Bookdwarf

Seriously, what’s going on here? I don’t want to thank Michael Schaub for this link because I was better off not knowing.

Seriously, what’s going on with Michiko? First AM Homes: A. M. Homes’s dreadful new novel, “This Book Will Save Your Life,” reads like a cartoon illustration for a seminar on men and middle age — a pastiche of all that is hokey, hackneyed and New Agey in Robert Bly’s “Iron John” and Gail Sheehy’s “Understanding [...]

I just got home from seeing Paul Rusesabagina speak at a store sponsored event at the First Parish Church in Cambridge. He’s touring to promote his new biography An Ordinary Man, which I reviewed here last week. He’s an amazing speaker, and received several standing ovations from the 600 or so people that packed the [...]

Kaavya Viswanathan has responded finally to the allegations that she cribbed passages of her book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life from earlier books Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. Apparently she “internalized” the stories according to this Harvard Crimson article. Other than that, she doesn’t say much else.

Like I just said, it’s Ticknor week over at the LBC website. There will be interviews, podcasts, and general book discussion. It’ll be fun!

It’s happening in my own backyard. According to this article in the Crimson and also in today’s Globe, Kaavya Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life might contain passages that are similar to a book called Sloppy First, published by Random House. Viswanathan, a Harvard sophmore, received a half a [...]

I’ve been a bit under the weather, so I neglected to report on David Mitchell’s appearance last week at Harvard Book Store. I tried to record it, but the recording isn’t all that great. I will try to clean it up and get it uploaded. He had trouble getting into the country last week due [...]

How does one review a memoir that details living through the Rwandan genocide in 1994? Paul Rusesabagina, manager of the Hotel Milles Collines, writes about his experience during that dark time in his new memoir. If you’ve seen the movie Hotel Rwanda, which is based on his life, you’ve seen some of the most visceral, [...]

The latest round of selections and discussions from the Litblog Co-op starts today at the LBC blog. This season’s Read This! pick is Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated by Jordan Stump (Dalkey Archive, 2004). I enjoyed this book immensely and Dalkey provided us with an excerpt to post, so you can get a sense of [...]

I would like to congratulate Leila Lalami, author of the wonderful Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, on being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. She will be moving to Casablanca for 9 months conducting research on Islamic extremism and secular movements for her next book. I wish her well on her journey.

For a rainy Friday afternoon: The Spring 2006 Read This! Selection will be announced Monday, April 17th! Check the website out to see what’s in store and to read about a few changes we’ve made to the process. It should be a lot of fun–there were some good titles this round. The Morning News Tournamnet [...]

Sarah Waters visited my store today to what we call a drive-by. She’s reading tonight at Simmons College as part of the Center for New Words. Typically if an author has time, they visit other local stores to sign stock. So she came by and I got to meet her and have her sign my [...]

I’ve gone on before (I know, I don’t shut up about it) about the importance of shopping locally. Here’s a great article from the Cambridge Chronicle that discusses local efforts here in Cambridge, MA. Frank Kramer, owner of the store in which I work Harvard Book Store, has lots to say. “It’s not just ’Support [...]

Gay Talese on the Frey “memoir” fiasco: “You try to get it 100% accurate. You keep going back and checking, go back again and again. ‘Did I get it right?’” he says. “I’m sounding preachy, I know. But I have these principles or pretensions or whatever you want to call it.” -from PW April 3, [...]

I can’t believe it took me this long to notice this. I am hoping that it was just for this one Sunday The Boston Globe appears to be shrinking the entire Ideas section, which includes the Book Review. I had noticed that the Ideas part had lost a page a few weeks ago—what happened to [...]

Can you believe it’s snowing here (Cambridge, MA)? It’s April! C’mon, cut us a break up here. For those of you stuck indoors here’s some interesting links I’ve found: Louise Solano, owner of the Grolier Poetry Shop (next door to my own store) has sold the store to a new owner. According to this article [...]