Video: Conversation with Toni Morrison

Paper Cuts, the book blog for the New York Times, has a conversation with Toni Morrison about her new novel "A Mercy" and the election of Barack Obama. This is a wonderful and rare treat.

Which Books Are Worth Reading Twice?

SF Signal dares to present this question to several authors and editors. A great question I might add. There are only a few books that I've personally read more than once: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, There Eyes Were Watching God by Zorn Neale Hurston, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy By J.R.R. Tolkien. Actually, I've read all of these three times. Weird. Anyway, here is what the authors on SF Signal said.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children to be Filmed

From The Guardian by Denis Seguin:
"Rushdie's 'unfilmable' Midnight's Children heads for silver screen" —

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie's panoramic 1981 allegory of the birth of modern India, is heading for the big screen. Deepa Mehta is to direct and co-write the adaptation with the author, and the film is expected to start production in 2010, it was announced in New York yesterday.

New from Jhumpa Lahiri

New book, new website, new publisher. A lot of news from the lady from Brooklyn. The new book is "Unaccustomed Earth" her second book. Her first book, a collection of stories called "The Interpreter of Maladies" was brilliant. Her first novel, "The Namesake," was really good though, in my opinion, not as good at the story collection. A new novel from Lahiri is definitely something to look forward to. She seems to have the golden touch. In an age where authors are seldom considered stars, she has become one.

Her new publisher is Random House, unfortunately. Another big name for a big house. So it goes. At least she now has a website, www.jhumpalahiri.net, and it's pretty nice. With any luck it will be maintained well enough to let us lowly readers know what is going on with this beloved author.

David Foster Wallace found dead

This has been one strange year. It looks like it will continue to be strange. David Foster Wallace hung himself on Friday. I'm not sure why he would do such a thing. It is shocking and is the second author that I know of who has killed himself this year. Thomas M. Disch shot himself earlier this year. Hey, I would be the last person to say that being in the book business has been sweetness and light these days, but damn people. Let's all take it easy ...

[io9.com wrote a nice article on him today]

A New Toni Morrison Novel Due Out in November

From The Toni Morrison Society:

A Mercy is Toni Morrison’s 9th novel. Set in the 17th century northeast when the slave trade was in its infancy, the novel provides a detailed look at the social environment of religious persecution and racial hatred, class distinction that allowed the institution of slavery to take root in the US. As in all of her novels, Morrison outlines the broad strokes of history in order to explore the impact that they have on the personal choices of the individuals caught in history’s reach.

New Book about Black Women Writer's of Science Fiction

Don't know how this book is since I haven't gotten it for myself yet. The idea of is is sound though.Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction's Newest New-Wave Trajectory

It is the first critical anthology to address the "blackness" of outer space fiction in terms of feminism, emphasizing that it is necessary to revise the very nature of a genre that has been constructed in such a way as to exclude its new black participants.

Sounds a little "academic-y" to me. You never know, it could be good.

NPR Reviews 3 Great Women Writers

NPR reviewed the new books from three great women writers: "Wild Nights!" by Joyce Carol Oates, "The Stone Gods" by Jeanette Winterson, and "Lavinia" by Ursula K. Le Guin.

From All Things Considered by Alan Cheuse —

Joyce Carol Oates reimagines the last days of five authors; Jeanette Winterson takes a journey through outer space; and Ursula K. Le Guin explores the pre-history of Rome from the point of view of an Italian princess. The resulting books are a thrill and a privilege to read.

The Lost book Club

I just love the television show "Lost." Who knew that there were so many books being reference by the show. Books like: Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," Vladimir Nabokov's "Laughter in the Dark", and Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." See all the, surprisingly literate, titles at the The Lost book Club

Jeffrey Ford on the cover of June's Locus

I never said this here before but I wrote a fan letter to Jeffrey Ford. I know, I know, you didn't think that I was one of those types of people who bothered people with their silly admiring rantings. Well, yes I am. Or at least I was this time. So I wrote to the guy telling him how much I liked his work. The surprising thing was that he wrote back! Goes to show you that this internet thing actually works. It was a thrill for me. He was very sweet. I know I love the guy. What a sweetie. Anyway he's on the cover of this month's Locus magazine.

When the store gets back online I'll be sure to include more of his work including a story in the new anthology, The Starry Rift, an anthology of futuristic storeis.

A Basket of Leaves will be available in the US!

A Basket of Leave: 99 books that capture the spirit of Africa by Geoff Wisner will be available in the US! Yay! Indigocafe.com has been the only place to get the book in America, but now your local bookseller (and yes Amazon and B&N) will be able to carry it also. It will be available around April 1. (Full disclosure, Geoff is my partner.)

So go out there and get this book! Do it for me! Do it for you! Do it for Geoff! Do it for love! Or just do it! (Hee! Hee!)

Booksellers can get it from Independent Publishers Group

London Review Bookshop says—

"Geoff Wisner, who spent many years working for an anti-apartheid organisation, presents a unique literary tour of Africa. Every country is represented by at least one book, and Nigeria, with nine selections, has the most. Not all of the books are by Africans, although the majority are; Wisner’s selection criteria stipulate only that each book should have something revealing to say about each country, and that they should each have literary merit in themselves. Every book gets a lucid précis, followed by a short extract. A Basket of Leaves is an invaluable resource for anyone thinking of visiting Africa, as well as a practical demonstration of the continent’s astonishing diversity."

Bookseller's Choice: as of December 9, 2007

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while. Been so busy with the updates to the site that I just didn't get the chance to update the list. So here are this weeks Bookseller's Choice lists:

For Fiction —

1.  A Free Life by Ha Jin
2.  Blonde Faith by Walter Mosley
3.  The Door by Margaret Atwood

... plus 3 more books!

[ see the rest of the list ! ]

For Non-Fiction —

1.  The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
2.  The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
3.  Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat

... plus 3 more books!

[ see the rest of the list ! ]

New Political Books

The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman

Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has created his finest book to date, a work that weaves together a nuanced account of three generations of history with sharp political, social, and economic analysis. This book, written with Krugman's trademark ability to explain complex issues simply, will transform the debate about American social policy in much the same way as did John Kenneth Galbraiths deeply influential book, "The Affluent Society."

The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future
by Craig Unger

From Craig Unger, the author of the bestseller House of Bush, House of Saud, comes a comprehensive, deeply sourced, and chilling account of the secret relationship between neoconservative policy makers and the Christian Right, and how they assaulted the most vital safeguards of Americas constitutional democracy while pushing the country into the catastrophic quagmire in the Middle East that is getting worse day by day.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein

The bestselling author of "No Logo" shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq.

In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.

New Science Fiction/Fantasy Titles

The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

This new science fiction title is geared towards young adults. It has that "Harry Potter" feel of being "over-explainy." (That's not necessarily a bad thing.) It introduces a new kind of character for young adults to identify with, especially young girls of color.

When fifteen-year old Ejii witnesses her father’s beheading, her world shatters. In an era of mind-blowing technology and tantalizing magic, she embarks on a mystical journey to track down her father’s killer. With a new found friend by her side, Ejii comes face-to-face with an earth turned inside out -- and with her own magical powers.

But she soon discovers that her travels across the sands of the Sahara have a greater purpose. Her people need to be protected from a force seeking to annihilate them. And Ejii may be just the hero to do it.

Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell

The Caribbean-born speculative fiction author of Crystal Rain returns with this new title.

Descended from the islanders of lost Earth, the Ragamuffins are pirates and smugglers, plying the lonely spaceways around a dead wormhole. For years, the Satraps have tolerated the Raga, but no longer. Now they have embarked on a campaign of extermination, determined to wipe out the unruly humans once and for all.

But one runaway woman may complicate their plans. Combat enabled, Nashara is more machine than flesh, and she carries inside her a doomsday weapon that could reduce the entire galaxy to chaos. A hunted fugitive, she just wants to get home before she’s forced to destroy civilization---and herself.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

"One of the most important writers of the twentieth century."
--Ray Bradbury

"I think the author who influence me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson. Books like I Am Legend were an inspiration to me."
--Stephen King

Not a new title, just a new movie-tie-in version for the new film starring Will Smith. It's exciting to see the old Charlton Heston film, The Omega Man, remade. I only hope that Will Smith will do a good job. He can act, he just has been very poor at choosing his roles. I'm glad to see that he has been moving away from the adolescent crap.

It's also cool that the lead role will be played by someone black. It's been creepy that science fiction visions of the future usually exclude people of color. Just what are these "visionaries" tryin' to say?!

Darwin's Paradox by Nina Munteanu

This is the first book from this author from Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

A devastating disease. A world on the brink of violent change. And one woman who can save it - or destroy it all. Darwin's Paradox is set in Canada's near future Ontario and Quebec. Julie Crane must confront the will of the ambitious virus lurking inside her to fulfill her final destiny as Darwin's Paradox, the key to the evolution of an entire civilization.

Full disclosure, I haven't looked at this book yet so I don't know what it's like, but this lady has one hell of a blog. Check it out: The Alien Next Door.

New Books about Censorship

Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression edited by David Wallis

One hundred political cartoons you wanted to see, but weren't allowed to: all were banned for being too hot to handle. Think you live in a society with a free press? These celebrated cartoonists and illustrators found out otherwise. Whether blasting Bush for his "Bring em on " speech, spanking pedophile priests, questioning capital punishment, debating the disputed 2000 election, or just mocking baseball mascots, they learned that newspapers and magazines increasingly play it safe by suppressing satire.

Censored 2008: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006-7 edited by Peter Phillips and Andrew Roth

The best-selling Censored series highlights the years twenty-five most important underreported news stories, alerting readers to negligence of corporate media and the resurgence of alternative media.

Our pal Greg Palast is in this year's collection (again) and it looks like he's broke and in need of funds (ha! who doesn't?). So if you have a couple extra ducats please send it over to him.

New Books to the Store

A Free Life: A Novel by Ha Jin

Ha Jin is one of my favorite authors. I was introduced to his work with his collections of short stories The Bridegroom and I have gone on to read The Crazed, Waiting, and War Trash. All excellent, excellent! I especially liked The Crazed. I highly recommend his work.

Ha Jin's prodigious talents are evident in this powerful new book, which brilliantly brings to life the struggles and successes that characterize the contemporary immigrant experience. With its lyrical prose and confident grace, "A Free Life" is a luminousaddition to the works of one of the preeminent writers in America today.

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England: A Novel by Brock Clarke

As a teenager, it was never Sam Pulsifer's intention to torch an American landmark, and he certainly never planned to kill two people in the blaze. To this day, he still wonders why that young couple was upstairs in bed in the Emily Dickinson House after hours.

After serving ten years in prison for his crime, Sam is determined to put the past behind him. He finishes college, begins a career, falls in love, gets married, has two adorable kids, and buys a home. His low-profile life is chugging along quite nicely until the past comes crashing through his front door. As the homes of Robert Frost, Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even a replica of Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond, go up in smoke, Sam becomes the number one suspect...

New Books to the Store

Other Colors: Essays and a Story by Orhan Pamuk

Orhan Pamuk’s first book since winning the Nobel Prize, Other Colors is a dazzling collection of essays on his life, his city, his work, and the example of other writers.

Over the last three decades, Pamuk has written, in addition to his seven novels, scores of pieces—personal, critical, and meditative—the finest of which he has brilliantly woven together here. He opens a window on his private life, from his boyhood dislike of school to his daughter’s precocious melancholy, from his successful struggle to quit smoking to his anxiety at the prospect of testifying against some clumsy muggers who fell upon him during a visit to New York City. ... [ more ]

Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America (REVISED) by Kristian Williams disappeared from print only to now return from South End Press. Now that I live in New York, I see the real importance of policing the police. I never saw any of this kind of brutality before. It scare me sometimes: children being shot in the street, innocent citizens beaten and brutalized. I've never seen the Police as an enemy before, nor do I think of them as an enemy now. There are good policeman, there must be. I just wonder sometimes how do good policemen tolerate the really bad policemen among their ranks? Why don't the police police the police, if only just for honor and reputation's sake?

More than just a chronology of the history of police brutality in the United States, Our Enemies in Blue is a scholarly work that studies the reality of sanctioned violence against certain segments of society and the ways in which police use brutality to preserve existing structures of inequality. The simplistic myth of police officer as hero is prevalent in our society, and often obscures the facts, and silences those who would question police actions. Our Enemies in Blue examines the strong-arming, racial profiling, and other objectionable tactics used by the police on an everyday basis and provides an intelligent, in-depth critique of police brutality in all its forms. ... [ more ]

“Should become mandatory reading for all police academy students.”
— Damon Woodcock (Ret.), Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau

“Seldom does one come across a book so right on target as this one ... Our Enemies in Blue is imperative reading for anyone in the least concerned by the implications attending the rampant growth of police power and violence in the United States.”
— Ward Churchill, author of Perversions of Justice

Good-bye to Some African Titles

I've put this off for long enough. It makes me extremely sad but I have to mark a whole bunch of African books as either "Out of Print," "No Longer Carry," or increase the price. Heinemann, who usually carries a lot of African titles, is now owned by Harcourt Brace and has dropped many titles. There may be another purge as I go through the titles but this is the list for now:

No Longer Carry:

• The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas
• Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
• Maru by Bessie Head
• A Cowrie of Hope by Binwell Sinyangwe
• As The Crow Flies by Véronique Tadjo

Out of Print:

• The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories edited by Chinua Achebe
• The Concubine by Elechi Amadi
• The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison by Jack Mapanje
• The House Of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera

Increased the price:

• African Short Stories edited by Chinua Achebe
  price change: 12.95 to 14.95
  
  
• So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ
  price change: 11.95 to 13.95
  
  
• When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
  price change: 12.95 to 14.95
  
  
• Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane
  price change: 10.95 to 12.95
  
  
• God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane
  price change: 13.95 to 15.95
  
  
• Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono
  price change: 11.95 to 13.95
  
  
• The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
  price change: 13.95 to 15.95
  
  
• Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
  price change: 12.95 to 14.95
  
  
• A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
  price change: 14.95 to 16.95

This is a reflection of a reading public who are barely interested in American authors and have lost interest in literary voices from other countries. I realized that reducing my African titles was going to be necessary last year around the same time that Columbia University closed its African Studies Program which they, under pressure from student and faculty, finally re-opened.

I got a bit depressed last year, maybe too depressed, over this stuff, so I've been working hard to stay positive. I try to look at the situation this way, the reading public is becoming smaller and therefore more specialized. Those of us readers who are left will become "connoisseurs." We have to be the ones to keep literature alive. We have to be open enough to be willing to read literature that is out of our element, i.e. read the literature of many different cultures.

Soul Sister Zora Neale Hurston

Zadie Smith wrote this really nice piece on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God for the Guardian. It reminded me how I discovered the book. When I was a teenager a woman named Alta Star (yes, her real name) gave me a book of collected writings of Hurston's called I Love Myself When I am Laughing. I didn't know what to make of it, so it sat on my shelf until I went to college.

Being an engineering student, I wasn't really encouraged to read, but I got the bug of reading back (I had it as a child) from my summer work study job in the library. I collected books that the patrons had left on tables and desks and returned them to their proper place on the library shelves. Then I saw the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by the woman whose name was familiar because of a gift from long ago. I checked the book out myself and brought it home. In one long, rainy night I read it all. I, too, was sadden to leave the beautiful realm that Zora had created. I, too, was tearful at the sad ending. And I, too, was forever changed by Zora's lyrical, powerful words.

From Guardian by Zadie Smith:
"What does soulful mean?" —

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

It was an aphorism, yet I was unable to deny its strength. It capitalised Time (I was against the capitalisation of abstract nouns) but still I found myself melancholy for these nameless men and their inevitable losses. The second part, about women, struck home. It remains as accurate a description of my mother and me as I have ever read: Then they act and do things accordingly. I relaxed in my chair a little and laid down my pencil. I inhaled that book. Three hours later I was finished and crying a lot, for reasons that both were, and were not, to do with the tragic finale.

New books to the store

September is great. Lot's of great new books are becoming available.
Here are todays new books:

Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge tells of making a new life in a new country while fearing for the safety of those still in Haiti as the political situation deteriorates. But "Brother I’ m Dying" soon becomes a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Late in 2004, his life threatened by an angry mob, forced to flee his church, the frail, Edwidge's eighty-one-year-old uncle Joseph makes his way to Miami, where he thinks he will be safe. Instead, he is detained by U.S. Customs, held by the Department of Homeland Security, brutally imprisoned, and dead within days. It was a story that made headlines around the world. His brother, Mira, will soon join him in death, but not before he holds hope in his arms: Edwidge’s firstborn, who will bear his name—and the family’s stories, both joyous and tragic—into the next generation.

Nobel Lectures: From the Literature Laureates,
1986 to 2006

From Harold Pinter’s passionate and timely lecture on the nature of truth in art and politics to J.M. Coetzee’s allegorical journey through the mysteries of the creative process; from Toni Morrison’s essay on the link between language and oppression to Nadine Gordimer’s meditation on the ways in which literature can shape the worlds of individual and collective being, this is a volume in which meditations on imagination and the process of writing mingle with keen discussions of global affairs, cultural change, and the ongoing influence of the past.