The project

A cautionary tale: inheriting the hoard.

First principles

Karolina Waklawiak interviews Luc Sante for The Days of Yore. It's interesting throughout, but there is some particularly apt advice for writers in conclusion...

Exciting times for librarians

A great commencement speech by librarian and internet folk hero Jessamyn West.

Eggishness

Remarkably beautiful breakfasts. (Courtesy of Sarang, who found it via The London Review of Breakfasts.)

Minor Sunday linkage

Brent left yesterday for a week in Ottawa; fortunately the style book is now at a stage where I should be able to ramp up work hours (I find that as I first get back into a project, it's wise not to push too hard - a good hour or two every day lets you build up momentum without overstraining, it's not unlike endurance sport training in that regard - but I think I am coming to the point where I can do much longer days of work than that again), and the Kindle is as always indispensable for island living. Neal Stephenson's new novel isn't out yet, unfortunately, but I think it might be a good time to embark upon a massive George R. R. Martin reread in preparation for the new installment of the series: I read those books in a white heat, and long enough ago that it was before I started blogging (sometime during the first few years I was teaching at Columbia, maybe 2002?), so can probably stand a reread, and it is very good to undertake something of copious pages. Otherwise, if I am not watching DVDs in the evening and find myself without much else in the way of outside distraction, I need something like three books a day - it is too many! The Alan Hollinghurst book has yet to arrive, alas...

This is the sort of hobby I could use to while away an hour or two: pig-keeping! (FT site registration required.)

Light reading: Joan Vinge's novelization Cowboys & Aliens (I've been a big fan of hers ever since I read the superlative The Snow Queen and its sequels, and I was also captivated by Vinge's account of why this particular novel represents a personal triumph); Neal Pollack's very funny Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude (the Kindle edition is on sale this month for 99 cents, a definite bargain); Matthew De Abaitua's The Art of Camping, which is full of funny and interesting things but which left me devoutly grateful that I will never have to camp unless perhaps in the event of zombie apocalypse in which case I will have other things to worry about than my personal dislike of camping; and Harry Connolly's Child of Fire, which is quite good but which has caused me to declare a temporary moratorium on urban fantasy, there is just too much of it and it's all built too much along the same sort of chassis: enough!

Bonus links: Matthew's campfire mix, and also an apt illustration from the intriguing Things Organized Neatly blog.

Stage psychics, booth psychics and one 'cyber witch'

I am eager to read A. L. Kennedy's new novel. (Link via Bookforum.)

Light reading catch-up

I am finding it very enjoyable to be back at work on the style book: this is the book that I have waited my whole life to write! It should be done by the end of the month, although I might need a few library days to check some quotations and follow up a couple of last-minute thoughts; I will try not to let impatience get the better of me if that is the way things go.

My cold is mostly gone, only the lungs are still full of junk in a way that is problematic for exercise, and much nose-blowing seems to remain necessary. Otherwise feeling pretty much better; energy levels back to normal, which is probably the most important thing.

I read two books I wished I hadn't (seriously, these Amazon reviewers are clearly working on some sort of demented cost-to-quality ratio when it comes to assigning stars: the book can be only half as good as something else, but if it costs less than half as much, it will come out ahead!). Then I read a very beautifully written short book by Cody James, The Dead Beat; it is now lost in the mists of internet tabbage where I initially got the recommendation, but I thought it was very good, perhaps slightly reminiscent of Jesus' Son though probably only because of the subject matter. Conrad's The Secret Agent more than lived up to my memory of it: it is a minor but distinct work of genius! I found Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy well worth my while, only I wish that it were possible to purchase 'bundled' YA trilogies for Kindle at a discount, it does not seem cost-effective to purchase individual books that one races through at such a rate. Erin Celello's thoughtful debut novel Miracle Beach falls into a genre category that I don't often read, but I enjoyed it and it will repay attention by fans of Joshilyn Jackson and Sara Gruen: I found this one because several years ago I was very much a fan of Erin's triathlon blog!

-verses

I've been intrigued by the idea of the Amazon Kindle Singles (basically, 99 cents for a piece roughly akin in scale and ambition to a substantial New Yorker feature - sorry to put it that way, but that's the long and short of it!), and I've just readDouglas Wolk's funny and moving contribution to the series, Comic-Con Strikes Again! I do not know that I will ever attend Comic-Con myself, though you never know with these things... - at any rate, this gives a very good glimpse of it. Definitely recommended.

Good paintings and bad fathers

At Triple Canopy, David Levine on the matter of Rothko.

Acrobatic historians

Tim Adams interviews Simon Schama for the Observer. On self-doubt and big projects:

You are not thinking hard enough if you are sleeping well. And you would have to be unhinged to take on a subject like the French revolution, or Rembrandt, and not feel some trepidation. There is always the possibility that you will crash and burn and the whole thing will be a horrible, vulgar, self-indulgent mess.

The writing life

Why Steph Swainston wants a day job. I really liked the novel of hers that I read, and thoroughly endorse the notion that teaching and writing are for many a much richer mix than writing could be alone: it is truly not for everyone, the life of the full-time writer, even putting aside financial considerations...

Oh happy day!

Brent stopped at home mid-morning with a Book Depository package for me that had arrived at his post-office box (there is no home mail delivery in Cayman). Initial slight disappointment, after I ripped it open, that it was not the new Hollinghurst novel (but that should be coming in near future!), soon remedied as I immersed myself in one of the most lovely books I have read this year, something I had forgotten I'd ordered at the same time: Barbara Trapido's Sex and Stravinsky. Trapido is one of my favorite novelists, and it's a slight mystery to me why she's not better-known in the U.S. I couldn't put it down! Alas, it is now finished, but it was bliss while it lasted...

Still feeling somewhat ill, but definitely on the mend compared to yesterday. I would think it will be Monday before I can exercise again, I am resigned to it. Have spent most of these week lying on the couch feeling fairly languidly ill and reading some good books.

(Work proceeds in fits and starts on the style revision, but I think I got quite a bit done in the first half of the week before illness made me lose momentum. Will pick up again properly on Monday.)

Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf really is very good indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also enjoyed Lydia Millet's young-adult novel The Fires Beneath the Sea.

At the very good local bookstore on Wednesday (I was putting in a special order for three books I 'need' for the style revision, they should be here in about two weeks: you will see the lines I am thinking along if I tell you that they are three particular favorites, Francis Spufford's The Child That Books Built and Thomas Bernhard's Wittgenstein's Nephew and David Markson's Reader's Block), I spotted a book that I had no idea existed: Ann Brashares' 10-years-later followup to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (to which my lovely student Lynn Copes introduced me some years ago), Sisterhood Everlasting. I will slightly remorsefully add that I did not purchase it at the bookstore, but downloaded it onto my Kindle when I got home.

The other novel I read this week was a reread of something I liked very much when I first encountered it as an undergraduate (I don't think I read it for a class, either I just picked it up somewhere or possibly it was a recommendation from Marina Van Zuylen), Dostoevsky's Demons. I found the first third or so quite difficult to get into (I wasn't sure whether it might have something to do with the translation, or possibly reading on the Kindle), but after that it is highly immersive, and the last third or so is so propulsively written that it's pretty much impossible to put down: it is a strangely structured and narrated book, interesting, very modern in its topics and preoccupations (it is a genealogy of terror that recognizably links Dostoevsky's Russia to what happened last week in Norway). I think the next one to reread is Conrad's The Secret Agent, which also made a strong impression on me when I first read it (really it is the only novel of Conrad's I have a lot of time for, something about his writing is anathema to me elsewhere!).

Lagos faits divers

Teju Cole's small fates. (Via Sarang.)

Improvement of the breed

"If you’d like to call your pet Kubla Khan, King Kong or Kevin you can always move to Belgium. . ."

I'm in low spirits: I'm totally sick again! Very raw lungs on Monday the day following my long bike ride (heat and humidity exacerbate exercise-induced asthma), and now the predictable course into wheeziness and lung squeaking, phlegm, sinus congestion, etc. In short, another chest cold/bronchitis episode. The first thing I do when I'm back in New York will be to make another appointment with the pulmonary specialist I saw last year about six months after I first realized that I actually had asthma; I also need to find an allergist.

Retail therapy

One reason staying in Cayman is surprisingly frugal for me is that it prevents me from ordering things online: it takes forever for stuff to get shipped here, shipping costs are huge and customs duty must be paid on anything that comes in (books excluded, fortunately).

But I was finding myself in need of some retail therapy today, and have ordered some things to be sent to my New York apartment for retrieval in September: a down jacket on sale at Patagonia, which is immaterial for Light Reading purposes but may speak to fantasies of winter, and a great set of books and 'stuff' from Amazon. The latter set of stuff counts as a birthday present from my mother and my brother and sister-in-law, who sensibly sent me Amazon gift certificates when I couldn't suggest actual presents for my birthday!

The glorious list (it accumulated by way of me adding things piecemeal to the shopping cart over the last month or so, but I think it gives a good profile in miniature):

"The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications"
David Deutsch

(This one's more or less self-explanatory: Brent and I were talking about David Deutsch, and I realized that really I might want to read his book)

"Field Notes on Science and Nature"
Michael R. Canfield

(Saw an image from this one a few weeks ago online and realized it was a book I had to have)

"Dover Solo: Swimming The English Channel"
Marcia Cleveland

(Self-explanatory! I am not a fast enough swimmer, unfortunately, to undertake something as epic as the Channel swim - you have to start with considerably higher baseline speeds in order for it to be realistic. Not that I am not tempted...)

"Lobster: A Global History (Reaktion Books - Edible)"
Elisabeth Townsend

(Do not like lobster for eating purposes, but could not resist this book's title and the beautifully designed cover!)

"The Delighted States: A Book of Novels, Romances, & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents, & Accompanied by ... Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes"
Adam Thirlwell

(Curious to see whether this might cast any light for me on what I want to do with the ABCs of the novel book)

"Humiliation (Big Ideas//Small Books)"
Wayne Koestenbaum

(Can't wait for this one - also, I like the idea of writing something for the big ideas/small books series...)

"Marpac 980A Sound Screen Sleep Conditioner White Noise Generator Dual Speed"

(The upshot of reading Farhad Manjoo's piece about sleep noise-canceling devices)

"Jimbo"
Gary Panter

(Gary is one of the most interesting people I know, but I have never read any of his comics - this should be remedied...)

"Gary Panter"
Robert Storr

(...and also perhaps it is worth seeing what others have to say about the stuff Gary makes.)

"City of Diamond"
Jane Emerson

(Same author as "Doris Egan," and another recommendation from Jo Walton: pretty much convinced that this will be more perfect light reading.)