Book Club

Obama Gets the Shakespeare Treatment

2009-07-06T17:56:26Z

It has long been speculated that another author, frequently thought to be Francis Bacon, wrote a number of Shakespeare's plays and now Barack Obama undergoes the same suspicions. Conservative author Jack Cashill posits that it was not Obama but Bill Ayers (wtf?) that penned his memoir Dreams from My Father. For his stunning proof, Cashill compared Ayers's writing with Obama's to produce a list of similarities that, taken completely out of context, could be quite convincing. Taken in context, however, these similarities mean almost nothing and English PhD and blogger Scott Eric Kaufman hilariously refutes the claim. (Personally, I would love to hear what my style and rhetoric professor would have to say about this.) It seems that this argument has been ongoing since September of last year. Fortunately, it doesn't sound like too many people are convinced of Cashill's claim. Or even really care. [via]

New "One Book, One Chicago" Selection

2009-07-06T17:24:32Z

The Chicago Public Library has chosen The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City as their Fall 2009 One Book, One Chicago selection. Publisher U of C Press talks briefly about the book and provides a link to their Plan of Chicago Facebook page where you can follow the upcoming events and discussions. The events will also be posted on Slowdown, so be sure to check our calendar once the discussions get started next month.

Veblen & the Modern World

2009-07-06T15:32:01Z

Dan Gross of the New York Times takes former University of Chicago professor Thorstein Veblen to task for his study of the American elite in the classic The Theory of the Leisure Class. Though the book was published in 1899, Gross applies Veblen's theories to our current economy and finds "while Veblen frequently reads as still 100 percent right on the foibles of the rich, when it comes to an actual theory of the contemporary leisure class, he now comes off as about 90 percent wrong." Gross finds that Veblen's assessment of the leisure class as needing to spend on others, in the form of expensive presents, entertainment, private education, etc., after they've spent all they can on themselves and their mimicry of European nobility to still ring true, however, whereas Veblen defined leisure as the "nonproductive consumption of time" and, therefore, wasteful, Gross points out that today, many members of this upper class continue work though they need not, that "to be at leisure, to be idle, is to be irrelevant." The fact that Veblen's theories still apply at all is interesting to learn and Gross does a fair job of explicating where Veblen succeeds and fails in modern times.

Heat Wave Remembered

2009-07-06T14:31:56Z

The New Yorker's books blog recently pointed readers to a 2002 article in which author Malcolm Gladwell remembered the heat wave that tore through Chicago in 1995. Gladwell, appropriately, turns to sociologist Eric Klinenberg's study, Heat Wave, to discuss that deadly week. The Book Club read Heat Wave in August (when else?) of 2005.

Sad News from Powell's

2009-07-06T14:04:43Z

I'm dismayed to learn that Powell's is closing their Burnham Park location at 828 S. Wabash. In truth, I've only visited that location once, but mainly that's because for the first five years of my time in Chicago I had easy access to the Hyde Park location and since then I've been close to the Lincoln Ave. location. I visited Burnham Park simply because I was curious to see what the third Powell's was like and, though the Hyde Park location remains my favorite (I'm told that the first Powell's you visit is the one you fall in love with), it was nice knowing that this great purveyor of used books could be found in multiple places throughout the city. Though the closing of this location is sad, the one bright spot is that they're offering 50% off everything in the store. I don't know about you, but I'm fairly certain I'll find myself making one final trip down to S. Wabash in the very near future.

Event Spotlight: James Kennedy & Jonathan Messinger @ Quimby's

2009-07-06T14:04:11Z

Two of our brightest literary stars are meeting at Quimby's on Friday. James Kennedy, author of The Order of Odd-Fish, and Jonathan Messinger, of Time Out Chicago and Featherproof Books, join forces for what will surely be an entertaining and enlightening discussion of their works. Free at 7pm at 1854 W. North Ave. Call 773-342-0910 for more information.

Powell's Talks to Luis Alberto Urrea

2009-07-02T13:48:13Z

Powell's has a new interview with Luis Alberto Urrea, author of past Book Club selection The Hummingbird's Daughter and the recently published Into the Beautiful North.

On writing female characters, he says:

It's funny. I had an interviewer ask me, "Are you writing chick books?" I said, "Chick books? What's a chick book?" "You keep writing about women," he said. I said, "What's wrong with writing about women?" I don't know. I guess it's because of Hummingbird, in part. But part of the process of Hummingbird was being accepted by the women's healing community in the indigenous world. I didn't really understand the world of medicine, or curanderas. I had some access to that through men, because I have all these brothers who are Oglalas (adoptive brothers, in the loose term of brother), and I have relatives who are Apache, and so forth.
When I was accepted by a couple of communities of women, I was taken in to learn the women's stuff. One of those women said this very simple thing. It was so simple it was brilliant. She said, "You goddamned men. When you want to know something about women, why don't you just ask?" I had this idiotic Western writer's response; I was writing down notes: "Hmm, ask women!" [Laughter] Her follow-up was, "And when we tell you, why don't you listen?" It became really important to me if I was going to write Hummingbird's Daughter to try to do honor to women.

New Yorker News on U of C

2009-06-29T13:20:37Z

The New Yorker's Book Bench blog isn't really the place I expected the image of such shirts to jump out at me, as if leaping through the past to haunt me in my present (I wholeheartedly concur with Walker's summation of time spent at the University of Chicago as "bleak"). Nevertheless, two reported items are of note: the left-leaning locally published magazine The Baffler is coming back, and two undergrads are penning a book called Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less and have sold it to Penguin. Is the last item sad or ironic? The thing about the U of C is that you never really can tell the difference.

More on Hemingway's Marriages

2009-06-29T12:47:54Z

There's even more Hemingway news to bring you. Last week Alice alerted us to a new book that will take a fictionalized look at Hemingway's first marriage; now the New York Times tells the story of the author's grandson's efforts to restore the posthumously published A Moveable Feast, the memoir that includes the dissolution of that first marriage. It seems that the editing of the book is a story in itself: originally edited by Hemingway's fourth wife, the first edition included a final chapter on that first marriage built from parts that Hemingway indicated he did not want published. The upcoming new edition of the book, what is being called the "restored edition," is edited by grandson Seán Hemingway who, among other changes, added passages from the manuscript that he believes puts his grandmother (the author's second wife, Pauline) in "a more sympathetic light." The Times reports on Seán's motivations:

Seán said he revised edits that had been made in the first edition, and restored paragraphs that he believed presented his grandmother's relationship with Hemingway in a more nuanced and truthful way. Seán said that in doing so, he felt he was returning the text closer to the way his grandfather wanted it.
The new version of Pauline's arrival in Hemingway's life, titled 'The Pilot Fish and the Rich,' and included in the additional Paris sketches, shows Hemingway taking more responsibility for his breakup with [first wife] Hadley. While the 1964 edition casts him as Pauline's victim, he shares the blame in the new version.

Event Spotlight: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. @ Harold Washington Library

2009-06-29T12:17:49Z

One of the preeminent scholars of our time, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, will be at the Harold Washington Library tonight for a discussion on "Our Histories, Our Stories," a look at how the way we tell stories shapes our history and how our history shapes the way we tell stories. Joining him will be Chicago Tribune columnist, author, and FoBC (Friend of the Book Club) Rick Kogan. For some time now Gates has been an influential and important voice in the academic study of literature and the African American experience, so if the idea of either of those interests you, this is not a talk you'll want to miss. Free at 6pm (doors open at 5pm) in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium, 400 S. State St. Call 312-747-4300 for more information.

Chicagoland Bestseller List for Week Ending Sunday, June 21

2009-06-26T04:25:43Z

Stores reporting this week: Anderson's Bookshop; Read Between the Lynes; The Book Cellar; Lake Forest Books; The Bookstall at Chestnut Court; The Book Table; the Seminary Co-op Bookstores; and Women and Children First.

Hardcover Fiction
1. Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafron
2. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
4. First Family by David Baldacci
5. The Women by T.C. Boyle

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
2. Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton
3. Renegade by Richard Wolffe
4. Home Game by Michael Lewis
5. Driving Like Crazy by PJ O'Rourke

Paperback Fiction
1. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
2. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
3. Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
4. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
5. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

Paperback Nonfiction
1. The Naked Roommate by Harlan Cohen
2. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
3. City of Sin and Splendour by Bapsi Sidhwa
4. Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
5. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Children's
1. Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
2. Goldilicious by Victoria Kann
3. Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover by Ally Carter
4. The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
5. LA Candy by Lauren Conrad

Bookmarks

2009-06-26T04:05:47Z

The New York Review of Books has a lengthy excerpt from J.M Coetzee's forthcoming book, Summertime.
Teresa Budasi highlights the local authors in contention for the Great Lakes Book Awards, awarded by the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association.
Uh oh. More Hemingway news. A fictionalized look at Hemingway's marriage to his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and told from her point of view, will be coming to a bookstore near you.

Chicago Authors Know How to Write a Threesome

2009-06-24T18:12:16Z

The Guardian asked novelist Ewan Morrison, author of Menage, to pick the Top Ten Literary Threesomes. His list includes not one, but two Chicago authors. In at #1, the Top Literary Threesome Ever, is Oak Park native Ernest Hemingway with The Garden of Eden, a novel that "tells the story of an author, his adventurous wife, and the psycho-sexual games they play while sharing a young woman. It is largely held to be autobiographical." University of Chicago alum Susan Sontag comes in at #7 with The Volcano Lover, a historical fiction revolving around Sir William Hamilton, his wife Emma and Vice Admiral Horation Nelson. Apparently, Chicago authors know how to write the sexy. (Of course, we already knew that.)

Sherman Alexie Safe in Antioch

2009-06-24T17:50:35Z

Banned Books Weeks is coming up in about three months and it's a shame to be reminded why we so desperately need to continue with this celebration. Recently, parents at a school in the suburb of Antioch petitioned to pull Sherman Alexie's The Absolutley True Diary of a Part-Time Indian from the freshman required summer reading list. Parents objected to the book's "descriptions of masturbation, racist language, graphic depictions of sex, and references to bestiality," but faculty maintained that the language needs to be read in context and that the book contains an overall "strong anti-drug, anti-alcohol message." The faculty won (yay!). I haven't read the book myself, but knowing that it was challenged certainly sparks my interest when I had none before. I imagine the same will be true for a lot of those freshmen. [via]

Review: Love and Obstacles by Aleksandar Hemon

2009-06-23T11:54:35Z

Love and Obstacles
by Aleksandar Hemon
(Riverhead Books, 2009)

I will be the first to admit that when we read Aleksandar Hemon's debut novel, Nowhere Man, during our first year of Book Club meetings, I was not the author's biggest fan. I generally like my novels and stories to be imbued with a certain element of concreteness and plausibility; I like to feel a sense of roundedness; I like to believe that if we start out in one place we will eventually get back to that place in one way or another. These are qualities that Nowhere Man does not possess. I do not mean this as a criticism of this book - my literary likes simply did not match up with what Hemon had to offer and I was content for us to go our separate ways. Rare is the author who can execute both styles of writing and execute them well. How wonderful and surprising it was to then find out that in his newly published collection of short stories, Love and Obstacles, Hemon shows that he is indeed that author.

The stories in Love and Obstacles focus on a single narrator's upbringing as a boy in Bosnia and as a man living as an ex-patriot in the United States. So closely does this mirror Hemon's own travels that one cannot help but guess that the author used his own life as fuel for these stories, but nowhere in the book does Hemon suggest that these stories are autobiographical and I'm disinclined to leap to that assumption. Here we have a teenage boy forgoing spending time with his family to forge a connection with a strung out American during a summer vacation in Kinshasa in "Stairway to Heaven." In "Everything," the same boy is later sent on his first journey alone through the country on mission to purchase a freezer chest for his parents, only to fall in love with the married woman staying in the adjacent hotel room. Obsessed with losing his virginity, the narrator knocks on her door and offers her a contraceptive pill, only to have the door shut in his face: "I heard them murmuring conspiratorially, like a husband and wife, and I recognized that love was on the other side, and I had no access to it."

Perhaps one of the most revealing stories is "The Bees, Part I," wherein we learn the story of the narrator's father through the lens of a failed autobiography. The autobiography starts with the proclamation that it was this man's grandfather who brought beekeeping to Bosnia, followed by a detailed explanation of the beekeeping life, but the narrator quickly realizes that this is merely a way for his father to delve into the maladies that plagued their family during the wars: "In an abrupt transition, he asserts that the most successful period of our beekeeping ended in 1942, during World War Two, when we for the first time lost our bees. It is clear that was a major catastrophe for the family, but my father, keeps everything in perspective, probably because of what was going on in the besieged Sarajevo at the time of his writing. There are worse things that can happen to you. A whole family, for example, can perish without a trace, he writes. We didn't perish, which is excellent." Though the story incorporates a hilarious anecdote of the narrator's failed attempt to serve as the star in the film version of his father's life, "The Bees, Part I" remains memorably haunting in its depiction of a man coming to terms with his war-torn life.

Several of the stories in Love and Obstacles do, indeed, deal with the realities of life in a war-stricken country and the effects of living outside that country as an adult, as Hemon himself has experienced. But, far from alienating the reader who does not share his narrator's exact background, the stories in this collection ring true for anyone who has seen the effects of war, both firsthand and abroad; they speak to anyone who has left their country for whatever reason, only to find themselves acting as its representative in their new land; they are as much about the difficulties of being Bosnian and American as they are about the difficulties of being a boy becoming a man. It is this incorporation of the universal that lends the stories of this very specific life the sense of fullness and tangibility that will surely appeal to all readers.