one is even worse. Did we need a deconstruction of why Hannibal Lecter turned out to be a monster? He was more frightening when we didn't know. Though, you know, Hannibal, sorry about your sister.

Rules of Attraction, Bret Easton Ellis: Just...awful. Hilariously awful.

A Million Little Pieces, James Frey. And not because it's made up.

Honorable mention: Until I Find You, John Irving. Long and ultimately irritating. Ugh.

One man's guide to what to read, what to skip in classic literature

Jack Murnighan wants to save you time and aggravation. In his engaging new book Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits ($15 in paperback), he offers his opinion on what's crucial and what's nonessential in such works as Hamlet, Anna Karenina or The Iliad.

Personally, I would skip any part of Anna Karenina where somebody started extolling the joys of threshing, but that's just me. (Murninghan says don't skip any of it, however). He suggests abandoning chapters 32 and 55-57 of Moby-Dick, since they include "the more gratuitous of Melville's exhaustive facts on whaling." And if you follow his advice, you can cut Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past in half.

I can't in any way get behind his suggestion to skip the Benji section of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - dude, are you insane?! that's almost the best part, except for Jason's narrative - and it's a downright crime to skip ANY of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (the book isn't that long, and why would you pass over chapters in which Darcy is being fabulous?! That's the whole POINT.) He has some good tips on what to skip in Paradise Lost, but unless you're reading it because you have to, why would you read it at all?

But I have to admit, this book is really a lot of fun to peruse. Murninghan, who earned a Ph.D. in medieval and renaissance literature from Duke, also includes a crib sheet with Best Lines, What's Sexy and Quirky Facts. (Another quibble: There is plenty that's sexy in P&P, at least if you watch the BBC miniseries. Colin Firth + sodden white shirt = hotness). And he calls As I Lay Dying - which he does not parse here - "tremendous." So all and all, I have to like this guy.

Salinger lawyers mulling legality of "Catcher" sequel

If you really want to know about it, bookseller.com reports that J.D. Salinger's U.S. literary agency is chatting with attorneys to discuss John David California's 60 Years Later Coming Through the Rye, a sequel published in the U.K. to Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

California's British agent, says bookseller.com, isn't really worried. The character is referred to as "Mr. C" throughout, and of course NOBODY would connect that with the character of Holden Caulfield, would they?

What does California have to say? "It’s like writing something about Jesus. It’s bound to get people to say something about it. I read something that people think it’s a fast track to getting a lot of attention for a book . . . but it isn’t that way. The book stands on it’s own - even though it’s 'holding hands' with The Catcher in the Rye it’s a vastly different story.” He adds, "I don’t know what JD Salinger would say. He’s kind of a special person, he doesn’t give interviews. It’s difficult to know what he would think.'

Actually, not that difficult, if you take into consideration every single thing Salinger has done since publishing Catcher.

Read more here.

Upload your (really awful) manuscripts at Scribd

The Scribd Store is open for business! What business is that? It's an "e-commerce site" - Publisher's Weekly's words, not mine - at which everyone from major publishers to deluded individuals with poor grammar skills can upload their great American novels (or memoirs or screeds or whatever) for sale to their friends and/or members of the unsuspecting public who might be  high interested enough to purchase them.

Why you might choose to read such a book remains unclear to me, since I can't even keep up with the actual good books published every year. But Scribd boasts something like 60 million unique users for the unique documents on its site, PW reports, so maybe they know more about this than me. PW also reports that sellers get 80 percent of the revenue should anyone actually pay to download the books and that authors and publishers set prices and control the packaging. Scribd is also launching an iPhone application sometime in the next few months.

Apocalypse now?  

Color e-readers on the way - and more book tech news

NewScientist.com reports that E Ink Corp. of Massachusetts will debut its full-color version of electronic paper at the end of this month. The idea, the story says, is to produce a reflective display with little power that's as easy on the eyes as the printed word.

Expectation is the colored "paper" will be on the market by 2010...

Read more here.

Still curious about the future of ebooks? Here's an interesting analysis that suggests they may have reached the tipping point. And the New York Times offers this piece by Motoko Rich on ebook pricing. Once you've read that, check out Mike Shatzkin's take on what Rich said. His analysis? Rich left a few things out of the story. Decide for yourself...

What are you reading now?

``I just read Michael Chabon's crazy-wonderful novel called The Yiddish Policemen's Union. It's a detective mystery fantasy international conspiracy thriller with some of the most beautiful prose and engaging characters ever to inhabit the printed page. Did I mention it's a poignant and utterly believable love story, as well?''

LIZA GYLLENHAAL, author of Local Knowledge

Gyllenhaal appears at 5 p.m. May 30 at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables.

New Yorker book club chooses "The Weight of a Mustard Seed"

Tired of your book club always choosing oldies like The Mill on the Floss or such lightweight fare as Twilight? (Don't laugh - I know a book club that did). Join the The New Yorker's book club. Its latest selection happens to be The Weight of a Mustard Seed by journalist Wendall Steavenson. She writes about an Iraqi general who served under Saddam Hussein who became disillusioned with the regime he served and paid a high price for his change of mind.

If you missed Herald reporter  Trenton Daniel's review of Mustard Seed, click here to read it. Trenton spent a couple of months in Iraq himself as a reporter and does a fine job of explaining why this book is so important.

Vote for your favorite for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

The judges at Amazon have narrowed the contestants for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award to three, and this year you can read the entries and vote for your favorite manuscript. Kind of like American Idol, only with a lot less screeching. Winner gets $25,000 and a contract with Penguin.

The contestants are:

Brandi Lynn Ryder from Napa, Calif.  Her manuscript titled “In Malice, Quite Close” where “sophisticates of the contemporary art scene show a lethally sordid side in this superbly crafted murder mystery,” according to Publishers Weekly.

·         Ian Gibson from Victoria, British Columbia.  Ian entered “Stuff of Legends,” a fantasy novel with an ending that Publishers Weekly describes as “a satisfying and involved climax renders a fairy tale ending with an upward lilt, leaving the reader ready for new adventures.”

·         Jim King from Wilton, Conn.  Jim wrote “Bill Warrington’s Last Chance,” which describes the life of Bill Warrington and his quest to connect with his family.  Publishers Weekly describes King’s work by saying “this exciting novel makes the reader root for them (Bill and his family) all.”