Election Reading Habits

Amazon has a neat feature up to examining political reading habits by state.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000261611&tag=omnivoracious-20

I would not say there's any big surprises here. In my home state - Massachusetts -- 58 percent are reading Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Obama. 42 percent are reading McCain's Faith of My Fathers.

In Palin's state, Alaska, 64 percent are reading Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska' Political Establishment Upside Down.

I thought it was interesting that in formerly staunch red state NH, 45 percent were reading Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

Regardless of your party, there's a lot of books out there on both candidates. I just downloaded Obama's biography. I'm interested in hearing it.

The power of redemption

Do you believe in second chances? James Frey probably hopes you do.

Perhaps best known for the controversy surrounding A Million Little Pieces, Freys back with a new novel, Bright Shiny Morning.

Without dredging up the past or my opinions about Frey, I will say I think our society has a dangerous habit of hyping up people and making them into stars and then delights in completely demolishing them. Look at Frey, one minute he’s on Oprah, hundreds are reading his book, flash forward he’s eating crow on Oprah.

That said, I couldn’t bring myself to read my copy of A Million Little Pieces. To me I didn’t see the point of reading something that I knew wasn’t the real thing. And I think the criticism he faced was legitimate.

With his new novel, Frey is now back in the limelight. He recently guest blogged over at Amazon’s Omnivoracious.

Amazon also included some reviews of Frey’s book in their regular feature: Old Media Monday: Reviewing the Reviewers:

(New York Times Janet) Maslin on Bright Shiny Morning by one of our other guests this week, James Frey: "The million little pieces guy was called James Frey. He got a second act. He got another chance. Look what he did with it. He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. No more lying, no more melodrama, still run-on sentences still funny punctuation but so what. He became a furiously good storyteller this time."

(Los Angeles Time’s) David L. Ulin on Frey's Bright Shiny Morning: "'Bright Shiny Morning' is a terrible book. One of the worst I've ever read. But you have to give James Frey credit for one thing: He's got chutzpah.... Whatever else his failings as a writer, Frey was once able to move his readers; how else do we explain the success of 'A Million Little Pieces'? It's just one of the ironies of this new book that his fictionalized memoir is a better novel than 'Bright Shiny Morning' could ever hope to be."

The Boston Globe’s book blog, Off the Shelf also weighs in, “The Power of Redemption.” http://www.boston.com/ae/books/blog/2008/05/the_power_of_re.html

I feel like Off the Shelf makes some good points. While I believe everyone deserves a second chance, there are so many amazing authors and books I want to read, I would say Frey’s pretty low on my list.

Additional Reading:

Reviews mixed on new James Frey fiction, http://uk.reuters.com/article/stageNews/idUKN1343588520080514

James Frey emerges, with a novel about LA, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/14/entertainment/e130639D97.DTL

James Frey's 'Bright Shiny Morning': the reaction, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/05/james-freys-bri.html

Disgraced author James Frey rebounds with messy 'Morning', http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2008-05-14-frey-bright-shiny-morning_N.htm

(The above image originally appeared on people.com)

Best of the Bookers

To celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Booker Prize, a one-time prize has been created to honor the best of the past winners.

The list has been narrowed down to six. Voting ends mid-day July 8. (I regret to say that I have not read any of the finalists. I’m hoping to rectify that. Disgrace is in the mail to me as I type.)

The finalists are:

Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road

Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda

JM Coetzee’s Disgrace

J G Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur

Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/vote

A list of all Booker prize winners can be found at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/archive

Amazon’s take on it: The Most Bookery Booker: Down to Six,

http://www.omnivoracious.com/2008/05/the-most-booker.html

Literary Links

There are a lot of great book-related blogs out there. I decided to break my favorites into two categories -- traditional and reader/writer generated.

Part I: Traditional

Amazon’s Omnivoracious

http://www.omnivoracious.com/

Written by Amazon’s book editors, the blog features Q&As, news, and reviews. I think it’s a fair assessment to say Amazon has completely altered the way books are sold and helped revolutionize ecommerce. What I like about this blog is that they discuss so many different types of literature – scifi, graphic novels, childrens lit and more. They also have a regular round up on book reviews every Monday.

New York Times Paper Cuts

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/

This is written by the book review editors. I enjoy their playlist feature where authors discuss some of their favorite songs. I hate to admit it but most times there are a lot of artists I’ve never heard of.

Washington Post Short Stack

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/

Every week, the Book World picks five favorite books and discusses them. The latest post discusses five fictional novels based on real-life historical mysteries or puzzles. It was a good reminder to me – I’ve been meaning to read The Daughter of Time for years. Library time!