[Literature] Lately, Hurricane Katrina has experienced a sort of popularity with books like Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun and Josh Neufeld’s A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. Eggers is doing well, with The Wild Things soon to come, which has even made Sam Anderson’s list of most anticipated books this fall. Surprisingly, Dracula the Un-Dead has not made the list, but should have.
Fall Reading
Wild Things
[Literature] I just today read Max at Sea, the excerpt for Dave Eggers’s novel The Wild Things. The novel is based on the movie Where the Wild Things Are, co-written by Eggers and director Spike Jonze, which in turn is based on Maurice Sendak’s children’s book by the same name. Aside from the movie’s trailers, this feature from the New Yorker is our first true glance at how Sendak’s story is being expanded upon.
To be able to read a novel’s worth of words abreast the ten-sentence story we’ve grown up with is interesting much in the same was as reading any novel that has a movie version: the novel allows us to really get into the protagonist’s head. If you didn’t already think the plot seems absurd, this excerpt will validate any assumptions of it being so: “By his rough calculations,” Eggers writes as Max sails further away from civilization than he had hoped, “he had to be at least seven million miles from where he cast off.” Eggers does an exceptionally good job at presenting the story as if to group of Max’s peers: fraught with hyperbole and exaggeration, and with a lot of glee interspersed in between.
Also from the New Yorker is an exclusive interview with Eggers on writing the novel, co-writing the movie and a few of his other projects. An interesting tidbit he sheds on keeping true (and not) to the book when writing the movie:
From the beginning, though, Maurice was clear that he didn’t want the movie or the book to be timid adaptations. He wanted us to feel free to push and pull the original story in new directions.
You may preorder The Wild Things here at McSweeney’s, or its fur-covered edition here. The books release this October.
Pardon the Dust
[Excuses] The blog has been and will continue to be on an unexpected summer holiday. I am preparing for college in just a few short weeks, a weeklong vacations with friends in which I will be off the radar in just a few short days, and have been simply trying to enjoy the last summer before moving out. So, there has been a lack of blogging and reading things.
Come end of August, this blog should be up and running again at full pace!
Judging Books by their Covers
[Literature] This week, it’s come to light how publishers are doing terrible things with book covers in order to ensure that their books are bought. Readers do judge books by their covers, after all, and even those who do not can’t help but have one book’s cover attract their initial attention before another.
The first case I head this week was of poor Justine Larbalestier and the cover of her book Liar. Liar is told by a black protagonist, but is instead introduced on the cover by a very light-skinned girl that doesn’t resemble the protagonist at all.
“Editors have told me that their sales departments say black covers don’t sell. Sales reps have told me that many of their accounts won’t take books with black covers. Booksellers have told me that they can’t give away YAs with black covers. Authors have told me that their books with black covers are frequently not shelved in the same part of the library as other YA—they’re exiled to the Urban Fiction section—and many bookshops simply don’t stock them at all. How welcome is a black teen going to feel in the YA section when all the covers are white?”
Meanwhile, another book’s cover misleads the reader into thinking Dan Brown wrote the book, one he had no part in producing, by listing his name on the cover in print larger than the actual author’s. So is the case with Dan Brown’s Simon Kernick’s Deadline.
It’s unfortunate, but we may take a page out of the publisher’s book — haha! — and also take advantage of such a gaffe: over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books they are holding a photoshop contest in light of Deadline’s disgraceful cover, inviting readers to try their hands at exploiting famous people to sell others’ books.
![[Glossy Pages] What struck me in this week’s issue of the New Yorker was not the “goings on about town,” nor the “talk of the town” nor even the review for the new Harry Potter movie. What struck me was an ad for Target.
The double-page picture immediately caught my attention, with bold typeface and the Target color scheme (lots of red and white, and black where those colors aren’t present.) The red strip you see at the right folds out of the right-side page, begging to be read when found closed in the magazine.
Target does not simply display what may be bought at their stores, nor do they illustrate people made happy solely by their purchases there, but rather list their choice of “top ten oxymorons,” a list of items that catch the interest of a curious reader (and someone who simply likes word play) while also creatively hinting at some products you may find at Target (such as number 5 on the list, “bittersweet” chocolate chips).
I approached this advertisement not as a glossy spread of fabulous people, but as an actual feature of the magazine I was reading. I just wanted to commend Target’s marketing team for that.](http://22.media.tumblr.com/Baf1fVEx4pyhvj1o7rlkmlOCo1_500.jpg)
[Glossy Pages] What struck me in this week’s issue of the New Yorker was not the “goings on about town,” nor the “talk of the town” nor even the review for the new Harry Potter movie. What struck me was an ad for Target.
The double-page picture immediately caught my attention, with bold typeface and the Target color scheme (lots of red and white, and black where those colors aren’t present.) The red strip you see at the right folds out of the right-side page, begging to be read when found closed in the magazine.
Target does not simply display what may be bought at their stores, nor do they illustrate people made happy solely by their purchases there, but rather list their choice of “top ten oxymorons,” a list of items that catch the interest of a curious reader (and someone who simply likes word play) while also creatively hinting at some products you may find at Target (such as number 5 on the list, “bittersweet” chocolate chips).
I approached this advertisement not as a glossy spread of fabulous people, but as an actual feature of the magazine I was reading. I just wanted to commend Target’s marketing team for that.
Polishing Up the Classics
[Literature] It’s looking like we won’t get the Catcher sequel this fall, and we luckily will be getting the Dracula sequel, but there is another revised classic we now turn our eyes to: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (The Second Pass regrets to say), inspired by the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Meanwhile Shakespeare has been updated, too, and has a little tweet on how he feels about old literature.
Update: Also check out the much less threatening Jane Austen-as-needlepoint editions.
Like Gilligan's Island, but not
[Literature] If you want to get an early start on the Tempest craze before the film comes out, don’t just read the old Shakespeare play but also the true story that inspired it, out today. [via]
[Art] Today my friends and I visited the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, where we found many strange and interesting things. There were an awful lot of comparisons to being in Wonderland, and an awful lot of giggling at what we found.
"I always like to think that I killed [Edward Gorey]."
[Literature] Mike Sacks interviews Daniel Handler (or Lemony Snicket to his young readers) about his love for Edward Gorey, Roald Dahl, a distaste for The Wizard of Oz (both novel and film versions) and, of course, writing:
…is it correct to teach children that just because you are a good person then good things will happen to you? That’s a common theme in children’s books, but life doesn’t always work that way.
McSweeney's Garage Sale
McSweeney’s is selling a bunch of books for only $3, $5 and $10. I don’t know how long this will last, but check it out before the books — and their prices — are gone!
