Whoa! The bigass Upper West Side Barnes & Noble is closing. (Earlier: For Sale, One Bookstore.)

Unrelated, but "insidious" is a terrific word which doesn't get used enough

This is not about FREEDOM, but: Maybe when you get to a certain echelon of literary criticism, it no longer bothers you to have to pan a book you were looking forward to for months, for which you cleared out your time and hunkered down, and from which you expected so much better. Transcendence, really. Maybe when you roll out your scroll of judgments rendered, the few fade from view, just a handful, because most of them turn out just like they should. The burned dinners of the long marriage; the rainouts of the championship season.

If so, I have not ascended yet. "Oh, but who cares? It's just a book." If I didn't care, would I be in this cul-de-sac at all?

Franzenfest T-1: Franzenfest Eve!

It's not technically an embargo, but I understand the Sarah Lawrence College bookstore started selling copies of FREEDOM on Saturday. (I didn't go all the way up there to, ahem, verify.)

I finally had time to sit down with the Tanenhaus review over the weekend -- with the PAPER Times, no less! -- and good LORD is it windy. Without speculating on the internal politics of one of the last freestanding book review sections in the country, I suspect the first eight paragraphs could be cut from the review without meaningful damage, and the 9/11 imagery is, as usual, uncalled for. That's my review of the review.

If you're planning to read FREEDOM, have you pre-ordered, or are you even going to the bookstore on publication day? Buy it now or wait for interlibrary loan?

Franzenfest T-2: The Other Franzen

If the hype machine is so busy propping up Jonathan Franzen, why aren't there any FREEDOM midnight release parties in New York where I can go dressed as my favorite character from THE CORRECTIONS? I know, I didn't believe it either -- this is the city that just last year hosted a combination Vladimir Nabokov-Sarah Palin midnight release party. What's your excuse, World?

Anyway, I didn't find that, but it turns out there is another famous Franzen out in the atmosphere. Meet DJ Franzen, who according to his MySpace page (!) is "YOUR GIRLFRIEND'S FAVORITE DJ!" Here's his artistic statement:

SOME OF THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE!!!! a shot of PERFECTION(aged cognac) by A. HARDY... $750!!! dinner at JASMINE @ the BELLAGIO... $16,000!!! blackjack at the BELLAGIO... $100,000!!! Gulfstream 500.. $45,000,000!!! throwin up the ROC and eating CRUSTACEAN'S 40,000 feet in elevation with HOVA... P R I C E L E S S ! ! ! !

You have no idea how hard it was for me not to edit that last contraction. No idea.

The coincidences pile up. DJ Franzen is a Las Vegas- and San Francisco-based entertainer; Jonathan Franzen spends part of his year in California! DJ Franzen also seems to have a radio show, and J-Franz has been on the radio before! Jonathan Franzen is discussed on Twitter; DJ Franzen has a Twitter account:



And they both have glasses! If this guy ever writes a book or New York Franzen is ever spotted with Jay-Z, we could have a real branding problem on our hands. Don't forget, you read about it here first.

Franzenfest T-3: A Bevy of Links

I know, you're tired of this already. Don't worry, it will be over soon.

• First, Amazon accidentally leaked the entire digital version of FREEDOM to some lucky readers on Thursday. And none of you notified me?! You're all furloughed. (New York Post)

• In an interview with the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Franzen slagged TIME Magazine, right-wing political movements and, bizarrely, his own significant other. Ah, he never did learn! Pretty sure that "Santa Cruz girl" will be making him sleep on the couch. (SCS via the New York Observer)

• Santa Cruz, by the way, is the first stop on Franzen's extensive book tour, including two stops in his hometown of St. Louis, three in New York and the National Book Festival in D.C.

• As mentioned earlier in the week, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner are continuing to criticize the Times for its literary bias with regard to Mr. Franzen. (The Times has now printed not one but two raves for FREEDOM ahead of publication.) I think that's how @emperorfranzen got started -- because both are avid Twitter users and Weiner started using the delectable term franzenfreude to refer to the hype machine we are busy feeding. (Guilty, so guilty.) I like that they are somewhat shifting the burden off Franzen himself for benefiting from what they perceive as a bias... and I don't think they're entirely wrong. (The Huffington Post)

• It's hilarious that Newsweek titled its story about J-Franz and the baggage his name brings up post-Oprah "The Man We Knew Too Much." Spencer Pratt should call his agent.

• Given what we now know per the TIME article about how Franzen writes -- taking extreme precautions to eliminate himself from distractions like the Internet -- he would be a great candidate for a celebrity endorsement of the Internet-blocking software also called Freedom. (I downloaded it but haven't used it because my current Secret Writing Trick is working fine. Mustn't break stride.)

• Finally: "The title could mollify some rightwing freakazoids who might think their Muslim president is spending his holiday reading a treatise on their favourite, if never fully defined, subject of Freedom. True, Franzen may have intended the title ironically, but as Bruce Springsteen, singer of Born in the USA (which, hilariously, was being blasted out during the non-mosque protests over the weekend in NY) could tell him, sometimes some fans don't quite understand the concept." The always perceptive Hadley Freeman on the President and his vacation reading. (Guardian.co.uk)
  

Better than a G***n B**k rally

This is a thing now: Two comics bloggers have declared tomorrow is Read a Comic in Public Day. There's even a website, in case those instructions weren't clear enough. New Yorkers, there are free goody bags for the having in Union Square at 1PM from Forbidden Planet. (PW via Bookninja)

What's the next genre that should be rescued from public stigma?

Full Brooklyn Book Festival schedule is up

After dropping hints like crazy, here it is. Related, anyone have a cloning machine I can borrow?

2666 Made Commuter-Friendly

I'm attached to my single-volume edition for sentimental reasons, but the new 3-volume set of Roberto Bolaño's magnum opus looks great:



I've read that although the publishers were the ones to determine the volumes, the splits make sense within the context of the book. Nicely done, Macmillan.

Image via Bygone Bureau.

Emperor Franzen

Favorite thing right now: @EmperorFranzen. Born just hours ago, it looks like. See also: "My fascinating and brilliant new novel is the only chance you fools have of seeing this fractured industry united." And there's the biography: "I was on the cover of TIME. That's TIME magazine, bitches. I don't think you realize what a big deal that is. 110% more better writer than real J. Franzen." Well. Played.

Dear Stephen King, Can You Give Me $5

Forbes' list of the world's 10 top earning authors (via My Open Wallet) doesn't offer a lot of surprises, nor trivia, except this: #4 Danielle Steel's earnings include a $1 millin settlement from her former assistant who was caught embezzling from her. So really, that's not so much "income" as "a previous unknown expense which has now been stopped," right?

Here's some more trivia from the authors whose names we have all seen everywhere a million times:

• #6 Dean Koontz has had hair transplant surgery. (Cost: probably under $18 million.)
• #1 James Patterson (Inc. -- he mostly writes the outlines) has 17 books due to his publisher by the end of 2010. So if you're reading this, JP Inc., get back to work.
• #10 JK Rowling would probably be considered the most inactive on this list since her last book, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, was published in 2007. Drowning in a bathtub full of money, no doubt.
• #5 Ken Follett is a major political contributor to a UK politician named Ed Balls. (Sorry, the Right Honorable Edward Michael Balls.)
• #7 Janet Evanovich is the only one whose copyright information in the books grants the title to Janet Evanovich Inc. So the joke I just made about James Patterson, in retrospect, was not that great. Get back to work too, JE Inc.
  
• With the money #3 Stephen King made last year, he could give $5 to 6.8 million people, so you'd better ask him soon.

I have read 5 of these 10 authors, though I'm not sure they were the right 5.

Hint: It's not about vampires. (Or anything Halloween-related.)

If you please, mosey on over to The AV Club to find out what my book club pick for October is. There's already one hater in the comments, but the fifth one wins a pizza!

Bad romance

The Daily Beast rounds up eight great "literary love affairs," including the Shelley-Byron-Shelley love triangle, but I think we can do better. The only thing worth noting of Norman Mailer and his 18th 6th wife is that someone still married him after he tried to kill one of his other wives. But then, I'm sure that's what they said about Henry VIII. Hemingway wrote a play about his and Martha Gellhorn's relationship called "The Fifth Column" that is probably his most moving work, and (thus?) naturally very hard to see staged.

Bad reputations

I'm collecting links like a postmodern Collyer brother, so here are some quick hits:

• To the surprise of no one, Facebook isn't that thrilled about the new movie based on Ben Mezrich's book. (New York Times)
• In other adaptation news, "The Switch," the romantic comedy based on the Rick Moody Jeffrey Eugenides (see comments) story "The Baster," is tracking dismally and will probably finish 7th this weekend, behind a "Twilight" parody, "Eat Pray Love" and "Piranha 3-D." [Unrelated: I've been spelling 'piranha' wrong all this time?!] Jason Bateman, fire your agent. (Deadline.com)
• Jodi Picoult should not be startin' somethin' with the aforementioned Times about their rave review of FREEDOM. For one, her reviews in the Times have been complimentary enough; for another, Jennifer Weiner did this routine 6 weeks ago (and not wrongly) abotu Gary Shteyngart. Summer's for reruns? (NY Mag via DRA)
• Anyway, all the cool kids are already over FREEDOM and looking forward to Tom McCarthy's next book C, out Sept. 7. Here he is on technology, Futurism and James Joyce. (The Guardian)
• Where did "Chicago" come from? Bookslut-in-Chief Jessa Crispin investigates in the review of a new book called THE GIRLS OF MURDER CITY about the Second City in the 1930s. (The Smart Set)
• Finally, I walked by a bar on Friday whose awning read "The Tavern O. Henry Made Famous." Is it ever okay to grant a bar the endorsement of someone who eventually died of cirrhosis? Unfortunately, the claim that O. Henry wrote "The Gift of the Magi" in a bar booth in Gramercy Park is dubious and likely unprovable; on the other hand, there was a "Seinfeld" episode shot there. (Petestavern.com; Iamnotastalker.com)

My Book Report on the Jonathan Franzen TIME Cover Story

First of all, much has been made of the opener to this piece, in which
Franzen is in Santa Cruz watching otters -- "if the otters could
talk," etc. This kind of scene-setting is very common in TIME covers
these days, but of course most of the people reading this story have
given up their subscriptions so they wouldn't be aware.

Somewhere in the feature's doughy middle, writer Lev Grossman (an
author himself) contrasts the "typical" 20th-century novel, in which
the reader endures a degree of difficulty in order to receive a payoff
later, with FREEDOM's suspenseful plot and "characters you care
about." This is a false dichotomy in so many ways, but what I thought
was particularly eye-catching about it was that by this definition the
profile being written is very 20th century. Not that we don't care
about him -- I did -- but the lead photo features him in a dry field
with a pair of binoculars, looking off the page. We endure meaningless
turns like "(FREEDOM) is not a microcosm; it's a cosm" and an
incomplete rundown of the Oprah controversy. The first time Franzen is
quoted in the article he is complaining of FREEDOM: "It was
considerably more difficult. It was a bitch. It really was."

The payoff here, for me, was not only the glimpse into FREEDOM, but
also the detailing of Franzen's weird writing habits. I could have
done without the extraordinarily simplistic "Changing of the Guard"
infographic about where American fiction is Headed Today and I found
the section on Franzen's friendship with David Foster Wallace
(including a terrible photo of both) irreverent in its creepiness, but
I guess that's my own personal degree of difficulty. I think the
combination of TIME house style and outside kerfuffle will (and has)
cause(d) this piece to be held up as an example of How Not To Do It
and might have preferred him to save his one major interview for the
New Yorker or Esquire.

Spotted in the elevator

I was glad to have a copy of this book to spy on so I didn't have to meet the eyes of the tantrumming girl woman who forgot to push the button for her floor, then decided to angrily jab it 35 times as we ascended past her stop. At one point she backed up a step and I thought she was going to kick the button instead.

"I couldn't hit it because everyone else was in the way," she said to her friend, glaring at me. I'm just trying to ascend and suddenly I'm in a terrible horror movie trailer.

My mom said this Pulitzer Prize winner was so boring she fell asleep while reading it. Multiple times. Has anyone else read it?