November 14, 2009
If you can’t get to the Miami Book Fair this weekend — and I can’t, dammit — you can at least live it vicariously by reading some of the many, many talented writers who will appear there. This year I interviewed Mary Karr about her new memoir, Lit, for a piece in The Miami Herald.
I really liked the book — and I’m not one of those people who devour memoirs. It’s honest, it’s funny and it’s really well-written. It’s about Karr becoming an alcoholic, becoming sober and becoming a Roman Catholic. Thus the title — Lit — which can refer both to being drunk and being filled with faith. But it was only after I finished the book that I realized the title has a third meaning — Lit as in literary — because this book is also about Karr becoming a writer. Somehow she managed, even while struggling with alcoholism and severe depression, to write enough poetry that was good enough to get legendary publisher New Directions to issue a volume of her work, and for her to get a faculty position at Syracuse University — and that was all before publication of The Liars’ Club, her first memoir and the one that made her a bestselling writer. This book recounts all that, up to and including the success of The Liars’ Club and what it was like for her to visit her hometown — not very flatteringly portrayed in the book — on book tour.
November 11, 2009
In Key West, when the weather cools and the wind picks up it’s time to start thinking about the Literary Seminar. The upcoming seminar focuses on poetry, honoring longtime Key West resident and two-time Pulitzer winner Richard Wilbur. Happily, amazingly, the Seminar is a sellout — quite a feat in these uncertain times — if you are planning to attend or just want to read along at home, the Key West Library has books by just about all the panelists and workshop leaders (and it’s an impressive bunch). So stop by, check them out and, you know, check them out. There’s a lot to read! (And it’s never too early to start thinking about 2011 — when the Literary Seminar will be looking at food in literature – yummmmmmmmmmm …. )
October 11, 2009
We’ll close out the year with this thought from the late Bart Giamatti, courtesy of my Collegian pal-turned-Facebook friend Pat Johnson:
It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.
“The Green Fields of the Mind”
from “A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti, et. al
This thought is not entirely applicable if you happen to live in the subtropics, where as I was listening to the Red Sox season coming to its heartbreaking end it was in the low 90s and sunny as all hell. But it captures the mood.
Oct. 12: OK this really is the last Sox quote of the year but I just had to add this line from today’s Globe, from the great Dan Shaughnessy:
All you young New Englanders who shrugged whenever dad said, “The Sox will blow it, they always choke at the end,’’ . . . now you know.
October 10, 2009
“I made a couple of mistakes in a situation where you can’t make mistakes” — Josh Beckett
Yep, when I fell asleep going into the seventh inning last night, our ace was still on form. Maybe the problem is my falling asleep. That won’t happen at tomorrow’s game, I hope.
My gut tells me this is the Yankees’ year. But that won’t stop me from hoping for another miracle because on a regular basis this team does deliver them.
October 8, 2009
Yes, it’s that time of year when I pay attention to my blog again, increase my stats with confused Red Sox fans searching for quotes who somehow find themselves on a mostly literary blog — and celebrate the continuing renaissance of the world’s greatest baseball team. Or at least my favorite.
We’ll start this one out with Tito, as quoted in a Boston Globe story about Kevin Youkilis, the power hitting infielder with the wiggly batting stance and hasty temper:
“Look, he hit me with a helmet once. I don’t want to get hit with a helmet. But I think sometimes Youk is misrepresented. He’s not worried about his own stats. He wants the team to win so badly.’’
Not for nothing does a certain Yankee fan friend of mine refer to him as “you kill us.” Go Sox!
October 7, 2009
The Man Booker Prize was announced yesterday and — huzzah! — the winner was Hilary Mantel for her most recent novel Wolf Hall. Which I haven’t read yet but am looking forward to mightily because 1) It’s set in the Tudor era (the protagonist is Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s righthand man for a good while) and 2) My friend Mags gave it to me for my birthday.
But I’m especially excited because I was already a Mantel fan having recently read her French Revolution novel A Place of Greater Safety — and I have to say it’s the best novel I’ve read this year. It’s dense, rich, complex and so so so illuminating on the characters of three of the Revolution’s main players — Georges-Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulin and that old villain from the Scarlet Pimpernel and so much more, Maximilien Robespierre. Mantel makes them human, even Robespierre. And reminds us that the Revolution wasn’t an overnight lop-the-king’s-head-off-whoops-let’s-call-in-Napoleon kind of event that it can become for us ignorant Americans. I became even more of a Mantel fan when I looked her up on wikipedia and learned that she has overcome considerable personal and medical challenges in order to write these big, absorbing, excellent novels.
Anyway. just figured I’d chime in and express my delight — and urge everyone to read Mantel. You can find her books, including A Place of Greater Safety and, soon, Wolf Hall, at the Monroe County Public Library, of course.
August 23, 2009
Sure we’re better known for Disney World, South Beach and real estate swindles but Florida has a rich and continuing literary heritage, dammit — and in today’s Miami Herald my friend and occasional editor Connie Ogle provides a list of her picks for the best. The only change I’d make is to add “The Truth About Lorin Jones” by Alison Lurie — always my recommendation for a Key West novel, if anyone asks me. And if you want to read one book to get a pretty good sense of Florida history — especially South Florida — you can’t beat “The Swamp” by Michael Grunwald.
May 31, 2009
It’s here, my big day in South Florida biblio-journalism. First, a review in the Miami Herald of Larry’s Kidney, an entertaining account of two cousins and their quest in China for a kidney, a bride and a better understanding of their relationship. And by the way props to The Herald and to the hardworking book (and Weekend section) editor Connie Ogle for keeping on keeping on in this economic climate. The Sun-Sentinel recently laid off longtime book editor Chauncey Mabe — he’ll still be doing freelance book reviews for them but it’s a major institutional loss for South Florida readers. Keep reading →
May 30, 2009
So how cool is this? First Publisher’s Weekly comes out with a rave review for The Lost Chalice, my friend Vern’s new book about the antiquities smuggling trade in Italy, where he has lived and reported for the last several years. And then, just a few weeks before the official publication date, Tina Brown’s cool new site The Daily Beast, features another rave in its Book Beast section. Worth checking just for the photo! You go, Vern! And to think the contract for this book was signed at my dining room table … (Vern, a very good friend indeed, flew in from Rome for our big 40th birthday party. For the weekend. And I’m using “our” not in the royal we sense but because it was also my husband’s and friend Jason’s birthdays so that’s why we had a big bash, OK?!)
This book, I should note, is available at the Key West Library as well as fine bookstores everywhere.
May 27, 2009
If you happened to be a regular reader of this blog, no doubt you’ve give up by now. But just in case: just wait. Until Sunday. Or keep your eye on the (old school) press, printed paper, local (Solares Hill) and regional (Miami Herald). And for those of you who don’t feel like doing that I’ll be posting some links.
I spent a lot of the spring reading, by the way, although a lot of the reading was what many, including me, might consider junk. I’m still considering writing a piece about my winter/spring of junk reading. I truly don’t know if it was some sort of reaction to the economy or just a personal thing. I’m mostly pulling out of it but the lure is still strong.
Especially since I have untrammeled access to pretty much any kind of book, including lots of junk, at my NEW JOB at the MONROE COUNTY LIBRARY, the MAY HILL RUSSELL BRANCH in Key West!!! Woo hoo! Yes, I’m now a library assistant at the circulation desk and this, aside from a couple of epic stories like the 1994 Cuban Rafter Crisis and some hurricanes, is the most physically demanding job I’ve had since high school. But fun! Really fun! I see books all day, lots of books, and readers and people I’ve known for years and people I’m just meeting and I bike home for lunch. Life is good.
OK I might as well mention some of my recent reading. “Julie & Julia” — I really did not expect to like this one for a bunch of reasons, and I wound up liking it a lot. Now I’m a little afraid to see the movie. “Larry’s Kidney” by Daniel Asa Rose. Stay tuned. “Martyr” by Rory Clements — I’ve already confessed in print about my fondness for Tudor Trash (Philippa Gregory et. al.) but this was different — a crime novel! Set in the Tudor era. With John Shakespeare, Will’s older brother, as the detective! OK, he’s an agent for Sir Francis Walsingham (that was Geoffrey Rush in the movie). It really illustrated the daily dilemmas faced by ordinary people (not just scheming royalty) in a time of massive religious, social and political upheaval. Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books. Patrick O’Brian with dragons. Yes, dragons. Seriously, check them out.
