'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.

BREAKING: Blogger Has Awful Taste in Books

As one of likely two book club members who read Gawker's sports blog, Deadspin, the responsibility of reporting book club-related info appearing on that site probably falls to me.

So! It turns out Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio differs greatly with book club consensus regarding one of our selections. When asked by an emailer who his favorite author and book are, he writes:

Favorite author right now is Charles Bock. Go grab "Beautiful Children" and read it 50 times. It's excellent.

50...times...? He is an Eagles fan, so maybe self-punishment is part of his DNA.

Eh? Eagles fan joke? Anyone?

A Starship Ride Has Been Promised to You By the Galactic Wizard

Word to the wise: Kelly Link recommended fortune cookies for our book club on November 2nd, where we'll be reading Stranger Things Happen.

I am currently amassing fortunes for all of you (see blog title for example a).

Submissions from Team Book Club should be placed in the comments.

Meet Kelly Link!

Good news: Kelly Link, our October book club author, is reading in Brooklyn tomorrow night!

I'm pasting the details here. Megan and I will both be there, and we'd love to see you. I'm going to ask Kelly if she has any recommendations for what we should eat while reading Stranger Things Happen. I haven't read anything from it yet, but I'm secretly hoping for something weird and cool, like Hostess Snowballs.


10/7/08

Community Bookstore

7 PM

143 Seventh Ave (between Carroll St and Garfield Pl)
Park Slope, Brooklyn | Map

718-783-3075

Subway: B, Q to Seventh Ave; 2, 3 to Grand Army Plaza | Directions

http://www.cbjupiterbooks.com

Tickets: Free

Description
The celebrated author of the fabulistic story collections Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners reads from her debut foray into YA lit, Pretty Monsters.

Some Exciting Kelly Link-Related News (Part 1)

Folks, there is exciting news! Kelly Link's press (by that I mean both the press that publishes her AND the press she runs) Small Beer is offering FREE downloads of October's book club selection and several other high-quality awesome books.

I really like the explanation the publisher gives for why these books are offered for free:

We love books. We want to keep on publishing good books. Weird books. Interesting books. We are curious about the future. If everyone downloads books straight to the Kindlenub in their head, we might be in trouble. But if there are still people who like to read books on paper, maybe some of them will read some of these downloads and then decide they would like the actual books. Therefore we're releasing some of our books.

That's great reasoning, and it seems like the onus is put on you, the reader. Small Beer offers these books for free because they believe in them SO MUCH that they're convinced you'll become a fan of the press, and ultimately buy more books.

Do with that what you will, Best Book Club in Brooklyn! If you fall in love with Kelly Link, as I have, I hope that you'll supplement the free downloads with a purchase or two from the press.

And even if you prefer your books in the more traditional way (ie, ink on paper), DEFINITELY check out the creative commons section of the Small Beer site, since they have audio downloads of stories from Stranger Things Happen that are very enjoyable.