Home > The Book Page > Archives > 2008 > February
February 2008
A new home for the book blog
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Loyal readers: Starting Monday March 3, The Book Page is moving. It’s now going to be a part of our Atlanta Arts blog.
Here is the link. And here is it typed out: http://www.accessatlanta.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/accessatlanta/atlarts/.
Once I get set up there, I will establish a place on the left hand rail where you can click and just get the book news. You can bookmark that new location, and we should be able to continue as before.
The reason is simple. Not enough traffic. Books are a pretty niche interest, not to the wonderful people who come here regularly, but in the really big scheme of things. The number-crunchers looked at what we were pulling and decided we weren’t getting enough traffic to be a stand-alone blog, but we were getting enough for me to continue our conversations.
I look forward to continuing to bring you as much news as possible about books, especially about metro Atlanta authors and appearances.
So follow me over to ATL Arts. I’ll have milk and cookies for the first 1,000 who show up!
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Another Atlanta author steps up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My great thanks to fellow AJC scribe Chandler Brown, who read “Betrayed: The True Story of Lisa Lynette Clark” so that I would not have to.
Clark, in case you’ve been immersed in re-reading Marquez lately and not following the news, is the local woman who had an affair with a 14-year-old neighbor boy, got pregnant, got married, went to jail, and got out last week. So far, so not good.
But she has also written a book, which tells in great detail about her affair with her young swain, who’s 22 years younger than her. According to Brown, much of the book is too explicit to reprint.
Here is one memorable excerpt, courtesy of Brown: “I miss you baby. Some day we will be together. I remember all those nights when I would prepare a bubble bath for you and light a candle. Then we would make love and afterward I would give you a full body massage, even your face, scalp, fingers and toes. I want to love you like that again and cook for you and clean for you. You deserve the very best and we as a family deserve to be happy. Maybe one day we will be left alone to figure it out on our own. No one knows you like I do and no one knows me like you do. We have made some mistakes but I know we have what it takes. We have patience, forgiveness, understanding and unconditional love. You are my best friend. Until we meet again, I love you baby, so much. Love, Lisa.”
Everyone makes mistakes. The Bible tells us to forgive. But when you write a book justifying the unjustifiable thing you did, well, you get what you deserve.
So, who wants to add “Betrayed” to their book club list for next month?
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The world according to Felicia “Snoop’ Pearson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Anticipation for “The Wire” finale is reaching “Sopranos” proportions with fans. Omar’s dead. And now the question is who’s next, if anyone.
Felicia “Snoop” Pearson has a bright life ahead when the HBO show ends.
She’s in Atlanta to discuss her memoir “Grace After Midnight” at the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum tonight.
But for the grace of God and landing the acting gig, Pearson’s life could resemble Snoop’s on “The Wire.” Her memoir traces her birth as as crack baby to foster care placement and prison. At age 14 Pearson was charged with second degree murder and sentenced to eight years in a women’s penitentiary in Jessup, Md.
It was there that she decided to turn her life around after a close friend she referred to as an uncle was killed.
Post-“Wire,” Pearson will focus her attention on more acting projects and on a youth program she started in Brooklyn and Baltimore with Jamie Hector, who plays Marlo on the show.
Here are excerpts of our Q and A
Q: Why do you think your character on “The Wire” is so endeared by fans?
A: They’ve never seen anyone like me on TV. Some people just tell me that I’m bringing a lot of realness to the TV.
Q: If Snoop somehow lives, what happens to her down the road?
A: Ain’t nobody in Marlo’s crew dropped dead yet. If Snoop keeps going she’s going to wind up dead or something. Gotta happen sooner or later. Snoop is going too hard. Chris [her partner] is going too hard.
Q: How did Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar, discover you and what did he sense was special about you?
A: He kept saying ‘It was your swagger.’ I met him at a club. And he kept looking at me. He came up to me and said, ‘Can I ask you a question. Are you a boy or a girl.’ Then later he said, ‘I want you to come to the set and meet the writers and producers.’
Q: What do you want readers to learn from your story?
A: I just want to let people know where I came from..to share my story. I know the lord has blessed me. He gave me the power just to tell this story.
Q: Are your parents living?
A: No. I didn’t know anything about my mother. She always looked nice. She loved to get high. My father was a stick up artist.
Q: You seem comfortable in your own skin, what do you tell youths who are not so secure with themselves.?
A: I tell them don’t be ashamed of who you are. Believe in yourself and don’t worry about what nobody say. Once you are on top people are going to look up to you. First you have to get an education. You can’t even scrub toilets without a G.E.D.
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“Song Yet Sung” at Margaret Mitchell House
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I love Atlanta. There is no other place on the planet that could welcome author James McBride, who’s in town to read and sign his new novel about slavery, “Song Yet Sung,” and do so at the Margaret Mitchell House.
That simple juxtaposition says so much about who we are.
There are a lot of ways to view “Gone With the Wind,” but the sophistication of its black characters rarely comes in for much praise. Nevertheless, one of the the most prestigious spots to host a visiting author in Atlanta is the Mitchell house. McBride’s novel celebrates the Underground Railroad, something that would have made 95 percent of the white characters in Mitchell’s novel spit nails.
McBride, who’s also known for his memoir “The Color of Water,” will be at the Mitchell House tonight, with a reception at 6, lecture at 7 and signing to follow. Admission is $10 for non-members, free to members.
I reviewed the novel in Sunday’s Arts and Books section , and gave it a very positive review. In today’s paper, staff writer Rosalind Bentley has a Q & A with McBride. Here’s an excerpt, with McBride talking about the Code that helped runaway slaves move toward freedom:
“I read several slave testimonials, and there are several references that talk about some of the signals that were used to let someone know that they were part of the “gospel train.” Turn the light on at a certain time. The ringing of the blacksmith’s hammer, the way ropes were tied, particularly by watermen on the Eastern shore. But about 30 percent I made up. I have no doubt that the Code existed. How could all these people get free? You needed a secret language.”
James McBride at the Margaret Mitchell House is one of those only-in-Atlanta events.
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Garry Wills and the Gospels
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In just the second paragraph of his new book “What the Gospels Meant,” noted Bibllical scholar Garry Wills is going to turn off a number of Christians. The Gospels, he writes, “are not historically true as that term would be understood today. … They do not draw on first-hand testimony or documents.”
Biblical literalists believe otherwise, that every word of the Bible is literally true. Wills is a Catholic who studied for the priesthood, and has taught ancient and New Testament Greek. He is not a literalist, but he is a Christian, one who believes that Christianity is capital-T Truth, and he wants to help us understand the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
“What the Gospels Meant” is the third in what’s turning out to be a series, following “What Jesus Meant” and “What Paul Meant.” Wills, who’s also a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian on American history, works from the original texts, and does his own translations. He says they are much closer in spirit and detail to the “marketplace Greek” in which they were written, rather than the “prettified Bible English” in which we usually read.
His explanations and arguments are fascinating and complex, and I’m not going to do them the disservice of trying to sum them up in a blog.
But I am planning on hearing Wills speak tonight. He will be at the Decatur Presbyterian Church, 205 Sycamore St., next door to the Decatur Library. The Georgia Center for the Book and Wordsmiths Books, which are sponsoring, thought the library’s auditorium wouldn’t be big enough for the anticipated crowd. Doors open at 6 and Wills’ talk starts at 7:15 p.m.
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A big sloppy kiss for Mary Kay Andrews
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When she sees that headline, she’s gonna say, “Ewwwwww.” But Kathy Trocheck (Mary Kay Andrews) and I go waaaay back as buds, so I can get away with it.
Kathy’s much-awaited new novel “Deep Dish” is finally here, and she’s going to be flogging that book like Captain Bligh in a bad mood. The kick-off of her publicity tour will be Monday night at Wordsmiths Books in Decatur. They’re selling special VIP tickets for $35, which gets you in early at 6 p.m, and a copy of the book, along with a gift bag and cocktails and “savories,” which sounds like stuff to eat that won’t be enough to be called dinner. For $45, you can get two people in to the private reception, but still just one book. At 7 p.m., folks can get in for free, but you have to buy the book.
Her many fans know that Kathy, who lives in Avondale Estates, was a writer here at the AJC years ago. She quit to write mysteries under her own name, did quite well, but then wanted to branch out into light, humorous Southern novels. So she mashed up her kids’ names and came up with the pseudonym Mary Kay Andrews, one of the least secret pseudonyms in history.
“Deep Dish” is her sixth Andrews novel, and I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but here are the the basics. Gina Foxton hosts a cooking show on Georgia public television. Tate Moody hosts a hunting, fishing and cooking show. They have to compete to become host of a new cooking show on a cable channel (a ficitionalized version of The Food Network). The competition sounds like “Survivor,” with the two of them stuck on an island off the coast of Georgia and forced to fend for themselves.
Here is Kathy’s blog as Mary Kay.. On Sunday, the AJC will have a lengthy profile of her in our Arts and Books section.
Whether you eat the savories or not, check her out Monday night at Wordsmiths (she’s a lot of fun when she’s holding court at one of her appearances), or at the very least, buy some “Deep Dish.”
Since this is an Atlanta blog about an Atlanta author, does anyone have any good stories to tell about Kathy? Anything embarrassing? Heh heh.
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Black History Month: Not the usual suspects
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the criticisms of Black History Month is that it sometimes tends to keep teaching about the same people in U.S. history. That’s certainly the case when the discussion turns to literature, as the Official Checklist of Sanctified Black Literature usually name-checks Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston. Maybe a little Nikki Giovanni or Richard Wright if people are feeling expansive.
I have to tip my hat, therefore, to Rhonda Swan, a staff writer for the Palm Beach Post, which is also owned by Cox Enterprises. She knows contemporary African-American popular fiction a lot better than I do, and she came up with an alterna-list of 10 popular modern novels, some of which may be a little further down the “guilty pleasure” spectrum.
Swan’s list can be found here.
She writes about “P.G. County” by Connie Briscoe, for example, a novel about adultery among affluent African-Americans in Maryland, calling it “pure soap opera.” Eric Jerome Dickey makes her list, of course. And Atlanta’s Pearl Cleage is there as well, for her first novel, “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day,” which is more in the tradition of lliteary fiction than commercial fiction.
I wouldn’t want to dissuade anyone from reading “Invisible Man” or “Song of Solomon,” but I’m also happy to acknowledge the pure beach-book pleasures of a Terry McMillan. So go check out Swan’s list, and then sound off: What’s your favorite African-American novel, classic or not, and why?
Thanks to everyone who posted about books. I’m going to turn off commenting cause I don’t want to have to keep monitoring the blog. Best wishes to all.
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What is it about Gatsby?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just about everybody acknowledges that “The Great Gatsby” is pretty great. Any time anybody ranks the greatest novels of the 20th century, or the best American novels, it’s near the top of the list. Even teenagers who hate to read anything that doesn’t have “Harry Potter” in the title and are forced to read it in high school will grudgingly admit that it doesn’t suck nearly as bad as the other books in the high school curriculum.
An article in the New York Times recently pointed out that even some immigrant students dig Gatsby. They see him as someone who is ambitious to make himself better, and Tom Buchanan as the jock who’s never as cool as he was in high school, and Daisy as a 1925 version of Paris Hilton.
Hey, at least they’re reading and thinking about what they’re reading.
I think one of the reasons “Gatsby” is so highly regarded is that it works on so many different levels. It’s a straightforward story, short and easy to read. It’s both very romantic, and Romantic. Dig a little deeper, and it’s a pretty harsh assessment of the American dream of Horatio Alger and self-improvement. And of course F. Scott Fitzgerald’s prose is just as clean and pure as it gets.
A novel could be all those things, of course, and still not be read or appreciated like “Gatsby” is. So what is it about “Gatsby” that makes it darn near universal in its appeal?
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Sit, honey. Stay. Good boy!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amy Sutherland was researching a book about animal training at a zoo for a possible book, when she came up with a far better idea. Why not take the techniques used to get animals to behave in certain ways, and use them on that species of animal known as homo sapiens? And why not start with her own husband?
The resulting experiment was at first a very popular New York Times column, and now a book getting some major attention: “What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers.”
Sutherland’s book tour will bring her here at 7:30 p.m. on March 5 at the Snellville Borders (1929 Scenic Highway) for what could be a lively reading.
A lot of what Sutherland did was really basic conditioning, known to anybody who studied Pavlov or B.F. Skinner. Ignore the bad behavior, praise the good behavior. If you’re a smart parent or you’ve had any success with a puppy, you’ve tried at least some of this. Sutherland’s breakthrough was to do it systematically and within a loving marriage, and to write about it with a sense of humor and affection.
Several questions arise from this experiment: Is it morally appropriate to be so manipulative within a marriage? Is manipulation inevitable in a relationship, and this is just a benevolent version? And the one that cuts to the knuckle: Have you ever successfully changed a significant other’s behavior, and how did you do it?
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Gullible’s travels
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In 1922, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Harry Chandler, invited Dr. John Binkley to come to Los Angeles and perform the miracle surgery that had made him famous. Binkley obliged, and worked his magic on a number of patients, including a Times managing editor, a judge, and several unnamed Hollywood stars.
Binkley’s procedure was to take goat testicles and implant them into a man’s scrotum as a “cure” for impotence. The Los Angeles Times heralded the surgeries with the headline: “New Life in Glands — Dr. Binkley’s Patients Here Show Improvement — Many Victims of Incurable Diseases Are Cured.”
The stunning new non-fiction book “Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam” by Pope Brock chronicles, with a rollicking sense of fun mixed with outrage, the truly unbelievable career of Binkley, who probably killed dozens if not hundreds of patients over his life, more than most serial killers. These bizarre surgeries weren’t happening in some long-ago time, but in America in the 20th century. In fact, Binkley and his wife attended the world premiere of “Gone With the Wind” in Atlanta in 1939.
Although Binkley put forth many alleged cures over the years, his main clientele was impotent men. There was a lot of euphemistic talk of “youthful vigor” and being “fully a man” in his ads and testimonials. And because of the placebo effect, many men actually got better.
I’m sure a lot of readers will read “Charlatan” and think that we have come so far, that we could never believe such utter nonsense as that transplanting goat testicles would cure impotence. But then I thought about all the emails that are going around right now that people are convinced are true - that the Ku Klux Klan has endorsed Barack Obama, that Bill Gates will donate money to a cause if you forward this email, that brokers are offering Third World children as organ donors. Not to mention the controversy over that book about “Miracle Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About.” And I think we are just as gullible as ever, just about different things.
What do you think? Are we making progress in letting ourselves be scammed or are we as bad as ever?
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Baby Got Books
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today’s blog is a plug for another blog. A competitor, if you wish to think of it that way, or just another spot where more people like to yammer about books.
Baby Got Books is not really an Atlanta book blog, but it feels like one, because a number of the contributors are Atlanta-based. So recently there have been posts about Dan Kennedy coming to Wordsmiths Books, Salman Rushdie speaking at Emory, and Art Spiegelman at SCAD.
They even do contests where they give away books. Hmm, wish I had thought of that.
Anyway, they’re smart and they have good taste. Check ‘em out, but then come back to The Book Page.
Speaking of Kennedy, he will be appearing Saturday night at Wordsmiths Books in Decatur in what should be a lively evening. There’s going to be rock music, and Kennedy is promoting “Rock On,” his very funny memoir of a brief stint in the land of leather pants, i.e. working for a big rock record label just as the whole music industry was circling the porcelain bowl. I laughed loud, hard and often reading it.
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Real romance, eye patches and scars
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“If my tongue wasn’t down your throat, it was platonic.”
“I’m not partying with your girlfriend, Dad, I don’t care what you say.”
“I didn’t realize you only liked me when I’m drunk.”
Say what? Those are a few of the printable excerpts from the new book “Real Life Romance: Everyday Wisdom on Love, Sex and Relationships” by Leah Garchik.
Garchik writes a column for the San Francisco Chronicle, and one of her bits is having readers send in bits of overheard conversations. In the age of the cell phone, this is certainly easier than ever, so Garchik has now collected a lot of the better ones that have to do with love, sex and romance between the covers.
Some of the overheard lines need no context. “If I were a dude, I’d date me” speaks for itself. Whereas the advice “Remember, girls love eye patches and scars” is much better when you know it came from a high school freshman advising an 11-year-old boy.
I wanted to find a book topic on Valentine’s Day that would appeal to people who are in a relationship today and those who are not. Surely in the age of cell phones we all have a few of these tasty bits we’ve overheard. Share ‘em here, but keep ‘em PG.
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“Secrets of the Thin Mint”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I have been remiss in not announcing a winner for our last contest, which was to come up with an idea to help poor Dan Brown with the long-delayed sequel to “The DaVinci Code.”
Fortunately, choosing was easy, as contributor Kat let loose with this rant:
“Well, DB’s interest seems to be in exploring and exposing secret societies and organizations. Most of these exist right under our noses, in the open, you just have to know what to look for, and DB lets us in on the secrets. So the obvious choice for his next book is the Girl Scouts.
Before you laugh (or verbally beat me over the head with a box of cookies), consider this: I once attended a GS leader training event that involved a weekend campout. Due to difficulty grasping the fire-building part, our meals were few and far between. We were kept up very late at night and were awakened way before the crack of dawn by a sadist banging on a metal pot. All the time we were being instructed on the CORRECT GIRL SCOUT WAY of doing things. And believe me, there is a CORRECT GIRL SCOUT WAY to do everything, from washing your dishes to what to wear.
After two days of this, I would have agreed to do anything just to be allowed to sleep a little and maybe have a hot meal. That was when it dawned on me…isn’t this the way cults operate?!! They keep you tired, cold and hungry, then indoctrinate you into their belief system!
Dan Brown, this organization is a gold mine for your next novel, and we haven’t even scratched the surface! The addictive nature of those cookies is enough to get you started. We collectively hold our thin-mint-scented breath awaiting your next novel.”
Kat, I think you are on to something. My Well-Read Wife was once a Girl Scout Leader, and her darling young charges once actually circulated a petition to get her fired because she was so mean to them. Her crime was making them talk to other girls outside their cliques.
Anyway, any time you take a bunch of 11-year-old girls and a couple of moms who are not supposed to drink and stick them all in the woods for a weekend, you are going to get DRAMA!
Thanks for playing. Your prize, alas, will not be a book this time. I will instead send you a box of Girl Scout cookies of your choice as soon as they come in.
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Laughing at racism
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Touchy subject time.
“A Practical Guide to Racism” is probably the most outrageous collection of horrible stereotypes and ethnic ugliness ever put between covers. It is also a spoof, a parody. A joke.
It’s the handiwork of Sam Means, a writer for “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and former contributor to “The Onion.” Means has created an author, C.H. Dalton, who writes with a pseudo-academic learned tilt, except that Dalton is spectacularly wrong about nearly everything that he writes.
“Guide” takes us through Means’ vast ignorance, not just about the groups one might expect to be grossly misrepresented (Jews, blacks, Hispanics, gays), but others somewhat less expected (whites, gypsies, the French, and Merpeople).
Means is doing to racists — of all types and all races - what Stephen Colbert is doing to certain cable TV blowhards with the character he has created on “The Colbert Report.” By playing it straight and going way over the top, he mocks them with a viciousness that regular spoofs can’t quite attain.
If you get on Dalton’s wavelength, the book is pretty funny. Of course, if you don’t get it, and you mistakenly take it at face value, it’s going to come across as pretty vile.
When explaining why he did the movie “The Producers,” with its big production number “Springtime for Hitler,” Mel Brooks once said something to the effect that he decided that the worst thing he could do to Hitler was to make people laugh at him.
Not all Holocaust survivors bought that notion when the movie first came out, and not all people are going to go along with Means mocking racism in this way.
What’s your take? Can laughing at racism help defeat it, or does re-printing stereotypes damage people no matter what the intent?
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7-Day Author Forecast for Feb. 11-17
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hallelujah! I am back from the dead, or at least the bed, as in the place I spent six straight days with a fairly unpleasant case of flu. We’ll get some good topics going this week to make up for last week’s vacuum. But here, as tradition dictates, are the authors coming to town.
Feb. 11, as in tonight
Jonathan Burnham Schwartz. “The Commoner: A Novel.” 7:15 p.m. at Decatur Library. “The Commoner” is the story of Haruko, who marries the Crown Prince of Japan in 1959 and does not live happily ever after.
Feb. 14
Neal Boortz. “Fair Tax: The Truth. Answering the Critics.” 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, The Avenue at West Cobb.
Ron Draluck. “Push Button Investing in Real Estate.” 11:30 a.m. at Eagle Eye Book Shop. 2076 N. Decatur Rd., Decatur.
Feb. 16
Poetry Atlanta Presents. 2 p.m. at Wordsmith Books, 141 E. Trinity, Decatur. Poetry by Laurel Snyder, Katie Chaple and Chelsea Rathburn.
Dan Kennedy. “Rock On.” 7:30 p.m. at Wordsmith Books. Kennedy had a sweet job making commercials for Atlantic Records, but he had it just as the whole decrepit music industry was falling apart due to digital downloading and the decline of the CD. He wrote a really, really funny memoir about it. I’ll come back to “Rock On” later in the week I hope. In case I don’t, here is my review that ran Sunday.
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The Weary Blues
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m out sick with the flu for day three, but I thought I could at least find something relating to thr world of books to slap up here. Here’s a cool Youtube video based on Langston Hughes’ poem “The Weary Blues.” Solid.
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Sick Day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m home sick today with the flu. But if you cruised by to see the blog, I wanted to give you something. So here’s one of my favorite Youtube videos, even though it has nothing to do with books.
What’s your favorite political novel?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s Super Tuesday, and I hope I don’t have to urge anyone living in a primary state to get out there and vote. No excuses.
Since today is all about politics, let’s talk about political novels. Do you have a favorite?
“All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren is, of course, the Alpha and Omega of American political novels. It holds up fantastically well despite the years.
I’m not sure I could say the same for some of the great political novels of the ’60s, like Allen Drury’s “Advise and Consent” and Fletcher Knebel’s “Seven Days in May.” They were both huge best-sellers when they came out, and “Advise and Consent” won the Pulitzer for fiction, but I picked it up again a while back to re-read it and found it very dated, particularly in some of its racial attitudes.
Then there was “Primary Colors” by Anonymous (Joe Klein), the thinly veiled fictionalization of Bill Clinton’s first campaign.
Googling around, I found that some people have a rather expansive view of what consitutes a political novel. I found references to “Atlas Shrugged,” “Catch-22,” “Animal Farm,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Lord of the Flies.” That’s not what I initially had in mind when I started this entry, but today is a day to let people sound off however they want.
So have at it. What’s your favorite political novel?
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A: 8,888 questions and a lot of puns
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
And the question is: What’s in “Ken Jennings’s Trivia Almanac?”
Jennings, of course is the Alpha Dog of “Jeopardy!,” the young man who won 74 straight games in 2004, a record that’s the trivia geek equivalent of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. (Actually, it’s more like hitting a game-winning home run in 74 straight games.)
So what do you do once you’ve peaked at age 30? Well, Jennings wrote a book about trivia culture, then this new trivia almanac, talked some trash about Alex Trebek on his blog that was pretty amusing, and lost his entire $2.5 million in a Baltimore alley playing craps one night. Naw, I’m kidding about that last one. He’s been very responsible, I’m sure.
Anyway, Jennings will be at the Margaret Mitchell House Feb. 5 to promote “Ken Jennings’s Trivia Almanac.” The event is sold out, presumably full of people who want to challenge Ken. Anyway, the book is a treasure for trivia buffs. It’s laid out chronologically day by day, then with themes each day, often built on a pun: “I’m With the Banned,” “Cheap Novel Tease,” “Jr. Samples.” And to to top it off, there’s a range of difficulty from really easy to really hard.
So if you had the chance to ask Ken Jennings one question, what would you ask him?
Also, a quick heads up! Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of “Maus,” is here Feb.5 He’ll be tracing the history of cartoons from Hogarth to R. Crumb, with emphasis on what he calls “forbidden images,” inspired by the commotion over Danish cartoons that depicted Muhammad. Part of the SCAD-Atlanta Writer Series. 7:30 p.m. Feb. 5. Free. Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta, 1600 Peachtree St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-253-3100, www.scad.edu.
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Let’s pitch in and help Dan Brown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, the new Dan Brown novel once was due out in 2005. That year came and went, as did 2006, as did 2007. It’s now 2008, and no Brown book. His agent isn’t saying what’s what, his publisher is being coy, and Brown isn’t even available enough to issue a “no comment.”
This matters, of course, because Brown’s last book was “The DaVinci Code,” a badly written but ultimately fairly interesting thriller that seemed to tap into something much deeper than the usual airport bookstore paperback. His mishmash of real history, made-up history and tinfoil-hat conspiracies linking Mary Magdalene and I.M. Pei was just what a gazillion people wanted.
It was the biggest novel of the last 10 years that didn’t start with “Harry.”
But “DVC” came out in 2003. Brown had been a pretty steady author, bringing out four books in five years.
Supposedly, Brown’s next novel is called “The Solomon Key” and is about the Freemasons and U.S. history. But who knows? Maybe it isn’t. Maybe Brown has been kidnapped by an albino hit man who is being controlled by an evil Catholic cardinal. It could happen.
Anyway, this cannot continue. We have to band together and help Dan Brown. Maybe he has writer’s block. Maybe he needs ideas.
Our contest is to come up with what Dan Brown’s next book should be. Post a title, a pitch, an idea, a rant, whatever. Extra points for funny.
We’ll keep it open till next Tuesday, Feb. 5, and then I’ll just pick the funniest winner and find a cool book to send them.
Come on, Dan Brown is counting on us. What should his next book be?
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