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.
Wednesday October 29, 2008 @ 11:00 AM
Diane Rehm's Readers Review
Online on WAMU 88.5 American University Radio
The next Diane Rehm Show Reader's review will discuss "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth. I'm really excited about this. I loved this book. The problem about a book that is as deep as this is that, when you are done, there is no one to talk to about it. I look forward to hearing the insightful analysis of this wonderful book.
Diane invites listeners to join a discussion of what some reviewers called Philip Roth's most powerful political novel. It presents an alternate world in which Charles Lindbergh defeats FDR in the 1940 presidential election.
UPDATE: Here is a link to the show!
PEN America Center posted this on their site:
Cat Radio Cafe hosts a reading in celebration of the 2008 Prison Writing Contest. Marie Ponsot, Sapphire, Jackson Taylor, Michael Keck, Ennis Smith, Steven Hobbs, and Claudia Menza read from the winning works, as well as diaries entries and letters submitted by incarcerated writers. Hosted by Janet Coleman and David Dozer.
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 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.
In the latest newsletter from RIF, there was a little good news! Many Senators and Congresspeople have signed a letter requesting that the Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program be fully funded. The Bush Administration, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to de-fund this vital program that brings books to underprivileged kids.
Thanks in part to the efforts of 11,000 RIF friends writing more than 45,000 letters and e-mails to Congress, 150 U.S. Representatives and 49 U.S. Senators signed the Dear Colleague letter urging support for continuing RIF’s federal funding. That’s more than a third of the House and nearly half of the Senate! This is a critical milestone for RIF’s funding campaign.
If your Representative has not signed the letter please urge them to do so. You can find the name of your congress members with congress.org. I just called my congress person, E. Towns (D-NY 10th), because he has not signed the letter (not surprisingly).
I suppose only in my brain can Toni Morrison and Aaron McGruder can be connected. Last night I finally got some sleep and I dreamed that I was having a reading for Aaron McGruder in my store, but no one told me so that I didn't get my Boondocks books signed but everyone else did. When I woke up I couldn't figure out why I had such a dream. Now it is so clear. Riley, my cat, was named after a Boondocks character. I miss the little guy. I hope that one day it won't hurt so much.
I've been listening to Toni Morrison's acceptance speech for the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. I'm not sure that it is comforting. Maybe it is the sound of her voice that soothes me. Her slow, careful, eloquent words remind me of the days when school teachers read to me. Their words would stick somewhere in my soul. What she has to say has resonance even more than it did back when she originally said them.
She is convinced that when language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem, or killed by fiat, not only she herself, but all users and makers are accountable for its demise. In her country children have bitten their tongues off and use bullets instead to iterate the voice of speechlessness, of disabled and disabling language, of language adults have abandoned altogether as a device for grappling with meaning, providing guidance, or expressing love. But she knows tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience.
I personally benefited from this program and still have my RIF books from when I was little girl. In a time where there is a significant decline in reading, it is just crazy to be eliminating this program. On the contrary, their budget should be increased so that they can get more books to more kids.
FROM CAROL H. RASCO, President and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental —
The President’s proposed fiscal year 2009 budget released yesterday eliminates the Inexpensive Book Distribution Program, which is the RIF Book Distribution Program. Unless Congress reinstates funding for this program, RIF would be unable to distribute 16 million books annually to the nation’s youngest and most at-risk children.
RIF will work hard with our Congressional champions to demonstrate the importance of reinstating RIF’s funding in this budget. The process will be long and involve significant time and energy. We will need active supporters like you with us every step of the way. We know with certainty your voice, as a constituent, is the most important resource we have to make sure Congress reinstates RIF’s funding.
Please ACT NOW and help RIF build support for reinstating the funding by sending an e-mail now to your members of Congress asking them to support the reinstatement of RIF’s funding in the coming budget process.
Remember once that Bush wanted to be considered the "education president." As laughable as it now seems, he is still the sitting president and as much as we all want to pretend that Bush isn't there, he is. He can still do a lot of damage before he is out the door. Please act to save this vital program for our neediest children.
It seems that my ranting is somewhat getting through! Hurray for the Internet! Anyway, I am glad the the NEA has been taking the issue of the decline in reading seriously. Their efforts should be congratulated by all book lovers.
Dear Jenn Brissett:
Hi. I happened to come across your recent blog entries on the NEA report To Read or Not To Read. First, thanks for your sincere concern and engagement with the issues raised by the report. I just wanted to clarify that I share your sense of urgency about the declines reported in that study...
You asked for action. The NEA has partnered with the Institute of Museum & Library Services to sponsor The Big Read, a national initiative aimed at restoring reading to the center of American cultural life. (See www.neabigread.org for more details.) Although the program has thrived in hundreds of towns and cities, we are ready to concede that it is a partial solution, considering the scope of the problem.
Best wishes,
Sunil
Sunil Iyengar
Director, Research & Analysis
National Endowment for the Arts
Though I must say that what they are doing will not solve the reading problems that the US is experiencing, at least they recognize that this is something to be concerned about and are sounding the alarm to the best of their ability. This is the first that I've heard about "The Big Read" program that they've initiated. Maybe if I had heard of it before I may had tried to initiate a program here in NYC (as it is I only found one library in Manhattan participating). It is too late now since the grant application date is Feb 12. That being said, I think that it is a good idea that should be continued and hopefully will get more publicity and more participation (and more books to choose from).
From Harpers magazine by Ursula K. Le Guin:
"Staying awake" —
To me, then, one of the most despicable things about corporate publishers and chain bookstores is their assumption that books are inherently worthless.
One problem that I have with the essay is the complacency that Le Guin seems to have towards the backwards direction of reading. There is a "oh well" attitude that I find a bit disgusting. Keep in mind that Ursula K. Le Guin is a great hero of mine. I've read the "Left Hand of Darkness" maybe four times over and will probably read it again. I think that it one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. So it pains me to be critical of the Ursula K. Le Guin, but this is the point of this blog. I'm here as a bookseller trying to sound the alarm that something is really wrong with the state of reading and it is not okay. As a futurist, which I would categorize Le Guin as being, she should, as we all, be looking towards the future. One should hope (and work) towards a future that is better than today and yesterday. To say that in past centuries people didn't read, so if we go back to that type of situation it is okay, is not going to cut it. The future depends on an educated, thinking, READING, population.
Although I disagree with some of her points, I still highly recommend picking up the magazine and reading the essay.
From The London Times by Bryan Appleyard:
"Why don't we love science fiction?" —
The big problem with being sniffy about SF is that it’s just too important to ignore. After all, what kind of fool would refuse to be seen reading Borges’s Labyrinths, Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco, Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World or Wells’s War of the Worlds just because they were SF? These are just good books, irrespective of genre. But they are also books that embody the big ideas of the time – both Wells and Lem were obsessed with human insignificance in the face of the immense otherness of the universe, Huxley with technology as a seductive destroyer and Orwell with our capacity for authoritarian evil. Borges, like Lem, suspects we know nothing of ourselves. Interested in these things? Of course you are. Read SF.
2008 is the The National Year in Reading in the United Kingdom. Brilliant! (as the Brits would say!) What a fabulous idea. We so NEED to do this here in the US! (Thank you Literary Saloon for posting this info). I wonder what one needs to do to get something like this together here?
Usually when I bring up the issue of the decline in reading, I am faced with one of two responses: utter indifference or complete denial. Now I can add a new reaction to the argument: nit-pick the data. The blog, if:book, posted the letters by two intellectuals arguing about the data in the decline in reading and it's correlation to to decline in test scores.
Sunil Iyengar, National Endowment for the Arts, said:
Further, unlike the chart in Dr. Kaplan's critique, the NEA's Charts 5A to 5D explain that the "test years occurred at irregular intervals," and each test year from 1984 to 2004 is provided. Also omitted from the critique's reproduction are labels for the charts' vertical axes, which provide 5-point rather than the 10-point intervals used by the Department of Education chart. Again, there is no mystery here. Five-point intervals were chosen to make the trends easier to read.
Nancy Kaplan, University of Baltimore, said:
Plenty of graphs in the NEA report show a variety of time periods, so there is at best a weak rationale for choosing 1984 as the starting point for the graphs in question. Consistency, in this case, is surely less important than accuracy and completeness. Given the inferences the report draws from the data, then, it is more likely that the sample of data the NEA used in its representations was chosen precisely because, as Mr. Iyengar admits, that sample would make "the trends easier to read." My point is that the "trends" the report wants to foreground are not the only trends in the data: truncating the data set makes ...
... blah, blah, blah
Come on already! While intellectuals debate, the country is in real crisis. Something really wrong is happening here and while I appreciate the NEA's reports, I want to see more action. What do we do about the decline in reading? How do we help young people get excited about picking up a book? Do we extend the RIF program or create a new one for young adults? Do we get Congress involved? That's what I would like to see debated.
An article in the New Yorker —
"Twilight of the Books"
An article in the Guardian —
"One in four Americans read no books last year"
McNally Robinson Canada blog —
"Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading"
On the Media, a WNYC New York Public Radio program, dedicated its entire show to books which they dubbed One For The Books. The program covered much about the attempts of individuals to move to electronic books and other issues that are of no real consequence to the book industry. They did have a segment that covered the disappearance of book reviews called Vanishing Reviews, but for the most part I found the reporting as lackluster as other reporting on the book industry has been.
It almost seems like the subject of reading is some kind of joke to be laughed at as an inconsequential issue. The disappearances of book reviews from American newspapers, which now effects the elites of American intellectualism, receives little to no coverage, even with the NBCC launching a major campaign to "Save Book Reviews." The On the Media story "Vanishing Reviews" mentioned above is an exception and it should be noted that it was broadcast on a holiday weekend to a fairly limited audience.
No one seems to feel urgency that the crisis in American reading deserves. The reasons for the lack of reading in the US is part: lack of education, part: high prices of books, and part: media consolidation. Each issue is an indicator to the shakiness of our "democracy." Each issue is deserving of deep scrutiny by journalists. Each issue tells us that the American people are not getting the information that they need to make good decisions about their lives. It also tells us that Americans are loosing the ability to scrutinize the information that does come through media sources. It makes us a passive and easily malleable people.
I supposed making the clarion cry for the need that America to be concerned and do something about the crisis in reading is left to me and others on the Internet that understand how serious this issue is.
What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
– William Wordsworth, from "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
I've lambasted the Harry Potter books in the past. I've been upset at their unavailability to small booksellers and that the large chain stores have been able to play games with their distribution. (I don't even try to get these books for the release date.) I've also criticized the Harry Potter books for having characters that are shadows of other, more famous and better developed, ones from other books. But I at least hoped that it was causing some kids to become readers, even a little bit. Now it seems that this hope has been dashed across the rocks.
From a New York Times article by Motoko Rich:
"Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits" —
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a series of federal tests administered every few years to a sample of students in grades 4, 8 and 12, the percentage of kids who said they read for fun almost every day dropped from 43 percent in fourth grade to 19 percent in eighth grade in 1998, the year “Sorcerer’s Stone” was published in the United States. In 2005, when “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth book, was published, the results were identical.
If kids (now young adults) are not being pointed to what to read next, then I put the blame on educators and the parents. If a kid is found sinking their teeth into Harry Potter, the transition to other titles should be easy for teachers and parents to find. There are a multitude of worlds for a kid to get lost in, Harry Potter is just the beginning and should cause kids to be life long readers. I know that I got lost on Middle-earth and never wanted to leave. The next books to read are obvious: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; and The Return of the King, then Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn. Then maybe some Jane Austen, then the Brontes, then move on to Sounder, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and then on and on ...
There are so many places to go in books, so many other stories, other times, and other people to meet. Is there a lack of imagination in teachers and parents to point these budding young readers in the right direction, or are Wiis and iPods just that more compelling? I wish I knew.
The Martha Southgate essay that appeared in the New York Times Book Review has sparked a small flame within the black writing community. I responded in my blog post Writers Like Her and other writers responded with many comments from readers on their blogs such as Eisa Ulen, Tayari Jones, and Mosaicbooks. I am really grateful that this much overdue discussion has begun.
In a discussion of today's "Black Literature" it is important remember that there are separate things going on and not to confuse them. It seems to me that there are at least three things going on here. All the issues are related, yet they are different problems:
First, lets look at the money issue -- the root of all evil. This issue has been a problem for artists since the going back to the Renaissance. There is no such thing as a benefactor anymore. No one is bankrolling anybody to be a writer or artist today. So we all have to figure out ways to make money to support ourselves while squeezing in making art during our "free" time.
This brings us to the second point. Some of us in the black community of writers (names will be omitted) began to write "relationship" novels or "black erotica," hoping that they would sell and make some money and that it would only hurt a little. Well, it's like being a little pregnant: the thing grows and eventually takes on a life of its own. It has become "ghetto lit," "street lit," "gangsta lit," booty lit" and, God help us, "black lit".
From "Their Eyes Were Reading Smut" by Nick Chiles —
On shelf after shelf, in bookcase after bookcase, all that I could see was lurid book jackets displaying all forms of brown flesh, usually half-naked and in some erotic pose, often accompanied by guns and other symbols of criminal life. I felt as if I was walking into a pornography shop, except in this case the smut is being produced by and for my people, and it is called "literature."
It has been a vicious cycle: we want to sell books; bad books sell; we sell bad books. Or, for a writer: I want to be a good writer; a good writer sells books; bad books sell; I'll write bad books. (And repeat until we all go crazy.)
I don't sell "booty books," have never sold "booty books," and WILL NEVER sell "booty books." I feel that it is akin to prostitution: The selling of black flesh to make money. I've worked too hard to to get where I am and I will NOT allow myself to become a Bookstore Madam. I held on to that principle right up until the day my doors closed. Should I have succumbed? Maybe on a monetary front, but this way at least I can sleep with myself at night.
I think that it is time to take our collective heads out of the sand and look at the state of our literature, "black" and "white", and make the obligatory groan of disapproval. Can anyone say that "chick lit", which is mostly marketed to white young women, is a giant step for literature? The difference to the way "chick lit" is being marketed is that there is no confusion of "chick lit" with literature. When people talk about "chick lit" it is with a little giggle.
We are on a dangerous slope when we allow the marketing of "street lit" as "black lit". We need to nip this thing in the bud. The association will be a very hard to shake in the future for serious black writers. It is a reality that we must face now. For instance, why is the Harlem Book Fair honoring Omar Tyree with the Phillis Wheatley Book Award? (Uh, oh, she said it. We are in trouble now!) I'm sure that this was done for monetary reasons and not the quality of his work. It has become politically incorrect for a black person to criticise black writers (and hip hop artists, but that is a topic for another day.) "C'mon, the brotha is just tryin' to get paid." But it will be much worse when the criticism comes from outside the community. Trust me, the day is coming and we will all feel ashamed. We can do better and we know it.
This bring us to the third, and I think, the most important issue in this post: the lack of readers of literature. This is a national problem as I have stated in previous posts (NEA Survey of Literary Reading in America and American Readership is Way Down) and not just among black people. The lack of readers, means a lack of sales, and a lack of sales means a lack of money -- the money we need to do our work.
I think that we need to take this thing back. One idea I had is to create an alternative to the bestseller list. (I've never been able to create one that made any sense any way.) Let's create a "Critics list" or "Best Reader's list" in which writers, booksellers, and literary critics vote on the best work being produced every month, one for fiction and one for non-fiction. (This wouldn't be a bad idea for the "greater" community of writers) After all, isn't the bestseller lists just a self-perpetuating guide to what is being read? It is kinda crude to only use sales as a measure to what is worthy of reading. These new lists are not a complete solution to these very complicating set of issues but it could be a start. It's a way of putting a stamp of approval on some of our more worthy books and making a clean separation from the "street lit."
Martha Southgate had a interesting essay in this week's New York Times Book Review called Writers Like Me. In it, she asserts that there aren't enough serious writers of fiction that are black anymore, and that the hardships of being a writer are especially difficult for the African American.
For many black writers, a writing life very rarely unfolds the way it does for so many white writers you could name: know you want to be a writer from the age of 10, get your first book published at 26, go on to produce slowly but steadily over a lengthy career.
This writing life is not typical for writers of any color. It is the fantasy ideal. Writers like Frank McCourt, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Norman Rush have all had wonderful careers that started late in life. The fact is, artists of all types in America will have a tough time. We do not have government support. There is very little support of any kind. We are on our own and until there is an sea change in the American attitude towards the arts this will remain how it is.
I am a 46-year-old writer of “literary” fiction. I’ve had three novels published — the first for young people, the last two for adults. All have won minor prizes, been respectfully reviewed and sold modestly. I’ve been awarded a few fairly competitive fellowships and grants. The business is full of fiction writers like me. With one difference: I’m black, born and raised in the United States.
I am truly glad that Ms. Southgate is enjoying this very privileged experience as a writer. Her assertion that this status is rare is accurate for any writer and not just for an African-American. Writers must "beware the sophomore book." If it doesn't sell well or at least better than the freshman book, they can look forward to getting a up close view of the door and the feel of a metaphorical boot on their backsides. The reasons for this are complex. It's not simply because black readers are reluctant to read sophisticated literature (although, I contend that this is a problem for all American readers.) The reasons also lie in the disappearance of independent bookstores.
Malaika Adero, a senior editor at Atria Books, said: “Literary African-American writers have difficulty getting publicity. The retailers then don’t order great quantities of the books. Readers don’t know what books are available and therefore don’t ask for them. It’s a vicious cycle.”
The loss of bookstores in black communities mean that there is a lack of the oh-so-needed alternative to the poor school system for advice on book reading. There are few bookstores out there where a book can be placed that does not have "popular" appeal. There was a time when a publisher could take a chance and publish a book that would be deemed risky — like, say Giovanni's Room, and there would be a number of stores to choose from where the book might find a home. Now, there is just Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, and Cosco. And Amazon cannot help a book with low publicity; the book will be there but with no help for readers to find it.
So while I am sympathetic to Ms. Southgate's assertions in her essay that there aren't "more of us at the party" the reasons are not just because "the publishing industry remains overwhelmingly white." It is because it remains overwhelmingly in the hands of big business. Large corporations are not conducive to taking risks. They are good at buying smaller companies and squeezing out their creative energy. The end result is a lack of vision on the part of publishers who may see black writers as incapable of grabbing popular appeal. It's creating a segregated reading public and pushing creative writers like Ms. Southgate and other "risky" writers to the margins. Like the saying goes, "when the rest of the country catches a cold, the black community catches pneumonia."
All in all, it was a good haul of books! I already have a pile of books on my night stand. I'm still in the middle of The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi which is beginning to scare me. The tale is creepy but Helen is such a talented writer. Most authors would be ecstatic to be able to write like this by their fifth book. This is her first. It's well crafted with a uniquely honest point of view of a child.
I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. There is so much to choose from. I was thinking that I would read the Neil Gaiman graphic novel, Midnight Days but the Tolkien book looks so tempting...
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