Filmbook: "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2" Open Thread

I do kind of want to talk about this movie because I am feeling All Alone In My Thoughts about it, so I'm going to go ahead and spoiler-comment a little about My Feelings. I sense that most of you who wanted to see this movie have already seen it, but just in case.

Come join me in the comments if you either have seen the movie, or don't care about its details being revealed to you.

I don't want to say "who needs this object," but, you know.

You can win a beach towel at The Paris Review by Photoshopping their new towels into a picture of literary leading lights. (See example at Galleycat.) This is much improved over what I expected the contest to be when I was pointed to the link, which was "Which Of Our Readers Is The Hottest???" Join their Flickr pool for more.

RIP Borders

Of all the commentary on yesterday's announcement that Borders would be liquidated, its stores closed starting this Friday and its 10,700 employees let go -- more dead than the last death -- this one really hit home for me.

Granted, as an author Lancaster is somewhat biased. But so are we all reading this. Borders wasn't the best bookstore, but in a lot of places, it was the only bookstore... and now there will be none there. Where people once had the pick of thousands of titles, they will now have to be content with two rows of shelves at Target, or that one at the pharmacy (if the pharmacy even has one). My A.V. Club colleague Keith Phipps put it like this: "Wasn’t it kind of nice that, for a blip in time of about 15 years, stores for book lovers competed for space shoulder-to-shoulder with housewares stores and chain restaurants? The next generation of readers aren’t going to be stumbling into a place that overwhelms them with the sheer volume of books out there to be discovered." What you aren't exposed to, what you can't see, you can't read.

So today I ordered my book club book from the Strand instead of buying it on Kindle (by price they were almost the same anyway) -- and when I go to pick it up I will probably be tempted by something else in there, and buy another book I don't need, but at least I did that. I should be buying local more often anyway, and... I don't want to know that I didn't at least do a little. (And yeah, I realize the ironic juxtaposition between this post and news, and yesterday's celebratory note on Greenlight, an indie I love and do support.) 

Modern Library Annual Suggestion Box

Last time I called for suggestions on what to read next on the Modern Library list, these were the books you recommended:

• Robert Graves, I, CLAUDIUS
• E.M. Forster, A PASSAGE TO INDIA
• Joseph Heller, CATCH-22
• Salman Rushdie, MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN
• John Fowles, THE MAGUS
• Vladimir Nabokov, PALE FIRE
• Anthony Powell, A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) (...fall project? winter?) 
• Virginia Woolf, TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

I haven't read any of those yet, but if there's another one that you think I should accelerate that's not up there, I would love your suggestions.

Here's the complete list and here's the list with the ones I've read crossed out. (Read all the things!!!)

Indie might!

Beloved-to-blog Greenlight Bookstore is expanding into the building next door and adding a coffee bar, Publishers Weekly reports. I'll see you there if you're smart.

83. V.S. Naipaul, A BEND IN THE RIVER

This was exactly the kind of book I needed to read after LORD JIM, the kind that reminded me that sometimes great books don't coast in on decades of hoary accolades. Its protagonist offered the kind of self-awareness and regret that I felt was sorely lacking from most in Conrad's book. Dense, philosophical, totally fulfilling.

The self-aware regretful one is the book's narrator, Salim, Indian by heritage, East African by birth, running a general store in another African country during the end of its occupation by Europeans and the rise of a dictator known in the book as "The Big Man." (My idle Googling suggests the model for the unnamed country was either Uganda or Zaire; that it could be any number of countries is probably the single most depressing aspect of this book.)

Salim's friend Nazruddin owns the general store but decided to get out amid the political upheaval; for Salim, the city at "the bend in the river" represents a way to postpone the arranged marriage expected of him, the management of the family servants and compound in the East and as a substitute for the European graduate education he won't be receiving -- a sort of summer-abroad approach to career building. But it doesn't really work out that way, because at first Salim sees great opportunity in maintaining the store through independence... and then it becomes dangerous for him to do anything but stay.

A BEND IN THE RIVER personalizes the post-colonial experience through Salim's surrogate family in his adopted hometown, from the other two Indian expats who come to own the town's brand-new fast food franchise, to the priest who runs a nearby school for local boys and collects tribal masks on the side, and even the famed journalist rumored to be writing a biography of The Big Man. At one point he looks after the son of one of his downriver trading partners and one of his family's rebellious servants, who have been packed off in hopes that Salim would be a good influence; Salim himself doubts this, and their own entanglements arguably outstrip his. These characters transcend their specificity to illuminate that moment in history without losing their personalities, and as political changes roll through the town with the rise of The Big Man, they all take them in differently.

Lonely and somewhat aloof from his African neighbors, Salim has a lot of time on his hands to consider that there may no longer be a place for him in the country (and by extension, in all of Africa). Not a colonizer, he still feels something of a patriarchal responsibility to the people he meets, without being able to define where that assignment stops. His ruminations on the state of the nation are in tune with his characterization; I never felt like Naipaul was delivering me something through him, nor did he seem too aware of the ways he has failed what he sees as 'his' role to the city as it shifts and disappears.

Naipaul is still a sexist toolbag, but he wrote at least one riveting book. When I finished it I sat and thought about its eventual conclusion (which I'd prefer to see as not depressing, but analytical, scientific) for a long time, rather than jumping straight into the next one; and there are few higher compliments to be paid here.

Ellen vs. ML: 55 read, 45 unread

Next up: I got an e-galley of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, the new unexpurgated version, so likely that? Tomorrow I'm going to post a list of all the reader suggestions that were made to me the last time I called for htem, and maybe I should start working through those as an approach.

Sorry, Flavorwire, but these Weird Writing Habits of Famous Authors are simply not weird enough. What, Faulkner liked to drink? Imagine.

PETRUCHIO: Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?
Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.

--"The Taming Of The Shrew" I.ii

Free Advice Friday: There is life beyond Pleasant Company

In what seems to be setting a trend for Advice Column Friday, the Paris Review features a parent soliciting reading suggestions for his daughter:

My ten-year-old daughter is going to drive my family into bankruptcy because of her obsession with everything American Girl: the dolls, the books, the furniture, everything! I'm reluctant to put a limit on her love because it has been getting her excited about reading (even if the books are well ... you know). I also think it might be time for her to read something a bit more mature. Can you suggest a cheaper, and perhaps more worthy, literary obsession for my doll-loving daughter? —Marta, Los Angeles

Dear Marta,
The great thing about the American Girl books (and yes, I have fond memories of Changes for Samantha) is that they do get kids interested in history. And depending on which doll has taken her fancy, your daughter may want to explore “her” era further. You don’t mention a particular obsession, but there’s a terrific body of historical fiction for her age group: a few classic stories she might enjoy—all of which feature young girls, AG-style—are Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and Sidney Taylor’s “All-of-a-Kind” series. And needless to say, if she’s not yet discovered Laura Ingalls Wilder, she’s in for a treat!

I read all those AMERICAN GIRL books, although recent family discussion suggests I have lost some of the plot points. But I did see a girl on one of my flights last weekend reading ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS and it made me so happy.

Also, and not that this should be taken as any kind of advice for parenting that I am not so equipped to give, but I remember buying those American Girl books out of my allowance when I was 6 or 7 (at least when I didn't get them as Christmas or birthday presents). I got $1 a week, and the hardcovers were $6 (now $12.50) so it was a Lesson in Saving. Oh boy, maybe we'd better call this Unqualified Advice Column Friday.

"I read all seven Potter books and they were AWESOME. You read those books and you spend days and weeks and months at a time picturing yourself as a wizard... That's all you can really ask from a story: that it gets deep into your brain and creates a whole new place for you to reside in. I loved most everything about those books. And if I were younger, I bet I'd have loved them even more.

"The movies are something of a different animal. I've seen the first seven movies (my favorite was the fifth, which is weird for me because that was my least favorite book in the series), and the movies, for me, were really just two-hour reminders of the shit I read in the books. Oh, right! [EDIT: Spoiler.] Luna Lovegood's dad totally sells out Harry, Ron and Hermione! I had completely forgotten that shit. Thanks, movie-length visual recap!

"But that's because, again, I'm old. Because I'm old, I brought all my prejudices into those movies (They won't be as good as the books, Chris Columbus was the shitheel hack who made Stepmom and Bicentennial Man, etc.). If you were twelve or thirteen when the first Potter movie came out, you probably didn't care about any of that. All you cared about was HOLY SHIT! IT'S THE HARRY POTTER MOVIE! That pure youthful joy was still there. It hadn't been ruined for you yet by reading horrible baseball columns about pure youthful joy. So the movies were gonna be better for you. And as you get older, very little else will manage to stack up, if anything."

--Drew Magary (who, believe it or not, has a novel coming out later this summer) on the HARRY POTTER series whose final movie installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)," opens today. Of course I'm going, but I don't expect to have the same depth of feeling as I did reading the last book because, like Magary, I am also old.

THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT: Hitchcock, Acknowledged

I really liked mystery author Laura Lippmann's collection of short stories HARDLY KNEW HER, so I snatched a galley of her latest THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT up when offered knowing it featured her best known character, P.I. Tess Monaghan. I didn't know it was the latest in the Tess Monaghan series, future uncertain, so I guess if you are following it and you don't want to know, I will only say: I really liked this one! I would definitely consider going back to the beginning (that's 1997's BALTIMORE BLUES) and reading the whole series.

THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT is atypical from the volumes that precede it for another reason: As the book opens, Tess is on doctor-ordered bed rest for her surprise pregnancy, with little to do besides read books people bring over and stare out the window. Naturally, a nosy enough person can get into a mystery anywhere, as does Tess after the very striking woman she sees at the dog park across the street (wearing the green raincoat) leaves her greyhound behind one day. Now why would a husband not want to take back his wife's dog or let on where she is... unless... "Rear Window" jokes are made, but Tess gets a fair amount of investigating done from confinement, and what she can't do she leans on her best friend Whitney, her investigations assistant Mrs. Blossom and her long-suffering boyfriend Crow to accomplish with their feet.

Somewhat extraneous biographical details that will delight some of you: Tess is a lifelong resident of Baltimore, Maryland; She and Whitney, a flaky socialite type, met at Washington College where they were both on the rowing team, after which Whitney transferred to Yale. Lippmann, also a Baltimore native, lives in the Federal Hill neighborhood (according to Wikipedia) and is married to Other Famous Baltimorean David Simon.

I don't even want to demean THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT by saying it's a "poolside read," although it is fairly short. It reminded me of a Nancy Drew book, but in a good way -- all the loose ends all tied up. The ending comes kind of unglued, but it didn't bother me because there was enough suspense to carry me up to that point, part of which is furnished by Tess' need to not stress herself no matter how exciting the case gets.

"Sure, I would miss books — and so, by the way, would my children — but at least the death of books would put an end to the annoying fact that everyone who works for me is either writing one or wants to. I would get my staff back!

"Every month, it seems, some reporter drops by my office to request a leave of absence to write a book. I patiently explain that book-writing is agony — slow, lonely, frustrating work that, unless you are a very rare exception, gets a lukewarm review (if any), reaches a few thousand people and lands on a remaindered shelf at Barnes & Noble. I recount my own experience as a book failure — two incompletes, and I’m still paying back a sizable advance with a yearly check to Simon & Schuster that I think of not as a burden but as bail.

"But still the reporters — and editors, too — keep coming to sit in my office among the teetering stacks of Times-written books that I mean to read someday and to listen politely to my description of book-writing Gethsemane, and then they join the cliff-bound lemmings anyway."

--Bill Keller on Brian Stelter's book deal in "Let's Ban Books, Or At Least Stop Writing Them." Okay, old man, time for your nap! Ironically, this article is also a gigantic humblebrag on behalf of the New York Times staff and its prolificacy.

Like I said I would

Well, this was fun.

Just as I got back to civilization Laura Miller wrote this great piece on reading vacations: "The ideal reading retreat to my mind would involve four or five friends renting a big country house for a long weekend (at least three full days). They ought to be people who know each other well enough that they won't be tempted to spend all their time either getting acquainted or catching up. Everyone agrees that the rooms with the comfiest chairs are strict quiet zones. Everyone takes turns cooking meals. And everyone reads whatever they want, because trying to get four people to agree on a single book on top of all the above conditions is asking too much of the gods."

Sounds dreamy. Someone write me a grant so a well-meaning organization can shower the necessary funds on me to make this happen. (I'm guessing a Kickstarter account will not find much of a sympathetic audience.)

Euphemisms, with John O'Hara

This one was new, from A RAGE TO LIVE: "I'd sure like to dip my socks in her coffee."

Uh... yeesh. Sounds more like a bad prank if you ask me.

How to only get as many library books as you can actually read

Time to give away all my secrets! Or this one, which may be variously applicable to you depending on your local book-furnishing services. Here is a tip for bulk library users, or frequent swipers, or "my people," what ever you prefer to be called.

In my library system I'm allowed 15 reserves, and normally I keep that list very close to the maximum. (It was 10 for a while before the NY Public Library smiled upon me once more.) Sometimes, this resulted in my having 5-6 books to pick up in one trip, all non-renewable, all things I really wanted to read. Bad news!  Poor unbookening!

Enter the freeze button.

(Hey Elizabeth! This is next month's book club book. I wish I had remembered to grab my copy when I was at home.)

Freeze allows you to add books to your hold list without getting closer to the top of the pile -- essentially a "not right now" feature. In the NYPL system, you hit the freeze check mark and then "Modify Selected" to confirm your choice. You can 'unfreeze' at any time by reversing the process. So what you can do, which is to say what I do, is unfreeze some books you want right away, then unfreeze a few more. I don't know how this works exactly; it's just one of life's great mysteries.

Granted, as long as you have 15 books listed you aren't able to add any more, and the odd book slips through the cracks still, like Dan Barry's BOTTOM OF THE 33RD, which I just had to return without rereading because I didn't get to it before it was due. Still, it's a huge help and you should go play with your local library's web interface (If your library still doesn't do online requests or renewals, I sympathize. In the last place I lived before NYC I had online requests at my local library, but when the book came in a librarian would call me on the phone. Every time. For added funtimes the librarians would call me at work, because they didn't want to spend the long-distance dollars to call my cell phone. I must have sounded So Busy And Important. All of which is to say, I believe you will get there.)