Presents

We're working on a feature for the May issue, "What Makes a Good Graduation Gift Book?" and it's causing me to think about how complicated gift-giving can be. As Betty Carter says in the article, any gift of a book comes with an agenda: here's what I like or think is important and/or here's what I think you like or should find important. In either case, here's what I think about you. I remember the time an acquaintance gave me a Madonna CD for my birthday, and my acerbic friend Ruth remarked, "that's the kind of present a straight girl gives a gay man . . . she doesn't know very well."

Me, I generally give a gift card rather than a book, a dodge that Anne Quirk rightly denounced as cowardice. Richard is braver and/or more thoughtful, and almost always comes up with gifts of books or music that reveal he keeps a close eye on my tastes as well as what I already own. But for my last birthday he gave me a copy of Arthur Phillips' The Song Is You. It was a good guess, all about love and music and iPods, sort of a higher-minded High Fidelity, but reading it was complete hell--the prose was simply way too rich for my taste. But I gamely soldiered on, a few pages here and there, always packing it in my bag for vacations but never getting much beyond page 75. You have to, right, when it's a present from someone who loves you?

He eventually noticed that it was languishing, however, and took it for his own enjoyment. (Perhaps this was his motive for buying it in the first place, the way I bought him Simon Mawer's The Glass Room, which, fortunately, he loved and I am loving.) But today, triumph! I just got an email from him quoting from the Phillips, "her breath a cumulus the size of a peach," adding, simply, "slows you down, doesn't it?" Uh huh.

Infer this.

Magazine reviewer Jonathan Hunt offers his picks for the five best YA works of fiction this year over at NPR. I will nitpick that one of the choices is not fiction and another not YA but all five are good books. Three of them appear on our Fanfare list, which will be whizzing its way to your inbox in just one week.

To link this morning's post with yesterday's, Jonathan and Debbie Reese are arguing over at Heavy Medal about Albert Marrin.

And apropos of nothing but still burned in my mind is this sentence from Amy Sohn's Prospect Park West, which I heard this morning on my iPod and which caused me to wonder if, when they came, they first came for the copyeditors: "Not once had Rebecca heard a mother infer even obliquely that she was hard up [for sexual gratification]." (I'm listening to this because PW gave it a starred review while over at Audible.com all the Prospect Park parents are leaving bitter comments about how bad it makes them look.)

We skipped the maple candy, too

Back from Vermont--we did get to visit the Patersons (that Katherine bakes a mean scone and gave us plenty to take back to our Killington chalet, no snow but there was a hot tub) but not JRL as poor Buster was by then too exhausted and disoriented to either move or leave behind. (He is better now but still, twenty.) Our chief entertainments were books in the daytime (me, a Joy Fielding--never again--and the second Stieg Larsson mystery; Richard, Possession (and finally skipping the poetry like I told him to) and The Godfather movies in the evenings. (How had I missed all three of those?) Like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire only really comes to life when The Girl is onstage, but then it is irresistible. Christopher Hitchens suggests that Winona Ryder should play her in the movie but I kept seeing Bjork or that little fey thing who was on Absolutely Fabulous.

We only went shopping for ice cream once, and the only locavore alternative to Ben & Jerry's was some coconut sorbet. No thank you.

I hope it isn't ALL Ben & Jerry's

Going to Vermont for a few days; hoping to see Katherine Paterson and HB reviewer Joanna Rudge Long (who lives not near but ON the Appalachian Trail) but otherwise just r&r, Roger and Richard, and Buster, who at twenty is too old for any trailwalking but we hope will enjoy the fireplace. Lots of reading planned--Richard gave me the latest Arthur Phillips for my birthday and I've got the second book about the tattooed lady (as well as the new Vanity Fair which promises a hatchet job on same by Christopher Hitchens) and the new Isabel Dalhousie "mystery" on audio. All that and a hot tub!

And look for the new Notes from the Horn Book later today, where I interview Jim Murphy about his new book about the Christmas Truce--appropriate for Veterans' Day, yes?

If you liked The Lost Symbol . . .

It occurs to me that now that Robert Langdon has raced around Rome, Paris, and D.C. he ought to go to New York; precisely to Madeleine L'Engle's current residence, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. His readers would love her; hers, I'm not so sure about.

Get Your Factoids Straight

I've got the new Dan Brown (audiobook edition) for our flight this weekend to meet the grandchild. Can't wait for either! Child_lit has been discussing how books perceived as page turners (like The Hunger Games) don't get the respect they should, but I figure there's page-turners and then there's page-browsers--James Patterson, I'm looking at you.

What I think I like most about Dan Brown is the opportunity he gives me to go around correcting everyone's use of the term factoid to mean a small, arcane, interesting fact. But Brown uses factoids in precisely the way coiner Norman Mailer intended: small, interesting, but completely made-up bullshit designed to look as if it were true.

From Cape Cod to Christmas

My mini-break at the Cape was lovely for all kinds of reasons, most notably the best ice cream I've had in a long time, at Four Seas in Centerville. I tried the chocolate, peppermint, peach and butter crunch--all sublime. Closes September 13th for the winter so hurry on down. Richard and I stayed just a block away at the Long Dell Inn, which went a long way in alleviating my suspicions of the term bed and breakfast. Nice bed, great breakfast, friendly innkeepers. Kept myself occupied each morning at the beach with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo while Richard one-upped me with Midnight's Children.

Oh yes, work: the writers' conference afforded me (and the attendees, I hope) a great six-hour discussion with Mary Lee Donovan, Debbie Kovacs, Alison Morris, Nancy Werlin and Martin Sandler about contemporary children's publishing, from the nitty-gritty of getting an agent to larger questions about the future of the market. Everybody seemed to think that we were not seeing enough picture books (the form, Mary Lee suggested, most likely to survive as printed book) and perhaps too much YA. Nancy wisely advised the audience to cover its ears when we moaned about the current depressing economic situation--since you need to write the book you need to write anyway, she said, discouraging words can only harm.

And I finally got to meet Mitali Perkins. Yup, she's tall.

Now the Christmas books are calling--I have to go write a review of Jim Murphy's forthcoming Truce, about the sadly ephemeral Christmas peace on the Western Front in 1914, for our Holiday Books feature. Ho-ho-ho.

I'll Be Seeing You . . .

Last Friday we had a very entertaining time of proofreading the Guide, aided by candy and fave tunes from the 80s provided by Miss Touch-Me Pod, whose little speaker recalls the halcyon days of AM transistor radios. There was an ongoing war, too, over the merits of The Time Traveler's Wife, loved by Elissa and Chelsey and hooted at derisively by Kitty and me.

But I am glad that time travel seems to be back in a big way and I'll gladly give Audrey Niffenegger the credit if she wants it. The children's book of the summer is Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me (see my interview with the author here), and I'll be glad when you've all read it so we can talk about it. For those of you who have, and without giving anything away: do the kids and neighborhood remind anyone else of Vera Williams's Scooter?

I also recently enjoyed--and Time Traveler's Wife fans can here hoot at me--Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, a chick-lit novel by Laurie Viera Rigler about a young lady of Austen's milieu whooshed into contemporary L.A. via a fall from a horse. The book is a sequel to Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, about the L.A. gal who trades places with the Regency one, but that conceit seemed rather more ordinary to me so I didn't pick up the book. The two books together make me think of Nancy Bond's sadly neglected Another Shore, about a contemporary girl time-travelled back to colonial times, aware that a girl from then and there has taken her place in the present--and probably has it much, much worse.

Why is it that when I hit my head, I only get a lump?

Who's reading YA?

A tweet from Chair, Fireplace, etc. led me to this article questioning the link between the health of YA as a publishing category and the assumption that it means teen reading is flourishing. Every time I see The Book Thief on bestseller charts I wonder about this correlation, and I also think the question speaks to the thriving (thanks, all) conversation we've been having about blog reviewing and how it differs from print. Save for the odd review in VOYA, all major print reviews of YA are written by adults for an audience of other adults selecting books for teens. Blog reviewers include both teens and adults, and more often than not YA blog reviews don't speak from or to a gatekeeper perspective--the reviewer treats the book as one she has (or, more rarely, has not) enjoyed and recommends (or not) to those reading the blog, with no "for your kids" implied. This may be why meta-discussions of blog-reviewing get so heated: it's personal.

I don't wring my hands about adults reading YA as much as I used to, but before you go thinking I've become more generous of spirit take a look at the article linked above--maybe YA books are simply adult books with more appealing covers!

Man Without a Face redux

Or Batman and Robin, or maybe it's simply Twilight for little gay guys, but Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain is quite the adolescent epic of doomed, yet eternal, love. Philip, the half-Chinese son of a wealthy colonialist, is sixteen when he meets Endo-san, an older Japanese man who has rented the small island owned by Philip's family, offshore their palatial home on the Malayan island of Penang. It's 1939, so you know this isn't going anywhere good, but the boy and man become inseparable, Philip introducing Endo-san to the nooks and crannies of Penang; Endo-san teaching Philip the martial arts and Zen philosophy of his homeland. On the page, there's nothing sexual between the two, and readers can decide for themselves just whether all the kisses and embraces and intense soul-searching gazes exchanged by the two constitute a romantic liaison or simply a very close friendship, one that, Endo claims, the two have had in previous lives and will go on to have in the future. The writing is just naive enough to make me wonder whether the author fully knew what he was implying but regardless, The Gift of Rain is a Boy Book writ large--tons of action, explosions, hand-to-hand combat, swordplay (heh), Eastern philosophy, spies, betrayals, secret caves, oaths, seppuku, and hardly a girl to be seen (except for Philip's plucky older sister and an old Japanese lady--also a martial artist--who encourages the now-elderly Philip to relate the story of his youth). I do hope boys can get past the flashback structure and the Oprah-looking cover for the grandly idealistic war story and safely sublimated romance.

Blurring boundaries

Kelly Herold (of Big A, Little a) has a new blog with a very promising premise. Crossover "focuses on a rare breed of book--the adult book teens love, the teen book adults appreciate, and (very, very occasionally) that Middle Grade book adults read. I'm interested in reviewing books that transcend these age boundaries and understanding why these books are different." She kicks things off with a discussion of Twilight. Don't forget the Twi-moms, Kelly!

My new crossover favorite is Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim's The Eternal Smile, a collection of three thematically linked graphic stories (First Second/Roaring Brook). Yesterday I had an interesting talk with Lauren Wohl of Roaring Brook about the challenge graphic fiction presents to our traditional concept of grade level. I thought Eternal Smile was YA, or YA enough, to review in the Horn Book but SLJ apparently booted it over to their big brother Library Journal. Conversely, I thought the same publisher's Laika was clearly adult, but Lauren told me it had won a bunch of children's/YA awards. Graphic novels are just one development that promises to keep the reviewer's lot lively; when I think about self-publishing, print-on-demand and e-publishing, I just want it to stay Memorial Day weekend (which I intend to spend reading the new John Sandford and Tom Rob Smith thrillers) for the rest of my life.

My new secret boyfriend

Like Leila, I'm in something of a reading slump, or in my case listening, as none of the several audiobooks I read on my commute seem to be doing it for me. The new Anna Pigeon mystery reminds me of why I gave up on Nevada Barr years ago (lurid and incoherent); Elizabeth and Mary is repetitive and overfond of the first queen at the expense of the second; the new Dennis Lehane is too hairy-chested; and those New Yorkers pile up as readily on my iPod as they do on the bathroom scales.

Let's just say I've been in a mood. But what hand of Providence brought me to download At Home in Mitford, the first of Jan Karon's novels about the mild-mannered Episcopalian Father Tim and his flock in a cozy Blue Ridge Mountains hamlet? Oh my goodness (as F.T. might say) I am loving it. And the hero has already made me a better person. Last night I came home to see Richard folding the t-shirts I had left in the dryer last weekend. To cover my own embarrassment at falling down on the job, my left-handed Scorpio instinct was to say something caustic about it being high time someone got around to the laundry but I thought, what would Father Tim do?, and instead said "I'm sorry I left the t-shirts in the dryer."

The pleasure of the book is its comfortable, steady-paced, dullness--right now, Father Tim is trying to settle on the menu for a dinner party he wants to have for his friends. He's just gone jogging for the first time. His irrepressible (by Mitford standards) dog Barnabas will only sit when Father Tim orates Scripture. The village vet and his wife, in their middle age, are expecting a baby. I am completely engrossed. Martha says if I like this sort of thing I should try Miss Read's books, too.

I've been editing a lot of Guide and Magazine book reviews this week, and the contrast to my new reading crush could not be greater. Once you get above chapter book level, it seems like almost all new fiction for kids is (or wants to be) thrilling, exciting, harum-scarum, suspenseful, non-stop, etc. Don't kids ever read to relax?

Whither YA?

Josie has a post up about adults buying young adult books for their own pleasure, citing The Book Thief, Hunger Games and the Stephenie Meyer books as particular favorites among customers at The Flying Pig. I was musing about this topic the other day with the YA class over at Simmons, as we asked the question "what makes a book YA?" The students had read Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower for the session, and it's a book that rather famously was denied consideration for the Printz Award because it had not been published specifically as a YA book. (Reading it again for this class revealed to me that it has not exactly held up well, either.) When I look at books like Madapple, The Book Thief, Octavian Nothing, Tender Morsels--basically, literary YA fiction--I wonder what the gains and losses were in publishing them as YA. These are all books that undeniably have a YA audience, but without an adult audience as well they would be unviable. But had they been published as adult, would they have an audience at all?

In the end, and assuming we will see a shrinkage of publishers' lists due both to economics and in the way people parcel out their attention to the various recreational media, I wonder if YA books (the high-schoolish ones, anyway) will become subsumed again into general trade fiction, reaching a dual audience without laying claim to either one in particular.

What did your 1970s look like?

I'm weeding the Horn Book's collection of professional, scholarly, and other adult books about children's literature, and damned if I didn't find a strange little trend. Along with the many out-of-date bibliographies and childhood reading memoirs by the foremothers (don't worry, I'm keeping those) are lots of coffee table books devoted to the work of Rackham, Nielsen and Dulac, all published in the 70's and designed with the same disco-deco look of this here Bette Midler record. You used to see these books on remainder tables in bookstores all over; if anyone is feeling nostalgic just come and grab 'em from the discards shelves outside my office.

Giving Up

I'm quite enjoying The Rights of the Reader, the new Candlewick edition of Daniel Pennac's Comme un Roman, first published here as Better than Life, and I have been pondering Right No. 3, "The Right Not to Finish a Book." Here as elsewhere, Pennac's aphoristic style puts the ooh-la-la in Gallic shrug:

So the book falls from your hands?
Well, let it fall.

Some people can't stand to not finish a book, which has never been my problem. But I notice I am now more likely to . . . drift away from a book that's giving me problems, pretending I'll get back to it someday. Sometimes I find that even my best intentions are defied by the sudden impenetrability of a book I had been thoroughly enjoying but for one reason or another put down. Too much time has passed, peut-être. What was a fun summer read seems vapid in the cool light of hiver. But there is always the problem of giving up too soon: one hundred pages of slogging through the opening days of the Spanish Civil War (which is always hard to keep straight in the first place) put me off C. J. Sansom's Winter in Madrid but Richard just emailed to tell me that the next four hundred pages totally redeem the slow start (he retrieved the book from my I'll-get-back-to-it stack, where it was placed right under The Likeness, which defeated me two-thirds of the way through).

I'm curious to know what rules other people out there might have for Giving Up. (And Fessing Up: how much of a book do you have to have read in order to say that you read it?)

Why aren't they called adults' books

and adults' books editors? In any event, there is a great roundtable discussion among four of 'em over at Poets & Writers.

This past week I had to deal with a new author who was rather over-enthusiastic in his attempts to persuade the Magazine to review his book. I finally had to call in the big guns--his publisher--to get him to back off, but it also provoked a lament on his publisher's part that the rules seemed to be changing, that authors were being pressed by their publishers, their colleagues, the whole media culture, to go out and promote their own books with the time and zeal that used to be spent on writing the next one. So haranguing review editors might have seemed to this writer to have become acceptable--expected--behavior. I hope it's not a trend!

As Alice Rosenbaum turns in her grave

With this hell that is my cold (not just mine; everybody at the Horn Book is taking turns staying home sick, and over on Facebook Elizabeth said she felt like she was three dwarfs at once: Dopey, Sneezy and Grumpy) I'm sorry I haven't been here for a few days. I did have a bright moment on the subway this morning, where a man reading The Fountainhead gave up his seat to a lady. For those of you who never went through an Objectivist stage, this is kind of like spotting Ralph Nader test-driving a Hummer.

Lurve is in the air

and Claire has been busily sighing and swooning on your behalf. See her latest booklist of love stories.

Speaking of Claire, she's been pushing me for years to read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I'm finally doing. And loving, not least for the following exchange, among the most indelible in American literature:

The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes.
"Say 'Nevermore,'" said Shadow.
"Fuck you," said the raven. It said nothing else as they went through the woodland together.

Sitting at the grownups table

Over at Nonfiction Matters, Marc Aronson cautions us to think about the larger context in which debates about social responsibility and the Newbery take place: "What I'd like is a set of comments on the Newbery that is not drawn from a survey of four winners, or the latest demographic chart, but a wider sense of art and culture in our time."

I'm again reminded of the infamous editorial-page fight between Horn Book editor Ethel Heins and SLJ editor Lillian Gerhardt. Rejecting the line (promulgated by the Horn Book among others) that children's books were all of a piece with other contemporary literature, Lillian wrote that "from where we sit, books for children are more accurately described as: the last bastion of yesterday's literary methods and standards." Ethel then said that modern adult fiction had gone to hell and children's books were the last refuge of Story; Lillian subsequently threatened to take the train up to Boston and hit Ethel over the head with a chair.

Because we view both children and children's literature as protected species, it's true that in our field we have debates that would seem peculiar if applied to adult books and readers. We don't worry, for example, about grown men not reading, except insofar as it might "send the wrong message" to their sons. But worries about "representation" of various ethnicities, gender, and sexual orientations do have a precedent in the social change movements of the 60s and 70s, with such critics as Kate Millett warning us about how destructive Henry Miller was to women. I'm guessing that Marc would tell me that someone got there before Kate, too!

J.K. Rowling wishes they paid by the word.

Agent Amanda Urban on the economics of book publishing:

“Books can only support a certain retail price,” she said. “It’s not like you have books that can be Manolo Blahniks and books that can be Cole Haan. Books are books. A book by James Patterson costs the same as a book by some poet.”

Which one is the Blahniks?

Support your local superstore!

A. Bitterman has some tips!

He does bring up a moral question that vexes me, though. If I want a copy of, say, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which Betsy Hearne says I do), am I morally required to go out of my way to purchase it at an independent bookseller? There are two small independents in my neighborhood, but I can't go into either with the assurance they will have any given book I am seeking--one is mostly remainders (Jamaicaway Books and Gifts) and the other is too random (Rhythm and Muse). I can go to the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge on my way home from work if I take an extra bus and train, but both Borders and Barnes & Noble are on my subway line. I always drop a hefty wad of cash at the Brookline Booksmith when we go over to Coolidge Corner for a movie, but that trip requires a car (and, thus, driver, thus Richard). As far as I can tell, Boston supports no full-service independents. What's an enthusiastic non-driving reader to do? On the one hand, shopping at an independent is, in the particulars, more fun, and I invariably buy more books than I had intended to. And in general, the existence of independents, with their handselling and appeal to big readers, allows more kinds of good books to flourish. But it has been my experience that immediate gratification wins out over virtue when shopping or reading (this is why I don't shop online). It says something great about reading when you just can't wait to get your mitts on a book--but it also makes it unlikely that you will wait until you can plan a day around its purchase.

I think what I miss most about Chicago is living a five-minute walk from Unabridged Bookstore. That place is heaven.

Yes, boys, but when no one is looking?

Katie Couric apparently asked McCain and Obama about their favorite books and got pretty convincing answers: McCain chose For Whom the Bell Tolls and Obama Song of Solomon.

As I said in the comments on yesterday's post re Palin's reading choices, "What are you reading?" and "What is your favorite book?" aren't as easy to answer as they look. Both the presidential candidates give clearly deliberated answers (so would I), meant to convey Who They Are. I'm more interested in knowing what they read off the clock--beach, bedtime, bathroom.

There Is No Shame in Loving The DaVinci Code

People magazine (November 3, 2008 issue) gives Sarah Palin three chances to enlarge on her claim to be a "voracious reader" and three times she escapes:

People: What do you like to read?

Palin: Autobiographies, historical pieces--really anything and everything. Besides the kids and sports, reading is my favorite thing to do.

People: What are you reading now?

Palin: I'm reading, heh-heh, a lot of briefing papers.

People: What about for fun?

Palin: Do we consider The Looming Tower something just for fun? That's what I've been reading on the airplane. It's about 9/11. If I'm going to read something, for the most part, it's something beneficial.

I don't know if you have to be a reader to be President (although I did find myself liking GWB a little more when he said he was reading Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, a terrible book I thoroughly enjoyed) but I am reflexively suspicious of someone who only reads "improving" books and claims to love reading. They are lying about one thing or the other.

Help me out?

Martha and I are looking for illustrations for our forthcoming book for parents and want to include an iconic cover or illustration from a YA book that shows a teen reading. Any bells ringing? I was hopeful for The Book Thief but it's got dominoes.

New Notes, August 08

We've just emailed the latest issue of Notes from the Horn Book, which this month covers new books about school, nature study and space; some good recent chapter books, and five writers' (and an editor's) own summer reading choices. Sign up now!

And, especially for teachers, this issue provides a link to TeachingBooks.net that gives free access to Notes-related content (curricular connections, author videos, etc.) on their site. Lemme know how this works out for you.

Breaking Dawn Breakdown

Gail Gauthier is interesting on the new Stephenie Meyer (which I haven't read yet as I am only halfway through New Moon).

We guys do love our schematics

I'm so happy when a picture book for adults is published as just that. Like this one.

Leonard and Leonardo

Back in New York, touring the Met and talking with Leonard Marcus about his new history of children's book publishing. Hear the latest Horn Book podcast.

Catching Up

Cruising through Bloglines to see what I've been missing over the past ten days, I was stopped by Colleen's post about blog tours wherein the author ponies up cash to a third party who then alerts its squad of bloggers to review the author's new book. Holy crap. I share the outrage but feel that this concept is going to thrive just about well as the just-announced Progressive Book Club, which will fail not because America has been taken over by benighted republicans but because book-of-the-month-type book clubs are an anachronism. The blog-squad concept will fail because buzz-generating reviewers won't join in and will make mock of those who do. Jeanne duPrau, pull out now.

Then there's Frank Cottrell Boyce's comments about YA publishing, but I think the worthy arguments advanced against them are missing the funnier semi-scandal of one Guardian children's fiction award longlister (Boyce) queering (albeit probably obliviously) the chances of another (Patrick Ness) by saying his really isn't a juvenile book at all!

I'm-a the Most Happy Fella

Richard and I are off to Napa today for the wedding of his adorable son Dorian to the lovely Julie, so I won't be posting for a week or so. Kitty tells me she'll keep you informed of any especially juicy gossip.

Plenty of reading is coming along--the last quarter of Middlemarch, Ha Jin's A Free Life, Scott McClelland ratting out his boss, Colin Thubron on Siberia and Richard Grant on the Sierra Madre. And a bunch of mysteries. (This is where the Kindle comes in really handy.) I'm hoping to pick up the new David Sedaris and John Sandford at the airport.

It ain't all Demi

Claire looks at Buddhism and Hinduism in her ongoing series of booklists on world religions.

A semi-related question: people who went to college a generation after I did swear that Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is the greatest book they ever read. Is it hard?

Spit-spot

"You're too pretty but you've got the nose for it."--P. L. Travers on the phone to Julie Andrews still abed after the birth of daughter Emma, prior to the commencement of filming Mary Poppins.

I must say I came away from Home with a lot of respect for Andrews, the Julie Andrews Collection (now moved from Harper to Little, Brown, I see) notwithstanding. The writing is ordinary but the sincerity is winning, and Andrews is scrupulous about sticking to the facts of what she remembers and equally determined to be fair with troublesome family members (her mother, stepfather) and colleagues (Richard Burton). Of particular interest to children's book people might be her anecdotes revealing a close friendship with T. H. White, who seems to have been a handful.

Betcha can't read just one

Claire has a new list of short story collections up for your reading pleasure.

Also, there's a great short story by Ha Jin up at the New Yorker. Read it.

Lost in the 60s

and the 70s I've been, listening to Julie Andrews marvelously read her new autobiography Home: A Memoir of My Early Years (Hyperion) and reading Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation. Forget the "You're So Vain" gossip--did you know "Car on a Hill" was about Jackson Browne? And J. T.'s "You Can Close Your Eyes"? Joni.

But, really, it's been like eating a whole plateful of madeleines. My baby-boomer cohort ( a word Weller uses way, way too often in an otherwise delicious book) will understand.

The E.B. White Readaloud Award

has been announced today by the Association of Booksellers for Children: for picture books, the winner is When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Elise Broach and David Small (Simon & Schuster) and for older readers, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (Little, Brown). Congrats to all.

I would personally like to give a reading-aloud award to Kate Reading for her superbly inflected performance of Middlemarch for Tantor Media. I'm a bit more than halfway through and have finally come across the first definitive evidence of someone making whoopie: Rosamond is expecting!

Hard books

Having successfully evaded Middlemarch in college (I thought it was too hard), I am now reading it (via audiobook, with the Modern Library edition at hand) completely enraptured. It reminds me of another reason why children's book professionals need to read books for grownups:

Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers found themselves in an anomalous position: during the agitation on the Catholic question many had given up the Pioneer--which had a motto from Charles James Fox and was in the van of progress--because it had taken Peel's side about the Papists, and had thus blotted its Liberalism with a toleration of Jesuitry and Baal; but they were ill-satisfied with the Trumpet, which--since its blasts against Rome, and in the general flaccidity of the public mind (nobody knowing who would support whom)--had become feeble in its blowing.

That's not only a long sentence, with a confluence of colon, semicolon and em-dash that even the Horn Book wouldn't let you get away with, it--I'm guessing--entails some aspects of English history about which I know nothing and care less. But I'm a confident enough reader to make peace with my ignorance and keep going, even while I remain defeated by Eliot's epigraphs: "Qui veut délasser hors de propos, lasse--Pascal."

Young readers are put in this position all the time, meeting words, sentence structures, and extra-textual references for the first time. It's salutary for those of us concerned with their reading to put ourselves in their shoes, a circumstance more likely to occur for us in reading books for adults. Hard books, the definition of which being completely self-determined. When we hit a patch of French in a novel, we--at least those of us not educated to the standard Eliot expected of her readers--can look it up or shine it on, but either way we're challenged by a text that doesn't give itself up easily. That choice comes more easily to the veteran reader than to the neophyte who's still underlining each word with a finger. Learning how to skip is just as important to reading as learning how to persevere.

But reading difficult books is not just a reminder of how hard it is to learn to read. The sentences in Middemarch are often enormous but also enormously dense--Eliot uses an awful lot of words but few seem extraneous. You really have to pay attention, especially with the audiobook--let your mind stray for a few seconds and you're lost. But the reward of such required concentration is absorption, a rare and welcome state in a clamoring world.