Three Guys One Book

Picking Lauren Cerand's Brain

2009-07-14T09:05:00.003-04:00

JE: Independent publicist Lauren Cerand, who we've mentioned before here at Three Guys for her ability to help generate and foster the ineffable buzz, is one of the coolest people I've met in the business. When LC is trumpeting a project, I listen. I follow her tweets. I like her style, her approach, and her enthusiasm for her work. And she's got a great smile to boot, which is imperative in

How Novelist Joshua Henkin Joined 175 Book Clubs

2009-07-13T05:03:00.014-04:00

DH: I led a book club for about two years. It's the art of just letting people talk....and intervening with your own talk if the conversation flags or loses its vector on the book.Once I discovered an author with a first book that I thought our group would love. I asked their publisher if the writer could visit us. What I got from the pub's marketing department was a one-sentence answer: "How

Surviving the Odds as A Debut Novelist

2009-07-10T08:52:00.002-04:00

JE: Last week, JR and I engaged in a lively discussion about agents and champions and dental insurance and surviving--financially and spiritually---as a writer in the twenty-first century. This week I thought we could pick up generally where we left off, and talk about audience building. I believe that the successful author in century twenty-one must be a force of nature, a tireless connector,

Joel Grey - 1.3: Images From My Phone

2009-07-09T09:53:00.009-04:00

I promise not to bitch too much, but I'm doing this review from a PDF that the publisher sent me, which is probably the last format a critic should be working from when reviewing a book of photography, especially one as brilliant as this. 1.3, which you can buy for an incredibly low price over at Amazon.com, makes a fine gift for the photography lover in your life.Cell phone photography is an art

Gone to the Dogs - Mary Guterson

2009-07-06T10:43:00.000-04:00

The Other GutersonI vowed shortly after the release (or should I say, the unleashing) of “Marley and Me,” that I'd never read a book with a dog on the cover so long as I lived. Unless Jack London wrote it. Then my best friend wrote a book with a dog on the cover. Shit! Sorry Mary, but I had to tear the cover off my reader's copy, or expose myself as a sham. The author is Mary Guterson, and the

Happyland, J. Robert Lennon, Part II

2009-07-03T09:00:00.003-04:00

In the second part of Happyland there is an incredible scene that J. Robert Lennon sets up by introducing the Mayor of Equinox. Archie Olds is the proud owner of an apple orchard in town and started the enterprise of selling apples by setting them out on the side of the road near his home and selling them on the honor system. To his surprise, people paid for them and left him money. Lennon takes

Getting an Agent and Making a Living as a Writer

2009-07-02T09:01:00.004-04:00

Jonathan Evison and Jason Rice talk about getting a literary agent and making a living as a writer.JR: I wanted to start a conversation about getting a literary agent. Jonathan you've crossed over to the side of getting published. Most aspiring writers never get that chance. Right now I'm trying to get an agent or editor to read my novel, you've given me advice, which is sound (results have been

BILLY TWITTERS AND HIS BLUE WHALE PROBLEM Written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex

2009-06-30T20:09:00.008-04:00

Of the four guys here at the blog, I'm probably the best person to review a children's book.My son is almost four years old and I read books to him every night, sometimes more than once, and most nights he picks the books we read. My greatest achievement in the realm of reading books to my son was when I taught him to say the world 'philharmonic', which is from the book Jake the Philharmonic Dog

THREE GUYS STATE OF THE UNION ROUNDTABLE

2009-06-26T13:26:00.009-04:00

JE: In the wake of a grim BEA, as the death toll continues to mount in all ranks of the book industry, from writer to editor to indie bookseller, I thought it was high time for all four Three Guys to convene and converse over virtual beers about the state of publishing and the state of books in 2009, as writers, readers, professionals, and consumers. It's fashionable (and not unreasonable) to

Nick Laird Interview, Glover's Mistake

2009-06-26T09:00:00.001-04:00

Nick Laird is a wonderful writer. I reviewed this great book a while back...go here for the review. I'm pleased to present this interview.Jason Rice: Before you wrote your first book, Utterly Monkey, you were well known for your poetry. What was the jump like from writing in that form to a large canvas like a novel?Nick Laird: Well, the first two books only came out a few months apart in Britain

The Blindfold Test - Barry Schechter - What I'm Reading Right Now

2009-06-25T15:51:00.007-04:00

I'm halfway through this debut novel and I'm really liking it; I'd suggest you check it out. It's a little paperback from the up and coming Melville House out of Brooklyn.It's about a man who has been followed his entire life by a secret sector of the government; an imaginative Hoover spin off that's called the Breather program. But why is Jeffery Parker a suspect, and being followed? He

Ziggurat by Stephen O'Connor

2009-06-25T05:02:00.000-04:00

I've always loved the word "ziggurat". A Mesopotamian temple...sort of zig-zagged...where those strange Middle Eastern agricultural gods, obsessed with sex and human sacrifice, were worshiped. Stephen O'Connor's New Yorker story begins with a girl in a bar playing a computer game about the tower of Babel called Ziggurat. You're supposed to build the tower before this blueish guy, representing the

Leaving Tangier by Tahar Ben Jelloun

2009-06-22T05:05:00.052-04:00

Tahar Ben Jelloun's novel is a systematically organized piece of work. There are 40 chapters. Most of them are named after a featured character. It's like Van Gogh painting a canvas. There's that brilliant yellow again and, at another place, cinnabar green. Then you step back and look at the whole canvas: wheat field, mother with child, sunflowers...whatever.Most of those characters just want to

Happyland, J. Robert Lennon, Part 1

2009-06-19T09:00:00.007-04:00

I first discovered J. Robert Lennon when I bought a copy of Mailman after reading a great review on Bookmunch.com. I didn't like it. Then as time went on I heard about Pieces for the Left Hand, when I got that in the mail from Granta. I was stunned, and went on to review it in my monthly column at AICN. Pieces for the Left Hand is a book that should be taught in creative writing classes, and

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

2009-06-15T05:02:00.000-04:00

If you are going to find The Tiger's Wife believable, in the current, fiction issue of The New Yorker, then you first have to believe in the tiger. Tea Obreht has to win the reader's confidence immediately or the game is up. I wish I could understand how writers do this. Have you ever been absorbed in a story and then doubled-back...marvelling at how you got sucked in?April, 1941, Eastern Europe:

Adland – Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet

2009-06-12T09:00:00.004-04:00

A sneak-peak courtesy of Bill Thomas at Doubleday.JE: By way of a preamble, let me just say that James P. Othmer is one of the funniest writers at work today. Period. His keen eye for the absurdities of the modern world rivals the likes of George Saunders and Sam Lipsyte. You could sharpen knives on Othmer's sentences.Prior to his 2006 debut novel, The Futurist, Jimbo was honing his mad skills in

Jonathan Franzen, Good Neighbors, New Yorker Summer Fiction Issue

2009-06-08T09:00:00.003-04:00

I've waited a very long time for something substantial from Mr. Franzen. Of course I'd be lying if I said his last two outings were worth the wait, Discomfort Zone didn't achieve the lofty heights I'd set Mr. Franzen on, and I whipped through it hoping it would be over and I'd forget it. How to be Alone was rehash, essays, something to feed the masses.'The Corrections changed the path of my

We Give Away the Signal

2009-06-05T05:05:00.014-04:00

The Three Guys are giving away three free copies of The Signal by Ron Carlson. The copies will be mailed to you by the publisher.Send us an email requesting your free copy to our official email address: threeguysonebook@gmail.com. We will say yes to the first three people.Just one thing: don't ask on one of those blogger "no-reply" email addresses or by using some other email address where we

Love Affair with Secondaries by Craig Raine

2009-06-03T05:02:00.016-04:00

Feel sympathy for Piotr, married with three sons, in Craig Raine's new story in the June 1st issue of the The New Yorker? He has betrayed his wife, Basia, in their own apartment. Piotr is sleeping with the poet Agnieszka. She likes to tell all in her verses so Piotr is worried that he going to appear in her next volume. Well, if you know a writer then you are taking certain chances. So I was

Emerging Writers Network Reviews JR

2009-06-02T12:01:00.002-04:00

You are invited to check out the review of Jason Rice's short story Friends on the very strong Emerging Writers Network...one of the best sites on which to keep up with contemporary fiction.What's especially cool is that you can then follow the EWN link to JR's story on FailBetter.com...another one of the coolest lit websites on the planet.Jason moves in only the best literary circles these days.

The Ron Carlson Interview

2009-06-01T05:04:00.004-04:00

Ron Carlson's The Signal is on-sale on June 1st. I had a chance to talk to Ron about the book. RC is awesome:Dennis Haritou: Ron, you have written a novel without a roof. Your characters are almost always outdoors. Why make that creative choice?Ron Carlson: I never ever thought of it that way – no roof! And I didn’t think of it when I was writing as an artistic choice. I worked to keep the

The Beast of Beddgelert by Alex Burrett

2009-05-29T05:05:00.018-04:00

What subterfuge is this? HarperCollins had the great idea to re-issue some classic short story collections in well-designed but inexpensive trade paperbacks and then include a bonus story from a new writer as part of the package.I've just read the bonus story, 'The Beast of Beddgelert' by Alex Burrett, in the Melville collection, The Happy Failure.On the basis of The Beast, reserve your copy of

Chris Cleave with Bill Kenower

2009-05-25T09:00:00.002-04:00

JE: My friend Bill Kenower of Author Magazine does an excellent series of interviews with touring writers in conjunction with Third Place Books in Seattle, one of the great indie bookstores anywhere. Chris Cleave (he of Little Bee) rolled through our town recently. While I haven't read Little Bee yet, I totally dug Chris Cleave's 2005 debut, Incendiary, which was given to me on my wedding day by

Scott Caan - Photographs Vol 1.

2009-05-22T09:45:00.002-04:00

It was great to hear that Scott Caan is a photographer, it's even better that he's got talent to spare. The oversized slipcase that I got in the mail the other day speaks a great deal about Caan's work as a photographer. It's not easy being someones kid, and I think Caan has done a great job in the Ocean's movies as Turk Malloy, as an actor he's got a kinetic visceral charm which his father had

Tiger, Tiger, Simon Van Booy from Love Begins in Winter

2009-05-21T09:45:00.002-04:00

Tiger, Tiger is the second story in the incredible Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy. There isn't a moment that flashes by when you don't think to yourself that the creepy unnamed narrator is a little off-kilter. For a long time I thought this was a relationship between two men, but slowly this odd woman crept out from behind her boyfriend's shadow to somehow control everything. She