Talk of the Town will air next week, not this week

This is not an April Fool's joke. My next Talk of the Town segment on Zoe Heller's THE BELIEVERS will air not tomorrow, as previously reported, but April 8. Do not adjust your radios -- but do think about picking up the book. Will I recommend it? Only time will tell.

"Talk of the Town" airs 7PM EDT (4PM PDT, 1PM Anna Time) on WEBR (and available through your TV) for D.C./Virginia/ Maryland locals
Everyone else: Tune in here!
If you've read THE BELIEVERS and want to air your grievances live on "Talk of the Town," don't forget you can call in to the show live at (571) 334-9189.

British cover of THE BELIEVERS (love!): fantasticfiction.co.uk

Pursuant to this post from earlier this month, I am proud to say that I am now a member of the National Book Critics Circle. My secret decoder ring is so awesome.

And I helped!

It used to be in the good old days of the Amazon bestsellers list that there was only one man to beat -- and he wasn't even out of school yet. I speak of course of Harry Potter, now only selling oodles of copies instead of millions. Now there's a new guy in town, and since he's undead, Edward Cullen can just wait until you die and still sell way more books than you. (Is it the glitter or the creepy possessiveness?)

Naturally, the new game is beating TWILIGHT, something first-time author Ramit Sethi bragged about (and rightfully so) when his personal finance book I WILL TEACH YOU TO BE RICH captured the #1 spot. The screenshot makes it official:


The book has since slipped down to #20 (as of 7:48AM today), but still, not shabby. I will cop to assisting in this effort and have since read the book; I'm no expert in the field but if you're looking for very clearly defined "homework" to do to get your money in order, I haven't read one better.

Reading on the Road: My Vacation in Books

Days I was away: 10.
Books I packed: 10.
Of those, books stowed specifically so that I would have something to read on the trip back: 2.
Books left in airports or on airplanes: 3.
Books fallen into the ocean or smaller bodies of water: 0, impressively.

Days before departure my mom called me to figure out what books to bring so that neither of us would have read anything the other had: 16.
Titles she mentioned which I had already read: 3. (Disasters averted: 1?)
Books I ended up borrowing from her: 7.
Books I borrowed from my brother: 0, but it was nice of him to offer.

Percentage of books I brought that were nonfiction: 0.
Percentage of books my mom brought that were nonfiction: 22.2.
Percentage of books my brother brought that were nonfiction: 75. (Being HOW WE DECIDE, THE ASSASSINATION BUSINESS and the recent Michael Lewis book PANIC!)

Books my mom read on the trip: 10, I think.
Books my dad read on his Kindle on the trip: 1.59 at last count (he's still on vacation)
Times I made fun of him for the day he couldn't take his Kindle to the beach because it was out of battery power and was forced to settle for, oh no, a magazine: 1,000,000,000.

Book most commonly spotted being read by members of our trip: Leif Enger's PEACE LIKE A RIVER, and yes, there is a logical explanation for that.

Books I returned home with: 5.
Of those, books that were originally mine: 3.
Books I bought on the trip: 0.
Books waiting for me in various packages when I finally got around to sorting out my mail, which was quite recently considering how much I love mail: 10.

Books I read on the trip: 14, being:

Louise Kean, THE PERFECT 10
Lawrence Block, A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES
Martha Moody, BEST FRIENDS
Francesca Delbanco, ASK ME ANYTHING
Robin Gerber, ELEANOR VS. IKE
Steven Gregory, THE DEVIL IN THE MIRROR
Sheri Holman, THE MAMMOTH CHEESE
Alison Lurie, FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Azadeh Moaveni, LIPSTICK JIHAD
Marian Keyes, WATERMELON
Advaita Kala, ALMOST SINGLE
Janet Evanovich, PLUM LUCKY
Mary Kay Andrews, HISSY FIT
John Grisham, THE APPEAL

Filmbook: "To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962)

Ready for the most obvious Filmbook entry ever?

You must see this movie. I have no idea how I was made to study TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and yet never watched this one. How did I grow up as a girl and not ever see and admire the fearless Scout Finch?

I liked the book, but I really liked this movie. I think as far as performances, filming, building suspense, it gets everything right -- including, as you know if you've read the book, saving the biggest surprise for the last 10 minutes. Gregory Peck is pitch perfect and I was shocked to get chills in the scene where he leaves the courtroom -- chills -- from a story I already knew and had seen dramatized onstage once upon a time.

In an odd way, this movie makes me feel grateful that it was made when it was, so much closer to that time, so that I could watch it and feel like we humans have at least made a little progress in how we relate to each other. (Would that make this movie the anti-"Crash"? Discuss.) I think it will still hold up in 50 years; I guess we'll have to see.

Filmbook verdict: Well, what do you think? I think this movie could stand alone for people who had never read the book, which usually isn't the case, but I'm not sure I'd want to tell people not to read Harper Lee's original. Would love to know your opinions or arguments on either side.

"The quotes in this book are awesome!"

In Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, he described as one of the essential attributes of a good government "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." While I have never expressed it so elegantly, I like to think this statement could describe my relationship on this blog with the books I write about. It suits me to try and remain independent even if no one is making me.

That said, today's feature is the rare book I do have a personal stake in; I'm not going to review it per se, but here's why I will be checking it out. Buckle in, it's story time!

When I first moved to New York City I didn't have a full-time job, so I made rent doing a lot of different . Nothing glamorous or, alternately, illegal; mostly filling in for vacationing secretaries and taking angry phone calls, that sort of drill. I once abandoned a job after I saw a woman throw a stapler at a wall hard enough to leave a divot, but hey, it's not like she threw it at me!

Anyway, one of the random jobs I was holding was transcribing interviews for a guy who was writing a book. I am a very slow transcriber, but the material was interesting and it was cool to see how he conducted his interviews for the book. So I did that for several months, and then the work dried up and I kind of forgot about it... until I read a review of it in Publishers Weekly.

Let me be clear, I am in no way responsible for the finished product, BUT WAIT... THERE'S MORE! TIGHTEN YOUR ABS, MAKE MILLIONS, AND LEARN HOW THE $100 BILLION INFOMERCIAL INDUSTRY SOLD US EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK. Still, I'm excited to see how the book which was described to me in concept over two years ago turned out. It hits stores today -- check it out if you think you might be interested.

Don't try this at home!

Sam Macdonald's THE URBAN HERMIT is one of the more offbeat memoirs I have read recently. Facing a ton of debt, an addiction to the bar around the corner and a very unhealthy lifestyle, Macdonald hit upon the kind of solution that always looks good on paper: He'll limit himself to an 800-calorie-a-day diet (mostly lentils and cheap canned tuna), stop drinking cold turkey and use the resultant savings to clean up his life. As they say on "Sesame Street," it's so crazy it just might work.

Of course, along the way in his draconian diet Macdonald discovered a career, made new friends and met his future wife, which, according to the last chapter of his book is what THE URBAN HERMIT is all about. I can't remember the last time I read a book which had a built-in disclaimer in the last chapter, but in it, Macdonald quotes from various weight-loss memoirs (if I remember correctly, all by women) and stresses that his story is not about weight loss, it was about changing his life, man. Why do you have to put so many labels on it? And, as he stresses at many points in the book, an 800-calorie diet should not be attempted by someone not under medical supervision.

On the other hand, Macdonald did lose 160 pounds on the Urban Hermit plan or life strategy or what have you. And one of the things I liked about it was how insane he got in the pursuit of his goal, and that he actually (spoiler!) achieved it and managed to get back on track. But the auto-disparagement was kind of off-putting, as is the intimation that most people who write about losing a huge amount of weight do so without major implications to their lives. (See I'M NOT THE NEW ME or HALF-ASSED: A WEIGHT LOSS MEMOIR for examples.)

38. E.M. Forster, HOWARDS END

"Only connecting" is not as easy as it looks. The Schegel children, particularly daughters Margaret and Helen, exercise a curiosity about other people's lives which their acquaintances the Wilcoxes (slightly richer) find improper and their friend Leonard (poorer) finds unnecessary. The Schegels, about to be wandering in the wilderness as their house was sold to a developer, are looking for a home; Leonard is looking for a living, and the Wilcoxes, at least outwardly, seem quite satisfied with their lot.

This book kind of snuck up on me. It's about class, but at first I saw the conflicts between the Wilsons and the Schegels as mostly a question of upbringing. (I could chalk this up to being American, but I think I just wasn't reading between the lines enough.) Maybe it's because the homage ON BEAUTY, being set in America in this century, characterizes the differences more in culture and political beliefs than class.

Anyway, it felt like I almost finished with it before anything happened that could be called plot, and then right at the end, something happens which crystallizes everything that came before. I realized I was waiting for some kind of bold stroke but this book is very subtle. I can see why Zadie Smith was inspired by it to write ON BEAUTY. I think I liked it slightly more than A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN in the end, after I got my head out of the Forster-cloud.

LN vs. ML progress: 49 read, 51 unread.

Next up: Well... I was thinking either OF HUMAN BONDAGE or WOMEN IN LOVE, which are both available on Dailylit. Have any of you read either one? I have read no Maugham and only a little Lawrence.

And that's not all she wrote

Alexandra Jacobs begins her New York Times review of the new anthology MY LITTLE RED BOOK by asking whether there are too many nonfiction anthologies already, specifically of the type aimed at women.

Ever since the success of “The Bitch in the House,” a 2002 anthology of personal musings by frustrated upper-middle-class wives, editors have enthusiastically hacked the layer cake of modern female experience into narrower and narrower slices. Have you fretted about money? Suffered through a painful break-up? Had a close gay male pal? There’s an anthology for you, sister girlfriend.

I have not read THE BITCH IN THE HOUSE, nor will I probably seek out MY LITTLE RED BOOK unless enthusiastically recommended by someone I know. And I think the idea that there are too many anthologies is kind of pointless, because as long as they sell, there will be more. If this is just a publishing fad, then why are we bickering about it?

The trouble with anthologies is that even when you hit an essay that makes an incredibly obvious point, labors over a metaphor that should never have existed or contains no more plot than its title winked at, you keep turning the pages anyway to see if the next one will be better. If you finish a collection and it hasn't wowed you, though, perhaps the editor is to blame.

That's the conclusion I came to, at least, after finishing another recently published anthology for which I had at least moderately high hopes. I learned about it after one of the stories contained was published in the Times' Modern Love column -- yes, I occasionally still read it, because I never learn -- and it was an essay that I can honestly say shocked me when I first read it. Unfortunately, only two of the other pieces in the collection, which touted its sauciness as a selling point, ever got close to that threshold for me. Most of them were aggressively boring, to the point where I don't even want to single out the most boring among them.

I still finished it, but I'm glad I didn't buy it. What I really need now is an anthology of anthologies which will find me the best anthologies out there, which would probably make Jacobs' head explode.

What Did I Do Last Night?

Finally, a book for the discerning addict who truly needs an excuse for everything. Tom Sykes' memoir about his self-destructive years of drinking, smoking and drugs delights in recounting the nightmares of addiction without ever having to own up to his mistakes, except for the fact that he drank, smoked, and did drugs too much.

Sykes grew up a rebellious teen in London who fell into a job at a newspaper. Before he knew it, he was working at British GQ, well known as a crazy guy who occasionally got his work in on time. The cocaine helped him drink all night without blacking out, but sometimes it happened anyway; the pot let him unwind after a hard week of sneaking into the office late after another night out. He took those skills to the New York Post as a nightlife columnist, where after a brief flirtation with not drinking, he had even more reason to tipple. How else would he know where were the best places to go?

The author sustained a number of nasty injuries and nearly lost his long-suffering wife, who liked to drink but couldn't understand why her husband couldn't stop when he wanted to. But mostly Sykes gets off pretty easily in WHAT DID I DO LAST NIGHT? And when he does screw up, there's always an excuse, from work to the absence of his father when he was a teenager. I like addiction memoirs as much as the next girl, and I can't imagine how Sykes climbed out of his self-dug grave to become completely sober at last. But neither the rise nor the fall were particularly interesting.

Filmbook: "Primary Colors" (1998)

To say I am late to the party to have read PRIMARY COLORS in 2009 is a massive understatement. I remember when the speculation about who was behind the thinly veiled satire of the inside of the Clinton campaign, complete with deeply unflattering portraits of the then-current President and First Lady. But my half-Democratic household never had a copy of the book, so I didn't read it.

PRIMARY COLORS the book, for someone who only knew who the major players were supposed to represent in the roman a clef, was a pleasant romp along a familiar arc (naive newbie gets caught up in larger cause, only to discover ugly side of man and face crisis of conscience). "Primary Colors" the film is an excuse for John Travolta to do his Bill Clinton impression for 140 minutes. Even as as a thinly veiled exposé, the book has some depth, but this movie is all surface; despite being largely faithful to the book, it conveys none of the excitement of the Presidential primary nor the dilemma of the main character.

Perhaps the latter can be chalked up to the charisma-free performance of Adrien Lester as Henry Burton, the naive newbie who gets caught up in the Stanton (Clinton) campaign. Henry is the book's narrator and while he's got a lot to learn, you see that he has some assets that would make the campaign want him for their side. Lester plays Henry by widening his eyes a lot and pulling faces. Travolta's Clinton is not great -- I much prefer Emma Thompson's sensitive yet tense take on Hillary Clinton, which makes her come out a lot better than the book's description of her. (Or is that because it's impossible not to love Thompson in anything?) Be sure to spot Allison Janney in a very small role near the beginning.

Filmbook verdict: Read the book if you haven't already and you think you might be into that sort of thing. Don't see the movie.

Talk of the Town Tuesday: Announcing the next show!

After settling down for a long winter's nap, my segment on "Talk of the Town" with Parker Sunshine returns April 1 with a review of Zoë Heller's THE BELIEVERS. I'll see how far Heller's characters can take me before I have to put the book down. Kidding, but Heller's comments on "the point of fiction" will probably come up in our discussion, so stay tuned.

"Talk of the Town" airs 7PM EDT (4PM PDT, 1PM Anna Time) on WEBR (and available through your TV) for D.C./Virginia/ Maryland locals.
Everyone else: Tune in here!
If you've read THE BELIEVERS and want to air your grievances live on "Talk of the Town," don't forget you can call in to the show live at (571) 334-9189.

Sweet escape, sweet escape

I am not really writing this blog post to you. I know what you're thinking -- so what am I reading then? -- but while it may appear I am sitting at my computer writing this to you, I am really in a plane high over the Eastern Seaboard right now, headed somewhere where I'm pretty sure there won't be Internet.

Feel free to picture me in total withdrawal for the next ten days, but this blog will continue to be magically updated while I'm gone, thanks to my robot.* Naturally I won't be able to respond to any of your lovely comments, but I look forward to reading them when I come back. The good news is, I'll have had time to read 500** books to write about, instead of the same old.

*Wishful thinking.
**Rough estimate.

Nose to the glass

As a twenty-something living in an expensive city, I have to laugh whenever I read articles about how now is a great time to buy property. Clearly there are deals to be had, but they are to be had for people who actually have money to spend in the first place. Long before the housing crisis, when I was signing the lease on my current place, my landlord pointed out a provision that would give me a discount should the building turn co-op; he didn't laugh when I asked if it was a 100 percent discount, because that's about the rate I could afford moving into Manhattan.

Steven Gaines' real-estate books THE SKY'S THE LIMIT and PHILISTINES AT THE HEDGEROW might feel a little incongruent with the crisis-ridden housing market of ought-nine, but even during the downturn rich people do ridiculous things to find what they think of as a suitable place to live. And even when they've got their houses just the way they want them, they never seem to enjoy the fruits of their labor, either because of rotten luck (Donna Karan's battle to be able to renovate her apartment ended with the death of her husband from cancer) or their own restlessness.

Gaines doesn't just repeat rumor for his chapters on the gossip that drives the Manhattan and Hamptons housing markets; he gets the dirt directly from brokers, owners and notable residents, like Robert David Lion Gardiner, the curmudgeonly co-owner of a private island devoted to setting the record straight about his family's legacy. These aren't books I can see myself being tempted to re-read in the future, but as far as escapist nonfiction goes they suited me just fine.

What was I supposed to do? They just showed up at the house.

Yesterday was my birthday, which I celebrated by writing nothing (over here anyway) and other festivities. I hadn't really planned on writing about the books I got, because I hadn't actually asked for that many and wasn't sure anyone would care, but my friend Henry was foolish enough to request it. So here's what I will very soon be enjoying in copies of my very own:

• Susan Sontag, REBORN: JOURNALS AND NOTEBOOKS, 1947-1963. I'm not a Sontag expert but I took a class in undergrad on letters and diaries, and I still find these kinds of collections fascinating. I believe there was some controversy over her son's decision to publish these private papers as well, which is always an issue when a famous person dies without leaving specific instructions. A gift from my aunt Trish who checks in here once in a while -- thank you!!

• T.J. English, HAVANA NOCTURNE: HOW THE MOB OWNED CUBA AND THEN LOST IT TO THE REVOLUTION. Books about Cuba and the Mob always draw me in; this has both.

• Christopher Plummer, IN SPITE OF MYSELF: A MEMOIR. A few months ago over Christmas my whole family unexpectedly crammed into the den together to watch "The Sound of Music" on TV. It was one of the first movies my parents owned on VHS (two tapes!) and the Captain could take on Prince Eric for the title of my first movie crush. Oh, who am I kidding -- the Captain wins, Prince Eric is a milquetoast. Ironically, Plummer reportedly is embarrassed that he ever made "The Sound of Music." I hope he can defend himself.

• Cari Beauchamp, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS: HIS HOLLYWOOD YEARS. Now here's a topic I know nothing about -- a speciality of the giver, my dad, who is also responsible for the previous two books. But I can't wait to find out about Old Hollywood and the Kennedy connection to it; I'm sure my Netflix queue will get a workout at the same time.