Apart from “culture” this essay makes frequent references to “wires.” I admit that I don’t know anything about “wires.” The fact that I don’t know anything about them doesn’t prevent me from writing about them. Until yesterday these two sentences were in contradiction. Today they are not. Freedom from knowledge, from the past, from continuity, from cultural memory and cultural hierarchy, and an inconceivable speed—these are the determinants of karaoke culture and the leitmotifs of the text that tries to describe them.
Karaoke Culture / Dubravka Ugresic
I’m impressed with our friday reads
Welcome to the first Friday of August. As summer starts to wind down, our team has recommendations on how to make the most of these last weeks of summer reading.
On her last Friday in the Picador offices, intern Anya has just started Little Century, Anna Keesey’s debut, recently released from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Both Daniel and P.J. have Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station as their read this week. P.J. recently finished it, and describes it as, “a book about a young American a’ramblin’ and a’wanderin’ around Madrid, sort of writing an epic poem.” Daniel is only 100 pages in, but this passage in particular struck him:
And yet when I imagined the total victory of those other things over poetry, when I imagined, with a sinking feeling, a world without even the terrible excuses for poems that kept faith with the virtual possibilities of the medium, without the sort of absurd ritual I’d participated in that evening, then I intuited an inestimable loss, a loss not of artworks but of art, and therefore infinite, the total triumph of the actual, and when I realized that, in such a world, I would swallow a bottle of white pills.
Alaina just finished Blame by Michelle Huneven, on Jennifer Weiner’s recommendation. She is just getting around to some of her galleys from BookExpo of America, and has plans to pick up One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper next.
Darin is enthralled by FSG’s All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen, a group biography of Esther Murphy, Merceds de Acosta, and Madge Garland.
High society, fashion, and old school lesbianism: these are a few of my favorite things.
Justin is working on Philip K. Dick’s Ubik.
Gabrielle just finished Christopher Beha’s debut novel What Happened to Sophie Wilder. She says:
It was enjoyable to read not only for its excellent writing but also because it made me think about life’s big issues: family, death, and faith. Christopher will be in conversation with Picador author Garret Keizer on Tuesday, August 21st at McNally Jackson to discuss Garret’s his latest book, Privacy. All in the area are invited. It’s going to be great—and lots of us Picadorians will be there. We’re fun.
This morning, I started Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. I have a serious blind spot when it comes to noir and need to correct it ASAP. I foresee lots of cigarettes, whiskey, and gunshot wounds in my future.
Stephen called Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins the “perfect summer read: absorbing, funny, stylish.”
And lastly, James recommends the “uncommonly honest” interview of Bret Easton Ellis in the Spring 2012 edition of The Paris Review.
What we’re reading
Friday Reads Club is here, and we have a packed house with a bevy of picks. Enjoy!
Henry is living in Gotham City with graphic novel Batman: Hush written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Jim Lee:
The Epic 12-part Batman story arc featuring nearly every major ally and villain including his relationship with Catwoman. With dynamic and beautiful artwork by the amazing Jim Lee. This story should hold me over till I see THE DARK KNIGHT RISES on IMAX. Still sold out!
Elianna is diving into Nabokov’s Selected Poems, recently published by Knopf:
I’m often skeptical of poetry in translation, but am still curious about the way in which this book will amplify the English language readers’ vision of Nabokov’s world.
I’ve also been captivated by Hannah Tennant-Moore’s piece on eroticism in Henry Miller and female sexuality. You can read it yourself at The Paris Review Daily:
Justin picked up the latest August issue of GQ and is deciding whether to crack Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Ubik. Decisions, decisions.
P.J. is rereading the Patrick Melrose novels and also reading True Believers by Kurt Anderson saying only that it is “really good. Don’t want it to end. But end it will soon.”
Daniel and James are both in Donald Antrim’s grasp. Daniel just started Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World and is worried that things won’t end well in this “off-kilter, strange, and quietly violent Florida suburban universe.”
James is reading Lydia Kiesling’s outstanding review (see reblog) of Donald Antrim’s novels at The Millions, excerpt from the review below:
“Even very great writers don’t often write like this. So when you’ve surfeited yourself on hunger games and vampires and zombies and lukewarm bondage and everything else that dulled our synapses this year — when you need a new genius — don’t despair, choose Donald Antrim.”
Elizabeth is plowing through submissions and looking forward to picking up a copy of The Dream Team by Jack McCallum, which she plans to take on vacation next weekend. She hears “it’s amazeballs, terrible pun intended.”
Gabrielle is enjoying The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig, published by NYRB:
I had read Zweig’s other book Confusion a little over a month ago and loved it so when I saw that Community Bookstore in Brooklyn had chosen this one for their August book club I ran out and bought a copy. I’m looking forward to discussing it with people in a few weeks. Zweig is such a fun writer, focusing on interpersonal relationships and the quirky internal thoughts that lurk beneath the surface.
At the time he was writing, mainly during the 1930s, his novels were considered contemporary fiction. He questioned the conventional attitudes of his fellow Europeans towards sexuality and class. I wish he were alive and writing today. I’d love to know what he thinks of our current culture.
It’s also worth noting that this is one of Darin’s favorites and as soon as I’m done, I’m running into his office so we can gush.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
We eat books for breakfast …
Welcome to the end of the week! Here’s what Team Picador is reading this Friday the 13th…
Publisher Stephen is reading Augusten Burroughs’ This is How, which will be published as a Picador paperback in 2013.
Likely the most refreshing, honest “self help” book I’ve ever read, though it is a lot more than just “self help”, filled with Augusten’s trademark wit and bold humor.
At the insistent prodding of a well-meaning friend, Alaina is reading Dave Eggers’ debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At only 50 pages in, she is not quite ready to say whether the book is appropriately titled or not, though she is enjoying it so far.
Daniel is still brushing up on his Picador backlist, this week with Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams.
Almost every sentence in Train Dreams has some turn of phrase, some strange or striking element that gives me a moment of pause. This passage about Robert Grainier’s, the protagonist, body getting old and getting hurt after a career of culling spruce in the northwestern US lumber yards makes my bones ache:
“His joints went to pieces. If he reached the wrong way behind him, his right shoulder locked up dead as a vault door until somebody freed it by putting a foot against his ribs and pulling on his arm. It take a great much of pulling,” he’d explain to anyone helping him, closing his eyes and entering a darkness of bone torment, “more that that–pull harder–a great deal of pulling now, greater, greater, you just have to pull …” until the big joint unlocked with a sound between a pop and a gulp.”
Justin is currently between books, but he just finished up Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower, which is a bit of a cult favorite here in the Picador office.
James and Elizabeth are both reading top-secret manuscript submissions. We’ve definitely got some exciting things on tap for the future.
Gabrielle is pulling double duty as usual:
I’m just finishing up an unexpected (to me) funny read, Dublinesque by contemporary Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas. The main character, Riba, is a failed book publisher who sets out for Dublin with a group of friends to eulogize the printed word. Obviously, this strikes a chord.
I’m also reading, and rereading, Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Story, a book we’re publishing in October. When compiling the collection, The Paris Review asked contemporary writers—Jeffrey Eugenides, Dave Eggers, Lydia Davis, etc.—to choose their favorite short story from the magazine’s archive and write an intro to it. Their setups are excellent companions to the stories that follow, showing you what to look for and how to read it. I can’t wait to see this one on bookstore tables—the cover is an incredible display of typewriter fetishism.
The word connects the visible trace with the invisible thing, the absent thing, the thing that is desired or feared, like a frail emergency bridge flung over an abyss.
For this reason, the proper use of language, for me personally, is one that enables us to approach things (present or absent) with discretion, attention, and caution, with respect for what things (present of absent) communicate without words.
” Italo Calvino / Six Memos For the Next Millennium / 1988We’re a classy bunch. You can tell by our reading selections.
Happy Friday, once again! The Picador team is here to share our first round of summer Friday reads…
Picador’s new publisher, Stephen, is enjoying Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams (in its new paperback edition, of course):
Just read Denis Johnson’s much-lauded, Pultizer-finalist Train Dreams – powerful, moving, a multi-faceted gem of a book. Definitely worth reading as you travel this summer – at a pitch perfect 116 pages, you may also want to bring a long Johnson’s National Book Award winner Tree of Smoke if you read Train Dreams in one sitting.
Elianna is already reading the new galley of The Paris Review’s Object Lessons, which arrived yesterday, just in time for BEA. (The book will be available in October 2012.)
Justin is catching up with a classic, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, but the pages keep falling out of his used edition from 1973.
Darin’s got Laurent Binet’s HHhH, which “throws all conventions associated with historical fiction out the window,” with a little Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster on the side.
Gabrielle is nearly done with Stoner by John Williams.
Sadly, today, I am probably going to finish the amazingly depressing modern classic Stoner by John Williams. Stoner, a deceptive title for a story about an unlikely English professor whose life is plagued by a series of awfulness, feels all too realistic. In fact, every so often I find that I put the book down to catch my breath (and thank my lucky stars I’m not trapped in some terrible, loveless marriage).
When author Steve Almond wrote about it in Tin House he said, “because the author, John Williams, treats his characters with such tender and ruthless honesty that we cannot help but love them.” So true. The New York Review of Books website says they reissued it in 2006 but I remember a ton of buzz from my local booksellers last year. It seemed like everyone with excellent taste who I trust was reading it at once. I don’t know what made them pick it up a bit late but man, I’m glad they were convincing. Although outside my usual reading experience – the book is set in the Midwest and spans the time period between the First World War and the Second – Stoner is a truly amazing read. I might cry when I get to the last page.
The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey is senior editor David’s current pick, along with lit mag Conjuctions.
James is catching up on periodicals (Bookforum, New England Review) and re-reading Donald Antrim’s Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World:
I first read (and loved) it last summer, and Picador will reissue it on Tuesday with a new intro by Jeffrey Eugenides. Eugenides, in his introduction, calls it “that very rare thing: a book without antecedents.”
Finally, Alaina is just getting into Skippy Dies:
Is there anything more appropriate on National Donut Day than the title character of the book you’re reading dying of donut asphyxiation in the book’s opening pages?
BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS
Tom Bissell on John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist
It is probably the most important book I have ever read — or rather the most important book ever read by the aspiring writer who became the person writing this sentence. Gardner, an erratically brilliant novelist, solid short-story writer, under appreciated critic, legendary creative-writing teacher, habitual animadvert, massive hypocrite, and awe-inspiring pain in the ass, died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 49 in 1982, having written more than thirty books; Novelist is one of the last he completed.
In the spirit of Friday Reads, we’d like to share our team’s current picks with you. With selections from memoir to picture books, poetry to classics, it’s safe to say that we’ve covered all the bases.
Justin is currently reading Graham Greene’s A Quiet American:
This passage (p. 94) reminded me an awful lot of another war:
“You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren’t interested.”
“They don’t want communism.”
“They want enough rice […] They don’t want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another…”
James, Executive Director of Publicity (and new dad), is reading A Loon Alone, by Pamela Love with Illustrations by Shannon Sycks:
It’s a subtle, dark meditation on loneliness and alientation in late twentieth-century American life, and the often futile longing for human connection in facing the void of human existence.
Gabrielle picked up Alison Bechdel’s new graphic memoir Are You My Mother? at BookCourt earlier this week:
A follow up to Fun Home, the memoir about her deceased father, Are You My Mother? tackles Bechdel’s complicated relationship with her mom. Heavily reliant on psychotherapy as a lens in which to view the mother-daughter relationship, Bechdel steps away from the colloquial in favor of a slower, more contemplative text.
With Bechdel’s work it’s easy to get wrapped up in the story, layered and weaving through time, but just like the meticulously crafted Fun Home, the illustrations in Are You My Mother? are beyond brilliant.
Read a conversation between Alison Bechdel and Maud Newton at the Barnes & Noble book blog.
Among other things, Darin is reading Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down, by Rosecrans Baldwin, out last month from Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Jonah Lehrer’s latest book, Imagine.
Kianoosh suggests Lina Mounzer’s “The Meaning of Being Numerous” up at Warscapes, Benjamin Kunkel’s review of Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order by Philip Coggan and Debt by David Graeber up at the London Review of Books, and “Patrick White’s underappreciated epic The Eye of the Storm.”
Noting that she is also reading multiple submissions, Elizabeth is taking on Hector Abad’s Oblivion.
With his fingers in all of the pies as usual, Kolt is reading quite an array, including Calvin Tomkins’ Off the Wall, in addition to Anne Carson’s Plainwater and Carl Phillips’ Double Shadow:
Much to the effect of electromagnetic therapy, when I read Anne Carson’s work, I feel as though my circuitry has been rerouted, an imbalance has been righted. Plainwater takes us to the precipice of language and form, and enlightens us along the way.
“Late to the bandwagon as always,” Alaina is about to crack open Teju Cole’s Open City.
Senior editor David is buried in submissions and is very much looking forward to having The Great Gatsby read to him in the form of Gatz at the Public Theater.
And last but not least, Elianna’s pick is James Joyce’s Dubliners, ”a little throwback for the Friday morning commute.”
