September 11 Web Archive Collection

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	Tuesday, 13 November 2001 Describing months of harassment and threats, Bellesiles responds to critics, but one report says it's not enough . . . Several months before the September 2000 publication of "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture," author Michael Bellesiles was attacked by National Rifle Association president Charleton Heston, who said "Bellesiles had too much time on his hands." Now, defending himself and his research in an essay on the website of the Organization of American Historians, Bellesiles says he's been flooded with e–mails, and faxes calling him "'a paid agent of ZOG' (the Zionist Occupational [sic] Government), a 'tool of the liberals (or state socialists, as they really are) seeking to steal my guns,' and a 'faggot feminazi'." He was regularly threatened, he says, and "sent repeated viruses from anonymous web addresses that drove me from public e–mail and 'hacked' my web site, altering and deleting material," while at Emory University, where he teaches, "Demands for my firing have been sent to the university's administrators, the board of trustees, my colleagues and those in other departments, and even to technical support staff." But meanwhile, says a Boston Globe article, "Bellesiles's formal reply to his critics is unlikely to pacify either his ideological foes or those academic critics who think his scholarship flawed." Globe reporter David Mehegan says, "Bellesiles addresses only a few alleged errors . . . And he deflects concerns about data he says he gathered in San Francisco — data other researchers say were destroyed nearly a century ago — by saying he doesn't recall where he did the research." And unfortunately for Bellesiles, many of his notes and files of research were destroyed in a flood at Emory's history department. Bellesiles' dean at Emory says, "I commend Michael for beginning this process of engaging his critics in his article. ... This is the first step in a long process as we see it; a process of careful and thoughtful scholarly debate." Smart money: Winfrey wins, Franzen says something stupid . . . Tension is rising in the book industry over the November 19th awarding of the National Book Awards, which is being viewed by many as a referendum on the recent flap between Oprah Winfrey and Jonathan Franzen, whose novel "The Corrections" is under nomination. As Kevin Canfield says in a Hartford Courant report, "People are wondering: Will the organization, which only two years ago honored Oprah Winfrey for her hugely successful televised book club, give the award to Jonathan Franzen, who is fresh from a well–chronicled dust–up with the talk-show host?" The New Yorker's John Seabrook, author of "Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing/the Marketing of Culture," says, "Whatever happens, people will interpret that as the academy's comment on the Franzen–Oprah flap. So if he wins, people will see that as a kind of criticism of Oprah Winfrey, and if he loses, I think people will see that as kind of endorsement of Oprah. I don't know if that's really valid, but I think that's how people will see it." Nice guy, finishing first . . . For novelist Richard B. Wright, who used to get up at 5 a.m. to write before going off to teach all day, "the past week has been one to savour" for a 64–year–old author "who has written his nine novels in relative obscurity," notes Canada's National Post in a profile. Last week Wright "took home the glamorous $25,000 Giller prize for his novel 'Clara Calla'." This week, he's up fo a prestigious Governor General's Award. "I'm a professional writer who had a narrow readership," he says. "This is nice, to move beyond that. At my age, that's very gratifying." Editing Naipaul . . . The author was "in his very early twenties and looked even younger, but his manner was grave — even severe — and unsmiling," says editor Diana Athill of her first encounter with the unpublished V.S. Naipaul. But "It was a surprise to discover" that the manuscript for his first nove, "Miguel Street," was "funny: delicately funny, with nothing overdone." Over the years of editing him, she says in this lengthy Granta essay, she had many occasions to admire him — such as when the prestigious Times Literary Supplement offered him "their usual fee of twenty–five pounds (or was it guineas?) for a review, and he had replied haughtily that he wrote nothing for less than fifty," she writes. "'Oh silly Vidia,' I thought. 'Now they'll never offer him anything again.' But lo! they paid him his fifty and I was filled with admiration." Now, she says in retrospect, "I was right to admire that self–respect, at that time, but it was going to develop into a quality difficult to like." Eggers attacked for liking San Francisco by editors of newsweekly in, er, San Francisco . . . In its "Flapdoodle" literary gossip column (third item), the editors of the San Francisco Bay Guardian take Dave Eggers to task for his recent San Francisco Chronicle essay (unavailable online), which they call "I–pocked." "Flapdoodle counted the references to self and came up with a mighty figure of 42. Not bad for 1,200 words or so," they observe. They go on to say, "As for the substance, as it were, of the essay, let's just say the Eggmeister is glad to be back, here . . . amid the Tans and Chabons and other such potentates of the written word who are (and we are keeping a straight face now, honest) no less luminous than the Egg himself." The column also notes a "pet project: passing a ballot initiative to ban first-person confessional narratives by people under 40." RIP: Dorothy Dunnett . . . Dorothy Dunnett, the Scottish historical novelist whose weighty works about Renaissance life are, according to one New York Times critic, "almost certainly destined to be counted among the classics of popular fiction," has died at age 78. According to a Times obituary, Dunnett, who was originally a professional portrait painter, "said it had never been her intention to become a writer of fiction," but that her husband had suggested she write a novel. "So (always cooperative) I did," she later wrote. Her most popular was the six–volume "The Lymond Chronicles," and the eight–volume "The House of Niccolò." Both showcase "painter's eye for gorgeous detail" and a "vocabulary that sometimes outstrips the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary," said one Times critic, and have "inspired conventions, fan magazines, among them a quarterly called Kisses and Marzipan, and several Internet forums." Dunnett also wrote seven mystery novels featuring Johnson Johnson, "an agent in the guise of a portrait-painting yachtsman." Biblical influence . . . Legend says The Times Literary Supplement started as "a 'makeshift' to mop up book reviews for which there was no room in the paper, because the parliamentary reports had been taking up so much space." This is disputed, but there's no dispute that, in England, the TLS "is one of the essentials of civilised life in this country," as David Sexton says. Now, as the publication celebrates its 100th birthday, a new book looks over its history. In a review, Sexton calls "Critical Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement" the "ulitmate review of reviews." It reveals some interesting secrets, he says — such as the identities of 75 years worth of anonymous reviewers — and reassures readers that despite falling circulation the magazine will survive and speak well of British culture., "The Lord, we may recall, promised to spare Sodom if he found 50 righteous men, then 45, then forty, then 30, then 20 and finally held out for just 10," Sexton says. "The TLS is doing fine." Looney theories have some prestigious devotees . . . In January 1997, Professor Daniel Wright announced the first Edward de Vere Studies Conference at Concordia University in Portland, Ore., where he is chairman of the English department. By the time it got underway in April, "English professors from around the country were sending Wright vitriolic messages that consisted of 'spitefulness mingled with astonishment,'" Wright now recalls. The belief that de Vere, the Earl of Oxford was the actual author of Shakespeare's works has had a diverse range of supporters, from Sigmund Freud to the great Shakespearean performer John Gielgud, and movie star Keanu Reeves says he wants to make a movie about de Vere. As Mark K. Anderson notes in a Fairfield Weekly overview of the case — an in–depth article that also covers Fairfield's Shakespeare Revealed conference — the battle between Oxfordians and Stratfordians (as Shakespeare–as–author defenders are known) has been going on since about 1920, when Oxford was first advanced as the true author of Shakespeare's works by a researcher named J. Thomas Looney. Toni Morrison, library lover . . . She's won just about every literary award there is, including the Nobel Prize, but the award that she says was perhaps the most meaningful to Toni Morrison was when they named a reading room in her hometown library after her. Now, Morrison — who calls her teenaged employment in a library "the first intellectual job I ever had" — won another award from a library — the fifth annual Lifetime Achievement Award from the Enoch Pratt Society given out by Baltimore's Pratt Library. As this Baltimore Sun report notes, in addition, a $1 million gift to the library to endow the Pratt's African–American Collection was made in Morrison's honor the same day. "My connection with libraries and library systems is profound," Morrison said. "So your singling me out, along with those who have given extraordinary resources to this library, is something for which I am profoundly grateful. It is no small thing to me." Nussbaum and the ever–useful "intelligence of emotions" . . . Beyond her triple apppointment in law, divinity and philosophy at the University of Chicago, philosopher and social critic Martha Nussbaum is a prolific author whose most recent book, "Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions," argues that "emotions are modes of understanding essential to ethical judgment and what she calls 'full political rationality.'" The book further positions her as a rare being nowadays: a public intellectual. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, she says that while recent events haven't changed her sense of her duties, they do seem to have changed the quality of attention given intellectuals. And as per her new book, she says, in America "there's always a resistance to mourning on the part of Americans" that could have a "downside": "the impulse to seek revenge." In the U.K., the "canon" got bigger, and so did its readership . . . "Once upon a time," notes the London Observer's Robert McCrum, "there was a small library of books that everyone agreed was worth reading. These books . . . were written by the men of the community and reflected patriarchal and hierarchical values. One day, after many vicissitudes and much debate about the influence of these volumes, this library was dispersed." What has this meant to reading in the U.K.? For one thing, McCrum notes in his most recent column, roughly 120,000 books were published in Britain last year, and figures should go up this year. "Per capita, this is the largest output of new books in the known world, and strikingly larger than the output in the booming American book market." Views from Lake Woebegone . . . As Karen Olson points out in the Utne Reader, "Garrison Keillor writes a lot" — there are his nine books and regular contributions to Time, Salon, and elsewhere. How does he do it? In a lengthy, in–depth interview, she also asks him about his literary influences, and what constitutes his idea of good writing. A writer's work is never done . . . After Adrian Havill's book, "The Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold: The Secret Life of FBI Double Agent Robert Hanssen," was bombarded by negative reviews on Amazon.com from customers who "blasted Havill for his descriptions of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei," Havill complained to Amazon. The company would not let him post a response, but said it would remove the offending customer reviews. It didn't, according to Lloyd Grove in his Washington Post column, so Havill took matters into his own hands and wrote a review of his own, explaining "the author should be allowed to respond." Monday, 12 November 2001 Ken Kesey flies away . . . Ken Kesey, who died in his sleep at age 66 on Saturday with his wife and children at his side after an unsuccessful liver cancer operation, was memorialized far and wide yesterday in tributes and obituaries that seemed to emphasize one or the other: he was a writer or an icon. The New York Times obituary, by Christopher Lehmann Haupt, gets quickly into a discussion of Kesey's life as depicted in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool AId Acid Test," which follows Kesey's 1960s–era trips with his band of friends, The Merry Pranksters, on a bus and on drugs. The notice in London's Observer also skips quickly over Kesey's writing (saying he "gave up serious writing for almost three decades") to discuss his rambunctious countercultural activites. And the lead sentence of the Washington Post announcement says Kesey "probably gained greater fame for his lifestyle as a rebellious, drug–infused 'Merry Prankster' than he did as a serious and gifted author." The Los Angeles Times memorial, meanwhile, discusses Kesey's writing and themes in greater depth, noting Kesey's own description of his favorite theme: "There's a snake in the grass. Sometimes it's the government. Sometimes it's evil spirits. Sometimes it's some part of yourself. But there's an evil force, and it attacks you [where] you are most vulnerable. That's what 'Cuckoo's Nest' is about. That's what 'Great Notion' is about: the small trying to stand up against a great force. But that force is getting stronger." The most moving such remembrance may be David Kipen's tribute in the San Francisco Chronicle, which notes how influential Kesey's books have been and traces his writing throughout his life, showing how it grew out of Beat predecessors and also discussing his later work. Kipen also discusses Kesey's personality beyond its sensational public persona, quoting one story, for example, about how Kesey would put sprinklers in the fields for his cows to enjoy. And on the homepage of the still–extant Merry Pranksters, Kesey's long–time partner Ken Babbbs bids farewell, saying, Kesey "will be sorely missed but if there is one thing he would want us to do it would be to carry on his life's work. Namely to treat others with kindness and if anyone does you dirt forgive that person right away. This goes beyond the art, the writing, the performances, even the bus. Right down to the bone." Publishing giants battle to death to see who can lose most money in e–book investments . . . In the wake of the announcements by Random House and AOL Time Warner that they would be selling digital editions of their books directly to customers via the Internet, Simon & Schuster has announced it will move ahead with similar plans despite what this New York Times report calls the "scant demand" for electronic books. The report notes that "Other publishers, however, have recently slowed their moves into digital books in light of the minimal demand." Random House launches Asian effort to compensate for troubles at home . . . In what is being called a response "to a steep downturn in books sales in the United States," the worlds largest book publisher, Random House, is sending its president, Youngsuk Chi, to Asia to open a new office and "seek new areas of growth, possibly through acquisitions," says a New York Times report. Chi, who started with the company less than a year ago, will be appointed to a new position, chairman of Random House Asia. The company's CEO, Peter Olson, explained in a statement, "With the North American book marketplace continuing to suffer a profound slowdown, we have decided to make what was to have been a long–term Random House business development goal an immediate priority." New book charges State Dept. prevented FBI from investigatin bin Laden Saudi ties . . . A new book just out in France says the former director of antiterrorism for the F.B.I.'s New York office "who was killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 complained bitterly last summer that the United States was unwilling to confront Saudi Arabia over Osama bin Laden," according to a New York Times report. The book, "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth," by Jean–Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, quotes the official, John P. O'Neil, who had resigned from the F.B.I. to become chief of security at the World Trade Center, as saying, "All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization can be found in Saudi Arabia," and "argues that Saudi support for Mr. bin Laden has been extensive." According to the book, "He explains the failure in one word: oil." Optometrists eagerly await Harry, but some others don't . . . As part of what they term a "Save Harry" campaign, "demonstrators angry at Coca Cola's sponsorship of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' have staged a protest outside a screening of the film in Washington," says a BBC News wire story, although it is vague on the details of the actual demonstaration. It does, however, note the complaints of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is that the group feels it's inappropriate to use "sponsorship of the movie to sell "junk food" to children" and says the "rising consumption of soft drinks over the past 25 years has helped to fuel rising levels of obesity." They have called on J.K. Rowling "to donate her royalties from the deal to campaigns for improving nutrition." Coke, meanwhile, says "To characterise our sponsorship of the film, and our promotion of the magic of reading, as inappropriate and to infer a connection with health and wellness of children simply misses the point for the sake of sensationalism." While the Washington Post makes no mention of demonstrations within the last two weeks, it did run a lengthy article yesterday about the wide–ranging impact on Britain the film's opening has had on England, and what to expect when the movie finally opens in the U.S. — for example, a run on "prescription eyeglasses exactly like Harry's." A London Observer report, meanwhile, says, "A survey of British stores by The Observer has revealed that all Harry Potter products are being sold to British shoppers at grossly inflated prices," often "twice as much for the film's merchandise as Americans." • RELATED: "No, we don't know when the fifth Harry Potter book is being published," notes Orlando Sentinel books editor Nancy Pate in her newest column, but "meanwhile, the publishing industry has conjured numerous Harry spin-off books, some authorized, some not." Pate takes a look at "the cannon," the guide books, the text books, the bios of J.K. Rowling, the pop–up books, and more. The Butler did it . . . It's "not exactly must–see TV," says the New York Times' Matthew Mirapaul, but for writers, it might be pretty rivetting: Robert Olen Butler is composing a short story live online each night for over a week now. As Mirapaul describes it in this report, in live video and audio broadcasts from his office at Florida State University, "Mr. Butler types, revises and swivels in his desk chair as he awaits inspiration." Meanwhile, a camera trained on his monitor shows "every comma stroke, every lousy, rotten, awkward sentence, every blind alley, every bad metaphor," as Butler puts it. "It's a reader's equivalent of walking in on one's parents having sex, and it manages to be both unwatchably boring and totally habit–forming," says David Kipen in a San Francisco Chronicle column. Nonetheless, the recent death of Anthony Shaffer has inpsired Kipen to bid Shaffer adieu and suggest that for "another, more alluring study of the scribbling life" that shows "a writer swaggering around his palatial estate, dictating his latest novel without (unlike Butler) ever blotting a line" readers should "for pity's sake read or rent "Sleuth" again." Novels help with "the logic of irrationality" . . . "Why do they hate us? Why do ragged and raging mobs burn our flag while chanting 'Death to America'?" asks J. Peder Zane in a recent Raleigh News & Observer column. "Like many Americans, I have looked for answers in books about Islam and the Arab world. However, learning about their history and our policies only takes us so far. Bare facts and cold analysis tend to make human actions seem rational. But the blind hatred we are witnessing is not the product of reason." So, he suggest, "literature is also essential. For it revolves not so much around facts as around the stories people tell about those facts." And in that light, one of the best books he's read lately "on the logic of irrationality" is "a superb work of magic realism that reveals the especially strong role that false stories, superstition and myth play in the lives of the powerless, beleaguered and uninformed": the novel "Pedra Canga" by Tereza Albues. Reclusive "Secret" author supposedly hands in tentative manuscript maybe . . . Almost ten years after her bestselling debut, "The Secret History," the "reclusive" Donna Tart has "finally submitted a first draft of her long–awaited second novel" to Knopf editor Gary Fisketjon, says the New York Post's Page Six column (fifth item). In addition, the column says the ongoing attempt to make a film version of "Secret History" has now been taken up by Gwyneth Paltrow, "after efforts by Alan Pakula, Ben Affleck, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne went nowhere." Selling the avant garde, with gusto . . . In 1999 the French Ministry of Arts bestowed upon American–born Barney Rosset its Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, saying, "You brought writers considered marginal into the mainstream. We are still reaping the fruits of your relentless efforts, and such is your legacy that the American public is indebted to you for many of the most interesting books that it reads." In this lengthy interview for the Evergreen Review, Win McCormack talks with the man who founded the Grove Press and first published Samuel Becket's "Waiting for Godot," not to mention the first unexpurgated version of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence and numerous avant garde authors from Jean Genet and Eugen Ionesco to Alan Ginsberg and Malcolm X. Short stories: the soul of wit, or marketing? . . . "When a fiction writer publishes a collection of stories, are we to feel cheated of a proper novel or appreciative of the parade of characters, plot lines and settings placed before us?," asks Alex Clark. In this London Guardian review of recent story collections by Alice Munro, Muriel Spark, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Arthur Bradford, Clark considers the question, noting "the distinction between bespoke collections and more apparently random gatherings, frequently made under the aegis of product–hungry publishers at various (often posthumous) points in a writer's career, is not a particularly reliable index to quality," but "even the offcuts — where a short story might be seen as something like a doodle in the margin or a balled-up piece of paper — have something to tell us . . ." The class is currently over–enrolled . . . "Excellent Women," the acclaimed 1952 novel by Barbara Pym, is the story of Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman's daughter who lives amongst the "respectable and never–married ladies" of post–war London. In Chapter 15, for example, Mildred "stands outside the vicarage as Miss Enders and Miss Statham rush into church for Evensong, an Anglican evening prayer service." On the next page, a clerk in the Video Explosion video rental store talks with chacters named Doll Babcock and Shirtless Muscle–Stud. As this Cleveland Plain Dealer story explains, thus did a University of Akron class in contemporary British literature discover a printing error that seems to have mixed copies of "Excellent Women" with "Sex Toys of the Gods." Honor is a beautiful thing . . . A new book claims to unveil the secret identity of D.H. Lawrence's real–life model for Mellors the gamekeeper, a.k.a. "Lady Chatterley's Lover." He was a "24–year–old Sicilian mule–driver" named Peppino D'Allura, says author Gaetano Saglimbeni in his book, "Album Taormina," and the book is based on a real–life affair between D'Allura and Lawrrence's wife, Frieda Lawrence. According to a London Guardian report, Saglimeni says the affiar took place when the Lawrences lived near Taormina, Sicily, and that "Everyone in the village knew about this boy who had talked of his adventures in the vineyard with the wife of DH Lawrence. He used to tell the story in bars and hostelries, but he never spoke about it to journalists. He said that would have been unfitting for a Sicilian man of honour." Friday, 9 November 2001 Tumult continues at Academy of Poets: nearly half the staff is laid off . . . In the still–tumultuous wake of Wednesday's announcement that the Academy of American Poets had ousted its popular director, William Wasdsworth (see the initial New York Times report, previously posted on MobyLives), the organization's board has announced that it will "lay off nearly half its staff to forestall an impending financial crisis." According to a New York Times story by David D. Kirkpatrick, board chairman Jonathan Galassi says 8 of the academy's 17 employees will be laid off, half of its office space will be sublet, and the board will attempt to raise a $500,000 "stabilization fund" over the next two years. Meanwhile, Charles Flowers, associate director of the academy, has been named acting director while the board conducts a search for Wadsworth's successor. But Kirkpatrick reports that protests over Wadsworth's ouster continue — poet Philip Levine, for one, has resigned from the academy, saying, "I'm outraged." "Brave new world" of profitability meets cold harsh light of reality . . . One of the first major publishers to announce an e–book imprint has decided to close that imprint after just over a year: the Random House Trade Group, reports David D. Kirkpatrick in a New York Times story, is "quietly scuttling its AtRandom imprint in recognition of the scant consumer demand for books that can be read on screens." The story — first broken by the e–mail newsletter PW Daily (unavailable as a link) — "demonstrated just how dim the once–luminous prospect of an electronic revolution in reading had become in a little more than year," noted Kirkpatrick. He points out that just last July, Random House president and publisher Ann Godoff announced, "This is the brave new world we want to see. No printing, no paper and binding, no need for a sales conference or printed catalog . . ." However, says Kirkpatrick, "The size of the market has turned out to be tiny, at least for now." B&N issues surprise warning about earnings . . . In an announcement that surprised industry observers, Barnes & Noble "delivered a surprise warning of weak earnings," blaming "fears of more attacks against the public" it said had "spooked customers from going to malls and bookstores." B&N CEO Leonard Riggio also blamed "the lack of media exposure for authors amid the din of crisis coverage." A Reuters wire story says the announcement "drove the retailer's shares down 35 percent to a seven-month low, making it the day's percentage loss leader on the New York Stock Exchange," and prompting worries that " worried that a stagnating economy and rising layoffs could compound a sales recovery." As one analyst who had given B&N stock his "strong buy" recommendation explained, "The book business had been doing OK even after Sept. 11. So this news is quite unexpected." RIP: Andrew Waterhouse . . . British poet Andrew Waterhouse, who last year won the Forward Prize for best first book of poetry, has taken his own life at age 42. As a belated London Guardian announcement of the October 20th passing observes, "more than most poets, Waterhouse illustrates the contention that even the grimmest poem is a constructive act, a way of framing and bringing order to feeling, experience . . . He could also be extremely funny." The poet, it says, "suffered from depression and had, of late, withdrawn from a number of professional engagements, citing ill–health. His privacy, generosity and impish humour disguised the intensity of his suffering." Gandhi daughter–in–law wins huge libel case, but is accused of false charges in return . . . The daughter–in–law of the late Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi has won a libel suit in an English court against the author of the recently published "The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi," Katherine Frank. According to a BBC News wire story, Indian minister Maneka Gandhi had sued Frank over the book's allegations that Maneka Gandhi had helped her late husband, Sanjay Gandhi, "cover up the murder of an Indian underworld figure." As a Tehelka report, notes, Frank and her publisher, HarperCollins, "in a statement in the open court through their counsel," agreed to remove the allegations from future editions of the book and to "pay substantial damages and costs to her for the injury done to her reputation and feelings." They also apologized, saying: "On behalf of both the author and publisher of the book, may I tender their sincere apologies to the claimant for what was on any view the most serious libel? They accept without reservations that the allegations complained of were and are utterly false and should not have been included." But meanwhile, a Times of India story says back in India supporters of Gandhi's sister–in–law, "Congress chief Sonia Gandhi . . . is furious with Maneka for making what it calls 'totally malicious, baseless and distorted charges' against Sonia." It says, "After winning the case, a jubilant Maneka reportedly accused Sonia of being behind the writing of Frank's book as the author had thanked the Congress president for 'all the input'." The paper says, "The Gandhi feud is hotting up." The difficulties of reading Marx . . . In a first–person account, novelist Tariq Ali details he was arrested at Munich airport last week when a book by Karl Marx was discovered in his baggage at an airport security check. The book, "On Sucide," was published by his German publisher and given to Ali as a gift. Ali says in this London Independent story that his passport was taken away and he was taken to police headquarters. "On the way there," he recounts, "the arresting officer gave me a triumphant smile. 'After 11 September, you can't travel with books like this,' he said. 'In that case,' I replied, 'perhaps you should stop publishing them in Germany, or, better still, burn them in public view.'" At headquarters, Ali says, "I demanded to use a phone. 'Who do you want to ring?' he said. 'The Mayor of Munich,' I replied. 'His name is Christian Ude. He interviewed me about my books and the present crisis on Friday evening at Hugendubel's bookshop. I wish to inform him of what is taking place.'" D–Johns Under Attack, Day 1: Former Lingua Franca editor attacks MobyLives' Johnson; ALD's Dutton denies charges . . . In a letter to Jim Romenesko at his MediaNews website, former Lingua Franca senior editor Laura Secor has attacked MobyLives editor Dennis Loy Johnson for his report (see column left, or click here for entire article) about the shut–down of Lingua Franca and a legal suit against Arts & Letters Daily editor Denis Dutton. Secor castigates Johnson because he "purported to expose a hidden back story behind Lingua Franca's demise," and she says the fact that Johnson referred to LF's Andrew Hearst as an "editor" instead of as the "managing editor" shows Johnson's "investigation apparently did not extend to actually looking at the magazine's masthead, let alone to talking to anyone who had ever worked there besides [LF publisher Academic Partners head] Jeffrey Kittay." In a reply, Johnson says Secor seems to have missed that the article wasn't about the editorial side of LF, and also says, "I purported nothing. The facts are the facts." He also points out his article describes how someone else who worked for AP — Dutton — would not respond. Meanwhile, news of the suit against Dutton is breaking in New Zealand, where the American–born Dutton is a college professor. In a New Zealand Herald report, Dutton says ""The United States, as we all know, is a highly litigious society, where it's open to anyone to say what they like in a legal claim no matter how unfounded." • UPDATE (4:00 p.m. ET): On the letters page for Jim Romenesko's MediaNews website, LF's Jeffrey Kittay continues the attack on Dennis Johnson, and keeps it personal. Twain's conflicted ghost . . . The preponderance of a new Ken Burns documentary about Mark Twain "centers on the relationship Twain and his family had with their house at 351 Farmington Ave. in Hartford," according to a Hartford Courant story. It's where Twain wrote "some of his most biting social commentary about the opulent lifestyle so many Americans sought to acquire," writes reporter . "Yet Twain himself had an insatiable desire for wealth" and "the Tiffany–designed Victorian mansion is an enduring testament to his conflicting beliefs." "I have been making films for over 20 years, and I have never had a house resonate as much as this one," said Burns at a special screening for the board of directors for the house, now a museum; "his ghost is here." Now we know: the gift for beautiful prose isn't genetic . . . She's long refused to talk about her famous father, but now the last surviving child of Thomas Mann, his daughter Elisabeth Mann Borgese, has finally spoken out. "I felt obliged to set a few things straight," she says in this Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung interview. For one thing, she says, her father's homosexuality was "always terribly exaggerated . . . Okay, like many artists he was probably bisexual, but the love of my father's life was my mother. I have absolutely no doubt about that." She also is upset by reports "that my parents were bad parents. Loveless. That is, as one says in English, bullshit!" John Barth surveys the field . . . After years, John Barth has a new book out, "Coming Soon!!!" However, donıt call it a "comeback," says critic Andrew Ervin. "He's been publishing his own brand of genre–busting metafiction for years, while Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and William T. Vollmann were still swaddled in the royal robes of academia." In Ervin's interview with Barth for the Philadelphia CityPaper, Barth says he likes the work of a lot of his literary progeny, such as Dave Eggers and Richard Powers, and his former students Mary Robison, Michael Martone, and Curt White. One poet's take: Arabs and Muslims need to "look in the mirror" . . . In a long essay for the Frankfurter Allgemeine, Lebanese poet Abbas Baydoun suggests that Arabs and Muslims are using "Western racism" as "a new pretext for not looking in the mirror." He says, "Even if our charge that America abuses our suffering and ineptitude were justified, we have still not made an equivalent effort to recognize our own responsibility for the causes of this suffering. It is a responsibility that grows by the day." He says that even though "Arabs in the United States and Europe have undoubtedly experienced a climate of hatred . . . that is not solely due to delusions or hatred on the part of Americans, but to the fact that Arabs and Muslims have shed American blood . . . not to mention the blood of Muslims who do not share their beliefs. They have thereby declared all those fair game who do not share their opinion or lifestyle." Former stand–up sits down to write . . . While writing her new novel, Australian writer Rachel Berger heard a sudden "thunderous, crashing noise, as if bombs are dropping all around her." As it turns out, they nearly were — she discovered "the Australian Navy is conducting shelling exercises just across the bay" from where she lived. So she called the naval commanders office and told him, "I'm writing a book, can you just STOP IT!" According to this profile from the Melbourne Age, it's the kind of thing that happens in the resultant book, "Whaddya Mean You're Allergic To Rubber?" But the former stand–up comic also displays a touch for poignancy beyond humor — one of her characters is a "Bosnian woman who always walks home from her waitressing job along the quiet back streets because of her ingrained fear of snipers." You mean they could replicate? . . . It has been unofficially dubbed "An Evening with Three Perverted Jewish Writers" by one of the participants, but an upcoming reading at Philadelphia's Bar Noir, notes this CityPaper profile, showcases three of the country's most idiosyncratic — and outrageous — writers: Jonathan Ames, author of the recent memoir "What's Not to Love? The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer," Neal Pollack, author of "The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature," and Jerry Stahl, whose new book "Plainclothes Naked" is "a rollicking, crack–fueled, ultra–violent novel about two junkie criminals who discover contraband photos of George W. Bushıs tattooed testicles." "I don't think any of us are the kind of writers who read at a Borders in a strip mall," says Pollack. "I'm not a nice writer," says Stahl. "You want a nice family novel, go read 'The Corrections.' Knock yourself out." Ames says he's not sure what to expect at the reading, "But we are seven short of a minyan, so we won't be reading from the Torah." Still, Pollack says, "It's a good group, an appropriate threesome. In fact, maybe we'll have a threesome afterward." NOTE: Daily newspapers often change URLs when archiving, so some links won't work beyond the day they're first posted. Thursday, 8 November 2001 Slush piles growing amidst worries about anthrax . . . These are bad days for writers trying to break into print, or get an agent, via the slush pile: as a New York Times story reports, anthrax has "emerged as one more excuse for all but a handful of publishing houses not to read unsolicited manuscripts." At Simon & Schuster, for example, unsolicited mail "doesn't even make it out of the mailroom," a rep tells the Times. "We have always had a policy that we don't read unsolicited manuscripts," he added. "This has given us an opportunity to reiterate this policy." The New Yorker magazine isn't opening mail at all, and "thousands of short stories, poems, queries and letters" have accumulated. And a New York literary agent says, "It has been haunting my nights, I must confess. And I have asked my assistant to wear gloves and a mask." It's not just in New York, either, and not just at big publications: an editor at Poetry magazine in Chicago says he's worried, too. "For two days my assistant had gloves," says Joseph Parisi, "and then I realized even the gloves would be spreading it around so what was the point?" S&S kills "embarrassing" deal with Rosetta, Preiss . . . A deal to co–publish electronic and paper editions of some out–of–print classics such as "Midnight Cowboy" and "The Asphalt Jungle" was killed by Simon & Schuster late yesterday just hours after an announcement of the deal had been made. As an Associated Press wire story reports, the deal, between e–book publisher Rosetta Books and iBooks, a small, traditional book publisher run by renowned book packager Byron Preiss, was "complicated" by the fact that iBooks is distributed by S&S, which is supporting Random House in the legal suit it is pursuing against Rosetta for publishing electronic versions of books by Kurt Vonnegut and William Styron to which it owns rights. (A judge has ruled that RH did not own electronic rights to the books; the case is currently under appeal.) While one anonymous source says S&S killed the deal because of Rosetta's involvement, S&S spokesman Adam Rothberg says only, "We have an agreement to distribute iBooks. Period. Not iBooks/some other books." "It's embarrassing," says Byron Preiss. "I apologize to Rosetta for what happened. These were not e–books, they were paper books, and they were clearly owned by Rosetta, so I didn't think there would be a problem." Rosetta's Arthur Klebanoff, meanwhile, accused S%S of "swinging its weight around" and said, "This doesn't hurt Rosetta. It hurts the authors and it hurts the reading public's opportunity to enjoy these books." Four Potter books take over top five bestseller slots . . . Five years after it was first released, J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book, 1995's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is back at number one on British bestseller lists. The other three Potter books are right behind it, at positions 2, 3, and 5. At number four is a movie tie–in "celebratory edition" of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." "Sales have been helped by the release of adult versions of the books, which feature 'more mature" covers," says a BBC News wire story. "Children and adults seem to be in a rush to read the adventures before the release of the film." Hardy manuscripts fetch £1 million . . . Letters and manuscripts by Thomas Hardy considered "the most significant collection remaining in private hands" were sold for over £1 million at a London auction yesterday, showing "people's deep affinity for his novels and poems," according to the auctioneer. But as a BBC News wire story notes, a museum at Hardy's old home, the Dorset County Museum, was outbid for some key manuscripts. "We are disappointed that we were outbid on virtually all the manuscript items we sought to purchase," the museum's curator said. Meanwhile, the auction — for the collection of the late Morgan Library director Frederick B. Adams Jr. — also included high prices for manuscripts by other writers, such as an inscribed edition of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," and a signed copy of "A Shropshire Lad" by A.E. Housman. "USA Patriot Act" could have "chilling effect" on booksellers, says ABFFE . . . The "USA Patriot Act" — the sweeping new anti–terrorism legislation signed into law last week by George W. Bush — could have a "chilling effect" on booksellers, warns Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, in a letter to all American Booksellers Association bookstore members mailed yesterday. Finan says the ABFFE is "deeply concerned" because the act "gives the federal government expanded authority to search your business records, including the titles of the books purchased by your customers." In some cases, Finan added, "You cannot object publicly either. The new law includes a gag order that prevents you from disclosing 'to any other person' the fact that you have received an order to produce documents." A report on the ABA's BookWeb site also notes criticism by Senator Russell D. Feingold, the only Senator who voted against the bill, who says, "all business records can be compelled, including those containing sensitive personal information, such as . . . records of what books somebody has taken out from the library. We are not talking about terrorist suspects, we are talking about people who just may have come into some kind of casual contact with the person in that situation." Anger and angerability . . . Even though her book was very well recieved in Canada, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Carol Shields "doesn't stand a chance of winning" the prestigious Governor–General's Award next week for her "Jane Austen" because her publisher forgot to submit the book as a nominee. "I cannot think of a more deserving Governor–'General's Award contender and we are mortified by the oversight," says Penguin Canada publisher Cynthia Good. In a Toronto Globe & Mail report, she calls it an "unfortunate administrative oversight" and says, "It should have been on everybody's radar. This is Carol Shields." Shields, unavailable for comment, is said to be "understandably disappointed." Reviewing the reviewer: Larkin was no liar . . . Although, as a book reviewer, Philip Larkin may have "occasionally sounded like Mr Pooter," he was, says Ian Sansom, "possessed more commonly of the charm and barbs of Oscar Wilde." For example, his review of Robert Lowell's "Life Studies" noted it was "liberally informed with European properties such as Italy and Ford Madox Ford." On not reviewing Edwin Muir's "Collected Poems," he wrote, "This is not the occasion to say why I found Edwin Muir unreadable, but I must be honest and admit that I have never read him and do not mean to start now." In this review from London's Guardian of "Further Requirements," a new collection of Larkin's reviews and interviews, Sansom says, "His secret seems to have been to try not to lie." That proves it: Postmodernists were clowns all along . . . "Postmodernism, we tend to assume, was born yesterday," notes Jackson Lears, explaining that "Most attempts to trace the origins of postmodern sensibility stop in the early 1960s, when advertising began to mass-market irony, and quotation marks descended over whole segments of our cultural life." And, he continues in this lengthy New Republic review, the "assumption . . . reassures celebrants of postmodern culture that they are on the cutting edge of change, which apparently is still the hip place to be." But a new book by James W. Cook, "The Arts of Deception," posits a new notion: that "The origins of postmodernism are traceable to the primal scene of market society — to the atmosphere of suspicion surrounding the interchange between buyer and seller." Which could mean the first postmodernist was P.T. Barnum. Miss Marple, on the train, with a shovel . . . In an attempt to gain insight into the origin of her many books, detective novelist Agatha Christie has become the focus of an archaeological exhibition at London's British Museum. According to a BBC News wire story, the show traces Christie's numerous trips through the Middle East and the Orient on archeological digs, highlighting her interest in traveling by train, and "shows why she wrote so many crime novels set in the Orient," says the show's curator, who adds, "the most important thing the exhibition does is contradict the belief that Agatha Christie was just like Miss Marple, living in her home in England and doing lots of work in the garden." And remember: it never rains in California . . . The new public library in Agoura Hills, California is, says the town's former library director who helped design it, "as near to perfection as I can concieve." As a Los Angeles Times article describes it, the library sits "tucked amid the live oaks at the foot of Ladyface Mountain," and although "thoroughly wired" for computers and Internet access "its ambience is that of a Craftsman–style home, one with lots and lots of books, videotapes and periodicals" and "a shingle roof, wooden eaves and stone posts." Its most striking feature, according to the Times: "Behind a curved wall of stained glass is the Friends of the Library's reading room. It has a fireplace with gas jets, and Stickley chairs and tables — genuine, new L. & J.G. Stickley furniture." "We wanted it to be a place where people would stay, not just come and obtain materials," says a town councilwoman who spearheaded the project. "We wanted it to be a gathering place." What's more, despite the high–end touches, says the assistant city manager who was project director, "We didn't spend a lot of money." Just opened, it registered more people for new cards on its first day than what the old library did in a month. If you're talking about that TV show, no . . . A new book, "Losing Friends" by Digby Anderson, "argues that the pressures of modern life cause many people to see friends as a nuisance rather than a blessing." Another new book, "Friends & Enemies" by Dr. Dorothy Rowe, "calls friendship our greatest invention." Which is it? asks Julia Stuart in this column from the London Independent. "Does the modern world have room for friends any more?" Why H.L. Mencken was so cranky: he never left the house. . . A home, wrote H.L. Mencken, is "a shrine of a whole hierarchy of peculiarly private and potent gods." But a 1997 plan to turn the house where Mencken lived for 68 years into a museum failed and "the Maryland Historical Society carried out the furniture, the Smithsonian Institution took back some artifacts, and the Enoch Pratt Library removed the books." Now, the house is "empty and worn and neglected," says this Baltimore Sun feature, but a group called the Friends of the Mencken House is trying to get the museum plan back on track, and one member takes Sun reporter Carl Schoettler on a tour of the house. "In the second–floor study where he wrote millions of well–tooled words, the windows that overlook Union Square are covered with funereal black cloth," notes Schoettler. Also empty: white bookshelves that held the Gideon Bibles Mencken "liberated" from hotel rooms and gave to friends autographed: "Compliments of the Author." Wednesday, 7 November 2001 Academy of American Poets ousts Wadsworth; not–so eloquent fury erupts . . . The executive board of the Academy of American Poets has ousted the organization's popular director, William Wadsworth, who is accredited with turning the academy into an organization of national prominence during his 12 years of leadership with innovative ideas such as National Poetry Month, and the move, according to a New York Times report, has sparked "an uproar among some of the country's most prominent poets." David D. Kirkpatrick reports that "more than a dozen" from the academy's own adisory board, including Adrienne Rich, Jorie Graham, Philip Levine, Robert Creeley, Galway Kinnell, Rosanna Warren, Susan Howe and J. D. McClatchy, have written protest letters to executive board chairman Jonathan Galassi and president Henry Reath. "Had some clan of Yahoos wanted to wreck the Academy of American Poets," Levine wrote to Reath, "they could not have done a more effective job than you and Galassi . . ." Eliot Weinberger calls it a "coup d'etat" in an e–mail protest and says, "Bill is just about the most loved person working in one of the literary service organizations that I can think of — he has even united strict neo–formalists with committed avant–gardists." But Galassi says, "It is not about cultural politics, it is about finance." He said after two years of deficits the board "tried very hard to get Bill to revise his plans" but "didn't meet with a very flexible response." Wadsworth, meanwhile, says "the board's true intention is to drastically downsize the organization, shutting down outreach programs and firing staff, thereby relieving the directors of all but minimal fund–raising obligations." Fearing "en masse departure," Putnam names Baron prez . . . In "a move seemingly intended to prevent the poaching of Putnam authors," as one Internet report put it, Penguin Putnam has named Carole Baron, longtime president of its Dutton division, as president of its G.P. Putnam & Sons division as well. A brief New York Times story notes Baron "fills a position that was held by Phyllis Grann," who recently resigned over differences with Penguin Putnam parent company Pearson. But Publishers Weekly reporter Jim Milliot says (in a PW report unavailable as a link) that Baron's elevation could be to "prevent poaching," because "fears and rumors have circulated that an en masse departure would follow Grann out of Putnam." A very brief New York Post report by Keith J. Kelly agrees it's "an effort to quell unrest in the ranks," and adds "Grann is widely expected to jump to a top post at Random House early next year and is to try to lure her prized best–selling authors Tom Clancy and Patricia Cornwell." But, the Times story notes, Baron has a strong roster of her own, including recent stars Tracy Chevalier and Maeve Binchy, and "has also published works by John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Thomas Harris, Judy Blume, Ken Follett, Elmore Leonard, Nicholas Evans and Belva Plain." Don't be so hard on yourself . . . In a long, passionate column appearing in the New York Observer, Ron Rosenbaum says he went to a "wake" for the magazine Lingua Franca and "was feeling so sad and guilty, I had to leave. I felt something had to be done." Saying he promoted the magazine "as one of the few bright new hopes for the future of literary culture when I taught at Columbia Journalism School," and that he "plugged Lingua Franca in the introduction to my most recent book, 'The Secret Parts of Fortune,'" Rosenbaum says that, still, "I should have known this was coming and done more to support Lingua Franca." J–Franz Under Attack, Day 16: Franzen breaks silence with stirring rendition of "You Are So Beautiful" and "You Light Up My Life" . . . For the second day in a row, and after a two–week barrage of overwhelmingly negative criticism for his remarks about Oprah Winfrey, embattled author Jonathan Franzen has found a defender in the press. Michael Anft says in a Baltimore City Paper commentary that Franzen's "elitist cohorts" who have defended Winfrey are really telling Franzen, "Don't be so uppity . . . This could be good for us — wink, wink." But, says Anft, "All this . . . rings hollow when one looks at the effects Winfrey and her (often nonliterary) list of favorites has on the book industry. Small and regional publishers and the authors who write for them have been further forced off of national bookstore chains' shelves because of the popularity of the Oprah selections." In short, he says, "Oprah's list represents corporate aims," while "Franzen's self–appointed task in writing The Corrections was to attack all of that — and he succeeds." Meanwhile, Franzen himself has broken his silence. In an interview with Kevin Canfield of the Hartford Courant, he says, "I feel that there's a really terrible misunderstanding here, and the misunderstanding is as follows: that people seem to think I have a problem with readers. People seem to think I have a problem with Oprah's Book Club readers. I never said that. I never felt that. I feel the opposite. I love readers . . . much of what I'm about as a writer is to produce reader–friendly novels." Meanwhile, in a column for The New York Press, Neal Pollack says, "Franzen's rejection of Oprah's Book Club has struck at the core of New York City's working class, which had always accepted him as one of its own. Pete, for instance, said he's memorized the first half of The Twenty–Seventh City, and is trying to translate the book into Spanish for his mother in Mexico. Sid told me that he's long wished for a movie adaptation of Strong Motion starring Reese Witherspoon. Dan had taken it the farthest. He pulled up his sleeve. There, next to the Marines insignia and a guitar on fire, was a perfect likeness of a tweed–wearing, unshaven Jonathan Franzen, encased in a heart, with the initials 'J.F.' running underneath like a secret totem." • BREAKING NEWS: A late–breaking story from The Onion say Franzen has issued yet another heartfelt apology to Winfrey, expressing his eagerness to appear on her show "the minute it stops sucking." Giller Prize goes to Richard B. Wright . . . At an awards dinner in Toronto last night, Richard B. Wright was awarded this year's Giller Prize in Literary Fiction for his novel "Clara Callan." A National Post report says Wright "appeared genuinely stunned by the win" over fellow nominees Jane Urquhart, Sandra Birdsell, Michael Crummey, Michael Redhill, and Timothy Taylor. A Toronto Globe & Mail story reports that Wright said, "I feel absolutely delirious" upon receiving the $25,000 check. Previous winners have included Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondaatje, and Alice Munro, and the award, named after literary journalist Doris Giller, is "considered a huge boost for an author's profile, notes the Post. RIP: E. H. Gombrich . . . Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, "probably the world's best–known art historian" and author of the multi–million–selling "The Story of Art, has died at his London home at age 92. A retired Oxford professor and author of numerous other books on art, such as "Art and Illusion, "Meditations on a Hobby Horse," and "The Sense of Order," Gombrich nonetheless considered mainstream art history "very much on the fringe of my formation," according to this New York Times obituary. "I was never much concerned with it." Gombrich's death, meanwhile, has inspired an outpouring of rembrances around the world. The London Guardian offers this inteview with sculptor Antony Gormley, "now Britain's leading sculptor," says he was inspired to become an artist after reading one sentence in particular in "The Story of Art": "There is really no such thing as art — there are only artists." And in this Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung remembrance, concert pianist Alfred Brendel says music was "the art form dearest to his heart. . . . he never missed an important concert as long as his legs could carry him." Now, says Brendel, "not only the art world, but also the London concert audience, will be poorer without him." For some reason, Arundhati Roy's new writing not doing as well in America as her last book . . . "God of Small Things" author Arundhati Roy cut off her long hair "because she did not want to be known 'as some pretty woman who wrote a book,'" and has been "charged with criminal contempt in a case that has its roots in her ardent opposition to a big dam project." But lately she's gotten even more attention for two fiery essays where she "argues that Osama bin Laden is 'America's family secret,' the monstrous offspring of its support for the mujahedeen after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan." As this New York Times profile notes, "all major American newspapers and magazines have rejected" the essays, but "her words have struck a rich seam of anti–Americanism that lies just below the surface not only in Muslim countries, but in much of the third world," and have gained a wide readership in Europe. • MORE: Read the two essays by Arundhati Roy that have sparked the controversy cited in the Times coverage: Part 1 and Part 2, both of which originally appeared in the Indian literary journal Tehelka. (Previously posted on MobyLives.) New Babel collection should elevate opinion, says Ozick . . . Executed by a Stalinist firing squad at age 45, Isaac Babel, says Cynthia Ozick, "was devoured because he would not, could not, accommodate to falsehood; because he saw and he saw, with an eye as merciless as a klieg light; and because, like Franz Kafka, he surrendered his stories to voices and passions tremulous with the unforeseen." In fact, Ozick says in this Los Angeles Times essay that is an extract from her introduction to the new "Complete Works of Isaac Babel," "If we wish to complete, and transmit, the literary configuration of the 20th century — the image that will enduringly stain history's retina — now is the time (it is past time) to set Babel beside Kafka. Between them, they leave no nerve unshaken." Reminder . . . Irish novelist Vincent Banville has published for most of his adult life, but nothing prepared him for a recent experience he had when he agreed to attend a student reading to help Ireland's Adult Literacy Scheme launch a student literary magazine at Crumlin College in Dublin. "They had written of ordinary, everyday things: My Dad's New Hip, My Sister's New House, My Evening Out, My Daughter's Confirmation Day," Banville writes in this Irish Times commentary "It is very difficult to convey in words the sense of wonder on the faces of these people as they stood up before that packed audience and read out the actual words they themselves had written. It brought home forcibly to me how marvellous a gift it is to be able to read and write." Desecration, indeed . . . "Desecration," the new book in the "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, will, notes David Kipen, "almost surely premiere at No. 1 on most fiction best–seller lists" even though "almost no mainstream publications are expected to review it." Instead, Kipen explains in his San Francisco Chronicle column, the book's "publishers are counting on ads, a built–in audience from the previous eight books and the publicity from helping underwrite NPR's 'All Things Considered.'" "Underwriting may be precisely the right way to go," says Kipen, "since these 'Christian techno–thrillers' have got to be the most underwritten novels in the history of modern publishing," with "writing possessed of an almost unrelievedly vomitous badness." Worst, he says, is the "kludge of American water–cooler vernacular and 'Living Bible'–style Old Testament syntax," as when one character says "we all need some R and R before Armageddon." Kipen says: "As LaHaye and Jenkins might say, Jesus the Christ." Poetry: more useful than ever? . . . "In our society, poets still possess a certain residual reputation as minor–league intellectuals, but they no longer command much civic authority," notes Dana Goia. And yet, he says, since September 11, "the media's collective inadequacy to find words commensurate with the situation — combined with its compulsive need to go on talking — confirmed my sense of how important it is for society to have other kinds of public conversations than those offered by Washington or the networks. However marginal poets may sometimes seem in a commercialized, electronic world, they still provide something essential to a free society." He got some sense of what that might be when, despite his inclination, he was talked into giving a reading tour just hours after the terrorist attacks — and, as he describes in this column, was greeted by a packed house. Well, he'd better explain that giant baby before he books out of here . . . Science fiction "sage" Arthur C. Clarke says he'll spend the rest of his days at his home in Sri Lanka because "I can no longer face overseas travel, and in fact, hope never to leave Sri Lanka again." According to this Reuters wire story (via The New Zealander), on a video–taped message played before a celebrity dinner in his honor held at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles and featuring Tom Hanks, astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Hugh Hefner, the 83–year–old author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" said, "I am now completely wheelchaired owing to post–polio syndrome and am very limited in time and energy." Sounds like the sporting life may have dispatched him, actually . . . There are typefaces named after Chaucer, Lord Byron, Jonathan Swift, and now, the late Mordecai Richler. Richler's publisher, Random House of Canada, and the Canadian literary award the Giller Prize commissioned the new font, according to a BBC News wire story. The Richler font will be "defined by its most distinctive letters, 'M' and 'R'," and will be used to set a forthcoming final book from Richler, "Dispatches from the Sporting Life." In addition, the typeface "also has a set of icons or 'dingbats,'" says the report, "which are intended to be reminiscent of Richler — including reading glasses, a cigar, a rose, a pen and a glass of scotch."

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WHALE SIGHTINGS

This week's fiction:

"Looking for Molly"
by GILBERT ALLEN
(from The Courtland Review)

"Points of Interest"
by ROBERT COHEN
(from The Atlantic Unbound)

This week's poetry:

"The Whole She Bang"
by JENNIFER POTEET
(from The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks)

"The Yard at Night"
by KO UN
(from The Evergreen Review)

"Days of 1968"
by EDWARD HIRSCH
(from Ploughshrares)

This week's audio:

(requires RealPlayer)

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
reads his poem, "To Elsie"

TONI MORRISON
reads from her novel, "Paradise" (9:48)

KEN KESEY
reads from his last novel, co–written with Ken Babbs, "The Last Go Round" (3:11)

Special edition:

POEMS FOR THE TIME
Alicia Ostriker's anthology of the poets she's been turning to of late — Stephen Dunn, C.P. Cavafy, Marianne Moore, and others, plus a never–before–seen poem of her own.



RECENTLY
UNDER–APPRECIATED

THE WAY WE TALK NOW: COMMENTARIES ON LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
by Geoffrey Nunbert
(Houghton Mifflin, $22)

If you "have issues" with "I'm outta here" or "it's nothing personal," then this collection of commentaries from NPR's Fresh Air is for you. A charming, funny, and informative look at the American language in action.


THE MEASURE OF THE WORLD
by Denis Guedj
(University of Chicago Press, $27)

Two eminent astronomers are appointed by the French Revolutionary government to survey the meridian from Dunkirk to Barcelona and divide the result by one million — giving birth to the standard meter. Based on actual history, this picaresque novel of adventure in the tumultuous world of the Revolution is a delight.


COLLECTED SHORTER POEMS: 1946–1991
by Hayden Carruth
(Copper Canyon Press, $16)

Re–issued in celebration of his 80th birthday, this collection spans a 45–year period showing Carruth's incredible range, linguistic and formal resourcefulness, and philosophical intensity.



ALL THE REVIEWS THAT FIT

OFFICIAL TALLY:

Since March 21, 2001 (the MobyLives.com launch date), the New York Times has given 115 plugs in 221 days to books written by staffers or former staffers.

Average frequency with which the New York Times plugs books by staffers or former staffers: every 1.92 days

CHECK OUT THE COMPLETE LIST OF PLUGS

Most recently:

•Plug 78
The daily New York Times on Thursday, September 6 included a rave review for the "wildly clever" and "lovely" book about a "brilliant" character based on Freud, "In the Floyd Archives" by Times reporter Sarah Boxer. It's the paper's fourth plug of the book. The review was written by Jenny Lyn Bader, a frequent contributor to the Times' Week in Review section, where Boxer used to be an editor. Bader has also recently reviewed books by other Times colleagues, including Catherine Texier, Ann Powers, and, most recently, Ruth Reichl (see plug #22).

• Plug 79
The daily New York Times for Friday, September 7 featured a rave review by Michiko Kakutani of "Emergence," the "stimulating" new book by Steven Johnson. Johnson, a co–founder of the Internet magazine Feed, is a frequent contributor to the Times op–ed page. As editor–in–chief of Feed, he also collaborated with the New York Times on the Web "to create topical, interactive content," as the press release put it, for the "@times" area of AOL. He also hosted a forum — "Mediasphere" — on the New York Times on the Web website. The review does not mention any of these affiliations.

•Plug 80, 81, 82 & 83
The Sunday New York Times Book Review for September 9 included a front page lead–in to a rave review for the "elegantly" "illuminating" "Marlon Brando," by the "superb biographer" Patricia Bosworth, who, the review fails to point out, is a long–time regular contributor to the paper, where she in fact began her career as a biographer by writing profiles for the arts section. There was also an admiring plug for "Life Script: How the Human Genome Discoveries Will Transform Medicine and Enhance Your Health," by Nicholas Wade, who was the Times' lead reporter on the genome story, and is now a Times science editor. In addition, there is another rave review of "Emergence," by Steven Johnson. This one does not mention his connections to the Times, either. And finally, for the fourth week in a row in the Sunday Book Review, there's recommendation for "The Hunters," by Clare Messud, who once again goes unidentified as a Times contributor. It's her fifth review from the paper overall.

•Plug 84
The New York Times daily edition for Monday, September 10 featured a rave review to a book that "succeeds as art," "Ava's Man," by the paper's national correspondent Rick Bragg, whose writing gives off "the illusion of effortless craft."

•Plug 85, 86 & 87
The September 16 Sunday New York Times Book Review included a rave review in the "Books in Brief" section for the "fascinating" "Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity," by Jennifer Ackerman, who is a contributing writer and editor at the Times, although the review does not mention this. Similarly, there's an "And Bear In Mind" plug for "Marlon Brando," by the "superb biographer" Patricia Bosworth, who still goes unidentified as a Times contributor. The section also gives a recommendation to "Life Script: How the Human Genome Discoveries Will Transform Medicine and Enhance Your Health," by Nicholas Wade, a Times science editor. It's the second successive week of plugs for both Bosworth and Wade.

•Plug 88
The daily New York Times for Monday, September 17 featured a somewhat mixed review of the nonetheless "unusually candid" and "lyrical" "Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds," by Times reporter Stephen Kinzer.

•Plug 89
The Tuesday, September 18 edition of the New York Times included a rave review for "The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair," a "poignant" book that includes "a wonderful job of research," by Times editor Sam Roberts.

•Plug 90, 91, 92 & 93
The Sunday New York Times Book Review for September 23 featured, for the third week in a row, a plug for "Life Script," by Times editor Nocholas Wade, this time in the "And Bear In Mind" section. The same section also included another rave recommendation, also for the third week in a row, for Patricia Bosworth's "Marlon Brando." Once again, Bosworth's status as a long–time Times contributor went unremarked. Likewise, an "And Bear In Mind" citation for Steven Johnson's "Emergence" does not include mention of his affiliation with the Times. The issue also include a review for the "truly moving" novel "Look at Me," by Jennifer Egan, whom the review does not mention is a reporter for the Times Sunday Magazine.

•Plug 94, 95, 96 & 97
The cover of the September 30 Sunday New York Times Book Review featured a full–page illustration for a review of a book by one of the Times' most famous former reporters, David Halberstam. Inside, the book, "War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals," is given a full–page review by the Times chief diplomatic correspondent, Jane Perlez, who calls it "a sprawling tapestry of exquisite bottom–up reporting and powerful vignettes." She does not mention his status as a Pulitzer–winning Times reporter. The issue also contains a "New & Noteworthy Paperbacks" recommendation for "Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran," by Elaine Sciolino, a senior correspondent for the Times, and a "Books in Brief" citation for "To the Edge: A Man, Death Valley, and the Mystery of Endurance," by Kirk Johnson, A Times reporter. And in the "And Bear In Mind" section, there's another plug for "Marlon Brando," by Patricia Bosworth. It's the fourth week in a row the Book Review has plugged Bosworth's book, and the fourth week in a row it's failed to mention that she's a contributor to the paper.

•Plug 98
The front page of the arts section in the daily New York Times for Tuesday, October 2 contained a rave reivew by Michiko Kakutani for the "engrossing," "provocative and illuminating" book, "Richard Nixon: Alone in the White House," by Richard Reeves, a former long–time reporter for the Times, although the review doesn't mention that.

•Plug 99, 100, 101 & 102
The October 7 Sunday New York Times Book Review included a plug for the "well–written biography, "Mary Shelley," by Miranda Seymour, a frequent contributor to the Times book review desk, most recently of a book by another frequent Times reviewer, Claire Messud. The "New & Noteworthy Paperbacks" section, meanwhile, gives a plug to "The Kinder Gentler Military: How Political Correctness Affects Our Ability to Win Wars," by Stephanie Gutmann, a frequent contributor to the newspaper. The section also features a recommendation for "The Missionary and the Libertine," by Ian Buruma, a frequent contributor to the Times Magazine, Book Review, and editorial pages, and a citation for "False Papers," by Andre Aciman, who also contributes frequently to the Times. None of these associations are mentioned in any of the reviews.

•Plug 103
The daily New York Times for Wednesday, October 10 features another rave review for the "brilliantly reported" book by former Times reporter David Halberstam, "War in a Time of Peace." Calling it a "definitive" work, Times critic Richard Bernstein does not mention the author's connection to the newspaper.

•Plug 104
The daily New York Times for Thursday, October 11 features a fervent rave review of "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War," by a "researched and written by a strong interdisciplinary team of writers for The New York Times," Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad. Reviewer John G. Gannon, a former deputy director of the CIA, says it "this excellent book . . . will ease the panic" currently facing the nation about germ warfare in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

•Plug 105, 106, 107 & 108
The cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review for October 14 focuses on the review for "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War," by a trio of writers for The New York Times, Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad. It praises their "clear and accessible" book for "the care with which they have assembled their case." There's also a lavish plug for "Richard Nixon: Alone in the White House," by Richard Reeves, who goes unidentified as a former long–time reporter for the Times. The review says, "it's hard to think of a better introduction to the man and his presidency." The "New & Noteworthy Paperbacks" gives a plug to "Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass," by Richard D. Smith, who writes for the Times' New Jersey Weekly Desk, although the article does not make note of that. And the "And Bear In Mind" section includes another recommendation for "Mary Shelley," by Miranda Seymour, who again goes unnoted as a frequent contributor to the Times Sunday Book Review.

•Plug 109, 110, & 111
The Sunday New York Times Book Review for October 21 inlcudes a rave review, the paper's second, for "Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds," by Times reporter Stephen Kinzer. The review says that "for painstakingly honest advice ast to what needs fixing in order for Turkey yet to become 'a light unto the nations,' 'Crescent and Star' cannot be beat." There's also an "And Bear In Mind" plug for "Mary Shelley," by Miranda Seymour, who goes unidentified as a regular contributor to the Book Review. And that section also includes another recommendation for "President Nixon: Alone in the White House" by Richard Reeves, who goes unidentified as a former long–time Times staffer.

•Plug 112
The daily New York Times for Monday, October 22 contains the newspaper's second rave review for what reviewer Janet Maslin calls the "brilliantly unnerving new novel," "Look At Me," by Jennifer Egan, who is a reporter for the Times Sunday Magazine, although Maslin does not point that out.

•Plug 113, 114, & 115
The New York Times for Sunday, October 28 including a front–page lead&3150in to a full–page rave review of the "absorbing" "The Brother," by Times editor Sam Roberts. It's the newspaper's second review of the book. Meawnhile, the "And Bear In Mind" section includes a plug for "Crescent and Star," by Times report Stephen Kinzer — the paper's third plug of the book — and the "New & Noteworthy Paperbacks" features a recommendation for "Ghost Light: A Memoir," by Frank Rich, the Times' former chief theater critic and current editorial columnist.

Should the Times — or any publication — review books by its own staffers?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?



RELEVANT READING:

Relevant Reading I
John Leonard, former editor of the NYTSBR, tells what it’s like behind the scenes.

Relevant Reading II
Retiring New York Times book reviewer Christopher Lehmann–Haupt talks about the time editors ordered him to give a book a bad review.

Relevant Reading III
The books of Renata Adler, Joe Conason, Gene Lyons, and others get reviewed in the New York Times by people mentioned critically in the book.





Links

Poetry Daily

The Stories of Anton Chekhov

Zembla: The Official Site of the Vladimir Nabokov Society

The New England Review

Ploughshares

The Georgia Review

Visual Thesaurus

Herman Melville's Arrowhead

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