July's Books

Yes, you read that right: books. You only have to read one or the other, but super-members will be awarded bonus points for reading both.

First, we're reading Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia. In the words of the publisher:

[Lavinia is a] retelling of Virgil's The Aeneid, told from a perspective that very often got lost in even the most compelling Greek myths: the female's.

Second, if you haven't read The Aeneid, what better time to hunker down with an epic poem than the summer?

Call out which one you'll be reading in the comments, so that we can ensure that we have enough people reading each.

Date to come, but we'll again be taking advantage of the weather and meeting up in Prospect Park.

Pnin: Follow-up

As a follow-up to yesterday's reading of Pnin, I wanted to share novelist David Lodge's analysis of the book, extracted from the Everyman's Library edition. Lot's of insight on Nabokov's intentions, why the book feels like a collection of vignettes (it was originally serialized in the New Yorker), as well as thought-provoking ideas re: the importance of language as a means of assimilation. Fun!

7x20x21 Is The Best Panel At BEA

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of The New Yorker, I am happy to add a new tagline to this panel--"7x20x21 is the only panel at BEA with an open bar."

If you'll be at BEA, I hope you can stop by the panel I'm curating with my co-worker Ryan Chapman. Here's the deal:

*7 speakers * Each with 7 minutes to talk about anything they like * Accompanied by 20 PowerPoint slides * That move forward automatically every 21 seconds *

Here's the (star-studded) lineup:

• Debbie Stier, Harper Studio
• Pablo Defendini, Tor.com
• Jeff Yamaguchi, Knopf Doubleday and 52 Projects
• Matt Supko, ABA/Indiebound and creator of the Indiebound iPhone app
• Chris Jackson, Spiegel and Grau
• Richard Nash, formerly of Soft Skull Press
• Lauren Cerand, independent public relations representative

Here's the details:
4:30-6PM
Friday, May 29
@BEA's Downtown Author Stage

Here's the video of our inspiration for this event, LBF's Canon Tales:

Further proof that we are way, way ahead of the game

Well, well, well. Guess what top tier radio show heard about our book club and decided to review Collodi's Pinnocchio?

Yep, Fresh Air. Check it out here.

Visions of Pinocchio

Pinocchio was written in 1880 in a serial format but in the style of a folk tale. I imagine that Carlo Coloddi would have been happy to see his creation adapted in the free way the myths and folk tales are.

As I read Pinocchio (which was always my favorite Disney movie growing up), I specifically tried to avoid imagining this:


Of course, those of you who are reading the book know that the tone is drastically different than that of the Disney movie. I avoided this film because of the reviews, but I would now be curious if any of you have seen it:



Another American retelling of Pinocchio (I think we all can agree that Spielberg and Kubrick are good flavors that don't mix, much like cotton candy and steak tartare):



Here is a more representative Italian drawing:



Mickey Rooney, anyone?



Five things to think about before book club:
1. Whether the best works of art inspire faithful or unfaithful adaptations
2. The fact that 'children's literature' was not a genre when Coloddi wrote this, and how he both tries to instruct and undercuts that instruction at the same time
3. The role of the Blue Fairy, and the feminine in general, in this boys' story
4. How the Gepetto/Pinocchio relationship is an allegory for artist/art
5. I hate to say it, but all that psychoanalytic stuff (born as wood, shaped into a puppet, only fully human by controlling impulses, and of course the nose.)

Grace Paley Book Club: the Duringmath

I would just like to share a picture of the food from last month's book club, or what was pretty much left after the attendees had had their fill (and had stopped yelling at me for leading the discussion poorly...just kidding! That pretty much didn't stop. My whoops.).



Here we have wine, cocktails, some of the borscht-that-ended-up-being-tasty-but-not-especially-borschty, the remains of the bagel platter (lox, whitefish salad, an assortment of cream cheeses, onion and tomato slices), and in the foreground: kugel.

Over the following week I ate ten pounds of kugel. That is all. See you in March!

'The Crooning and Combative Language of the Street'

You may not know this, but in a different life I was a poetry blogger. And one of the poets I wrote about was Grace Paley--her final collection, Fidelity, came out in 2007.

Here is a selection of audio of a Poets House tribute to Grace, including some very smart comments from A.M. Homes:

"I think of Grace and I think about how when I first read her stories I really couldn't understand them. They were lost on me and I didn't know why. And then I borrowed a record from the library--it was a recording of Grace reading 'Goodbye and Good Luck' and 'A Conversation with My Father' and suddenly listening to the sound of the reader's voice reading her own work, her intonation like an incantation made it all perfectly clear."

PS I can't take credit for the title of this post--it's a comment on Grace's work by the poet Jane Cooper.

Listen to Two Grace Paley Stories

NPR's Selected Shorts featured two Grace Paley stories last weekend. Neither are from January's book, The Little Disturbances of Man, but they're pretty emblematic of the sort of writing that Paley is know for--funny, slightly sad, and very wise.

The stories are "The Long-Distance Runner" and "A Conversation with My Father." You can find information about the show here, and listen to the stories by subscribing to the podcast.

January Book Club

I am blogging this live from Brooklyn, New York, the location of the next book club meeting, which will be held the 25th of this month. My neighborhood is called Gravesend, so I've selected a frighteningly appropriate book, The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley. It's about ghouls and witches! Just kidding, it's about Jews.

If you haven't started reading, you only have two weeks to go, but since the book is less than 200 pages long, NO PROBLEM! You can read that much in only 13 days. Or you can read one story and fake it, you faking fake.

Anyway, prepare yourself for some stuff that I'll make, like tea. Tea is definitely on the menu.