as schaub reports at the bookslut blog, microcosm publishing here in portland is exchanging real books and zines for unwanted amazon kindles. i mean, they're history anyway. everyone's waiting for the nook 2.
is it ironic that we led with the statement we did and are now giving you a bullshit story about technology instead of writing about books? no. there's a fine line in that quote, and if you can't see it, you probably need to adjust the brightness on your kindle. also not ironic: wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a plaid wool button-up with elbow patches (and almost everything else you call ironic). if i'd felt comfortable showing up at dinner empty handed i would have thrown my bottle of wine at that guy who yelled at me from out of his subaru. i'm sure he loved "portlandia." i'm glad i stayed calm, i might've soiled my oregon tuxedo running away.
speaking of books, though, "the morning news" selection committee recently announced the contenders in this year's tournament of books (presented by field notes and sponsored by powell's books). as per the official announcement, the list of titles,
is not a list of the best novels of 2010. the novel had an incredible year, in our opinion, but this is not even a list of our favorite books from 2010. because compiling such a list would be absurd. even collectively we have read only a tiny fraction of the books published last year. we haven’t even read all the books on the rooster list, at least not yet.
each of these books was chosen because it was hyped. or celebrated. or not celebrated or hyped enough. or because it won an award. or because an individual (or individuals) we admire lobbied passionately for its inclusion.
so it would seem that we'd be off the hook for not having read any of them, which is hugely relieving considering that whole aimee bender rigmarole of last summer and that her book the particular sadness of lemon cake is at the top of the list of contenders. if you've read one of the books on the list, you can vote for it as part of the "zombie vote" portion of the contest. if you haven't, i suppose you could make an educated guess. just ask yourself what a zombie would do. hopefully we'll see you on the official judges panel next year, because, well, if anything we've proven our ability to remain unbiased. and million dollar babies don't cry shouldn't be ready for publication until at least 2012.
update, 7:14 p.m.: i don't feel so bad spending time harping on the vook after reading a post at "conversational reading" entitled "worst lede ever," which refers to and excerpts an article from the new york times written by a "slavish fan" of the kindle in support of the merging of video and text. the "conversational reading" post also links to a critical response to the times article by chad post at "three percent," the blog of open letter press, the university of rochester's non-profit translation imprint, a not surprising association seeing as scott esposito (who is "conventional reading") specializes in writing reviews of translated literature for publishers weekly. good company.
but, ultimately, this post ends as a bullshit story about technology, despite my sort of efforts to save it. sorry, michael. i promise that it's all in good remembrance of the book.
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