He was taken aback by the change in her. She told him in a voice thrilling with emotion immediately after breakfast that she loved him; and when a little later they went into the drawing-room for his singing lesson and she sat down on the music-stool she put up her face in the middle of a scale and said:

"Embrasse-moi."

When he bent down she flung her arms round his neck. It was slightly uncomfortable, for she held him in such a position that he felt rather choked.

"Ah, je t'aime. Je t'aime. Je t'aime," she cried, with her extravagantly French accent.

Philip wished she would speak English.

"I say, I don't know if it's struck you that the gardener's quite likely to pass the window any minute."

"Ah, je m'en fiche du jardinier. Je m'en refiche, et je m'en contrefiche."

Philip thought it was very like a French novel, and he did not know why it slightly irritated him.

-- W. Somerset Maugham, OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Fidgeters, unite!

Last month I wrote about blogger Brittney Gilbert's comparing her experience reading INFINITE JEST to meditation, and admitted that my time with the book was not like that. Ms. Gilbert, you have a compadre! L.A. Times books editor David Ulin laments in "The lost art of reading" that disappearing into a book just isn't as easy as it used to be. The difference, of course, is that Gilbert's job forces her to read blogs all day, whereas Ulin I assume can delegate that work to someone else.

Blogger Ed Champion (through whom I found this essay) retorts that Ulin is confusing meditating with reading unthinkingly and glorifying the latter, writing that the editor "may as well have written an open letter of resignation — not just from his editorial position, but from the rustling possibilities of books."

Frankly, I'm starting to feel a little defensive of my reading habits. I may suck at meditating, but that hasn't set me back in books! I can read just as well as you can! But Mr. Ulin, if you can only do your job in some holy temple devoted to the rite of reading, then you need to make that possible. You work for a major newspaper; surely you can mock up a Do Not Disturb sign in no time. If that seems like too much work, just get joyfully, messily into it again.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily; that is what fiction means.

A new-old entrant in the debate over what your library says about you: Thomas Wright's BUILT OF BOOKS, about Oscar Wilde's reading habits and as reviewed in the New York Times this week, looks awesome.

Newspapers avenge themselves on J.D. Salinger

He turned down their phone interviews; now, he'll pay! Four newspaper companies have filed amicus briefs for John David California, pseudonymous author of the CATCHER IN THE RYE sequel which was banned here in the U.S. last month. They cited the First Amendment, but it's funnier to imagine that they have it in for Salinger after all that silence, isn't it?

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge

It is not entirely out of laziness that I'm just going to throw up some more literary songs and call it a Friday. I recently finished Nick Hornby's 31 SONGS (borrowed of blogmigo Wade Garrett), so music and writing about it is on the brain. Then I went to a great concert last night and stayed up too late re-reading MICROSERFS, so! Priorities.

Today's category is: songs that, lyrically, are like short stories. It's not that I don't have a place in my heart for "Something in the way she moves" and "What do you do when you get lonely?" and "Don't you forget about me" (John Hughes, you guys!) but these are a little more private; they hold their pleasures closer to the vest. Here are three I thought of right away, although not necessarily the best of the subgenre. Tell me what your favorites are! Consider this the "Common People"* memorial list:

Jens Lekman, "A Postcard To Nina"
An epistolary fantasia, this charming little ditty about a harmless deception gone just a bit off. Oh, God! What have I done? I came to Berlin to have some fun! (Video is a static image.)



Fountains of Wayne, "Red Dragon Tattoo"
Several songs by this band were put under consideration for those times when you fall in love with, say, a DMV employee or a biker's girlfriend. One things in particular stuck out about the story this one tells: The boundless hope contained in that octave drop on the bridge. You can hear the unrequited love. (Also, it's not a good video, but I saw them at the Paradise in Boston twice, and it was awesome.)



Peter Sarstedt, "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)"
I'm not cool enough to have discovered this on my own, I admit, I found it through Wes Anderson's most recent movie "The Darjeeling Limited." That said, the speaker's bitter recounting of his addressee's new life is leavened -- or is it? -- by the name-dropping of what he can't (or won't) enjoy.

---
* Workshop notes for J. Cocker: What supermarket was it? Were they menthol or non-menthol cigarettes? Even if you don't write what the job is, you should know in your own head so you can describe the haircut.

I don't even have a good shiksa joke for this

So the other night I was watching a documentary called "Heart of Stone" about Newark's Weequahic High School, and they played a clip from a Philip Roth-themed bus tour of Newark. This really happened, and Roth was on it, but apparently it was just a one-off thing (scroll down).

My favorite Roth, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, is set in Weequahic. Well, I could still go.

Moonwalking on his grave

According to my inbox, it is now okay to start hawking books about the sordid details of Michael Jackson's life! I quote an e-mail marketing newsletter from a major publisher I got yesterday, entitled "From Cult Insanity to the Magic & Madness of M. Jackson's Life":

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Michael Jackson earlier this summer, and we knew that no one could cut through all of the tabloid rumors better than New York Times bestselling biographer, [redacted so as not to give free publicity], who worked through the night to bring you the whole story, with updated material from the star's last years...

He worked through a whole night on it? What commitment. That's part of the first paragraph. The second may start out even funnier, though:

Yet Michael Jackson is only one of the fascinating people whose lives we bring to the forefront this summer.

...because even if he was the King of Pop, he has to share an online marketing newsletter with the rest of the frontlist. E-mail blasts are so expensive these days.

"There was a point about half way through the book when, reading on my way somewhere on the A train, I almost started crying. Which is not rare or weird for me, but I almost started crying this time because I realized that, eventually, the book would be over."

-Jaime of Surplus on the new A.S. Byatt, THE CHILDREN'S BOOK. Hasn't happened to me -- yet.

Permanent ink

Do you have a literary tattoo? Author Justin Taylor is compiling a book of them and yours could be famous. Someone alert this hipster!

Related:

• First, I had to search for an INFINITE JEST tattoo, and found this one in the Infinite Summer forums. (No spoilers!)
• Here's a whole blog (SFW at least on the first page) devoted to literary tattoos. That semicolon is stylish.
  
• Author Shelley Jackson's project "Skin": participants get one word of a story tattooed on them without knowing what it will be.
• Tiger Beatdown provides hilarious commentary on a selection of creepy TWILIGHT tattoos.
• Two poems tattooed on people I know: "That it will never come again" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

Free Book Alert: Colum McCann's LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN

Oprah strikes again! You have to create an Oprah.com account to download Colum McCann's latest, and it's only available until tomorrow, but it is free. I haven't caught up with this one yet but I gather it's set in New York in the '70s around Philippe Petit's World Trade Center walk (just like "Man on Wire").

Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee's new-old indie bookstore

While I was back in my ancestral home last week I thought I'd check out one of the new bookstores on the block. Boswell Book Company was one of two stores born out of much-missed local chain Harry W. Schwartz earlier this year, both of which took over the old Schwartz locations. For Boswell, that meant keeping its prime corner storefront on Downer Avenue on Milwaukee's artsy East Side, home of UWM, Lake Park and two Landmark Theatres. I went to see Zadie Smith read here right after WHITE TEETH came out and during the Q&A she told me I had asked a "terrible question." I can't remember what the question was.

I don't know how many of you will pass through Milwaukee but I highly recommend a stop if you do. Consider this my online postcard to you: Looking at books in Wisconsin! Wish you were here.

Boswell's interior hasn't changed that much since its former incarnation. Aside from the mismatched shelves there are a lot of odd pieces of furniture used for displays, particularly old library-style card catalogs. From checking out the owner's blog (whom I think I actually met when I was there taking these) it seems he has been selling a lot of copies of LITTLE BEE, foreground, this summer.


The biggest change to the space has been the conversion of this back room, formerly devoted to secondhand books, into a children's section. (The store still sells some used stock, it's just distributed throughout.) I had a college alumni interview back in that right corner where the green plastic chairs are.


IndieBound's Indie Next picks get pride of place.

Hey, remember when we talked about that Newsweek list-of-lists? This table picks up on another of the magazine's recent book features, Fifty Books For Our Times, for suggestions. To the right of the typewriter you can see Philip Roth getting Munroed.


OH MY GOD STOP FOLLOWING ME. Ahem. (In fiction.)


Spent a lot of time looking at this shelf. Why do birds suddenly appear...


Our tour concludes with a chair perfect for curling up in with your back against one arm and your legs dangling off the other to read for hours, undignified yet comfy.

For more information about Boswell Book Company, visit them at 2559 N. Downer Ave. or online at Boswell.Indiebound.com.

Stephenie Meyer to become comic-book character

News that makes you go huh: Bluewater Comics is producing a comic biography of TWILIGHT author Stephenie Meyer, in which the 35-year-old Mormon will do battle against the forces of coffee and Harry Potter. Meyer is the only author included in the Female Force series, which gave the same treatment to Oprah, Sarah Palin and Princess Diana.

Who is this aimed at? Fans of the Twilight series would rather pretend that sparkly vampire Edward is real, and therefore could conceivably fall in love with their mortal selves. Regular comic buyers of my acquaintance, even if they're not still reeling after the Comic-Con '09 invasion, will not be compelled. And let's face it, President Obama being featured in an Amazing Spider-Man bonus story is still cooler.

If this works I will have drastically underestimated the Twilight-branded shit people will buy. (I see a fun Craigslist game!)

July Unbookening nearly chucked it all in on the 3rd, to be honest

Bought 9 books
Got 5 to review
Checked out 12 from the library
Borrowed 1
27 in

Gave away 3 books
Lent 1
Donated 20
Left 2 on airplanes
Returned 1 I borrowed
Returned 13 to library
40 out

I feel strangely ambivalent about this result, and let's just leave it at that.

Post-Its: Better than direct mail from John Grisham

I received a charity letter "from" John Grisham on behalf of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the mail while I was gone. Putting "Author" as part of your return address is a great way to get me to open your unsolicited mail; thank goodness spammers haven't caught on. (J.M. Coetzee wants to help me with the ladies? Sweet.)

• Because a lot of people are winding up here looking for it, my Frank McCourt note from a few weeks ago has been updated with public memorial information, as current as I could find. Not afraid to be servicey!
  


• My copy of LOLITA which I admitted to re-purchasing several months ago has still not turned up. I think it either has been lent out for a long time or got mixed in with another family member's books. I may even have been the forgetful lender; that's where my copy of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY was all this time, on the nightstand of the West Coast bureau (who has since finished it). Meanwhile, another book has pulled a disappearing act when I most wanted it, which is why you're not currently getting "Incomprehensible Notes From My Adolescent Copy of LEAVES OF GRASS."



• This Times article on how serendipity is becoming extinct has so many techspletives in it it's practically unreadable. But I'm posting it because "serendipity" is one of my favorite words, and I see no reason that we have to let the concept or the term go. Now get off my lawn.


• "If Nora Ephron had been born buxom, what else besides that article might she not have written?" I'm just catching up to Ariel Levy's profile of Nora Ephron in the New Yorker from a few weeks ago, whose second paragraph can only be described as an equal-opportunity offender for the ladies, but if you can make it past that there are some nifty tidbits about her life as a writer. Related: Tina Fey's forthcoming book (!!!) was described at deal time as being "in the style of Nora Ephron."
  


• INFINITE JEST corner: What the hell do you say when people unfamiliar with the book ask what it's about? This has happened to me several times and my latest answer was the best, but I feel as if I owe people more than a shrug and a smile. (Let us not speak of the back-cover copy, which is atrocious.) My latest answer incorporated the current situations of the various Incandenzas and, since I passed Interdependence Day a while back, a smidge of the alternate-reality politics going on behind them. The last thing I want to do is deter anyone from reading it, which a vague answer or an "It's extremely complicated" might.


• Finally, shamelessly, self-promotionally: The AV Club's latest Wrapped Up in Books round begins Aug. 17 on John Crowley's LITTLE, BIG. That's two weeks from now. It is possible that you have not started the book yet, and I am not judging you, promise. But now would be a good time to start it!

He who ought to be made to do Pukers during the Interdependence Day feast while wearing his celebratory hat

I don't yet feel equipped to compete with the wildly hyperbolic blurbs on the first few pages of my copy of INFINITE JEST, but how's this? I can think of very few books which I would rather have when stranded at an airport for an indeterminate length of time because some (alleged) asshole decided to throw a bomb scare at my destination.

Photo of JEST on a plane: Alex S. via Infinite Summer Flickr pool