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Crushes on the Wrong People
John Irving Crams His New Novel Full of Bisexuality, Crossdressing, and Too Much of Everything Else
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The Bechdel Test
Only an Idiot Would Fail to Recognize the Layered Genius of Are You My Mother?
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Almost Paradise
Rain Dragon Is a History of the Pacific Northwest Disguised as a Novel About an Organic Yogurt Farm
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A Tree, a Spoon, and Old Books
Woodnote Is an Expansive Conversation with Nature and the Dead
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Tour de Force
Trash-Talking in Strangers' Basements with Dorothy Allison and Michelle Tea
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Friday, May 25, 2012
Books These Are the Books on Mike McGinn's Office Coffee Table
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 4:27 PM
Keeping a Blue Light On: A Citizen's Tribute to the Seattle Police Department
By Stacey Sanner
99 Girdles on the Wall: A Memoir About Holding in, Letting Go, and Coming to Grips
By Elena Louise Richmond
The Fishes and Dishes Cookbook: Seafood Recipes and Salty Stories from Alaska's Fisherwomen
Out of Nowhere
By Robin Abel and Peggy Sturidivant
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
By Dr. Robert D. Morris
Hippie Boy: A Girl's Story
By Ingrid Ricks
Books Apple's Response to the E-Book Price-Fixing Lawsuit
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 2:28 PM
Daring Fireball ran a great excerpt from Apple's argument against the e-book price-fixing suit.
The Government starts from the false premise that an eBooks “market” was characterized by “robust price competition” prior to Apple’s entry. This ignores a simple and incontrovertible fact: before 2010, there was no real competition, there was only Amazon. At the time Apple entered the market, Amazon sold nearly nine out of every ten eBooks, and its power over price and product selection was nearly absolute. Apple’s entry spurred tremendous growth in eBook titles, range and variety of offerings, sales, and improved quality of the eBook reading experience.
The full PDF can be found here. Apple makes a very good case: If it weren't for Apple's collusion with publishers, Amazon probably would still be an e-book monopoly.
Books / Nerd / LGBTQITSLFA Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 11:30 AM
The One Million Moms are protesting Marvel Comics' gay superhero wedding and the upcoming unveiling of DC Comics' "major" gay character. One Million Moms has a letter on their website that you can send to DC and Marvel just by adding your information. It reads, in part:
As a parent and a member of OneMillionMoms.com, I am extremely disappointed that you would use a children's superhero character to help endorse same-sex marriage and glorify the homosexual lifestyle. It is disgusting that your company would participate in introducing sexual orientation to children when they are not equipped to understand what sexual preferences involve.
Unfortunately, children are now being exposed to same-sex marriage and the gay lifestyle choice in your comic books. Gay adults do not need superheroes as role models. Your company is damaging impressionable young minds by placing these gay characters on pedestals in a positive light. As a Christian, I know that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible states this clearly in Romans 1:26-27.
A comic book is the last place a parent would expect to be confronted with questions from their children on topics that are too complicated for them to understand. Issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon, which is extremely unnecessary.
First of all: Kids don't read Marvel or DC Comics anymore. Second of all: Apparently, you can change the text of the letter you send to Marvel and DC Comics executives to say whatever you want it to say:
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Books The United States of Poorly Written Erotica
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 3:46 PM
Goodreads has created an infographic showing the states which have most read the popular "erotic" "novel" Fifty Shades of Grey. While people in New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania lead the nation in their Fifty Shades of Grey-reading, readers in southern and plains states are more likely to give the book a high rating. Washington state is about average when it comes to 50 Shades-reading, but we are more likely to give the book a low rating than just about any other state in the union besides Utah and Vermont.
What this says to me about Washington state is that we're curious about what everyone else is reading, but we have much better taste than most of the country. Go, team!
Death / History / Books Paul Fussell
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 1:53 PM
The writer and historian who inspired our modern conception of World War I died yesterday. He was 88.
The US writer Paul Fussell's 1975 book The Great War and Modern Memory was, according to the British military historian John Keegan, revolutionary. Fussell, in what he called "an elegaic commentary", shaped a picture of the horrors of the first world war, and the cold stupidity of its leaders, made more trenchant by his own experiences in the second world war. He also used the writings of Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and others to show how the romanticising of the war and its heroes provided the creative spark for modernism, and the sensibility of disillusion and distrust of authority that characterised the so-called "lost generation".
This came via Slog tipper Shane, who very eloquently writes that Fussell was "one of the most profound and effective (and underappreciated) anti-war voices in American literature and definitely worthy of some mention." Thank you, Shane. I agree.
Books / Teh Internets Philosophybro.com
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 9:31 AM
The name "philosophybro.com" is goofball and this will likely be another internet flash in the pan (like the use of the letter "z" at the endz of everyz other damned wordz), but it might give you a little Thursday-morning delight. And, like Cliffs Notes and the "[insert philosopher here] for Beginners" series, it might actually be helpful.
From an early chunk of their summary of Plato's Apology, in which Socrates addresses the court that will eventually sentence him to death:
Socrates: "Everyone is all, 'Oh, Socrates! He thinks he's sooooo smart, he knows everything that happens in Heaven and below the Earth, and he makes arguments do all kinds of weird shit, and he teaches other people to do that.' And they've been telling you all this since you were little kids, so now you're thirty and you've heard for twenty-five years that I'm a huge asshole, and I've got a single day to undo that."
"Look, here's what really happened. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it or anything, but apparently the Oracle said I'm the wisest man alive. And I don't want to brag, because I was like, 'wait, what? I don't know shit.' But, you know, the Oracle is kind of a big deal, and I didn't want to go around telling people the Oracle is just straight up wrong, because that's actual blasphemy instead of the shit you dragged me in here for, but I figured if I could actually find someone wiser than me that I could say, 'Me? No way, Jimmy, he's definitely your guy,' then I wouldn't have to worry about wisdom or whatever.
"So THAT is what I started doing. I went to all the bros who had these great reputations for wisdom, bros who claimed to know tons of shit, and I'll be damned if they weren't mostly just fucking idiots. It was like, the better a reputation a man had, the fucking dumber he was. I'm not saying I knew more than them - I'm pretty sure that I know jackshit. But these guys also didn't know anything, and were pretty sure they knew everything. And when I tried to point out that they didn't know anything, they just got pissed off like it's my fault they've got their heads up their asses, which is why they told you guys growing up about how I think I'm smarter than everyone, even though I've literally never said that, ever.
And a paragraph from their summary of Foucault after the jump.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Books Orange No More
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 4:32 PM
Ouch:
Britain's Orange Prize for Fiction, which is annually awarded to a female author, will cease to be orange after the 2012 award is presented next week. That's because the Orange Prize is sponsored by Orange, a British mobile communications company, which after 17 years has decided to end its association with the prize.
According to the Bookseller, Orange plans to move its arts support to movie projects.
Maybe it's time for someone to write the 354,932nd article predicting the death of books, now.
Books / Nerd Superhero Comic Book to Feature Gay Wedding
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Marvel Comics has decided to take their characters in a new direction, one that hasn’t been explored in their pages before. Today, the publisher announced that their character Northstar would be proposing to his long-time boyfriend Kyle in the pages of Astonishing X-Men #50. And ABC’s The View had the exclusive.
Northstar, of course, has long been Marvel's token gay character. (Before that, he was Marvel's token elf. I'm not kidding.) Marvel will take some shit from the usual bigots*, but this is pretty much as safe as "controversial" can get. When Archie Comics is three months ahead of you, you're not breaking any ground.
* I predict, for instance, that all six of the Million Moms will pretend that comics are still sold to children and not grown-ass men in their 30s and 40s. What about the imaginary children who still read comic books? Oh, the outrage!
Visual Art / Books Better Than Nailing Books to the Wall
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 8:09 AM
Producing a book as an art object, so you can keep the book in your life even when you're not actively reading, is a great idea. I'm leery of the price—$195 before the book ships, $250 after—but I'd love to see this format applied to other collections.
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