Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: Holiday gift-giving. Do you give books for the holidays? Did you participate in LT's SantaThing, either this year or last, or in other blogging gift exchanges? Were you happy with what you received?

My answer: I like to give gift certificates rather than books for the holidays, so people can choose what they want. I've had limited success picking books out for others! I did SantaThing last year and got a great collection of short stories by Canadian writer Alice Munro, who I'd never read before but who turned out to be right up my alley. I participated in one gift exchange on the blogosphere this year, but since I have neither sent (sorry!) nor received anything yet, I don't know if it's fair to say I "participated". More like "meant to". I did not do SantaThing, because I decided it was out of the family budget. (There was a "career interruption" in the family. Um.) Oh well. Between one thing and another it's been a stressful season and I just haven't gotten around to everything. It happens! I will probably do my end of the exchange this week.

As far as the future of Tuesday Thingers. At this point it looks like this is the last week of Tuesday Thingers. A couple of enthusiastic people wrote to me last week saying they wanted to take it over, but both of them backed out, so it looks like this is it. If one of you would like to pick up the mantle, go for it. But you might want to publicize it on LT or Book Blogs or one of those places so people know. And I'd love to know just to be able to participate. It's been fun- and I think it's been a good community builder for us book bloggers, but all good things must come to an end.

Thank you very, very much for all the wonderful kind words you shared with me last week. I do appreciate it and I know we'll all stay connected in the blogosphere.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a 2009 filled with blessings!

Blogging and Community

One of the topics that I'm always rolling back and forth in my head when it comes to blogging is community. Kathy at BermudaOnion, an incredible and prolific reader, commenter and blogger, wrote a post this week that got me started thinking. When I started my blog, community was really the last thing on my mind; I started the blog to have a place to write about books, to improve my writing and to build a body of work that I hoped would somehow help my career. And because I didn't really reach out at first, nobody read my blog.

But blogging in a vacuum is no fun, so I started to make an effort. I joined the book bloggers' web ring, the Book Blogs ning site, hosted Tuesday Thingers. I made a concerted effort to visit every blogger who visited me, and took part in a number of weekly memes. I opened a Twitter account, linked my blog to Facebook, even got a MySpace page. I got business cards and started promoting the blog to people I know professionally. Over time things picked up- every week I would have a few new followers, or a few new subscribers.

But I feel like I'm abysmally bad at the whole community thing, no matter how much I want to be everyone's pal. I can't possibly return every visit I get from every blogger. Just yesterday I deleted about 30 comments from the beginning of August I was never going to get around to replying to. Memes were starting to take over the blog and I had to scale back. I participated in only one blogging challenge- the Jewish Literature Challenge, because given that I'm a temple librarian it's one that I could complete in a single workday if I chose. I don't know how people manage real challenges! I can't even finish the ones I set for myself! And I'm unforgivably slow to pass out those blogging awards I receive every now and then- and it's not that I don't appreciate it. Believe me, I do. I signed up to participate in Book Blogger Appreciation Week by serving on a panel, and I feel completely overwhelmed by just that tiny job. Is this normal? Am I just lazy?

What does community mean to you? Does it mean joining certain sites? Does it mean fulfilling certain responsibilities, either to yourself or to other bloggers? Do you ever feel like you're letting yourself down or disappointing someone else if you don't return a visit, reply to a post or pass along an award in a timely manner? What does "timely" mean when a blog is a personal hobby and not a job for which you're held accountable by a boss? When, if ever, do you let yourself off the hook?

Or is "community" more an attitude and less a list of to-dos? How do you define it, and what role does it play in your blogging priorities? Is about respect and courtesy and giving back, or just about self-promotion?

One bright note- I recently joined the BlogHer network of affiliates, and I am loving what BlogHer does to promote community among bloggers by running promotions and highlighting posts so we can visit each other and read things outside our normal watch-lists. Check out some of the posts that get highlighted every week- there are some real gems out there.

Tuesday Thingers

Today’s question: Here is a list of the main areas of Library Thing:
1. Home (http://www.librarything.com/, before you log in)
2. Home (once you log in, contains Your Home, Your Profile, Connections, Recommendations, Reviews, Statistics, Clouds, Gallery, Memes)
3. Profile (Recent activity, tags, comments, members with your books)
4. Your Library
5. Your Tags
6. Add Books
7. Talk
8. Groups
9. Local
10. Search
11. Zeitgeist (Stats, Top Lists)
12. Tools (Widgets, Store)
13. Blog
What area are you most familiar with? What area is your favorite? What area are you curious about? Are there any that you have not really looked at?

First of all, thanks to Wendy for hosting Tuesday Thingers and for the nice intro she did. I'm pretty familiar with most of LT (I think!) but I don't use the Zeitgeist page that often, and I have an RSS feed on the blog so I read new entries when they pop up but I don't check it otherwise. I've tried to look at just about everything in the past few months or so; I'm sure there's something (lots of things!) I've missed though! I'm looking forward to Wendy's questions to help me get better familiarized with LT!

Telegraph Avenue Readalong: The Saga Continues

It's been a really busy week for me; I worked six days starting Monday although usually I just work two, the thing about this one being that I'm subbing for a couple of people, and then I agreed to take an extra Wednesday shift, and then I wanted Friday evening off to have dinner with my husband (otherwise I would not have seen him for dinner between Tuesday and Sunday) but the best I could do was to work Thursday and half of Friday, so the time I've had for reading has been really limited but I tried nonetheless to do my 20 pages per day of Telegraph Avenue, starting with Part 3, which was pretty short, and moving on to Part 4, which was pretty long and pretty dense as usual, and it was more of the same, you know, the plot kept moving along at its characteristic glacial pace, and the prose was characterized by the same lack of brevity and conciseness which has come to characterize the entire book, but that's fine, I'm used to it by now; the most interesting parts for me are anything to do with Gwen and Aviva, since I find that Chabon has a great feel for the chemistry between these two women as shown by their dialogue and how things move along when they interact, and now we have one week left in the readalong and one smallish section of the book to complete by next Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to finding out how it all ends, though I will admit that with my schedule and running around and the beautiful weather we've had in New England this past week I didn't quite finish Part 4, but I think Part 5 is short enough that I should be able to wrap the remaining pages into my daily reading quota and have some things to say about it when I post my final post next week, and as always you must visit Emily at As The Crowe Flies (And Reads) for more readalong posts.

Publisher Spotlight: Europa Editions- REVIEW of The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky. Published by Europa Editions 2011. Literary Fiction. Translated from the German.

If you know Alina Bronsky's from her first novel, Broken Glass Park, you might want to know first of all that The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is almost nothing like that dark book. Which is not to say that Hottest Dishes is all sweetness and light, just that it's quite a change of pace. The only thing Hottest Dishes has in common with its predecessor is that it's set in roughly the same milieu, that of ex-Soviets living in Germany.

But before our protagonists make it to Germany we spend some time getting to know them in the crumbling former Soviet Union. Tartar matriarch Rosalinda (Rosa) presides over her daughter, Sulfia and dotes on her granddaughter Aminat; all her life, Rosa has ruled the roost and now that her (in her eyes) feckless daughter has given birth to a daughter of her own, Rosalinda is determined to protect the girl. She even kidnaps the child and tells everyone that Sulfia is mentally ill and a danger to her daughter. Rosa considers Aminat to be her daughter, really, and regards anyone else as a threat and a nuisance. Her one project for Sulfia is to get her married to someone who can move the family out of the country.

We see the entire story through Rosa's distorted, delusional eyes, although the truth creeps through little by little. When the family moves to Germany tragedy replaces comedy as the trio disintegrates. Rosa is a fantastic literary creation, by turns horrific and appalling and even sometimes sympathetic, when the reader can see through the veil of the lies she tells herself. Judgemental, fussy and slow to credit anyone but herself for anything good, she's not an easy woman to like, and since Bronsky writes in the first person from Rosa's point of view, we do spend the entire novel in her head. There were times I wish Bronsky had changed up the point of view for a little fresh air.

But I settled in after not too long. Whatever else you can say about Rosa, she does love her family and I love the ways she changes, and the ways she doesn't, too. Still, I don't think The Hottest Dishes is going to be a book for everyone, and probably a lot of people will find Rosa to be a little much. I enjoy satires and I loved The Hottest Dishes for its tragicomedy and its bittersweet take on immigrant life. I don't know about you but sometimes I'm bored by the relentlessly sentimental type of immigrant stories and this book isn't that! Aminat's fate in particular strikes me as particularly emblematic of modern life, and I would love to read this story again from her perspective. If you don't like painful satire this is not the book for you but if you can come to like an unlikeable woman you'll love The Hottest Dishes.

Come back tomorrow for my interview with Alina Bronsky.

More in my Publisher Spotlight series on Europa Editions:

Week One:

• Introduction to the Series,
• Tuesday: Interview with editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds,
• Wednesday: Review of Heliopolis, by James Scudamore, nominated for the Man Booker Prize,
• Thursday: Interview with James Scudamore.

Week Two:

• Monday: Review of The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky, due out next month,
• Tuesday: Interview with Alina Bronsky,
• Wednesday: Review of Hygiene and the Assassin, by Amélie Nothomb,
• Thursday: Review of The Jerusalem File, by Joel Stone.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Europa Editions.

Sunday Salon- October's Accomplishments, November's Goals

Happy Halloween!

Back at the beginning of October I decided to do a theme month- to read some of my recent hardcovers, to attempt to make a dent in the stash of books I'd bought and received for review. Well, I succeeded about 50% of the way.

I read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English and The Finkler Question- along with the new Madame Bovary. The four other books I picked out for October and didn't get to- C, The Bells, To the End of the Land and The Fifth Servant- will go on the backburner for now as I gear up for next month's theme, books about Russia and the former Soviet Union. Come back tomorrow for the details, the stash, and more. I'll also be announcing a giveaway on Tuesday.

Today I'm back from a brief trip to Philadelphia, where I spent a week doing my thing working and being a tourist. I have to say, the most memorable thing about Philadelphia was the food. I can't say I was that crazy about actually walking the streets and seeing the sights. To the right is a photo of a cheesesteak sandwich I had there- yum. And I can work wherever I can get an internet connection, which made the week even better.

But today it's Halloween, and since I'm gearing up for Russian Month (or Russo-Biblio-Extravaganza, as I think I'm going to call it), I'm going to read  Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales today, which I think will fit the bill nicely. I started it yesterday and read the first couple of stories, which I enjoyed.

(Actually after I finished The Finkler Question I got started on Russian books right away and have already read two short books from my stash. Yay!)

I plan to spend much of today helping my husband carve a pumpkin and passing out candy. I'm not sure about my costume; I'll tell you more next week if the idea I'm cooking up actually works out.

What scary reading are you reading today? More Sunday Salon here.

Go Set A Watchman?

As most of you have no doubt heard, last Tuesday was the publication day of Go Set A Watchman, the much-anticipated lost manuscript by Harper Lee, author To Kill A Mockingbird. Go Set A Watchman was written before Mockingbird but set after, when the lead character is an adult revisiting her Alabama hometown and her father, Atticus Finch.

The controversy around the book is twofold. First, there were the highly suspicious and opaque conditions under which the book was discovered and published. Then, there's the different character of Atticus, who is not the noble liberal lion of Mockingbird but an overt racist.

Stories about Harper Lee's deteriorating health and overall condition started to circulate with respect to the manuscript as soon as the decision to publish was announced. Her attorney has offered weird and unconvincing accounts of the book's discovery; the state of Alabama launched its own probe, which found that Lee was of sound mind and fit to make decisions. I'm kind of the mind that where's there's smoke there's fire, and the fact that there's even a question about her competency makes me uncomfortable. The whole business has always smacked of exploitation to me, of a cash-grab and a desire for headlines.

I agree with those who say you should read a book before passing judgement on it, and I'm not passing judgement on it or reviewing it.  My feelings about this situation are still evolving and maybe it's too soon to write about it. People have been staking out their position early and often; some saying no way, not going to reward exploitation, others saying it's an important book for what it shows about Harper Lee's growth as a writer and conflicting perspectives on race during a volatile time (but what time isn't?).

My first instinct was to pass on it.  At first glance I just wasn't interested; it's not something that would leap off the shelves at me for any other reason but the controversy, and that's not usually enough to hang my hat on. The nearly-universal mediocre reviews haven't helped, either.

About those reviews, and the second half of the controversy. Everyone says Lee portrays Atticus Finch, beloved Atticus, a character people name their kids after, a character who has inspired legal careers and all manner of idolization, as a racist. People whose feelings are hurt by this need to remember the difference between fact and fiction. Atticus isn't really a racist, he isn't really a saint- he's a fictional character, and Watchman isn't libel or slander- it's a rough draft or alternate telling, and one that wasn't edited, and wasn't accepted for publication at the time it was written. It really shouldn't crush any one's dreams or ruin any one's day.

Not only that, but I kind of agree with Al-Jazeera's take on the whole thing, that Mockingbird was an example of white-savior literature that liberals love, an idealization of the times in which it took place and a revision of civil rights history, a sort of comfort-read for white liberals, and that Watchman might actually be a more realistic treatment of complex times and complex individuals. Now I'm selling myself on it. Kind of. Whatever else it is, Mockingbird is a masterpiece, and time will tell about Watchman.

But see, now I'm kind of curious. I don't know if I'm curious enough to shell out for a hardcover, but I can let the whole thing sit while the literary pundits hash it out amongst themselves. Then when the paperback arrives I'll check back in.

Publisher Spotlight: Europa Editions Interview with Alina Bronsky

Recently I had the honor of interviewing author Alina Bronsky, whose new book The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is due out next month from Europa Editions.

1. I talked to you last year about your first book, Broken Glass Park. How has the past year been for you? How has your life changed since the publication of your first book, and now, your second, the very wonderful The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine?

A: Thank you Marie - I‘m happy you liked The Hottest Dishes.

My life sort of changed completely after the publication of my first book. In the first 12 months after Broken Glass Park came out I was kept pretty busy with more than 150 readings and events in Germany. I quit my job and wrote my next novel mostly during the train rides. I had invitations from all over the world and went on a 2-week-long book tour in the US. The touring and events continue even now, after the publication of my second book. However I had to reduce the quantity of events radically because I need more time for my family and for the next novel.

The great thing about The Hottest Dishes is that readers react so passionately to it. It seems to be a much more polarizing book than my first: readers love or hate it with all their hearts and react even more emotionally than they did to Broken Glass Park.

2. Rosalinda is a fascinating literary creation. Where in your imagination did she come from? Why did you choose her as the narrator of this story?

A: Rosalinda is not a product of my imagination. She is alive. She represents a whole generation in the former Soviet Union. I know lots of women like her, and readers often agree, saying that Rosalinda remindes them of their own mother or grandmother. I chose her as my narrator because I liked the idea of ambiguity. Rosalinda sees everything in her own unique way and does not accept any other point of view. The reader starts to distrust her very soon and to develop his own interpretation of the story.

3. Hottest Dishes is really different from Broken Glass Park. What do the two books have in common? Why did you tell this particular story as a more a satire or black comedy?

A: It‘s difficult for me to compare my books - it‘s like comparing one‘s children. Both books have heroines who live between worlds, and who are not really settled anywhere. The touch of black comedy comes thanks solely to Rosalinda. She does not allow herself to get depressed and she describes even the tragic parts of her life in a way that can make you laugh.

4. What themes do you address in Hottest Dishes? Why were these themes important to you?

A: Well, the answer is always the same - identity, love, failure, loss. What else is important in life?

5. Is Hottest Dishes a Russian book, or a German book like you've been quoted as describing Broken Glass Park? What do these distinctions mean? Do they matter?

A. I don‘t think such distinctions matter any more. It makes me very happy to see that so different people all over the world can enjoy or be deeply touched by the stories of Sascha or Rosalinda. These heroines seem to have something both exotic and universal to them.

6. Who are your literary influences? Whom do you like to read? What are you reading now?

A: I think every book I have ever read influences my way of writing. I read everything I can get my hands on, and I mean everything literally. I just finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Yesterday I started Matched by Ally Condie.

Ms. Bronsky, thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions. And since this interview marks the first time I've had the chance to interview an author twice, my thanks are double, too!
More in the Publisher Spotlight series on Europa Editions:
Week One:

• Tuesday: Interview with editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds,
• Wednesday: Review of Heliopolis, by James Scudamore, nominated for the Man Booker Prize,
• Thursday: Interview with James Scudamore.

Week Two:

• Monday: Review of The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky, due out next month,
• Tuesday: Interview with Alina Bronsky,
• Wednesday: Review of Hygiene and the Assassin, by Amélie Nothomb,
• Thursday: Review of The Jerusalem File, by Joel Stone.

Sydney Taylor Award Blog Tour - Interview with author Jane Yolen

Today I'm featuring an interview with Jane Yolen, author of Naming Liberty, a book for younger readers which has been chosen as an Honor Book for the Sydney Taylor Book Awards of 2009. The book tells two stories; on one side of the page, you'll learn about an immigrant Jewish family's journey to America. On every facing page, Yolen features the story of the Statue of Liberty, from idea to creation to installation. It's a very effective way to teach the two sides of the story of immigration side by side. Ms. Yolen was gracious enough to answer my questions about the book:

1. The topics of immigration and the Statue of Liberty go together so beautifully but I don't think I've ever seen a children's book present these topics in parallel as you have in Naming Liberty. Why inspired you to choose this presentation?

When the editor and Jim Burke and I were discussing a new book, one of the many historical topics I threw out was something about the Statue of Liberty. It fitted Jim's style. But when the editor loved the idea, I suddenly got cold feet. Unless I could find some new way to present the story, it didn't excite me. There were already many boks out there about Liberty. And then suddenly, the idea of twinning it with the story of a family--not unlike a smaller version of the Yolen family (there were eight children, which were too many for a successful picture book)--popped into my head. From then on, that was the book I wanted to do.

2. Throughout the book, the concept of naming is very important; the changing names of the children is symbolic of their assimilation into American life. Why did you choose this particular metaphor?

From the beginning of the twinning idea, I knew the child was going to change her name at the climax. After all, my father had been Velvul (Wolf) in the old country and became Will/William here. In fact I didn't know he was called anything else but Will until the day after he died, when my uncle Harry (who had been Aron) told me. But also being a fantasy writer, I know the importance of names, sympathetic magic. And in a sense, that is what the girl does. She changes her life by changing her name.

3. We've seen a lot of books about immigration over the years; why do you feel the themes of Naming Liberty are still relevant today?

America is still a nation of immigrants. And once again, certain immigrants are being castigated, beaten, thrown under the metaphoric patriotic bus. So if this book in some small way reminds us again that--in America--outsiders become insiders. In this year, when we have elected a man who should have been an outsider--a child of two nations, two colors, two hearts in a single breast as a the pphilopsoher Montaigne once said--and who is now our most public insider, it seems the right book at the right time.

4. As you did your research, did you learn anything that surprised you, or uncover an anecdote or fact that didn't make it into the final version? Is there something a little "extra" that you'd like to share with our readers?

I learned about the cigar rollers (my mother's family had an uncle who did that) and how the men working in the factory learned English by someone reading to them from the newspaper. That was fun. But I had to shorten the journey, the hard journey, across Eastern Europe, over the ocean. It would take a novel to get all that happened on the way down on paper.

5. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi is very different from the Jewish family about to move to America; what did they have in common to you that lead you to tell their stories together?

Each of them start on their journey with a dream. An almost impossible dream--but a dream that comes true. After much difficulty, the Statue was erected and dedicated in 1886. In the book after an arduous and difficult journey, Libby's family arrives in America. My father and his mother, father, and four of his siblings, arrived at Ellis Island 1914. His older brother had come in 1912, his two oldest sisters in 1913. So they would have seen the Statue but not known its history. And what a fascinating history it is. And of course the hind end of the word history is STORY. My favorite thing I learned was how the head of the statue was brought through the streets of Paris. And didn't Jim Burke capture that brilliantly!

Ms. Yolen, thank you very much for participating!

I think Naming Liberty is a great book and I knew as soon as I read it that was Sydney Taylor Award material. The award was named after Sydney Taylor, author of the All-of-a-Kind-Family series, classics beloved by generations of children. You can find more information about the award and its history here.

If you'd like to explore more Jewish kids' books (and great blogs) check out the complete tour schedule:

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Karen Hesse, author of Brooklyn Bridge
Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Older Readers Category
at Jewish Books for Children

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Aranka Siegal, author of Memories of Babi
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers Category
at The Book of Life

Monday, January 19, 2009
Richard Michelson
Author of As Good As Anybody, Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Younger Readers Category
and
Author of A is for Abraham, Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at The Well-Read Child

Monday, January 19, 2009
Ron Mazellan, illustrator of A is for Abraham
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at Tales from the Rushmore Kid

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Valerie Zenatti, author of A Bottle in the Gaza Sea
Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Teen Readers Category
at Lori Calabrese Writes

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Jane Yolen, author of Naming Liberty
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at The Boston Bibliophile

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Anna Levine
Author of Freefall, Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Teen Readers Category
and
Author of Jodie's Hanukkah Dig, Notable Book in the Younger Readers Category
at Abby (the) Librarian

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Jim Burke, illustrator of Naming Liberty
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at The Page Flipper

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Jacqueline Jules, author of Sarah Laughs
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at Chicken Spaghetti

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Natascia Ugliano, illustrator of Sarah Laughs
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at Write for a Reader

Friday, January 23, 2009
Deborah Bodin Cohen, author of Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at Becky's Book Reviews

Friday, January 23, 2009
Shahar Kober, illustrator of Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
at Into the Wardrobe

Publisher Spotlight: Europa Editions Interview with James Scudamore

Today I have the honor of sharing an interview with Heliopolis author James Scudamore. Mr. Scudamore was kind enough to answer a few questions about his Booker-nominated novel as part of my Publisher Spotlight series on Europa Editions:

1. Heliopolis combines a lot of different elements really successfully- plot, character and style- but what really makes the book for me is the setting. Sao Paolo came across to me as almost a post-apocalyptic ruined city, and some of your descriptions of high rises and city streets and the way people live in gilded cages, sounded like something out of science fiction. How realistic is the Sao Paolo in the novel? If I went there tomorrow, what would be different? What would be the same?

The city of the novel is a confection combining some features of the São Paulo I remember from my childhood, some elements of the modern city that I have revisited and researched since then, and some flights of imagination. It felt vividly real when I wrote it, and I hope that comes through for the reader, but it's not intended to be an objective representation of the place (if such a thing even existed). Having said that, I should point out that the real São Paulo feels to me like the product of someone's fevered imagination anyway - an imagination acquainted with Ballard and Delillo and Judge Dredd's Mega-City One - so those initial spurs of inspiration don't necessarily contradict one another. When the Brazilian translation came out last year I was apprehensive about locals taking me to task for over-imagining their city's social divides, but many people I spoke to said that I could have gone further than I did, offering me in passing the latest examples of the chasmic distance between the lives of the majority and those of the gated, helicoptered elite. 

2. You've lived all over the world; why did you choose Brazil as the setting? Could you have told this story about another country?

The starting point was simply a conflicted character who hated his job, who could have existed in any city. Then all this Brazilian imaginative furniture started to crowd things out and I realised that my character was conflicted because he was adopted, and had graduated from one world to another in a very stratified society, but wasn't accepted anywhere. I also felt that the city in my mind was somewhere I hadn't read that much about - it certainly doesn't conform to many of the stereotypical images of Brazil. From then on, even though I never actually name it in the novel, the action could only be happening in one place. Which isn't to say that there aren't other megacities like this one: I imagine you could find parallels in, say, Lagos, Mumbai or Mexico.  

3. What made this Brazil, the one in the book, this way? What forces in society brought it to where it is?

Principally an accumulation of fear. Fear makes people lock themselves away from the rest of society, and when they are locked away they feel increasingly afraid of what lies outside their gates, because they can't see it anymore. The more they lock themselves and their families and their stuff away from everyone else the more they feel that those on the outside want to climb their walls and get at those things. Which makes them build bigger walls. Which makes the people on the other side of the walls hate them even more. I was also conscious of the force of advertising and marketing in a city of haves and have-nots: Ludo's working life is a extreme vision of a certain toxic workplace philosophy.

4. What themes are you trying to address through the story of Ludo, who seems stuck right in the middle of all this chaos? What is important for the reader to understand or take away from the story?

That's not for me to say: the reader can take away whatever she or he wants. One of the reasons I like the story is that it looks into the way people can use generosity to take control of others: a cynical line of inquiry, perhaps, but an interesting one. 

5. How does your embattled hero find a place in such a starkly divided and troubled society?

To begin with, he can't: that's the point. The man we are introduced to as the novel opens, trapped in bed under the naked body of his adoptive sister, is someone who has allowed himself to become inert because a powerful group of people has hijacked his life and influenced its direction. Over the course of the novel he tries to get back some of that control, as well as to confront some of the various different prejudices working against him based on where he is perceived to be positioned in society.

6. Why did you decide to write this story? What's compelling in it for you?

I had to write it because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get it out of my head. If I hadn't got rid of them, visions of pollution sunsets and derelict skyscrapers and helicopters full of rich people flickering over pungent slums might still be preoccupying me, potentially emerging at random in dangerously inappropriate contexts. The same is true of the novel I'm finishing now: it's the repository for a whole new set of images I'm trying to exorcise. But that's for another interview.

Mr. Scudamore, thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts with my readers and me!

More in my Publisher Spotlight series on Europa Editions:
 

Week One:

• Introduction to the Series,
• Tuesday: Interview with editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds,
• Wednesday: Review of Heliopolis, by James Scudamore, nominated for the Man Booker Prize,
• Thursday: Interview with James Scudamore.

Week Two:

• Monday: Review of The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky, due out next month,
• Tuesday: Interview with Alina Bronsky,
• Wednesday: Review of Hygiene and the Assassin, by Amélie Nothomb,
• Thursday: Review of The Jerusalem File, by Joel Stone.

Tuesday Thingers

Today's topic: Book-swapping. Do you do it? What site(s) do you use? How did you find out about them? What do you think of them? Do you use LT's book-swapping column feature for information on what to swap? Do you participate in any of the LT communities that discuss bookswapping, like the Bookmooch group for example?

My answer: Yes, I do some book-swapping, exclusively on Bookmooch. I got into it after playing with the swap column in LT and realizing that some of my books which I considered dogs, were actually in high demand elsewhere. I thought- hey, I can get rid of this, and get something I want in return! I tried a couple of other sites, including PaperBackBookSwap, and it just seemed like too much hassle to have accounts on more than one. I like the simplicity of Bookmooch and once I was up to speed on mooching etiquette I've had mostly good experiences. I have a few "friends" on Bookmooch (I'm mariekat over there- friend me!) but it's not a feature I use much. I used to be in the LT Bookmooch group but the questions tend to be repetitive. Overall I really enjoy being able to swap books and get the things I want for very little money. And it's recycling too- always a good thing.

Graphic Novel Monday: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. Published 1998 by Bantam Books. Click on the cover to buy from your local BookSense-affiliated independent bookseller.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a relationship book- or an anti-relationship book- in graphic novel form. It's not a classic graphic novel like others I've featured on Graphic Novel Monday- it's more the kind of book you pick up as a joke at hip clothing stores catering to college students and give someone as a gag gift. (Last summer I took a class on how to create a graphic novel, and I brought this book in to class as an example of my level of artistic skill. My instructor laughed at me- and he was right to do so.) It's more of a novelty-humor mini-book. It tells the reader how to make every conceivable dating mistake with a new boyfriend. Most likely anyone who follows this advice will end up in jail.

Yes, this book is the basis for the 2003 romantic comedy of the same name, which stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, but you'll be disappointed if you read this expecting a chick-lit novel- or any kind of novel. Unpaged, it clocks in at around 100 pages of crayon stick-figure sketches, much like what you see on the cover, accompanied by pithy one-liners of anti-relationship advice. The story starts on Day 1, when the woman meets her boyfriend. Of course the advice is to become intimate immediately. The reader is then advised to ask her new boyfriend on Day 2 if he thinks she has gained weight "since you've been dating"- yesterday. Basically the idea is to rush into relationships and force closeness before anyone is ready, and pummel your man with inappropriate attention until he finally relents and marries you. Finally by Day 10, as the relationship falls apart, the book advises the reader to fake a pregnancy and leave a poem and a long stemmed rose at his door- guaranteed to secure a wedding proposal after a week and a half of psychotic, stalkerish behavior.

The thing is, though, it works. (The book- not the advice!) It's hilarious. The combination of tongue-in-cheek, how-to-do-it-all-wrong advice and clever, crudely drawn pictures makes me crack up every time. I've never seen the movie, but what prompted me to talk about How to Lose a Guy was the number of folks who commented to me about it after last week's Tuesday Thingers, when I mentioned that for a while I was one of only two people on LibraryThing who owned the book. (Now it's up to 7 owners.) I guess I just wanted to make sure that, if anyone picks it up thinking it's going to be chick lit or a conventional novel, you know what you're getting yourself in to. Sometimes I can't believe that anyone ever decided to make a movie out of this little trifle- and then sometimes I admire the chutzpah of it and want to congratulate Alexander and Long on their success.

Sunday Salon

So I'm very excited today because I'm finally going to get around to reading Kathleen Kent's new book, The Heretic's Daughter. I've had the galley for
several months now, but between one thing and the other it's just been sitting on my TBR shelf. As a Salem, Mass., native and someone with a lifelong interest in the Salem witch trials I'm very interested in this one, which has received a great deal of positive buzz, both on the blogosphere and elsewhere.

Have you reviewed it? I would love to know.

I'm also getting a small load of books ready to go up on Bookmooch, and of course today is Sunday so that means work. Since the Jewish High Holy Days are coming up (Erev Rosh Hashanah is Monday) I'll be reading creation stories to the little ones. Some favorites are Big Momma Makes the World by Phyllis Root and Light, by Jane Breskin Zalben. There are others too- lots of good ones. Last Tuesday the 3rd graders made me a challah after storytime and brought it into the library in a very dramatic fashion, all in a row with the girl in front carrying it above her head and shouting "Librarian!! We made you a challah!!" as they all came in. So cute! Shana tova to my Jewish readers and I hope everyone has a great Sunday.

Friday Finds- Great Fall Books and More

This week I added a bunch of great new fall books to my collection, started reading one of them and found an older treasure or two as well.

First up is C, by Tom McCarthy, which was just short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. I've wanted to read this ever since I heard Random House sales reps Michael Kindness and Leslie Vasilio raving about it at a fall-titles presentation they did at the wonderful Harvard Book Store. It's finally been released and I got it first thing Tuesday morning from the equally wonderful Porter Square Books.

Penguin Books sent me My Mother She Killed Me and My Father He Ate Me, an anthology of fairy tales from authors such as Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, and more. Many of the authors are scheduled to appear at the upcoming Boston Book Fest; I can't wait to dip into these great-looking stories.


Next up is The Tiger, by John Vaillant, a nonfiction account of the hunt for a tiger which killed a poacher in extreme eastern Russia. I'll buy and read just about anything about Russia and this book caught me right away. Then I saw the trailer and ordered it immediately!

I've already started reading it and let me tell you, it is absolutely gripping.


Now what I want to know is, when's the movie coming out?

I found two other books at my favorite used bookstore, Cambridge's Lorem Ipsum: Margaret Atwood's short story collection The Tent, and Cruddy, an illustrated novel from the queen of teen angst, Lynda Barry. I grew up on her comics and I can't wait to read this book. When I met her a couple of years ago at a library conference, fans clutched their battered copies of Cruddy like the Holy Grail. All I had was her latest book in hand and an old poster called "Poodle with a Mohawk ("You'll never call him Fifi again!) on my wall at home. I kind of can't wait to read her book!

After this I'm rushing out for only one new fall release- Richard Harvell's The Bells, which releases on the 14th.

What about you? What's new on your shelf this week? What fall books have you rushing to the bookstore?

More Friday Finds at ShouldbeReading.wordpress.com.

Sunday Salon - A Taste of Spring

Since the Sunday Salon police caught up with me last week and reminded me that the purpose of Sunday Salon is to talk about reading and not what's going on in my personal life, I will spare you the recap of my week and get straight to the books.

Friday night I finished Adam Schwartzman's new book, Eddie Signwriter, which is coming out on Tuesday. I'll talk about it more later this week but I highly recommend it to readers of literary fiction, especially those interested in books about Africa. It's set there and in France, and it's terrific.

Yesterday I started to read Frank Delaney's wonderful Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show. I'm only a few chapters in but I love the narrative voice. I feel like I'm sitting in a pub in Dublin listening to a great raconteur spinning yarns. My seasonal allergies have been bothering me lately- we've been having some unseasonably warm temperatures after a period of heavy rain, which always equals allergies- and so I get very sleepy very quickly when I sit down to read. Good thing those chapters are short!

Today? Today I plan to continue with Venetia Kelly and start reading a short book. Which one I haven't decided yet; I actually have a tag in my LibraryThing catalog for short books so I'll scoot on over there in a while and pick one out.

I also decided to join a read along of Lonesome Dove which I think is taking place in the fall. It's
being run by Amy at My Friend Amy and sounds like fun. I'm not typically a joiner but I think maybe I need to branch out a little in that respect.

That's a picture of my cat doing what I'd like to do as soon as possible- curl up with a good book.

What are you up to today?

More TSS can be found here.

Tuesday Thingers

Today's Question: What's the most popular book in your library? Have you read it? What did you think? How many users have it? What's the most popular book you don't have? How does a book's popularity figure into your decisions about what to read?

My answer: The most popular book in my library is 1984 by George Orwell; I've read it several times, for school and for myself. I think it's a devastating, powerful book. 19,740 people on LibraryThing have it as of today. The most popular book I don't have is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, with 32,484 owners as of today. (I got this from the "Zeitgeist" page in LT.) I used to own it, but I gave it away. Popularity does figure into my decisions in that if something is really very popular, I'm usually less inclined to read it. I just like to do my own thing.

Sunday Salon - Sunday is My Saturday

I say Sunday is my Saturday because I work Tuesday-Saturday so Saturday night has started to feel like Friday, and waking up on Sunday is like sleeping in on Saturday. So that's one reason I'm a little late getting my Sunday Salon on- we were out to a holiday party last night and I basically collapsed when I got home. Saturdays are the busiest days at the bookstore, no surprise, and all of my Saturdays have been very active so far, a great thing for me and for the store. Holiday shopping is in full swing now and we have lots of people picking out presents for everyone in their lives.

And my life? Well, see above! I've been doing my own shopping of course, mostly online, and I'm almost done. Of course I say that every year and in the end, I'll be done not because every item on my list will be checked off, but because it will be December 25. Today we'll also start our holiday decorating and hopefully find some time for relaxing, though honestly I'm not too optimistic!

And then there's the reading. This week I read Che Guevara: A Manga Biography, and started the third in this series of Penguin manga biographies, The 14th Dalai Lama. I also finished The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Margot Livesey's Jane Eyre retelling, and started Little, Big, by John Crowley, and The Orphan Master's Son, a 2012 book from Adam Johnson. It's a LibraryThing Early Reviewer book and a buzz book from Random House. Plot-wise, it's a thriller set in North Korea, starring the son of the head of an orphanage in a society where orphans are treated as expendable.

Anyway that's it for me. What do you have planned for today? Have a great Sunday. More Sunday Salon here.

Friday Finds - A Sampling

A few of my Finds this Friday:

I got Ian McEwan's Solar first thing on Tuesday; I even braved the monsoons we were having in Boston to pick it up at my favorite local indie.
Yay!

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee, arrived via Bookmooch; the person who sent it to me left a handwritten note on a stickie on the inside: "Phenomenal piece of literature. You will not be disappointed!" I'm looking forward to it!

Finally, I picked up (and had signed) Elyssa East's Dogtown and Brigid Pasulka's A Long Long Time Ago and Essentially True at the PEN/New England Awards this past Sunday. It was a good time and fun to say hi to Twitter pal (and winner) East.

Have a great weekend and if you're celebrating one of the holidays this weekend, enjoy!

Friday Finds is hosted at ShouldBeReading.wordpress.com.

Tuesday Thingers

Today's question: LT and RL (real life)- do you have friends in real life that you met through LibraryThing? Have you attended any LT meet-ups in your area? Would you be open to attending meet-ups or is LT strictly an online thing for you?

My answer: I don't have any friends that I met through LT but I have a few real-world friends who are also LT friends. I haven't attended a meet up but I'm open to it. There was a get-together in Cambridge a few months ago but I was busy or something and didn't get to go. I would make more of an effort next time though since I'd be interested to meet some folks on LT and many of them are local. I'm always a little nervous meeting people from online but I'd give it a try.

Publisher Spotlight Other Press: REVIEW- By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan

By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan. Published 2010 by Other Press. Literary Fiction.

Mitchell James Kaplan's novel By Fire, By Water is an absorbing and engaging work of historical fiction about the conversos of Inquisition-era Spain- conversos being Jews who converted to Christianity (Catholicism) and either may or may not continue to practice Judaism in secret.

At this time, the Catholic Church was a powerful political and military as well as spiritual force, and allegiance to the Pope was as much about ensuring one's physical safety as it was about what one believed in; Jews in many countries were persecuted, uprooted or forcibly converted, and those who refused could suffer for it if their government didn't protect them. By Fire, By Water focuses on one such converso, Luis de Santangel, a real historical figure of medieval Spain and confidant of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella; he was also pivotal in convincing them to support Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.

This story covers more personal ground. Santangel starts to struggle with identity as a Christian and wants to reconnect with his Judaism and Jewish culture; to this end he starts to cast about for others like him who might be able to provide a sense of community or just a place to practice a little, however secretly. But during the Inquisition this kind of thing could bring serious consequences for not only the practitioner but the practitioner's family, and it's not long before Santangel, his son and his brother begin to feel pressured. But not all Jews live under this close scrutiny; others, like silversmith Judith Migdal, are protected and can live openly. Santangel is captivated by Migdal and they have a relationship; she is a strong and appealing woman who I wish I'd seen more of in the book. As the story progresses, Kaplan shows us how these forces come together and affect Santangel's family, for better and for worse.

By Fire, By Water is very good historical fiction. Kaplan's research shows without calling attention to itself, and the fictionalized aspects of the story flow well. I liked his depictions of different kinds of Jews- those practicing openly, those practicing secretly, and those who don't even know that they're practicing- and seeing the Jewish characters interacting with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Kaplan creates a vivid community peopled by varied characters of different social strata and backgrounds. If you read and enjoyed any of Maggie Anton's Rashi's Daughters series you'll find  yourself on familiar ground. The writing is florid and highly descriptive but not overmuch; Kaplan strikes a good balance between the era he's writing about and the era he's writing for. I'd recommend it to readers of historical fiction and Jewish books, and anyone who likes a good story well told.

Come back tomorrow for my interview with Kaplan, the final installment in this week about Other Press!

RATING: Backlist

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Posts in Other Press Week:

• Publisher Spotlight on Other Press: Introduction,
• Sunday: Interview with Publisher Judith Gurewich,
• Monday: Review of The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope,
• Tuesday: Review of The Debba, by Avner Mandelman,
• Wednesday: Interview with Avner Mandelman,
• Thursday: Review of By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan.
• Friday: Interview with Mitchell James Kaplan