How to use this Page

Great work

As usual Karo. Splendid!

KUPI ART IS AMAZING!

Dope write-up. KupiArt is the illest!!! EVER!!!

So glad to see her on here- I'm familiar with her work and I've always thought she was one of the most talented yet underrated designers on the scene. Looking forward to seeing more from her in the future.

I agree - KupiArt is an awesome addition to the IP site. Definitely visit her site and check out more of her work.

Kupi equals Awesomeness... That is all

Wow - Kupi isn't short on fans - that's for sure.

Oh, that's so inspiring! I have my sketchbook, but honestly sometimes I forget to bring it with me wherever I go. From now on, I'm trying to keep itinerary my purse. :)

Tommy is a great artist, indeed!

I agree, Tati. He's an excellent artist. A few years back I heard him on a podcast interview conducted by Von Glitschka. It was a great interview and I've been hooked on his work ever since.

We displayed it as soon as we got it and I don't think it's been on our shelves yet!

Okay, I had to reserve this one from the public library, since this is the second review I've seen. I'm not even that interested in swords and it looks very cool!

Hi, is there an email address to contact this blog? Thanks, Shari

I don't know if I blame America - I blame the American people for their complete loss of virtue and sense of personal responsibility.

From the Times piece: “It opened my mind to the fact that not everybody is as they are portrayed on the news,” she said. “Everything’s not that black and white or gray or brown.”

Indeed! I think we’re all sick of gray and brown portrayals of complicated events.

Also I loved the idea of her chatting up the Black Panthers at Starbucks. Another grande soy carmel macchiato latte, Huey?

I find it totally hilarious that "Beautiful Boy" is sold at Starbucks. As a Starbucks addict myself (okay, go ahead and throw stones, but remember, I live in Iowa. Starbucks IS the best coffee here), I laugh every time I see that jumping boy on the cover.

Re: the memoir issue. I have a simple solution: Let's just call autobiographical literature what it's always been: fiction. It's easy. There's no such thing as "truth," at least as Americans would describe "truth," in autobiography.

(My dissertation was on autobiographical literature written by 18th century Russian aristocrats in French. No truth there either.)

I love the cheerful reader comment that now she can write a true story about being ratted out by her sister.

oh yeah, Anon., there is definitely a story there. I hope we hear from the sister soon.

In lieu of this morning's news, take a look at the profile of Seltzer/Jones in last Thursday's Home section of the Times. There you will read such gems as

"The house smelled of black-eyed peas, which were stewing with pork neck bones — a dish from the repertory of her foster mother, known as “Big Mom,” whose shoe box of recipes she inherited."

I'm sure there's already been commentary on this elsewhere, but it's interesting that both stories involve the appropriation of another racial/ethnic background... and that in both cases this seems related, somehow, to the romanticization of suffering. (Along with a whole slew of other prejudiced assumptions.)

Maybe it's true that we'd like a dose of the miraculous to help digest stories of horror and violence. But maybe we also have a fundamental wish to misunderstand horror and violence in the first place...

Ruth

We have a wish for the supposedly ennobling effects of suffering and injustice, and perhaps also for the romance of confession. All this without having to go through the actual trials, of course!

I am addicted to books and I don't care where I get my fix! I wish more parents were addicted to books and what a better America for our children we would have!

A.D.

In reference to the book Beautiful Boy, it seems a great fit to me to have a book about drug addiction become very present and out there in the world for all to see.
As someone who went looking for factual and/or memoir material for this author to reference during his family's time of need, I can honestly say that there is very little out there that was helpful to him.
My hope is that his book, and that of his son, offer some relief and hope for those many others in the same, or similar predicaments.

Hurrah for Kelly's "simple solution." OF COURSE autobiography is fiction! Why hasn't this been known all along?

Doesn't conventional wisdom state that it's easier to sell publishers on memoir than it is on fiction? When the authors are caught, they try to put as good and profound a spin on the situation as they can, but with some of them I have to wonder if they weren't just trying to use the system to get published any way they could. Some of these people may not be identifying with other groups, may not be romanticizing anything. They're just trying to get away with something.

Have you noticed how many more comments posts get when they allow for the expression of outrage and indignation?

I've been having a related argument with my roommates lately, about truth and fact. I don't think that something needs to be "factual" to be True, that something need not be Non-Fiction to be True. They would disagree-- or at least, they don't understand.

Fiction, at least in my neck of the University Woods, is for those who don't want to read about REAL things, for the dreamers. Everyone else reads history, or biographies, or autobiographies, economics, memoirs, etc, as if this adds a level of true gravity and seriousness to their perspective.

People tell and believe all kinds of stories for all kinds of reasons, and we always have to bring forward our best judgment. The first issue of Notes from the Hornbook refers to Maurice Sendak's tale of a woman who read Where the Wild Things Are over and over to a screaming child, and when asked why, said the book won the Caldecott. I believe Sendak said that, but, with no disrespect to the genius, I don't believe that happened, at least not quite in that way. It makes a great story, and I'd retell it myself, but only with raised eyebrows.

People certainly do polish their best anecdotes--it's really fun to read Marilyn Horne's and Beverly Sills' respective accounts of their mutual appearance at La Scala!

Here's another one! (It's Kathy O'Beirne's 2005 memoir, Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalene Laundries)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/03/05/ftmag105.xml

Roger, have you seen this? http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3054274.ece

I find it worrying, to say the least. Here's a link to my comments on it: http://forums.abebooks.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=abecom&msg=16267.1&ctx=0

I know it's all happening on the other side of the pond, but I wondered if you had an opinion on it?

Zoe Marriott

I love the suggestion that asking kids to read the Shirley Jackson story is sadistic, but substituting "Housekeeping" makes for a tra-la-la, "plot-free" romp. It would seem that she hasn't read "The Lottery." Perhaps she hasn't read "Housekeeping" either. The narrative is indeed graceful, but all of that beautiful language is put to use to tell one chilling story. Sure, nobody is stoned to death, but it's still one powerfully bleak portrayal of alienation and isolation.

I thought it funny (in both meanings of the word) that one of the major complaints was that when the upper-middle-class kids in her neighborhood read these books, it made them think and realize they had a good life. Only the article makes that sound like a bad thing.

I'm amused by the suggestion that Sedaris isn't sadistic ;) Ah yes, he's just a happy Christmas elf.

Are we SURE that she didn't recognize "The Lottery" ? Perhaps she was being sarcastic. Or maybe she was trying to indicate
how such a listing might appear to a parent whose child brought home such a reading list? (and yes, Sedaris is indeed merciless. I wouldn't want to be a member o his family!)

I must disagree with you, Roger. The assertion of the author's that these depressing YA novels are examples of "lazy" writing is far more ridiculous than the possiblity that she has not heard of "The Lottery".

I think she was just giving a "sampler" as she said, and "Huck Finn" and "The Lottery" were thrown in as the classics.

And I think the point here is not that teens are encouraged to pick one or two titles from the "depressing" reading list, but that they are assigned many titles from that list. Chances are the history and English teachers don't always have time to plan their curricula together so it is entirely possible that one could end up with a very depressing reading list!

But still, I can only aspire that one day my own writing will be as "lazy" as Harper Lee's, or Shirley Jackson's, or Milton's, or J.R.R. Tolkien's, etc.

Rose

One comment (of many) that disturbs me comes towards the end of the article when she says "The list seemed to be a thoughtful mix of classics and newer titles that didn't reach as far over the shock line as, say, the slave novel "Day of Tears."" Over the top? Has she even read this novel? I think the dialogues are fabulous and that this is a particularly moving piece of historical fiction that helps readers to see the inhumanity of slavery. How could this possibly be considerer over the "shock line"?

I'm kind of grossed out that she called it a "slave novel."

Anon, I looked for some evidence that she did indeed recognize "The Lottery" for what it was, but couldn't find any. Can you?

Hm. As far as I remember, I didn't "slowly" realize what was happening in The Lottery -- it just hit me at the end (accidental pun). But maybe I'm a lazy reader.

Charlotte

I suspect that the book on her daughter's reading list was actually The Lottery by Beth Goobie -- which takes the Shirley Jackson premise and expands it into a full-length YA problem novel. Which doesn't make her comments any less troubling, just less glaringly foolish.

SKM,
teen librarian

It sounds more like Shirley Jackson's Lottery to me. The Goobie book doesn't have the whole town involved, just the high school, and the victim isn't sacrificed, she's shunned.

I thought it might also be the the first short story in Margo Lanagan's collection "Black Juice," but there's no lottery in that one, just the sacrifice.

The bigger question for me is, what the heck is this book?

"White people purposely burn an entire town of black people. Many survivors have no ears or mouths."

I'm also curious about the book in which an entire town is burned. Anyone recognize it?

Thanks for the great review Fairrosa! I'm glad you enjoyed the book so much.

sorry, forgot to sign that last comment. it was me, Jeremy Tankard.