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Minster vs. Southeastern
Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2008 > August
August 2008
shocking video update
Many readers have commented about the shocking video I recently posted of the discovery of a dumpster full of discarded books. If you have not seen this short video you can watch it by clicking here:
Here’s an update on the situation, a letter from Nancy Crow of the Antioch College Alumni Board:
Today at 4:08pm
From Nancy Crow:
To the alumni of our beloved Antioch College:
“Intrepid alumni on the ground in Yellow Springs recently discovered that the University’s clean-up crew has been throwing out books and pamphlets. Many thanks to Gerry Bello ‘97 and Tim Noble ‘02 for making this discovery, and to Gerry for calling me. As I said to him then, the idea of books being tossed is like a knife in my heart. These books are emphatically not subpar items, such as broken furniture or mold-covered mattresses, that would have to be discarded no matter what.
These books and papers, many of them irreplaceable, are a catalogued and erstwhile organized treasure trove of our shared history, and as such, are priceless. They are also part of the legacy for future generations of Antiochians, some of whom are preparing to start classes right now with the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute. No Antioch alum can condone this action; it must stop.
The Alumni Board’s Facilities Committee had asked Milt Thompson for the chance to walk through campus and take an inventory. Milt’s boss, Tom Faecke, has not authorized Milt to pursue this sensible, easily-achieved plan. We recognize that Mr. Faecke is working on a limited budget and is carrying out the task he was assigned of cleaning out and securing buildings, but we strongly urge him to permit the Alumni Board’s authorized representatives to remove caches of paper and memorabilia rather than pitch books and records, regardless of their historic value.
The Alumni Board facilities committee offers to work with the University to halt this needless destruction, and to agree to the common-sense solution of having representatives of the alumni take inventory. Yes, we can avoid misunderstandings and still protect the campus against fire by letting authorized alumni representatives walk through the campus and take inventory. The University Board of Trustees, on which I sit, in its June 7th resolution to start the planning for separation of the College from the University, acknowledged that the future of Antioch College rests on the shoulders of its alumni. We cannot build a future without the incredible work and materials of alumni of past generations.”
They threw our feminist library in the dumpster!
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This First Lady is no chain smoker…
Curtis Sittenfeld hit a publishing home run a few years back with her debut novel, “Prep.” Her latest venture, “American Wife,” promises to be another sensation. It’s the story of a first lady, Alice Blackwell. Her life bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Laura Bush.
Sittenfeld told USA Today that “this is not a biography. If I had sold this as a biography, I would and should be sued.” She made the disclaimer that “85 percent is made up and all the conversations I made up.”
Names and locations appear at a prudent distance from the originals.
Alice grows up in Wisconsin. As a teenager she is involved in a tragic automobile accident. The car wreck was her fault. A boy she loved was killed. This tragedy replicates an actual event.
Alice becomes a librarian. She meets Charlie Blackwell, a young man running for Congress. “He was undeniably handsome, but his bearing was cocky in a way I didn’t like … he also had mischievous eyebrows and a hawk nose with wide nostrils, as if he was flaring them at all times.”
Charlie is a member of a well-connected political dynasty in Wisconsin. The Blackwells made their fortune in the meat business. Alice is stunned when Charlie introduces her to his family and one of Charlie’s brothers recites an obscene limerick about Alice. The family applauds.
The Blackwells are heavy drinkers. Charlie loves to party. Despite everything, Alice and Charlie fall in love and get married. She attends his class reunion with him. His behavior there is out of control. She suspects that he is using cocaine.
In real life, George W. Bush bought a share of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. In the novel, Charlie Blackwell becomes part owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. Charlie’s drinking gets so bad that Alice decides to leave him. Blackwell goes through a mid-life crisis. He had just turned 40 when they briefly separated — sounding familiar? At this low point he finds religion and sobriety, the first steps in his ascent to the highest office in the land.
Sittenfeld has written a sympathetic portrait of a first lady. We feel her loneliness and isolation when she logs on to a computer: “Once or twice a year, I type my name into an Internet search engine — I don’t want to be overly sheltered from what’s out there — and skimming the results makes me feel as if someone is turning a doorknob inside my stomach.
“American Wife” by Sittenfeld is a dangerous book. Sittenfeld’s publisher, Random House, recently pulled the plug on another project that they felt was too risky to publish, a book about the wife of the Prophet Muhammed. “American Wife” is a novel that reads like it has been vetted by a legion of lawyers.
It’s pure fiction, though. This first lady decides to stand up to her husband. Without consulting with President Blackwell first, Alice tells the press that we need to withdraw our troops. The word “Iraq” is never mentioned.
Vick Mickunas
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a video that will shock you!
Libraries are the repositories of the acquired knowledge of human civilization. In my view a library is a sacred place.
Someone sent me a video today that seems to make the case that there might be some who are charged with protecting these sacred repositories of knowledge who are not up to the task. You can draw your own conclusions.
This is a very short video that was apparently taped yesterday. Warning; if books are sacred to you then this film might be profoundly disturbing for you to view:
To watch it click here.
Here is some additional information that just came in from Judith Wolert-Maldonado:
“A simplified back-story to this incident (sorry, not short):
Over a year ago, Antioch University (AU) officials announce the closing of Antioch College (155-year-old Antioch College birthed Antioch University). Antioch College was the largest employer for the village of Yellow Springs.
Antioch College alumni (around the world), faculty, staff and Yellow Springs and Miami Valley residents oppose the closing and organize to keep the college open.
AU officials continuously issue promises to the community that their decision may be changed and engage in negotiations, then “conversations” with key members of the Antioch College Alumni Board and other negotiators on behalf of keeping the college open.
AU officials close the college anyway, in June 2008, having fired the last of the remaining faculty and staff members.
The Antioch College campus is shuttered by the AU officials, with the addition of security cameras placed on campus buildings to document any possible damage done to buildings, etc. It is officially illegal to “trespass” on the property owned now by Antioch UNIVERSITY (the property that belonged to Antioch COLLEGE for over 100 years).
Only faculty and staff were given official communications by AU officials, to empty out their offices before the June closing - the communication that was given to faculty was unexpected and gave little time for them to scramble to move out many years’ worth of their files, books and other important documents.
The book collection that is seen trashed in the dumpster (it was thrown out by Antioch UNIVERSITY, for the record), belonged to a student group, the Womyn’s Center, which was located in the Student Union building, which housed the other student group offices.
No alumni were given official communications by AU officials to empty out the books, files and other important documents from the various offices of the student groups. A few of the student groups referred to here are the Human Rights Group, the Queer Center, BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), Unidad (Latin American student group), the Environmental Group, the Alternative Library (collection of zines and sociopolitical and sociocultural literature collected and archived by students-luckily, this collection is safe) and of course, the Womyn’s Center.
It was reported that an Antioch College Alumni Board member did officially ask AU staff for permission to be granted to Antioch College community members to be given a short amount of time to inventory and salvage those and other campus resources. The University denied the request, after earlier having stated that they would only be removing such things as moldy dorm mattresses, broken bits of furniture, etc, never indicating that they would be also discarding book collections and files. This is why folks are upset.”
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an Easy Rawlins feast
The previous post about my favorite crime fiction writers got me to thinking - I realized that I neglected to mention some of my other faves in the genre.
Walter Mosley for instance. I’m a huge fan of his Easy Rawlins series. How could I forget him? Fortunately, Grand Central Publishing just re-issued four Easy Rawlins novels in paperback.
Wow! What a treat! The titles are:
CINNAMON KISS
LITTLE SCARLET
BAD BOY BRAWLY BROWN
and BLONDE FAITH
Mosley’s depictions of 1960’s Los Angeles as viewed through the eyes of Easy Rawlins, his soulful private eye are simply fabulous. The plotting is intricate and the bad guys are sinister. Somehow Easy always finds a way to solve the case even if that means twisting the laws around a little bit.
I had the opportunity to interview Walter Mosley one time on the radio. He is an incredibly articulate and astute man. He also never took off his hat. The only other guys that I can recall who never removed their chapeaux were cowboy types; Kinky Friedman and Baxter Black. Naturally Kinky gnawed on an unlit stogie for the entire hour.
Hats off to Walter Mosley!
Vick Mickunas
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SLIP OF THE KNIFE
Crime fiction was a late life discovery for me. I never read the stuff. Then, about 15 years ago I started to interview authors on the radio and I came to the realization that I had been missing out on a whole genre of amazing books.
Hundreds of novels later I have my favorites; Robert Crais, James Lee Burke, George Pelecanos, Ian Rankin, and Denise Mina. Rankin and Mina are Scots. Rankin’s final Inspector Rebus novel will be published in America next month. It’s good!
Mina put out SLIP OF THE KNIFE (Little,Brown) in February. I finally found the time to read it. It is tremendous!
Mina’s fans have fallen in love with her protagonist, the journalist Paddy Meehan. We have watched Paddy grow in her profession. When we first encountered Paddy she was a young “copy boy” at a newspaper in Glasgow. Paddy may be overweight but when it comes to finding the story she is a heavyweight.
Over the course of these books she has advanced in her field. In this latest episode she has ascended to the rank of columnist and she is the mother of a five year-old boy. Her maternal instincts become a big part of the plot here. Paddy will do anything to protect her wean (the wee lad).
As the story begins we have the classic crime fiction opening; a soon-to-be corpse. The victim is a journalist and Paddy’s former lover. It looks like an IRA assassination but hey, this is Scotland!? What gives?
Mina gets more brilliant with each book. This is one of my faves so far this year.
Vick Mickunas
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Bill and Hill are sharpening their blades
Are you ready for the big performance? Hillary Clinton will address the Democratic National Convention tonight in Denver. Tomorrow, Bill Clinton will get his shot at the big stage.
Get ready for a deadly amusing pair of speeches. This will be quite the act. The Clintons must pretend that they wish Barack Obama well. Don’t believe it for a moment. Hillary is more likely to appear sincere. Bill will play the ruddy buddy. Don’t look now, are those knives concealed behind their backs?
They want Obama to lose. If he fails to defeat John McCain then you can expect the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign to slip into high gear the very day after the election.
It’s Obama’s election to lose. All those disgruntled Hillaryites who plan to vote for McCain will be pressing their sour grapes into some very bitter whine. I mean wine.
The Democrats should not have to worry about losing this election, right? Do you remember Jimmy Carter? He couldn’t get re-elected in 1980. But four years before he rode the wave of Nixonian disgust right into the White House. Watergate was a second rate burglary that cost the Republicans big time. The Nixon landslide victory of 1972 was swept away by that tsunami of White House corruption and lies.
George W. Bush is deeply unpopular. We are stuck in another quagmire overseas. The economy is circling the drain. Two terms under George W. Bush has meant billions of dollars in deficits with no end in sight.
So, how can the Democrats possibly squander their chance to take back the White House? Just ask Hillary. That gleam in her eyes is the reflection of those sharpened blades and the intent to exact a pitiless revenge upon Barack Obama.
These are strange days. Watch the Clintons as they speak. Those gleams in their eyes are not the lustre of good will or forgiveness.
A bright shining malice glows with avarice and deceit. Beware Barack Obama, your assailants are closer than you realize…
Vick Mickunas
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blogging George Orwell
If George Orwell was alive today he would probably be a blogger according to an article in the New York Times:
August 25, 2008
MEDIA TALK
What George Orwell Wrote, 70 Years Later to the Day
By NOAM COHEN
“Aug. 12 began as a hot morning in Aylesford, Kent, England, only to be followed by a powerful thunderstorm in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the blackberries were beginning to redden.
Aug. 12, 1938, that is.
The observations were made by George Orwell, whose copious diaries are now being published every day in blog form, exactly 70 years after they were made. The scholars behind the project say they are trying to get more attention for Orwell online and to make him more relevant to a younger generation he would have wanted to speak to.
“I think he would have been a blogger,” said Jean Seaton, a professor at the University of Westminster in London who administers the Orwell writing prize and thought up the idea of the blog.
Though as prolific as any blogger (his collected writings occupy some 20 volumes), Orwell, who died in 1950, never had the chance to spontaneously publish his thoughts to a waiting public. Now — with some lag time — they are being made available that way at orwelldiaries.wordpress.com.
The Webmaster has included hyperlinks, including a definition of blackberries (no, not the kind you operate with your thumbs) and a Google map of the sanitorium in Kent in southeast England where Orwell was recuperating from tuberculosis and observing the weather so closely.
The entry from Aug. 10, for instance, is offers this report: “Drizzly. Dense mist in evening. Yellow moon.”
Rest assured, he will soon become consumed by the clouds gathering over Europe. Next month the blog will reprint the entries from the political diary he started Sept. 7, 1938.
“The diary isn’t Orwell at his most polemic; it is Orwell at his most steady, most observant,” Professor Seaton said.
Like any good political blogger, Orwell devoured the news, making clippings and looking for shifts in public and government opinion, Professor Seaton said. “He’s partly obsessed by the newspapers because of the start of the world war,” she said. “The diary is written against this almost traumatized understanding that there is going to have to be a second world war.”
The material being reprinted (with the permission of the Orwell estate) can be found in the Orwell archive at University College in London and in the author’s collected works, but “ordinary people won’t go to it,” she said. “I thought, if you publish what he wrote as he wrote it in real time, people would find that rather engaging.”
Professor Seaton said the site would publish at least until 2010, and had more than 50,000 page views since it started on Aug. 9.
The Orwell blog is not the only effort to inject spontaneity into material written generations ago.
For more than a year, Bill Lamin, 60, a retired mathematics teacher in England, has been publishing the letters of his grandfather, who fought in World War I — 90 years to the day.
Part of the attraction for readers, Mr. Lamin said in an e-mail message, was that “no one knows the outcome, whether he lives or dies from letter to letter.”
While the Orwell blog will not have that level of suspense, Professor Seaton said the material was full of tension.
“You do know how this story is going to end,” she said, “but one of the brilliant things is that Orwell doesn’t know how it is going to end.”
NOAM COHEN
To peruse Orwell’s diaries in blog form click here.
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the joys of wanderlust
In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on an epic journey by train across Asia. In 1975, he published his classic account of that trip, “The Great Railway Bazaar.” This incredible travel story put Theroux on the literary map.
Thirty-three years and some 40 books later, he has re-traced that original journey. He shadowed most of his original route across Europe and into Asia. He recounts the experience in “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.”
He was able to re-create most of his original itinerary. Theroux prefers rail travel. It allows him to savor the sights. Readers encounter the multitude of people that he meets. We eavesdrop on their conversations as he finds out who they are and what they think.
He is a sympathetic listener and a keen observer. These strangers sense that he is an open person. They talk to him about their lives. He asks them what they think about America. Their responses are thought-provoking.
A Turkish scholar observes that “American experts are the problem … they were wrong about the Soviet Union and wrong about Iraq.” Theroux quizzed this professor about possible motives for dispensing poor advice? His response: “Scholars need to validate the status quo, or they lose their funding.”
After Turkey, the author’s next stop was Georgia, the U.S. ally and a former Soviet republic that was invaded last week by Russia. He observes that “with a vocal Muslim country on every border, Georgia was a natural ally of Bush’s so-called war on terror, though I did not meet any Georgian who agreed with American policy.”
Theroux continued east through central Asia on his “Ghost Train.” He gained entry to oil-rich, isolated Turkmenistan which he describes as “desert wasteland, scrubby bushes, and dusty boulders, an emptiness of lizards, and a landscape like cat litter.”
From Uzbekistan he is forced to fly over the troubled tribal areas where Osama Bin Laden is reputed to be hiding. He lands in India and resumes his train trip.
Arriving in Sri Lanka, he arranges a visit with the legendary science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who passed away earlier this year. Clarke was quite ill, but they still managed to have a fascinating conversation.
After a quick flight across the Bay of Bengal, Theroux lands in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and revisits places he enjoyed on his first trip there.
He heads onward to bustling Thailand, primitive Laos, repressive Singapore, depressing Cambodia and vigorous Vietnam.
China merits barely half a page from Theroux: “Who wants to hear people boasting about their greed and promiscuity?”
The author is older and wiser, yet full of mischief. He is delighted to watch a passenger on his train car reading one of his books. He views her reading with the sense of vicarious delight that we experience as this exotic journey unfolds through his eyes.
Vick Mickunas
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He read the entire Oxford English Dictionary
His name is Ammon Shea. He read the entire OED. Then, he wrote a book about the experience. The book is READING THE OED - One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. Quite a feat!
I interviewed Shea recently. Our conversation will air tomorrow (Sunday, August 24) at 10:30am on WYSO Public Radio in Yellow Springs at 91.3fm.
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Classic re-issues of books are a good thing. Still, they make me feel old.
This is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Tom Wolfe’s classic THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST. Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters are scattered like so much pixie dust in the memories of some of us. If you read this book again you can re-connect with the wacky hi-jinks of this wild gang of drug addled wanderers.
Those were different times. Ken Kesey has passed on. Most of the Merry Pranksters are living in retirement homes or dead.
Tom Wolfe is a dignified elder statesman of the New York literary scene in his white suit with his trail of honors. This is the book that made him.
Picador has done a gorgeous job on this re-issue. It has blurbs from some legends. Studs Terkel said “some consider Mailer our greatest journalist, my candidate is Wolfe.” Norman Mailer left us last year. Terkel is hanging on into his mid-90’s. Wolfe still produces. But not like this….
The late Terry Southern (CANDY) once exclaimed that “Tom Wolfe is a groove and a gas. Everyone should send him money and other fine things. Hats off to Tom Wolfe!” Talk about a dated blurb!
It is a great book that has stood the test of time-at least 40 years worth so far…
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Just How Stupid Are We?
For many years I have tried to wrap my mind around the issue of the gullibility of many American voters. When the manipulation often seems so obvious I ask myself “JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE?”
As the battle between Obama and McCain devolves into a Louisiana Swamp Match I have found a book that attempts to answer my eternal question. JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE-Facing the Truth About the American Voter (Basic Books) by Rick Shenkman reveals some incredible factoids about how dumb we are today and how we have always been consistently stupid voters. Exasperating? Yes! But also strangely refreshing?
Voters act like the stock market-unpredictable-contrarian-absurd! I feel better now as I watch the sheep being led about by their noses. That, would be us.
Vick Mickunas
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a fabulous new paperback
One of my favorite books from last year has just come out in paperback. It is getting the recognition it deserves. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction last year. Here’s what I said about it in my year-end round-up:
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”(Riverhead) by Junot Diaz. This story bounces across the pages. Oscar is intelligent, overweight and obsessed. He’s a Dominican kid living in New Jersey with his comic books and a fantasy of one day finding the woman of his dreams. The action shifts to the Dominican Republic, where Oscar becomes enamored with a dangerous female. This inspirational tragedy unfolds with diabolical precision among astonishing footnotes.
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Michael Moore’s Election Guide 2008
The film maker/pundit/author/gadfly/slash/obnoxious guy Michael Moore will publish his “Election Guide” next week.
Here’s a sneak peak:
The back cover has a quote from Republican congressman Tom Davis of Virginia. He says “the Republican brand in in the trash can. If we were dog food, they’d take us off the shelf.”
Moore says “Which begs the question: how many Democrats does it take to lose the most winnable election in American history?”
Moore presents ten presidential decrees for his first ten days. “Mr. Obama, here are ten good ideas you can announce for each of your first ten days in office. (Moore presents a list and the reasons for each decision. I’ll give you the ideas. You’ll need to pick up the book for the reasons).
Bring back the draft.
Anyone who tries to make a profit from healthcare will be arrested.
Ban high fructose corn syrup.
The American people will no longer pay more taxes than the French do.
Ban all commercials in movie theaters.
Defeat Al Qaeda and the next generation of America-haters by building wells.
From now on, when you dial 4-1-1, you will be talking to someone who lives in your town.
Make Social Security solvent until the 22nd century by having the rich pay their fair share.
Update the pledge of Allegiance.
Free HBO for everyone!
Not exactly what you expected from Michael Moore, is it? Pick up the book next week to read the lengthy reasons for Moore’s suggestions to President Obama during his first ten days in office.
There’s lotsa Moore where that came from….you heard it here first.
Vick Mickunas
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win the new book by Brad Meltzer
Brad Meltzer’s new novel, THE BOOK OF LIES (Grand Central) will be released on September 2. I just got a copy today in the mail. Then FedEx came with another copy. So, I thought; I should have a contest and give away this extra copy? Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Here’s a teaser about the book from the inside cover:
“In chapter four of the Bible, Cain kills Abel. It is the world’s most famous murder. But the Bible is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother. That weapon is still lost to history…
Does that pique your interest? I will mail this extra copy of the book to one person who posts a comment in the comments section of this blog post. Here’s what I ask you to do:
Barack Obama and John McCain are busy trying to select their vice-presidential running mates. I want you to comment on who they should pick and why? You can comment on Obama, McCain or both tickets. I will choose the one commenter to receive the book who impresses me the most with her/his comments. Witty comments are good. Intelligent comments will impress me. Clever ones. Funny ones. Dead serious ones. I will judge which one is the winner. So impress me. This contest will end when one or the other candidate announces his choice.
Will McCain anounce his VP choice in Dayton? Some sources seem to think so:
“Politico’s Mike Allen appears to confirm what many already suspected — Sen. John McCain will announce his running mate Aug. 29 — the day after the Democratic National Convention ends, as well as McCain’s birthday — in Dayton, Ohio. According to Allen, the McCain campaign hopes to hold a large rally of up to 10,000 people for the announcement in Dayton, with another appearance with the vice presidential pick in Pennsylvania following soon after.”
Leave a comment. You might win the book. I’ll e-mail the winner so that I can arrange to mail them the book.
Oh, and that reminds me of a Brad Meltzer story……
A number of years ago I interviewed Brad Meltzer on my radio show on WYSO in Yellow Springs. I think it was for his very first novel? He actually came out to the studio and we had a lovely time.
Spring forward to the present. Brad is now a known author. He has topped the NY Times bestseller list. A few months ago I was in Beverly Hills at a party for Ted Turner at Larry King’s house. (it’s a long story).
I was chatting with some folks and a woman asked me to identify myself. She is a producer for Fresh Air. (it’s a long story).
Brad Meltzer was standing at the bar with his back to us. I knew that this producer would know Brad so I said, “ask him, he knows me.” Brad and I had not spoken at the party.
So, the producer said “Brad, do you know this guy?” Meltzer turned toward me, looked me over and said “I’ve never seen this guy before in my life.”
At that point I reminded Brad Meltzer about that hour spent together long ago on the radio in Yellow Springs. He sheepishly admitted to a vague recollection of it.
So, that’s my Brad Meltzer story. Isn’t it wonderful to be remembered?
Win the book. Leave your snappy comments.
Vick Mickunas
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nurture versus nature
THE TURNAROUND by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown)
George Pelecanos starts his latest novel, “The Turnaround,” in 1972. Alex Pappas is thumbing a ride to work at his father’s diner in Washington, D.C.
Alex sees The Rolling Stones on their 1972 concert tour. The opening act is Stevie Wonder.
In 1972, I hitchhiked from Des Moines to Knoxville, Tenn., to catch that same tour. Pelecanos had me right there.
This nostalgia trip ends suddenly when Pelecanos brings us to the scene of a crime. Alex rides along in a car with two of his friends. They decide to drive into a black neighborhood and do something incredibly stupid. The three white youths encounter three black youths along the road, and an ugly racial incident occurs.
In the chaos that ensues we are not quite sure what happens. Somebody pulls a gun. A boy dies. Another suffers a horrific injury. That nostalgic sense of 1972 fades into the rear-view mirror like some hideous dream.
The remainder of “The Turnaround” occurs in the present day. Alex is 35 years older and he runs his father’s diner now. One of his sons has recently been killed in Iraq. Alex takes his leftover desserts to the VA Hospital for the vets who are there recovering from their wounds.
“The Turnaround” presents issues that are vital to Pelecanos, who told me that “Alex is probably the most autobiographical character I’ve ever written.”
The book is dedicated to a family friend who died in Iraq. The author’s father once owned a diner in D.C.
He explained: “I’ve been to the VA Hospital here in D.C. I’ve talked to a lot of veterans who have been in previous wars including the first Gulf War. They get forgotten. These people, unless we keep an eye on the ball and just keep talking about this, will be in a sense forgotten, too, because we’ll be on to the next war and the focus will be on that. But they’ve got to live their lives. So we have to really make sure we keep thinking about them.”
While he is at the hospital, Alex encounters a man who recognizes him. He is one of the fellows who was involved in that tragic incident.
“The Turnaround” presents an object lesson in the power of redemption and the importance of how a person is raised. Pelecanos believes that “anybody who is who they are got there for a reason.”
Pelecanos wrote for the popular TV series “The Wire.” He told me about his latest project.
“I wrote for a year on this show called ‘The Pacific.’ … We follow a group of Marines from the beginning of the war all the way through all the island campaigns to the end. That’s going to be on HBO in 2010. I wrote a couple of hours of that.
“It’s produced by (Steven) Spielberg and (Tom) Hanks. It’s sort of a sequel to “Band of Brothers.”
For Pelecanos, it’s deeply personal. He said: “I did it for my father.”
My interview with Pelecanos felt deeply personal too. Like Pelecanos, I had a father who fought in the Pacific with the Marines. This book resonated with me on many different levels.
Vick mickunas
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The Swift Boating of Barack Obama
Spinmeisters on the hard right are up to their old tricks again. Dr. Jerome Corsi,the author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry has scribbled another toxic diatribe in an attempt to blackball the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.
The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality is already the number one book over at Amazon.com. But Senator John McCain might have accidentally stuck his foot in his mouth and into the tar. Here’s more from the LA Times:
By Seema Mehta
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 16, 2008
ASPEN, COLO. —” An offhand remark Sen. John McCain made to reporters Friday morning is adding kindling to the controversy over an inflammatory new book about Sen. Barack Obama.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was asked by a reporter if he had a response to the best-selling “Obama Nation” by Jerome Corsi, which repeats discredited allegations about Obama and portrays him as a stealth radical with extensive Muslim ties.
McCain stepped toward the reporter, and the journalist repeated the question: “The Jerome Corsi book? That book, ‘Obama Nation,’ Jerome Corsi, that some people are asking … “
The senator replied, “Gotta keep your sense of humor,” and the media were escorted from the room as scheduled at the end of a breakfast meeting.
Campaign spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan soon tried to clarify that the Arizona senator had misheard the question, and said that he thought he was being asked about a political ad.
But Democrats seized on the remark, claiming that McCain was giving the book his tacit seal of approval.
“Despite pledging to run a respectful campaign, McCain is just standing by while Corsi and his publisher, former Dick Cheney aide Mary Matalin, poison this presidential race,” reads an e-mail message from the Democratic National Committee’s rapid-response team, sent to 3.4 million Americans. “Right now, you can take the next step by pushing back on Corsi, the media, and John McCain. Tackle this smear campaign head on.”
The Obama campaign has already released a 41-page, point-by-point rebuttal called “Unfit for Publication” and accused Corsi of being a “discredited liar” who has made “bigoted comments”
Among Corsi’s claims: “Obama wants to will all the white blood out of himself so he can become pure black.”
Democrats are responding vigorously to “Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality” at least partly because of lessons learned in the failed 2004 candidacy of Sen. John F. Kerry.
Four years ago, Corsi and John O’Neill wrote “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,” which accused Kerry of fabricating incidents of bravery and heroism in the Vietnam War.
Many of those claims were later proved false.
But the book’s allegations, which were broadcast in advertisements by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Kerry campaign’s decision to ignore the claims to avoid giving them more publicity are believed to have contributed to his loss to President Bush.
One of the financiers of the Kerry attack ads, T. Boone Pickens, had breakfast Friday with McCain.
Lately, Pickens has focused his efforts on how to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, the topic he took up with McCain.
“We plan on having a similar meeting with Senator Obama in the very near future,” Pickens wrote on his website.”
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hot new audiobooks
Audiobooks are a growing segment in publishing. We lead busy lives. Audiobooks are perfect for those long commutes. They are also ideal when a book just won’t work, in the bathtub, at work, or walking in the rain.
I just finished the audio version of THE TURNAROUND by George Pelecanos (Hachette Audio). I read the book first and I liked it so much that I decided to listen to the audio version to see how that might enhance the pleasure I had already derived from Pelecanos in print.
The book begins in 1972 in Washington, D.C. Some teenagers are enjoying their summer, listening to music, smoking weed, going to concerts. Then they make a foolish decision. A racial incident occurs. When it is over, one boy is dead, another disfigured.
Fast forward to the present and Pelecanos shows us how that reckless moment changed the lives of the boys who were there. This is powerful stuff and Pelecanos cranks up the tension and keeps the criminals slithering along, waiting for their opportunity.
Pelecanos wrote for the highly regarded HBO series THE WIRE. The audiobook is narrated splendidly by Dion Graham who appeared on THE WIRE.
Another favorite crime writer of mine is Lee Child. His latest, NOTHING TO LOSE (Random House Audio) finds his stripped down anti-hero Jack Reacher headed across the country when he stumbles into some strange happenings in Colorado. Between the towns of Hope and Despair Reacher finds riddles, romance, and recycling. A huge plant is recycling damaged vehicles from the Iraq War. There are many questions and Reacher barrels his violent way to finding the answers.
Lee Child keeps getting better and better. Both books feature writing by authors at the top of their respective games. Each book has themes inspired by the war in Iraq. The Pelecanos audiobook is abridged. The Child is unabridged and read quite well by Dick Hill, named a Voice of the Century by AudioFile Magazine.
Listen to an audiobook today.Next up I plan to listen to RULES OF DECEPTION by Christopher Reich.
Vick Mickunas
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Julia Child was a spy ?
We knew her as a fantastic chef, a raconteur, and cookbook author. The late Julia Child loved a good sauce and the occasional nip. It has now been revealed that she was also a spy during WWII according to newly revealed secret documents. The Times of London has the story:
“One was a historian and assistant to John Kennedy, another was the chef who first introduced French cuisine to American households, and a third was the father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.
In their every day lives they had nothing in common but Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Julia Child and Miles Copeland shared a secret life - serving in an international spy ring at a time when Hitler was threatening the world.
Their work and that of thousands of other members of the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA, will be revealed today when previously classified files are opened by the National Archives in the USA. For the first time, the files identifiying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralised intelligence agency will be released and the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives exposed.”
The late Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was a spy, too!? Amazing! One spy became an eminent historian. Another spy became a famous chef. One never knows does one?
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Dowd dunks Hillary
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd verbally eviscerates Bill and Hillary Clinton in her column today.
Here is how she closes it:
“Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that “demeaning portrayals of women … dampen the dreams of our daughters.” This, even though postmortems, including the new raft of campaign memos leaked by Clintonistas to The Atlantic — another move that undercuts Obama — finger Hillary’s horrendous management skills.
Besides the crashing egos and screeching factions working at cross purposes, Joshua Green writes in the magazine, Hillary’s “hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.”
It would have been better to put this language in the platform: “A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.”
OUCH!
The upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver should be quite interesting. What do you think? (note 24 hours after the publication of Dowd’s column it is the most e-mailed article at the NY Times).
Vick Mickunas
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Nineteen Minutes selected for Big Read
The ballots have been tabulated and the upcoming literary selection for our community wide reading event the BIG READ has been chosen…..(drumroll)…and the winner is NINETEEN MINUTES by Jodi Picoult.
Did you vote for it? Have you read it? What do you like about it?
Read on with the BIG READ.
Vick Mickunas
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is this the start of World War Three?
Am I the only one who is feeling troubled about the Russian invasion of Georgia? Russia has invaded a country that is our ally. They are bombing it and ground troops are moving in. Is this the beginning of Russia’s move to re-claim the scattered pieces of the former Soviet Union?
If it is, then they sure picked a good time. The United States is overextended militarily. Our hollow victory over the Taliban has proven to be fleeting. We remain bogged down in Iraq. Our service people are stretched to the max.
Our economy is circling the drain. Meanwhile, Russia is fat with cash from oil, natural gas, etc. A report in the New York Times stated that “Russia, emboldened by windfall profits from oil exports, is showing a resolve to reassert its dominance in a region it has always considered its “near abroad.”
And Russia is not bogged down in any wars. Or, at least they weren’t until now.
What do you think? Where’s the United Nations? Will America intervene on behalf of our ally? Is this the beginning of WWIII?
Vick Mickunas
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remembering Isaac Hayes
Soul music legend Isaac Hayes died today. He put out a soul food cookbook a few years ago. They don’t make food like that these days. Or music.
Here’s more from the New York Times:
Isaac Hayes, Deep-Voiced Soul Icon, Is Dead at 65
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:02 p.m. ET
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless ”Theme From Shaft” won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said. He was 65.
A family member found him unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff’s office. The cause of death was not immediately known.
In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap.
His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show ”South Park.”
Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes’ wife and young son and his wife’s cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff’s deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived.
”The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor,” Shular said.
The album ”Hot Buttered Soul” made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.
”Hot Buttered Soul” was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a ”cool” style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with ”raps,” and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.
”Jocks would play it at night,” Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. ”They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever.”
Next came ”Theme From Shaft,” a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film ”Shaft” starring Richard Roundtree.
”That was like the shot heard round the world,” Hayes said in the 1999 interview.
At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television’s 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.
”The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence,” he said. ”And they’ll tell you if you ask.”
Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
”I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that,” he said. ”I think it was a matter of timing. I didn’t know what was unfolding.”
A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.
He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as ”Hold On, I’m Coming” and ”Soul Man.”
All this led to his recording contract.
In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album ”Black Moses” and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for ”Tough Guys” and ”Truck Turner” besides ”Shaft.” He also did the song ”Two Cool Guys” on the ”Beavis and Butt-Head Do America” movie soundtrack in 1996.
Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon’s ”Nick at Nite” and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.
He was in several movies, including ”It Could Happen to You” with Nicolas Cage, ”Ninth Street” with Martin Sheen, ”Reindeer Games” starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody ”I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka.”
In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as ”a person that speaks his mind; he’s sensitive enough to care for children; he’s wise enough to not be put into the ‘whack’ category like everybody else in town — and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies.”
But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion. ”There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins,” he said.
Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes ”has no problem — and he’s cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians.” A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.
Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.
Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole’s ”Looking Back.”
He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.
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The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard
When Erin McGraw was growing up in Southern California, her parents told her stories about her paternal grandmother. These stories were so amazing to McGraw that she was inspired to write an historical novel based upon her grandmother’s life.
The resulting book, “The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard,” distills the essence of what McGraw learned about that side of her family and weaves it seamlessly into this fictional narrative about the Los Angeles of a century ago.
“Seamstress” is the fictional story of Nell Plat. It begins in a new century. The year is 1901, Nell lives in rural Kansas with her husband and her in-laws in a sod house. At 17 years of age, Nell is already the mother of one baby and another one is on the way. She’s very unhappy.
It was a hard life out on the prairie. They were just barely getting by. Nell was a terrible cook. The only talent that she seemed to possess was her ability to sew. She loved to make dresses for her daughter. She began to earn some money by making clothes for women in the nearby town.
She had a dream of one day going to California. She secretly saved up her money to buy a train ticket to Los Angeles. Shortly after the birth of her second child, Nell deserted her family and moved away without telling anybody where she was going.
This is exactly what McGraw’s grandmother did in 1901. Her family history gets sketchy after that so McGraw, a professor of creative writing at Ohio State University, imagined what might have happened next for her fictional narrator, Nell.
Nell moves to Los Angeles, where the film industry is just beginning to take root in sunny Hollywood. She works hard, saving her pennies as she builds a career for herself as a seamstress to affluent women who value her skills at re-creating the latest French designs.
She re-creates herself, never looking back. California was a magnet for small-town girls from the Midwest who dreamed of becoming movie stars. McGraw’s account of the burgeoning film industry during this period as America passed through WWI and into the Jazz Age of the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition is superbly told.
Nell becomes a seamstress for the movie studios. She marries a lovely man and starts a new family. Her daughter Mary is the perfect child. Her past life is nearly forgotten. Her husband knows nothing about the two daughters abandoned 20 years before.
One day the doorbell rings. Two women are on the doorstep. Nell doesn’t recognize them. Yet they look strangely familiar. This really happened to McGraw’s grandmother. Truth can be stranger than fiction. We cannot run away from our past no matter how hard we try.
So we try again. “This time, we say, this time we will make selves that are shining.”
McGraw took kernels of truth and whipped them into one heck of a novel.
Vick Mickunas
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John Edwards: he of the burning pantaloons
Barack Obama’s short list of potential running mates just got shorter. You can scratch off the former Senator, John Edwards.
Edwards has gotten himself embroiled in a sex scandal. He has lied. He has denied. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Headlines are blaring about his LOVE CHILD. Now the former Edwards campaign worker’s family is demanding a PATERNITY TEST.
When last seen Senator Hot Pants was running down the avenue. His pants were still on fire. Ouch!
Vick Mickunas
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Random House axes novel about Muhammad’s wife
The book, The Jewel of Medina, was supposed to be published next week. The publisher, Random House, decided that putting out a book about the wife of the prophet Muhammad might not be such a smart idea. For the story from the Wall Street Journal: click here.
I just looked over at Amazon.com to see if the book was still listed there. There was nothing. POOF! Like it never existed.
Vick Mickunas
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you can be a star on YouTube
YouTube has changed the viewing habits of millions. Are you a part of the YouTube revolution?
I’ll admit that I watch videos on YouTube almost daily. You know how that works; your friends send you links, you want to see what Paris Hilton said about John McCain or what Barack Obama said about Paris Hilton. It never ends.
A new book, 15 Minutes of Fame - Becoming a Star in the YouTube Revolution (Alpha) by Frederick Levy claims to be a primer that will give you the chops that might make you a star on YouTube.
This book proposes ideas for the content that works best on YouTube and what to avoid. It provides instruction on uploading your videos from your cell phones and webcams. It even tries to help you to understand what Hollywood agents look for on YouTube that could lead to that big discovery: you on the tube.
I’m reading it now. Heady stuff indeed. I’m not positive that my 15 minutes hasn’t already passed but hey, I’m still learning. Are you?
Vick Mickunas
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Mike’s Election Guide 2008
Those of us who attended the recent Book Expo America conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center were greeted by a humongous banner featuring the smirking visage of the filmmaker and writer Micheal Moore. The banner warned HE’S BACK!
Moore was a no-show at the convention. He was supposed to appear on Saturday but claimed that bad weather in the Chicago area prevented him from coming to California. Right. About 10 years ago I had an interview scheduled with Moore on my radio show on WYSO. I was waiting with my own film crew to film Moore as he arrived in Yellow Springs. He never showed up. No phone call. Nothing.
I called his publicist in New York and she was quite agitated. It seems that Moore was being very naughty on his book tour. He kept vanishing and skipping out on his schedule. The day that he stiffed me he turned up on a picket line at the Delco plant in Dayton.
The following morning I tracked down Moore at his hotel in Cincinnati for a phone interview. He was properly contrite. I told him that I was bummed to have missed out on having him in studio, getting his autograph, basking in his massive ego, yada yada.
Moore asked me for my address. He promised to inscribe a copy of his book at the time, DOWNSIZE THIS and that he would mail it to me with his regards. That was 10 years ago. The US Postal Service can be slow I know. Hey, the mail is here. Maybe it’s here? hahahaha
Some people at Book Expo seemed surprised when Moore didn’t show up. I wasn’t. That’s just par for the course. You see he really cares about the little people. You knew that.
No hard feelings. Mike has a new book coming out in a few weeks. Mike’s Election Guide 2008 is being issued in paperback just in time for us to peruse it before the election.
I for one am looking forward to it. Mike may be a total jerk but he has a sense of humor and progressive values. Lots of jerks do.
I won’t bother to try to schedule an interview with Micheal Moore. I have enough aggravation.
By the way, the cover of this new book is the same image that greeted us at BEA. How did he learn to to smirk like that? Has he been hanging out with Shrub?
Vick Mickunas
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I miss Manny Ramirez
What a crummy deal. The Boston Red Sox literally gave away the future Hall of Famer last week. The Los Angeles Dodgers were the lucky recipients. Their manager, the former Yankee skipper Joe Torre was left virtually speechless. Manny is the greatest hitter in baseball. I’m speechless too.
The novelist Elizabeth Berg had a great write-up in the Milwaukee newspaper. It provides a lovely snapshot of her life and work. To peruse it click here.
Last week I taped an interview with Ammon Shea. He read the entire Oxford English Dictionary then wrote a book about it. It’s called READING THE OED-One Man, One Year, and 21,730 Pages. Last week Shea’s book got a glowing review in the New York Times. To read the review click here.
Fans of Donald Ray Pollock’s short story collection KNOCKEMSTIFF will enjoy this article from today’s New York Times: click here.
Manny, Manny, Manny. I miss that guy so much! The last time I saw Manny was in October of last year when Boston was playing in Cleveland for the American League Championship. It was also the last game that Boston lost to Cleveland before charging ahead to win that title and then, sweeping the World Series. Manny crushed a home run that night. As he watched the flight of the ball out of one of his favorite ballparks all we could do was admire Manny admiring Manny.
Then there was the time a few years ago when I saw the Red Sox play the White Sox in Chicago. Manny was out in left field when a ball was hit his way. He completely misjudged it and the ball went sailing over his head for a double. When they re-played his buffoonery on the JumboTron he turned completely around to admire himself botching the play on the instant replay. He loved it.
We loved it too, Manny.
Vick Mickunas
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Pelosi wants Edwards for V.P. (not John)
The WACO TRIBUNE HERALD reports that “In an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi again touted U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco as a good choice to be Barack Obama’s running mate.
“I just wanted people to be aware of the extraordinary credentials of Chet Edwards. And I hope he will be the nominee,” Pelosi said. “He is an extraordinarily talented person. He is a champion for veterans in the Congress.”
Speaker Pelosi just published a book, KNOW YOUR POWER -A Message to America’s Daughters (Doubleday). What do you think of Pelosi’s suggestion of Chet Edwards as Barack Obama’s running mate?
Did you expect Pelosi to suggest a woman to share the ticket with Obama? Who do think would make an appealing vice-presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket? And who do you think would make an attractive ticket with John McCain on the Republican side?
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The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
“The Lace Reader” by Brunonia Barry, (William Morrow, 390 pages, $25).
“The Lace Reader” is one of the most highly anticipated books in recent memory. This debut novel by Brunonia Barry is the beneficiary of a media blitz that made this reviewer wonder how it could ever live up to the publicity it is receiving.
Readers realize from the opening words of “The Lace Reader” that our perceptions are about to be challenged. It begins: “My name is Towner Whitney. No, that’s not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.”
Towner or Sophya is the primary narrator of the story. She continues: “I am a crazy woman…That last part is true.” As the story opens Towner has returned to her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts after a long absence. Her great-aunt Eva has been missing for ten days. Towner came from California to help out with the search.
We discover that Towner left the Salem area years ago after the death of her twin sister, Lyndley. Salem was the setting for the notorious Salem Witch Trials. When Towner arrives in town it is 1996 and the area has become a tourist attraction based on this dark history.
Barry grew up in the area and she explains in the book that “the truth was, there were no witches in old Salem, but they thrived here in great numbers now.” The lace readers of the title were women who could pred ict the future by interpreting the patterns they saw in pieces of lace.
The Salem depicted in “The Lace Reader” is a mecca for all manner of alternative lifestyles and beliefs. Towner possesses the gift of lace reading. She learned how from her great aunt but she refuses to practice it. Towner is constantly hearing voices inside her head. She can read minds.
Her memory has been damaged by the electro-shock therapy that she underwent after the death of her twin. “The Lace Reader” submerges us within the thoughts and dreams haunting her troubled soul. Rafferty, a sympathetic policeman, provides a more grounded viewpoint that offsets and stabilizes Towner’s confused narrative.
The twins were separated at a young age. Towner’s mother runs a shelter for abused women on an island in the harbor. Packs of wild dogs live in caves on the island. As “The Lace Reader” unspools we are drawn into a whirling vortex of deceit. Barry untangles these confusing strands of mystery with an artful precision that justifies the hype her book has garnered.
Barry’s depictions of her characters’ altered states of consciousness are beautifully rendered. “This can’t be happening. This must be a dream. Or a hallucination. I have to fight to stay here. Part of me is already going away, distancing myself from the inevitable. I am going under.”
Towner seeks the missing parts of herself; her memories , her connection to life, her lost twin. Through the darkness the light will be revealed.
“The Lace Reader” establishes Brunonia Barry as a force in the mystery genre.
Vick Mickunas
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how many Kindles has Amazon sold?
Amazon.com rolled out the Kindle, their paperless reading device, late last year. Ever since then, inquiring minds have wondered how many Kindles Amazon has sold?
According to an article in the Washington Post the answer is A LOT:
We Know How Many Kindles Amazon Has Sold: 240,000
Erick Schonfeld
TechCrunch.com
“Ever since Amazon launched the Kindle last November, we’ve been wondering about just how successful it’s been. The electronic book initially sold out and supplies have been tight. The Kindle is such a small part of Amazon’s overall business that the company does not break out how many it’s sold. But we found out anyway: 240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November, according to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers.
Doing a little back of the envelope math, that brings total sales of the device so far to between $86 million and $96 million (the price of the device was reduced to $360 from $400 last May). Then add the amounts spent on digital books, newspapers, and blogs purchased to read on the device, and you get a business that has easily brought in above $100 million so far. (Each $25 worth of digital reading material purchased per Kindle, add $6 million in total revenues).
These numbers gel with what Wall Street analysts have been predicting. And if a new Kindle comes out targeted at the textbook/school market, sales could ramp up higher.
Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., predicts that Amazon is on track to sell 500,000 to 750,000 more Kindles over the next four quarters (including this one). He estimates that Kindle owners will buy an additional $120 to $150 worth of books and other content for each device, bringing the total revenues over that time period to somewhere between $225 million and $355 million. Based on that, he values the Kindle as a $1 billion business for Amazon.
Back in May, Citi analyst Mark Mahaney was estimating that total sales of Kindle’s this year would only reach 189,000. That number may have already been surpassed (depending on how many of the 240,000 units Amazon sold before January). His estimate called for 467,000 units to be shipped next year, and 2.2 million in 2010, resulting in total revenues going from $60 million in 2008 to $741 million in 2010. It might be time for him to revise those numbers upward.”
I spoke to a Kindle user this morning. I asked him how he likes it? He raved about it! He said that he had bought it right after the initial roll-out and that it is everything he had hoped for in a paperless reading device.
I asked him about the battery life of the Kindle? He was very satisfied with that aspect of it. He said that the design is such that the battery life is good and that he gets extended use of the device before having to re-charge it.
His favorite thing about the Kindle is his ability to read newspapers like the New York Times. He said that he frequently turns on his Kindle before even getting out of bed in the morning so he can read the newpaper at his leisure.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to read the Dayton Daily News on a Kindle? With the current pace of technological change who knows? It could happen.
Amazon.com really knows how to sell the Kindle and the content for it. The current top download at Amazon for the Kindle is Spirit House: A Vincent Calvino Crime Novel by Christopher G. Moore. The publisher, Grove/Atlantic and Amazon.com have a special promotion going where readers can download the beginning of the book for free. Now that is smart business.
Vick Mickunas
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Karin Slaughter returns to Dayton tonight
Crime fiction novelist Karin Slaughter returns to Dayton tonight for an appearance to publicize her latest thriller, FRACTURED.
She will visit Books & Co. at 350 East Stroop Road in the Town and Country Shopping Centre tonight at 7 o’clock. Slaughter is one of the rising stars in this genre. She also has the perfect name; SLAUGHTER. Wow!
If you get a chance stop by the bookstore tonight. I had a long conversation with Slaughter last year at Book Expo. She is totally charming.
I interviewed her the last time that she came through town and wrote the following piece about it:
In the opening scene of Karin Slaughter’s latest thriller, “Beyond Reach,” someone has parked a Cadillac Escalade in a small town in rural Georgia and set it on fire. “No plates or registration on it, so we’re having trouble tracking it down. Parked right in the middle of the football field.”
Detective Lena Adams is apprehended nearby and placed under arrest.
Lena works for Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver 100 miles away in Grant, Ga. Tolliver’s wife is Sara Linton, the town pediatrician and part-time medical examiner. Lena, Jeffrey and Sara are the main characters in this crime series. Jeffrey and Sara head for Reese when they get the word on Lena.
Slaughter concocts intricate plots. Neo-Nazi drug gangs are running operations in the area. Lena’s uncle Hank is involved somehow.
She describes the raw troops that feed this insidious trade: “It’s the same old story; they go after the teenage boys who feel misunderstood and isolated and they give them a family to be a part of, a belief system to explain why the fact that they’re white hasn’t saved them from being poor. They pump them full of hate and put a gun in their hand.”
Slaughter explains the attraction of her books. “I think it’s becoming slowly acceptable for people to be interested in violence - it certainly is part of our culture now. It’s no longer a subculture,” she said.
“Especially among women there has always been a huge interest in crime fiction. More women are readers statistically. Women are more likely to be the victims in some of these books, certainly. But there’s always going to be justice. I think that that knowledge that the bad guy is always going to get caught is something that really appeals to a lot of us.”
She says, “I write a lot about social issues in my books.” Her visit here will also highlight the work of the Artemis Center in Dayton. “My books talk a lot about domestic violence and abuse against children - Artemis seemed like a perfect fit.” With seven books and 12 million copies in print Slaughter is enjoying herself. “I still get a little thrill in my heart when I see my books on the shelf.”
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