The other NBA

Your nominees for the 2012 National Book Award:

In fiction:
Junot Diaz, THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER
Dave Eggers, A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING (reviewed here)
Louise Erdrich, THE ROUND HOUSE
Ben Fountain, BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK (reviewed here)
Kevin Powers, THE YELLOW BIRDS

In nonfiction:
Anne Applebaum, IRON CURTAIN
Katharine Boo, BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS
Robert Caro, THE PASSAGE OF POWER
Domingo Martinez, THE BOY KINGS OF TEXAS
Anthony Shadid, HOUSE OF STONE

Check out the poetry and YA finalists here.

Hoping for a big win for Katharine Boo, whose BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS is so fascinating and incredibly reported. I don't really have a rooting interest in fiction; I would like Eggers not to take it, for reasons we can discuss, but my review is a good starting point. BILLY LYNN I liked with reservations, and I haven't read the others yet.

Class of 2012: Do more drugs! Plaigiarize yourself! Take full custody of your younger brother?

The Strand Bookstore's collection of "inspirational" books could take your child in any number of interesting directions. Nice to see Patton Oswalt's ZOMBIE SPACESHIP WASTELAND in a primo spot, though.

Maud Newton's right about two things in her essay "Another Thing To Sort Of Pin On David Foster Wallace": Qualifiers have snuck into our written language recently, and the Internet has a lot to do with it. But I disagree with her diagnosis of this type of language as "soothing." -- I personally find it interruptive at first until I get the hang of the rhythm of it. If anything I strive to eliminate those qualifiers from speaking and let them slide when I'm writing, say, a blog post. (Also to consider: Have qualifiers truly -- ha! -- been sneaking into the written work as a whole, or is it largely confined to online writing? Just because it's more common in this medium doesn't say anything about the medium as a whole. Given how much of, say, INFINITE JEST is from the perspective of one teenager or another, that's a more accurate picture of how they talk and put word pictures together. There are far fewer qualifiers in a work like EVERYTHING AND MORE.) Ultimately, the argument takes a turn into "There is the correct way to write, and then there are the other ways."

Who Is The Who

The Times newsletter today attributed this quote to the subject of Dave Eggers' WHAT IS THE WHAT, although in the actual article the speaker is one J. Christopher Gallagher. I was hoping for a Bernard Goetz, vegetarian activist afterlife, but it seems to be just a misprint.

So what's Deng really up to these days? Far as I can find he lives in San Francisco, is married with a baby and is working on building schools in the area of Sudan where he grew up, with the help of the foundation that bears his name.

Dave Eggers Hired For Rewrites To "Captain America"

The author of A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS has been having a couple flirtations with Hollywood over the past year, but it appears to be love: According to yesterday's Hollywood Reporter, he's taking over from Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely on the script for the long-gestating "Captain America" adaptation starring Chris Evans.

I'll admit, having Eggers on board does raise my interest in the project, which heretofore had been limited to being annoyed that the Hollywood Reporter needed to send out every little update as "breaking news." (Slash disappointed when John Krasinski didn't get the lead.) I've probably learned more about who Captain America is in the last five minutes on Wikipedia than I ever needed to know. (For a while I thought they meant Captain Planet. See?) So if the intention was to capture my mostly blockbuster-averse demographic, mission sort of accomplished.

Still, and I know it's treacherous to say this... I wish he would get back to fiction! Last year's ZEITOUN I liked, but it was a reported story, not invention. Last year also brought us his novelization of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, THE WILD THINGS, and I haven't gotten around to reading it yet because the excerpt in the New Yorker was just so ponderous. (Then again, that might be a perfect superhero-movie match...?) I didn't see the movie either, although I intend to check that box eventually.

And where is the glory in getting to do this -- what good will it do him, besides the paycheck? I can better understand his desire to want to write indie movies than climb aboard a project that already seems like a mess. Michael Greenberg's BEG, BORROW, STEAL includes a heartbreaking essay on being hired for rewrites, chewed up and spat out by premiere time, and it strikes me that adding Eggers to a movie that already has two screenwriters working from original materials doesn't necessarily mean any of his shine will show up in the finished product.

I guess if the movie's terrible he can always go "back" to writing books, but I'd prefer not to think of that as a backstop for the unsuccessful screenwriter, and I thought he would agree with me. Anyway, the Reporter piece is little more than a press release, as they all seem to be these days.

My dream was realized but I was sleeping

One person who's got to be closely watching the arrest of director Roman Polanski is author Christopher Sandford, whose biography of Polanski came out last year (and is scheduled to be released in paperback in November). Its final chapter expressing the hope that Polanski would reach a deal with U.S. authorities soon looks foolish now, but it offers valuable background on the director's early life and on the 1977 case.

Washington Post: A new public-interest campaign is calling for congressional representatives to sign a pledge that they will read every word of the bills they vote on. Does anyone in the world have time for that? That is the question. This isn't the class of reading normally discussed around here, to be fair, but it's interesting to think about.

Via wallace-l: Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned betting over the Man Booker in Britain? Here are the current odds for the Nobel Prize for Literature, announced next week; I had to Google the top 3 names, but the next two are well-known American authors. Maybe next year, Paul and Maya. Warning: Depending on where you're reading this, actually betting on this may be illegal.

YouTube: For his new book GENERATION A, Douglas Coupland released a free 10-minute video of himself talking about odd subjects. You can get it on iTunes, but for now, here's this totally bizarre teaser.

The Hamlet Weblog: Some of the news on the only blog I've ever seen devoted to one particular Shakespeare play is scary, like a 3-D children's version of the big H, but creator Stuart Ian Burns has seen an impressive twenty Princes so far. (This month's outing makes 8 for me, counting movies, not counting "Hamlet 2.") Mostly, I just wish I'd thought of this first, but it may come in handy.

826NYC: Want to see "Where The Wild Things Are" two whole days before the discriminating public? 826NYC, the creative-writing outfit we know and love, is hosting a preview screening on October 14 at the Paris Theatre hosted by professional nerd John Hodgman. Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers will conduct a Q&A afterwards, included in your $75 ticket price. ETA 10/9 Sorry, this is sold out. But if you have that kind of money, could you just rent Hodgman for me for a few hours? Uh, I'll return him in good condition?

Please enjoy this ridiculously twee accompaniment to today's suggested reading (video is a static image):

Fall 2009 Book Adaptation Calendar

Because hope springs eternal in the human breast. These release dates are correct as of today but always changing.

9/18: "The Informant," based on the Kurt Eichenwald nonfiction book of the same name about an corporate informer who tried to take down Archer Daniels Midland. Why you should care: It's Soderbergh! And fat Matt Damon.

10/16: "Where the Wild Things Are," based on the Maurice Sendak children's book. Why you should care: Adapted by Dave Eggers!

10/16 also: "The Road," based on the Cormac McCarthy novel and starring Viggo Mortensen. Why you should care: It was supposed to come out last year! Either it's been fixed in the meantime or, direly, it hasn't.

11/13: "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," based on the Roald Dahl children's book with George Clooney voicing the fox. Why you should care: In this house we take all the Wes Anderson we can get. At least the late-night screenings should be empty.

11/20: "The Blind Side," based on the Michael Lewis nonfiction book. Why you should care: Amid all the non-news about the forthcoming MONEYBALL adaptation, this one kind of snuck past us -- which is not to say it will be great, but it could be good.

12/11: "The Lovely Bones," based on the Alice Sebold novel about a dead girl. Why you should care: It's Peter Jackson's first movie since the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy; further trivia, the lead is Saoirse Ronan, who you would know as young Briony in "Atonement."

12/25: "Sherlock Holmes," based (loosely?) on the Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Why you should care: Love for Robert Downey Jr. might overcome what looks like a ridiculous sub-"Prestige"; family needs something to rally around come Christmas.

Ineligible but still of note: Winsome coming-of-age tale "An Education" (10/9) is Nick Hornby's second produced screenplay; Pedro Almodóvar's "Broken Embraces" (11/20) follows a blind writer re-examining his life.