May 29, 2003

BookExpo in LA

This weekend BookExpo will be at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Here's the official website and a list of their special events, which include discussions/readings with the likes of Marjane Satrapi (of Persepolis fame) or Jhumpa Lahiri (who will talk about her new novel, The Namesake)

May 28, 2003

jayson blair fiasco

I haven't blogged about the whole Jayson Blair fiasco, mainly because it didn't surprise me one bit. But for those who want the latest on that story, journalism.org maintains a list of sites.

la finca de ernesto

Anthony Boadle writes about Finca Vigia, near Havana, where Hemingway lived for some 20 years.

May 27, 2003

how to fake a hard day at the office

"David Wiskus gives new meaning to the term "working lunch." The Denver tech-support worker installed a program on his Handspring Visor hand-held that allowed him to manipulate the screen on his office computer from a booth at a local diner. As he lingered for hours over burgers and fries, he could actually open windows and move documents around on his screen via the hand-held -- creating the impression to anyone who walked by that the diligent Mr. Wiskus had just stepped away from his desk." How to Fake A Hard Day at the Office
Via the Morning News.

world's oldest book

The world's oldest multiple-page book, a six-page manuscript in the Etruscan language, has gone on display in Bulgaria's National History Museum in Sofia.

hell freezes over

I never thought I'd see a turn-around like this one. Ariel Sharon actually used the word 'occupation' in reference to Israel: "I think that the idea of keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is the worst thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and also for the Israeli economy." And, predictably, his core supporters are confused.

May 22, 2003

gordimer profile

"Despite dozens of books and short stories chronicling the intimacy and complexity of human relations, Gordimer's personality remains elusive. Long ago she was dubbed the symbol of South Africa's restless white conscience and today, with apartheid a memory and Gordimer approaching her 80th birthday, that is what she remains - a symbol. Of the woman little is known. "
The Guardian profiles Nadine Gordimer.

more misery in algeria

800 people have died in yesterday's earthquake in Algeria. Go to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies website if you wish to make a donation.

from the oddly enough files

Wife insures herself for £100,000 against becoming ugly. Insert your own joke here.

liar, liar

First it was the staged toppling of the Saddam statue, now reports are emerging that the rescue of PFC Lynch was a well-orchestrated news stunt as well. I guess the bit of sarcasm here was well-earned.

May 21, 2003

lit reviews at Amazon

Amazon.com reviewers are getting increasingly noticed by publishers. This Boston Globe article profiles Amazon.com top seventh reviewer, Francis McInerney. Along the same lines, Book magazine had an article a while back on America's "biggest readers," and it featured Amazon's top reviewer, librarian Harriet Klausner.

a page from Ashcroft's book

Morocco's reaction to the bombings of last weekend: Speeding through Parliament new anti-terror laws that limit civil liberties. It took years of efforts by human rights activisists to gain those liberties under the old regime, and now that they are in place under the current king, they're going to get severely curtailed. Will it help?

May 20, 2003

'my name is red' wins award

Orhan Pamuk's novel My Name is Red has just won the very substantial IMPAC Dublin literary award.

another sad one

..and in non-literary news from Turkey, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Ankara. Could it be that all those predictions about increased terror in the aftermath of the Iraq war are starting to come true?

May 17, 2003

new all-story

The new Zoetrope All-Story is up online and it has a story by the amazingly talented Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie. The issue has tons of good stuff, so just read it all or better yet, buy the magazine.

May 16, 2003

more lit organizations against Patriot Act

A national coalition of publishers, authors, librarians, and booksellers has called on Congress to modify the Patriot Act to disallow inspections of patrons' book-buying and -borrowing habits. Read the Boston Globe article here.

a very sad first

I never thought something like this could happen in Morocco, but it has: At Least 20 Die in Casablanca Blasts. One bomb was near a synagogue, one near the Belgian consulate, one near the Casa de Espana, a great restaurant that had become somewhat of a landmark. I actually had dinner there once many years ago.
I wonder whether this will finally turn whatever tide of support the fundamentalist fringe has at the moment in the country. Update from the BBC.

May 14, 2003

lit agents of change

The Washington Post has a piece on young Egyptian writers who are bucking the nostalgia trend: Literary agents of change.

george of the jungle

"By now, everyone is aware that America has become a two-tier society in which CEOs make 200 times more than their workers (it was only 40-1 in 1980) and political candidates woo wealthy contributors but scrupulously avoid even mentioning the poor. What makes the Bush administration distinctive is its embrace of a philosophy we might dub Populist Social Darwinism. It boasts of returning power to ordinary people ("we want to give you back your money"), then pursues policies that will produce a few highly visible winners and unravel the social safety net, leaving the majority of people to fend for themselves."
John Powers explains his comparison of Bush's policies with Darwin's theories in his L.A. Weekly piece, George of the Jungle

May 12, 2003

he's adjusted to america already...

Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who took great risk to help save PFC Jessica Lynch, has a book deal with Harper Collins for his take on the much talked about rescue.

moore on 911

Looks like Michael Moore has Miramax's backing and marketing savvy for his new documentary, Fahrenreit 911, which is about the alleged relationship between the Bush and Bin Laden families. The movie will be out before the next elections. Should be interesting.

May 11, 2003

Salam Pax returns

In case you haven't heard, Baghdad blogger Salam Pax is now back online. Go check him out. Then come back and tell me what you think.

the woes of child migrants

"Many of [these poor Moroccan] youngsters see the road out of poverty not in some apprenticeship, but on a map. For them, hope begins in nearby Ceuta, a Spanish outpost on the tip of North Africa that is Europe's door, just eight miles from mainland Spain.
In a pattern alarming social workers and irking Spanish politicians, these children, who range in age from 10 to 17, are immigrating to Spain on their own, often risking their lives as they cross the Strait of Gibraltar."
The Christian Science Monitor has an article on the tragedy of Moroccan child migrants who risk their lives to go to Spain. A must read.

Mother's Day poem

Sacred Law

They say that life has waned in my
body, that my veins emptied themselves
like wine presses; I feel only the relief in
my breast after a great sigh!
--Who am I, I ask myself, to have a
child on my knees?
And I answer myself:
--One who loved, and whose love
asked, when she received the kiss, for
eternity.
Let the Earth look at me with this
child in my arms, and bless me; for, yes,
now I’m as fruitful as the palm trees

--Gabriela Mistral

LA SAGRADA LEY

Dicen que la vida ha menguado en
mi cuerpo, que mis venas se vertieron
como los lagares: ¡yo sólo siento el
alivio del pecho después de un gran
suspiro!
--¿ Quién soy yo, me digo, para tener
un hijo en mis rodillas?
Y yo misma me respondo:
--Una que amó, y cuyo amor pidió,
al recibir el beso, la eternidad.
Me mire la Tierra con este hijo en los
Brazos, y me bendiga, pues ya estroy
Fecunda como las palmas.

Gabriela Mistral

May 09, 2003

on hiatus

Unexpected (but happy) events have kept me from blogging. I hope to start posting again soon, perhaps as early as Sunday. Stick around. There'll be lots of new stuff.

May 02, 2003

who killed daniel pearl?

It was almost a year and a half ago that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed in Pakistan, a country that the Administration counted as an ally in its declared war on terror. The official version of Pearl's death is that he was due to meet a man who may have inspired Richard Reid to become the shoe-bomber. Pearl was kidnapped at the meeting, and the man who was subsequently arrested for the crime turned out to be Omar Sheikh.

In an explosive new book (Qui a Tue Daniel Pearl?) published in France this week, Bernard-Henry Levy, the widely respected French philosopher and writer, draws portraits of Pearl and Sheikh. Both had double nationalities: Israeli-American for Daniel Pearl, and Pakistani-British for Omar Sheikh. Both had middle class childhoods. Both went to very prestigious schools. So how did they end up on opposite ends of this conflict? In addition to the human side of this conflict, Bernard-Henry Levy also followed the facts. He spent a year retracing Pearl's itinerary in Pakistan. His findings? That Omar Sheikh worked for the ISI, Pakistan's secret service, and that Daniel Pearl was killed because he was about to uncover links between the ISI and Al-Qaeda, links which could have included the transfer of nuclear weapons.

The book is already in best-seller lists in France. But fear not, dear anglophile reader. It will be published in the United States and Britain by Melville House books in just a few months. There's even a blurb about it in the NY Post.

tolkien by chomsky

McSweeney's has recovered the "lost DVDs" of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, deconstructed by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. Fun stuff.
Link via SubIntoc.

May 01, 2003

Iagnemma's Phrenologist

I liked Karl Iagnemma's story "Zilkowsky's Theorem" in the 2002 BASS so it was a special treat to discover he has a new story in the current issue of Zoetrope-All Story: "The Phrenologist's Dream". And while I'm at it, I might as well mention he has his own website.

castro's attraction

still holds strong, despite the recent crackdowns on dissidents, with people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

what a difference a presidency makes

I saw this bit on Jon Stewart's Daily Show a couple of days ago: Governor Bush vs. President Bush.

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04.30: Claremont, California
09.23-10.04: International Literature Festival Berlin

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