A nice
article on winning the Booker Prize, by Hilary Mantel.
I'm liking Ron Charles more and more and more, and
this video review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom makes just makes me giddy.
Over at Critical Mass, the blog for the NBCC, Wyatt Mason
writes about Roth's "tenth, short, and perfect novel, The Ghost Writer." I agree with Mason; this is one great novel, and a great place to start if you're looking to get to know Roth. Here is
my review. It wasn't my first Roth, but it is the book that made him one of my favorite writers of all time (if not my favorite).
This promises to get interesting. Anis Shivani of
The Huffington Post has posted his list of the
fifteen most overrated contemporary American authors. As usual, he makes some great points. Often when I see these, though, I think, "Okay, so they are bad. Now, tell me who is good -- and why the difference." Shivani promises to follow-up with the most
underrated contemporary American writers. Followed with similar lists for American writers of the past century, and going further to include lists for the global writers.
Patricia Zohn interviews Jennifer Egan at
The Huffington Post. I still think
A Visit from the Goon Squad is one of the best books of the year.
New York Magazine has a nice
look at independent bookstores in the City, which are rising "against all odds."
At Reading Matters, Kim has featured my blog on her
Triple Choice Tuesday. My choices?
The Ghost Writer,
So Long, See You Tomorrow, and
Butcher's Crossing. Pop on over and see my fresh, brief write-up of each title.
For Independence Day, the Huffington Post has a slide show of
fifteen great independent publishers, featuring a few of my favorites --
Open Letter,
Archipelago -- and a few I didn't know about.
New Directions is a model of perfection, and I agree. I have stacks and stacks of books from these three presses, and I'm anxious to see what the others have to offer.
Michiko Kakutani's
review of Jacob de Zoet is surprising in its lack of substance. It's mostly just a plot rehash (which I think gives away a bit too much). It's boring to read and insightless, where I usually enjoy her reviews even if I disagree (as I do here). I'm not saying my reviews are better, surely, but this is pretty poor for
The New York Times daily and from a Pulitzer-winning critic.
In the new issue of
The New Yorker, James Wood
takes a look at The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: "This is to argue not that David Mitchell should be more like Tolstoy or Conrad or Beckett but, curiously, that he might be more Mitchellian—that the reader wants a kind of moral or metaphysical pressure that is absent, and that has ceded all the ground to pure storytelling."
The Paris Review blog has a
Q&A with Jennifer Egan, author of
The Goon Squad, a piece of which was published in
The New Yorker and discussed
here.
Click
here for the
Never Let Me Go trailer. I didn't like the book as much as I hoped I would, but the trailer makes the film look good.
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Click 
Fellow Shadow Jury member Alison sat on a panel for The Globe and Mail discussing the Giller shortlist. Way to go, Alison! It is very interesting reading. Click here to read it. You’ll notice I strongly disagree with John about The Year of the Flood, and I also disagree that The Winter Vault should win. It had its moments, surely, and you could see the ambition, but I’m not one who thinks ambition is that important if the execution fails. Obviously, there’s plenty of room to debate how well this book was executed. I’m sympathetic to both The Golden Mean and The Disappeared, but I stick by my pick of The Bishop’s Man as the best constructed and subtly substantial of all the books. It is also ambitious, and MacIntyre pulls it off.
I want to reemphasize, though, that this is a list worth reading. I was so disappointed in 2008′s Booker prize that I didn’t get too involved in prize juries this year, but I’m glad I did with this one.
It sounds like you had fun!
Hope you are invited for next year’s Shadow Jury.
I had a blast, Isabel! And thanks for the well wishing for next year!
He will be invited back next year, Isabel — I meant to include that note when I posted our results but will now have to let it wait until I post on the “real jury” results.
By the way, Isabel, I’m thrilled to be involved again!