The Honor of the Nomination

It's been a rough couple of weeks in Book Land.  If you've been hiding under rocks, you might have missed the Department of Justice using anti-trust laws...to secure a monopoly in the e-book market.  No, really.  By suing five of the "big six" publishers for collusion with Apple in setting e-book prices--the Agency Model in publishing which has provided a level playing field for e-book retailers for the last two years and ending the price wars that were devaluing books and threatening the survival of bookstores and publishers alike--the DoJ has given Amazon the ability to undercut book prices once more.  (Random House, the sixth of the "big six," was not involved in the suit.  Several publishers have settled, but Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin are fighting.)

And then yesterday the Pulitzer Prizes were announced...and the board failed to select a fiction winner.  Apart from the travesty of not naming an outstanding book in a year that included some terrific books like Open City, The Art of Fielding, The Buddha in the Attic, Salvage the Bones, The Tiger's Wife, bookstores and the winning book's publisher have lost millions of dollars in book sales and readers have lost a focal point for book discussions. It's a shame.  The jury did select three finalists for the prize--Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, and Karen Russell's Swamplandia!  I (Liz) loved Swamplandia!, making it my second favorite book (and tops by an American) for 2011, so I'm a bit bitter. I really wanted it to win, but as one of my booksellers pointed out, Karen Russell is super-young (29 years old), this was her first novel, and she's going to be writing brilliant fiction for a long, long time to come.

So here's what I think we should do in this year of no winner.  Let's go back and read the finalists for the Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction.  Unlike the National Book Award which names finalists in advance of the award, the Pulitzer finalists aren't announced until the award is given (or withheld).  The finalists selected each year are some of the best books written--and not just in the book's year of publication--but often are forgotten.  They don't receive seals on their covers stating "Pulitzer Prize finalist."  They become footnotes.

Here you go--the list since 2000.  Pick a book.  Read it.  Share it with a friend.  Let us know what you think.

• The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (2012)
• Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (2012)
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (2012) Liz and Gianna recommend
• The Privileges by Jonathan Dee (2011)
• The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee (2011)
• Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet (2010)
• In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (2010)
• The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich (2009)
• All Souls by Christine Schutt (2009)
• Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (2008) Liz and Gianna recommend
• Shakespeare's Kitchen by Lore Segal (2008)
• After This by Alice McDermott (2007)
• The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (2007)
• The March by E.L. Doctorow (2006) Liz and Gianna recommend
• The Bright Forever by Lee Martin (2006)
• War Trash by Ha Jin (2005) Liz and Gianna recommend
• An Unfinished Season by Ward Just (2005)
• American Woman by Susan Choi (2004)
• Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins (2004) Liz and Gianna recommend
• Servants of the Map: Stories by Andrea Barrett (2003)
• You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett (2003) Liz and Gianna recommend
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2002) Liz and Gianna recommend
• John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead (2002) Liz and Gianna recommend
• Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (2001) Liz and Gianna recommend
• The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams (2001)
• Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx  (2000) Liz and Gianna recommend
• Waiting by Ha Jin (2000) Liz and Gianna recommend

There are many other great books dating back further, and you can see the full list on the Pulitzer Prize website, here.  Happy reading, and let's celebrate these great books.  Sometimes it really is an honor just to be nominated.  And hopefully the Pulitzer board will get their act together next year.

Book Group Picks to Kick Off 2012

Now that we've shaken off the holiday season, it's time to grudgingly associate with acquaintances while pretending to care about their children and drinking lots and lots of wine, all under the pretense of reading the same books together.  I think if Gianna and I had a book group and I got to name it, I'd call it "Dear God I Resent You People."  In other news, yes, I'm still single.  Still, we love the idea of book groups because we love the idea of people buying and reading books.  We want to stay employed.  Here are some of our top book group picks, new or coming out soon in paperback, for the first three months of 2012.


Gianna's Picks:

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

Random House

Paperback out now

For those keeping track, this is the 147^th time that either Liz or I have blogged about this book. That is only one fewer than Let’s Take the Long Way Home (which is also an excellent book group choice). The Tiger’s Wife is textured, compelling, mystical, and multi-dimensional. It is a heartfelt work of serious literary fiction that only comes around once every few years. I’ve said this before, but Tiger’s Wife will be read for generations. I would say that if you are in a book group that truly cherishes literature, this is a must.

Open City by Teju Cole

Random House

1/17/12

This absolutely stunning work by Teju Cole has several built-in discussions/themes for book groups: the Holocaust, slavery, 9/11, genocide, and the invasion of Iraq are a few that will keep the discussion going late into the evening…so, you know, bring extra wine.

Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Random House

1/24/12

Blood, Bones, and Butter is quite simply one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read, while officially it may actually be a food memoir. Memoirs can be very hit or miss for book clubs, but I would put this in the hit column. The writing is as fine as anything you will read. I would compare it to All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg, or Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl (a huge book club favorite).

 

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

Random House

2/1/12

I wanted to include a really good yet more commercial book on my list and Lisa See immediately came to mind. She brings timeless themes to every book: belonging, love, family (particularly sisters and mothers and daughters), and what it means to belong. Dreams of Joy is an outstanding sequel to Shanghai Girl; I highly recommend both books for clubs.

Welcome to Utopia by Karen Valby

University of Texas Press

3/1/12

Oh, how I love this book. I’ve read it three times and each time I find something new, something meaningful, something to hold on to. While the story of a small town in Texas, this small marvel of a book could have been nearly anywhere in this country. Themes are numerous and include: race, war, gender, family, change, the impact of pop culture, and what it means to live in a small American town. Utopia is a mix of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Last Picture Show. That’s a big statement, I am standing by it, and you know where I live.  Okay, if you actually know where I live that’s sort of creepy, but you know what I mean. [I'll send you Gianna's address for cash.]

Liz's Picks

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Random House

Paperback available now

Who doesn't love a good, creepy ghost story that echoes classics like Rebecca?  Who doesn't want to see the Harry Potter kid's new movie?  The Woman in Black is a chilling read that has the added bonus of being Daniel Radcliffe's first starring film role since he went wizard.  Here's a great opportunity to read the book and then see the movie as a group.

Snowdrops by A.D. Miller

Random House

2/7/12

The surprise Booker Prize finalist offers lots of discussion material for groups.  Modern Russia, dishonest women, the mob, the black market, bodies in the snow--this isn't your mama's book group pick.  It's a contemporary con novel and rumination on truth in a country where everything is relative.

House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard

Random House

2/14/12

I'm actually a fan of the idea of memoirs for book group picks.  The added reality of a true story adds another level to the conversation, and House of Prayer No. 2 offers lots.  Mark Richard grew up with physical problems that had him relegated to hospitals and special needs schools even though he was plenty smart.  He also was a wayward youth searching for purpose who spent time working as a fisherman, painting houses, and loafing.  How he became a writer's writer is a story worth reading.

Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell

Random House

3/13/12

I think I've mentioned this book almost as much as Gianna has written about The Tiger's Wife.  It's my favorite non-fiction book of 2011, a spellbinding, beautifully written memoir of growing up in a low income family in Houston in the 50's.  Crowell has the ability to bring humor and love to a story that's also full of hardship and violence and kooky religious fundamentalism.  He writes like a poet.  I love this book.

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

Random House

3/20/12

I've written previously about this slender novel as well.  The Buddha in the Attic was deservedly nominated for the National Book Award last year.  It's the story of the women who came to the US as mail order brides to Japanese immigrants.  It details culture shock, struggle, and perseverance in the years between the turn of the century and the start of World War II.  The writing is impeccable and because there is no one protagonist, the structure itself adds to a discussion.  And it's really, really good.  Trust me.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #10

Top 10 Time!

Gianna:

Timeless Mexico
Hugo Brehme, Susan Toomey Frost
UT Press

Hugo Brehme (German born) worked in Mexico from 1905 until his death in 1954.  [Was he falsely accused of killing his wife, then went to prison where he created a library, then escaped by digging a tunnel through the wall and crawling through sewage, and end up in Mexico?  Whoops, wrong story.  Continue.] He created an idyllic vision of Mexico that influenced photography, film, and literature for a hundred years (specifically Manuel Alvares Bravo and Gabriel Figueroa).  Brehme began printing and distributing his images on postcards (collectible postcards) and these became so popular that when tourists would visit and didn’t happen upon a group of Mexican men in sombreros holding swords, just like the photograph of Pancho Villa's horsemen, they would think…huh…this must not be the real place.

Brehme was famous for photographing everything from the Mexican Revolution, to architecture, to people, to beautiful landscapes (landscapes are what he loved to photograph the most). The photographs in this book are wide ranging and absolutely gorgeous. It is my favorite book on the University of Texas Press fall list, and any photography lover will want this. [I love to take pictures of my cat!]

Susan Toomey Frost, who has collected Brehme's photography for many years, provides an illuminating introduction to his life and work. She also describes his practice of printing and distributing his photographs as collectible postcards.

Liz:

The Buddha in the Attic
Julie Otsuka
Knopf

I wrote about The Buddha in the Attic several weeks back, right before the announcement of the National Book Awards, as it was a well-deserved finalist for that prize.  Julie Otsuka has managed to capture the stories of a whole generation of Japanese women in an amazingly short 120 page novella.  This book is a marvel.

Starting at the turn of the century and continuing to the advent of World War II, Otsuka tells the story of the women who came to the United States as mail-order brides for Japanese-American men.  They were promised bankers, lawyers, doctors, and universally, a better life.  These were widowed women, poor women, trampy women (Gianna), plain women, smart women, dumb women, girls, old maids--the whole range of female citizenry in the Empire.  And they were sold a bill of goods.  Upon arrival, they discovered that their husbands were miners, laborers, farmers, pickers.  Still, they persevered and built strong foundations for their children.

Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic succeeds in accomplishing what few novels even attempt--telling a story about a group of people without narrowing to specific characters.  Nonetheless, at the end the reader has an appreciation for individual struggles, and a further appreciation for this talented writer.  I really believe that this book is one that everyone should read.

Julie Otsuka--Little Books, Big Books

Julie Otsuka

The 2011 National Book Award is announced this week and two Random House titles--The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht and The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka--are nominated for the prestigious fiction prize.  I (Liz) had read The Tiger's Wife back in March, and it is generally considered the odds favorite.  I'd overlooked reading Julie Otsuka's work, though, and this weekend decided that I should catch up with one of the books last year's winner, Jaimy Gordon, predicted might be an upset winner.  Being the crazy book fiend I am though (see: Operation Chuck), I read both The Buddha in the Attic and Otsuka's earlier book, When the Emperor Was Divine.

How to read two books in just over 24 hours?  It helps when both books are under 150 pages in length.  I'm not a speed reader--really, I'm not.  I just don't sleep.  I started with When the Emperor Was Divine, Otsuka's earlier book.  Emperor has become a classroom favorite along the lines of Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird, and it's not difficult to see why.  This is the story of a family of Japanese Americans who are evacuated to internment camps in World War II.  These characters--a mother, son, daughter, and absent husband who was taken to an enemy combatant camp--are relatively anonymous, archetypal.  The experiences they face are characteristic of those endured during one of the greatest civil rights atrocities in US history, and the absence of character names makes these stories feel universal and profound in their ordinariness.  I was also struck by Julie Otsuka's ability to write beautiful sentences with relatively simple vocabulary.  I'm not a language lover like the wannabe poets out there; my book love usually is character-related.  Still, I noted the vocabulary of this book and the beauty of her sentences.  This is a book that a high school student can read and appreciate, a book that challenges and educates and moves.

After finishing When the Emperor Was Divine, I picked up Otsuka's NBA-nominated, new novel, The Buddha in the Attic.  In one sense, Buddha is a prequel to Emperor, in that the time frame involved begins in 1919 and moves up to the Japanese internment in World War II.  However, while Emperor used a family to relate a more universal experience for Japanese Americans, Buddha uses a different tact.  This is a novel without specifics--it's the story of a whole group of Japanese women who come to the United States as mail order brides.  They are city girls, country girls, educated girls, innocent children, old maids, younger sisters too plain to become geishas.  They come to the US to meet husbands who were allegedly bankers, lawyers, business owners...but who are farm hands, day laborers.  These are women learning to survive in a foreign land.  In 120+ pages, Julie Otsuka manages to capture 25 years of struggle and strength for an entire subset of the population, and again she's captured beauty.  This little book is great.  If it manages to win the National Book Award, I won't be protesting, but even if it doesn't, The Buddha in the Attic is worth reading.