The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away: Neil Gaiman is going on a Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook break for the first six months of 2014 so he can get some work done. No seriously! He told the Guardian he would be taking the sabbatical so he could "concentrate on my day job: making things up."  At least he'll still be blogging.

Brooklyn Book Festival 2011

Books I most want to read from having seen their authors live: Karen Russell, SWAMPLANDIA and Michael Dickman, FLIES. Russell read from a soon-to-be-published short story called "A Family Restaurant"; Dickman read some of his poems, and did you know, he has a twin brother who is also a poet?
Best reader of the festival (that I saw): Elissa Schappell. I feel as though it would be a slight to say that she was dramatic as she read from her collection BLUEPRINTS FOR BUILDING BETTER GIRLS but will you accept that she had stage presence?
Best mustache of the festival (that I saw): Jim Shepard. Monumental.
Best news from the comics panel: Kate Beaton of Hark! a Vagrant fame (also: GREAT GATSBYS, Dude Watchin' With The Brontes) will be cohosting a monthly comedy show here.
How to run a good panel at 10AM: Talk about dudes in kilts! (That was Diana Gabaldon on the influence of "Doctor Who" on her work, which is to say, it hasn't much.)
How to run a not-so-good panel at 10AM: Skip any discussion in favor of readings that lilt on softly... oh, so softly...
New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller authors met: One, Tom Perrotta, who spoke softly and briefly about battling back his mother's voice in his head telling him he couldn't write things. He read a passage in his new book THE LEFTOVERS from the perspective of a teenage girl, and I appreciated all over again how nuanced and non-histrionic I found that character's writing. Even her friend, the described-by-Perrotta "sexy teenager," has layers. It's a terrific book.

Books I brought with me to the festival: Just one, Amitav Ghosh's RIVER OF SMOKE (it's really long).
Best non-programming addition to the BKBF: Food trucks. It's obvious, right?
Panels hit: 7
Bookend events attended: The aforementioned Community Bookstore 40th Anniversary celebration, where I saw Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss all read in an unexpectedly cavernous church on a cloudy afternoon. I don't know how they picked their readings, but in Krauss' case, it was suggested that she had bought the book at the store itself (she and JSF live nearby, and if you do enough digging you can figure out where). This bookstore is not the closest to me, but it is the best closest to me, whose feats include handselling a pre-publication copy of THE PALE KING to me over Twitter, which is just spectacular service. Happy birthday! And many more.
Major and minor regrets: The parties I missed on Thursday/Friday nights; that Fran Lebowitz/ Wallace Shawn panel everyone was raving about. Did anyone notice that there wasn't an n+1 presence at the fest as there has been in previous years?
Brooklyn Book Fests attended by me: 5 (here's last year's recap. Without really intending to, this shaped up to be something of an alternative year for me; I didn't hit any ticketed panels because I didn't feel like waiting in line, so, I didn't, and I made it to (as mentioned above) panels featuring poetry, comics/graphic novelists and sci-fi/fantasy novelists, which is a broader scope than I usually take. It was quite pleasant!

Literary things I did while writing this post: Thought about buying a Joan Didion/ Sloane Crosley lecture ticket (is $25 too much?) (but I mean, DIDION); grew irritated at the New Yorker subscriber site for making me re-log in to that Dickman brothers article after nearly every page; wondered what I would ask Adam Rapp if I ever saw him again; realized I forgot to pick up my copy of THE DESCENDANTS at the library and now it's expired, shoot.
Literary thing I ate tonight: An "American Globs" ice cream cone at the new Big Gay Ice Cream store in the East Village named for, obviously, Neil Gaiman. It was good but I should have gone for one of the cones with dulce de leche.
Did I buy it on purpose? No; the girl at the counter recommended it because of the pretzels.
Had I left the store when I got the reference? Not yet!
Person to blame that this post is so late: Lance Armstrong.

Need something to listen to? An interview with Neil Gaiman is streaming right here right now (I think until 5PM). They're just talking about Amanda Palmer now so you didn't miss anything (eyeroll). Kurt Andersen, the interviewer just dropped the adjective "Pynchonian" (long o, like oh).

Also, I forgot Gaiman was British, because I am a total failure as a human being.

Edit 4:24PM So far, 1 Salman Rushdie fatwa joke, a cloud of "maybes" around the AMERICAN GODS sequel, and... Is Tolkien pronounced as "TolkEEN"? 

Reading Regrets of 2010

I didn't finish all the David Foster Wallace books -- not during the summer, not during the rest of the year. I'd attribute this to my hesitation about the short stories (about which, I could write another entire post) and my preference for novels, refusal to get to THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM until I had gotten through those. But I did finish ALTHOUGH YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF (review... this weekend? stay tuned), and all the nonfiction, and I still have till April 14 before THE PALE KING comes out.

I didn't really make any progress on the Modern Library list, the ostensible reason for starting this blog. I know I've said I wouldn't do this but maybe I do need a deadline. I know I could probably finish them in a year if I really cracked down on myself, but the truth is I don't want to. There's just too much out there I'd like to read otherwise. Maybe by the time I'm 30? (It'll go great with my Obligatory Recapturing Youth Road Trip.) But I am hacking through LORD JIM, which I liked more about 30 installments ago, to be perfectly honest. My Joseph Conrad history on this blog is pretty deplorable.

I didn't finish the Sandman series, but I did get up to A GAME OF YOU which was the first volume I ever read -- so I have five left. (Puzzlingly, one isn't available through the NY Public Library -- vol. 7 or 8 I think? How did this happen?)

I think what these regrets demonstrate is my vacillation between having a reading Plan and Sticking To The Plan Forever, and haphazardly picking books from all around. This pattern repeats in my larger life and there's a lot to be said for the serendipity method, but I'm just type A enough that I can't give into it fully. But I would like to do all these things in 2011, at least get a running start.

Jersey Reads

The New Jersey library system is in deep trouble after the governor wrote in a 74 percent decrease in funds into next fiscal year's budget, according to the Star-Ledger. Interlibrary loans? Don't need 'em! Internet access in the library? So 2009.

Meanwhile, an assemblyman wants to eliminate minimum funding levels for municipalities throughout the state, about which, some interesting math from a local library director:

"A Parsippany homeowner living in a home valued at $400,000 pays $133.32 per year for public library service. That’s $2.56 a week. If this homeowner or someone in his family borrows one item a month, they are almost doubling their investment. It’s a $10.24 investment versus the almost $20 cost for that item. "

For those of us heavy users of the library, high five! that sounds like a serious bargain, but I'm afraid that could cut both ways -- with people saying, "Well, I'll just buy $133.32 or less in entertainment myself, thanks." It is possible to do this, but you sure wouldn't go out much; at least this way you're going to the library.

Jerseyites might want to watch SaveMyNJLibrary.org to see what they can do about either or both of those initiatives, including attending the rally next week. (Sent in by a special correspondent who saw Neil Gaiman tweeting about it.)

Twitter Book Club #1b1t

Wired is starting a Twitter-based "big read" for this summer, complete with convenient hashtag. Currently, AMERICAN GODS is winning in the voting, with 1984 right behind; slightly surprisingly, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is getting the most negative votes.

The blog post notes that Seattle started the "big read" trend in 1998 when local residents organized Seattle Reads to read Russell Banks' THE SWEET HEREAFTER. I can only imagine that that choice was stage-managed by area psychiatrists, because that is one of the most depressing books I've ever read. In 2006, the initiative became an NEA program complete with federal grant money up for grabs (no longer restricted to just municipalities) and an official reading list.

(Still on SWEET HEREAFTER. Seriously, Internet, come over and give me a hug?)

This modern love breaks me

Last year this blog breathlessly reported that Neil Gaiman and half of the former Dresden Dolls were an item. They're engaged now. Congrats!

As it is the 21st century, she tweeted about how weird it was to say the word "wife" while looking in a mirror; he tweeted pictures of her in a see-through dress with no bra on on the red carpet at the Golden Globes.

New Year's Reading Resolutions

Here were my resolutions for the past year:

1. Read Richard Yates' other novels, since I loved REVOLUTIONARY ROAD so much in 2008. Whoops. I read one of his novels, COLD SPRING HARBOR, but didn't like it.

2. Continue the Unbookening: going through the books I already own and haven't read, reading them, and trying to get rid of some before I buy more. Hooray, I did this. Except for March and April I was either even or gave away more than I got, which is better than last year.

3. Read one Modern Library list book a month. Oops. I read three -- HOWARDS END, OF HUMAN BONDAGE and APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA -- and started WOMEN IN LOVE.

Oh well. New year, new raised expectations:

1. Finish the SANDMAN series. I've read two of the volumes, which means I have eight left, but they're quick reads.

2. Keep Unbookening. I thought about this a lot when I was at home over the holiday but I'll save the proselytizing for later.

3. Summer project: Read some more David Foster Wallace (first novel, three story collections, two essay collections) before THE PALE KING comes out. My best intel right now is that THE PALE KING will be out not this year, but in April '11; still, I think this would be fun. This is just a placeholder till I figure out what I actually want to do.

4. Read all the Modern Library books I currently own -- I haven't counted, but I believe there are 8.

Do you make resolutions about what you want to read in the coming year? Have one you want to share?

Scene from a library queue

As of this morning:

Note: There is debate whether the above proves that the library hates geeks or nerds, and having been subjected to several other pilots in the past few weeks, I can confidently say that "Eastwick" was not the worst.

Scenes from a library queue

This probably won't be of interest to any of you all, but I'm putting it up as a sort of artifact anyway:



NOTES
1. Missing from this list is ORYX AND CRAKE, which I wanted to read before YEAR OF THE FLOOD.
2. I was reading a paper I wrote on EL DESORDEN DE TU NOMBRE (THE DISORDER OF YOUR NAME) and nothing about the book jogged my memory. Reading begets re-reading, or fear of loss of long-term memory?
3. Clarice Lispector's book wasn't actually reviewed in the Times; it was a review of a biography of her that piqued my interest.
4. "Know" is a strong word; he's actually my editor at a certain publishing trade magazine. No, he didn't ask or force me to read his book, and yes, this means I probably won't blog about it either way.
5. Apparently living in NYC and owning a full set of SANDMAN is mutually exclusive. I've been meaning to do this for a while, so I guess I can wait a little longer.
6. Through machinations too complicated to be explained here, I was exposed to the new television adaptation "Eastwick," which... well... half a thumb up for Rebecca Romijn and Lindsay Price who turn on the charm despite being ridiculously miscast. Anyway, I was talking about the premise with a coworker and thought I should give Updike the benefit of the doubt that he wrote a better book than ABC could make a show.
7. On the first recommendation I already sat up and took notice, but the second time this book was recommended to me inside of a month I started seriously scrounging around for a copy.
8. I usually have one blockbuster rotting away in my queue at all times -- you can't see it, but I'm 241st of 246 holds. Good thing I'm in no hurry.

Post-Its: The Get Well Soon, Garrison Keillor Edition

The chronicler of Lake Wobegon (where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and all the children are above average) is expected to be released from the hospital today after suffering a minor stroke last week. It would be hard to imagine Saturday-night dinners at home without his voice in the background. Quick recovery wishes also go out to Raych of Books I Done Read.

EW.com: A week from Sunday is the premiere of "Bored to Death," Jonathan Ames' HBO series about a writer turned private detective. We don't have HBO and weren't impressed by Ames' I LOVE YOU MORE THAN YOU KNOW (subgenre: Look At My Crazy Sex Life, Isn't It Sooooo Crazy?), but love the "Pink Panther"esque theme song co-written by Ames and sung by star Jason Schwartzman. Trailer's not half bad, either.

io9: Neil Gaiman let a lucky photographer in to shoot his private library, and the result is awe-inspiring.

Slate: Dear Prudence tackles the question of how to handle a mother who won't stop reading to interact with her daughter because she needs the "escape." (Please let us be better than this.) As a parting shot, she suggests a Bookfinder list of bad mothers in literature, which is about as bitchy and misogynistic as it gets so we're not linking to it.

Emdashes: The official schedule for the 2009 New Yorker Festival has been announced and it is, as usual, a smorgasbord. Most tickets for the October 16-18 events are $25, but here's an insider tip: The signings (scroll down to the bottom) are all free, and in the past have been open to people who don't even have a book to sign, just want to hang out and chat. Much more on this later.