DailyLit Secretly Taken Over By Bros?

I still love you guys but you need to stop using the word "chillax," it's giving me hives.

Strand news, burying the lede edition

In a message about a new location for all its events, venerable New York City bookstore The Strand mentions that, oh by the way, reading attendees will be asked to either buy the book or a $10 gift card at reading starting September 1st. 

I haven't been to a reading at the Strand in a good long while (not by choice, the readings that catch my eye just never seem to work in my schedule). I give them credit not only for the gift-card option, but that your purchase admits 2 people, so if I were going with a friend and I didn't want to buy the book but s/he did, then I could still get in. Still, not a huge fan of this decision.

On the other hand, I'm always in the Strand picking up things and have spent many a happy afternoon browsing the dollar carts, and I would hate to lose such an institution. I could always stockpile my gift cards for Christmas shopping. But if other bookstores in the neighborhood follow suit, I may later be attempting to pay my rent in bookstore credit and I think that will not go well.

Covers and the what-if

For his fourth novel MACHINE MAN (out tomorrow!) Max Barry had readers on various platforms vote on which cover they thought was best. He designed #4, #3 and #6 were done in-house at his publisher Vintage, and the rest were designed by Matt Roeser, whose blog New Cover offers alternative covers for the books he's read. (Seriously look at what he did to those sorry George R.R. Martin books! And THE ODYSSEY! And JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH!)

Read his blog post on the results here. I'm kind of surprised at what won, and it seemed like so was he.

"The Ayelet Triathlon involves 1. reading a novel 2. eating donuts & 3. Watching an episode of 'Weeds.' Fast!"
--Ayelet Waldman reacting to a tragic death at this weekend's NYC Triathlon. Now this, this needs to happen.

Filmbook-to-be: Dostoevsky's "The Double"

This is absolutely the first time ol' Fyodor has ever gotten an exclusive. I bet on his deathbed it was all "Well, we'll make room in the obits tomorrow."

"As edited to under two hours by Mr. Gibney and Ms. Ellwood, the Kesey footage has several memorable scenes, including one in which the novelist Larry McMurtry, whose middle-class house in Houston has just been invaded by Kesey’s band, finds it necessary to call the police and explain that a Prankster, apparently suffering from a drug-induced breakdown, has gone missing and that in keeping with her nickname, Stark Naked, she’s not wearing any clothes."

 This new Alex Gibney documentary about the Merry Pranksters, as covered in Tom Wolfe's THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST, activates all my nerd. The footage! Read the New York Times review here. 

Filmbook: Where will you be for THE HELPocalpyse?

Reports are leaking of advance screenings of "The Help," the Emma Stone-/ Viola Davis-starring adaptation of the book everybody's book club read already. I wasn't invited to one of these, because life is pain, Highness, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something -- but I will probably go under my own steam. I like Emma Stone a lot, and I'm curious as I am with most adaptations.

If possible I will take my mom, who also didn't like the book (like me) and whose taste in movies apart from the garden-variety romantic comedy is somewhat unpredictable. (Loved "Knocked Up" but hated "Bridesmaids" -- for example.) She is neither excited for this, nor for the following week's marquee adaptation release "One Day" based on the David Nicholls book I also didn't like. (Now is the summer of our discontent!) I think at this point she's just waiting for "Grey's Anatomy" to come back. But in case you hear a loud cackling sound next week and plus a few hours, that's what's going on.

All the sneak preview reviews I've read have been glowingly positive, but that likely says less about the movie itself than who the studio is inviting, i.e. not spiteful little stubs like the management of this here blog. But is there truly anything Viola Davis can't ennoble? Well, almost.

It's my living cube. I'm living in it.

4: Number of books I found in my office drawer this week as I was packing to move (2nd move since I started working here) (corporate life is so glamorous)

I want to go to there

Upper East Side, New York, NY, July 2011

Harper Perennial hearts Kindle

The imprint known for its paperback originals (including the adorable Olive Editions) and social-media friendliness put 20 of its books on sale for $0.99 during August. Titles include Neal Pollack's STRETCH and Rachel Shukert's EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE GREAT. Because I have so much discipline, I have only purchased one because the author's fiancée wrote about it on Tumblr. See, the social internet book-selling machine works! (But if I finish that one I might buy another.) (Gosh I have no idea where all these books come from.)

I found this delightful: How To Carry An Embarrassing Book In Public, by a guy reading through the Time 100 Best Novels Since 1923 list. (Though he did omit the ol' tote bag trick!) It will pay off if I get this review copy in the mail this week.

This morning I saw a guy reading while walking his dog. Looked dangerous.

Hemingway would probably have gone to the theatre more if there were bullfighters.

Elevator Repair Service, the New York theatre company who adapted the entire first section of THE SOUND AND THE FURY onstage, will be back for what is billed as its final installment in the great American literature series with their adaptation of THE SUN ALSO RISES this fall. I know I've read THE SUN ALSO RISES but it took me a while to think about whether I liked it or not; I think I liked the book itself, not so much the common interpretation of what it's about as a stray scornful comment here would indicate. (Because why do I even have a blog, etc.) I guess I'm due for a re-read earlier than expected.

There Are Things Eva Gabrielsson Wants You To Know About Stieg Larsson

1. Stieg Larsson was pretty much the perfect guy. Even his temper was just because he got so riled up about injustice! And he loved women, but not in the Mikael Blomkvist way. But he did drink all that coffee in the Mikael Blomkvist way. Now Gabrielsson, his long-time partner (in a romantic cohabitating we-were-always-about-to-get-married sense), can't bring herself to drink coffee any more because he isn't with her.
2. He used a lot of stuff from his life in his books! Like the small town he grew up in, the places he vacationed, even real names of people he admired and wanted to thank. (Are you allowed to use someone's name in a work of fiction without asking them first? I suppose not, but it would probably be most polite to check.)
3. He had all kinds of wonderful plans for their life together before he was felled by a very sudden heart attack, but that beats all those years when he and Gabrielsson were afraid someone was going to assassinate him for reporting on Swedish right-wing and white supremacist movements. Also, he was totally eating better in the months before his fatal heart attack. [I mean, why even point this out. It's kind of late to judge a dead man on his diet, and it seems as though cardiac problems at an early age ran in his family.]
4. Larsson never explicitly set out to write a thriller series, which makes it all the more confusing that he is also described as mapping out a 10-volume saga in literally the same paragraph. How does one go from apparently writing unrelated chunks of text to Thriller Author Beloved Of Millions? It's still a mystery!
5. The absence of legislation in Sweden covering long-term cohabitating couples who never marry is a disgrace. (Okay, that's not really about Larsson, but that is the main point of this book. Regardless of whether you think Gabrielsson is only after the intellectual property rights of her former partner, as she says, or if she is more financially motivated, what happened to her seems to be legal and also sucked.

I don't want to say this book is unnecessary, out of respect for the widow, who has been through enough. But I would read this book only if you are a completist or enjoy being asked by strangers about what you're reading. (Actually, that aspect of it was pretty fun. No one cares if you're reading 2666 on the subway.) The only detail revealed about Book 4 is the title, THE VENGEANCE OF GOD, and that apparently Lisbeth Salander gets hers back, which we already knew because she is badass like that.

July Unbookening

Nick Bilton writes in the New York Times about jettisoning 80 percent of his books before a cross-country move. He cops to buying about 50 books a year (I'm at, oh, maybe 20 now? just guessing) but says e-readers have been his primary delivery device for several years, which made the decision easier. But still!!!

Bought 5 books (1 on Kindle)
Checked out 9 from the library
Received 5 to review
Won 1 in a giveaway (I know!!)
20 in

Donated 9
Returned 6 to library
Gave away 2
17 out

Overall for the year I have a negative balance (because why even have a blog if you can't look up meaningless self-statistics like that?) Yet my shelf space says otherwise. And I got a lot of reading done this month. If I can't make it happen under those circumstances... Or I could stop using the library, but that will never happen.