be more literate

in an effort to accomplish my personal challenge to read three more books before the year’s end, i’m trying to get more organized about my reading. so i signed up to goodreads. it’s a pretty nifty site for any avid readers out there. if you have an account and would like to share what you’re reading, let me know!

my current non-fiction selection. it’s making me want to read the bible completely – whatever shall i do??

the author of The Life of Pi, wants to force his Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) to read more literature and thereby stimulate the politician’s interest and support for the Arts, which he has thus far publicly disdained. So, Mr. Martel has committed himself to sending Mr. Harper a novel every two weeks for as long as he is in office. read the full story here.

then join the stephen harper book club.

it’s an admirable effort, i think, but if the guy is anything like bush, the books may just end up as kindling.

plagiarize

(as if you needed them)

^{Amir Aczel knew just whom to blame. “It seems,” the science author complained last month in an irate letter to the Washington Post, “that [Charles] Seife has submitted every sentence in my book to a Google search.” Days earlier in a Post book review, Seife exposed what appeared to be embarrassing plagiarisms in Aczel’s new book, The Artist and the Mathematician. But if Seife’s discovery that Aczel lifted text from the Guggenheim Museum’s Web site was instructive, so was the assumption behind Aczel’s response. For any plagiarist living in an age of search engines, waving a loaded book in front of reviewers has become the literary equivalent of suicide by cop.}

Salon and The Travel Channel have put together an interesting site called The Literary Guide to the World. I read an article there today called Destination Alaska about accurate portrayals of Alaska in books. The author lists several interesting books, including some I hadn’t heard of before but which I hope to check out sometime.

Alaska - a fifth the size of the contiguous United States, with far more total coastline, 150,000 bears, the tallest mountains - has spawned a tradition of unnecessary literary exaggeration. As a result, traveling south from the territory (after 1959, the 49th state) to the lower 48 we Alaskans enter a fortress of nonsense about ourselves: All Alaskans live in ice igloos, at 40 below, on a windswept wasteland, six months of dark, six months of sun (yet allegedly with only one season), polar bears snarling at the door, buzzard-size mosquitoes, beaches of gold.

the divine comedy. been reading it for awhile now actually, but i’m finally making some headway with it. along with it i intend to read a few critical essays as well.

i could say that the way it’s put together is beautiful, amazing, and inspired, but that wouldn’t be anything new to anyone and would likely just sound insincere and/or simplistic.

yay for Americans who can write well in foreign languages!

^{The Academie Francaise, austere guardian of the French language, on Thursday awarded its top literary prize for the first time to an American author, whose debut novel, written in French, has become a best-seller.}

“Les Bienveillantes” (The Benevolent) by Jonathan Littel, was the hot favorite and took the prestigious “Grand Prix du Roman” on the first round of voting by 12 votes to four for the other two short-listed novels, the academy said.

The 900-page tome tackles the Holocaust through the eyes of Nazi Maximilien Aue, following the activities of the SS death squads responsible for exterminating Jews and communists in areas conquered by German forces in World War Two.

wired had a good column on this earlier today:

^{The only justification I can think of for buying a book online is if you can’t get it from your local bookseller and in my experience, that’s rare. Otherwise, don’t do it. You’re feeding the corporate beast at the expense of the little guy. And you know what? You’re probably a little guy, too, even if you think you’re a big guy. Most of us in this world are little guys. And consumer technology is making us smaller all the time.}

too bad there are no bookstores in nome. but i still try to buy from the independent bookstore in anchorage whenever i can. they’re much faster than amazon, even if they cost a little more. to find a local independent near you, i suggest checking http://www.booksense.com .

also book related, slate had a good article on the latest ebook device and why it, like all others, fails.

^{Here’s what I want in Reader 2.0: a device that allows me to browse the news on my subway ride to work and that serves as a second screen for reading and research during the work day. I want a platform for Web connectivity, searching, and hypertext. And, yes, I’ll take a small gadget that lets me read a few pages of a novel before I go to sleep. But as things stand now, I’ll stick to the paperback on my bedside.}

and here’s what i’ll take in addition: something that plays mp3’s while i’m reading.

• Fiction: Wounded, by Percival Everett
• Creative Nonfiction: Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human, by Michael Chorost
• Research Nonfiction: Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves, by Adam Hochschild
• Poetry: Here, Bullet, by Brian Turner
• Children’s Literature: The Tequila Worm, by Viola Canales
• Translation: War Variations, by Amelia Rosselli, translated by Lucia Re and Paul Vangelisti
• Journalism: “Historian Iris Chang Won Many Battles/The War She Lost Raged Within,” in the San Francisco Chronicle, by Heidi Benson
• Drama: Devil’s Advocate, by Donald Freed
• Teleplay: Sucker Free City, by Alex Tse
• Screenplay: Good Night, And Good Luck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov
• Lifetime Achievement: Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres, Horse Heaven).
• Award of Honor: Bob Shaye (Co-chairman and co-CEO of New Line Cinema)^

i should probably explain that i used to run a book forum and have since developed an obsessive fascination with all things book related…

the nobel prize in literature was handed to Orhan Pamuk of Turkey, who earlier this year stood trial for speaking out against his country via his writings. He’s certainly not alone in that respect, but I’ll be interested in checking out some of his works.

the short list, as it were, for the National Book Awards was also announced this week. I actually almost picked up The Worst Hard Time while in Wisconsin. and of course now I really wish I had. it was on sale even.

This week is also Fiction Week at Slate. They’ve got several interesting book reviews and articles about current literary issues, including a discussion on the role of the internet in book publishing. they refer to their online novel, The Unbinding , which is actually pretty good.