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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Reading Tonight

posted by on April 30 at 10:15 AM

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I woke up with a Blind Melon song stuck in my head (or I guess the Blind Melon song in my head), but it’s another day chock-full of readings, including a young adult novelist up at Third Place Books and a Poetry Slam in Fremont, so I must push the Hoon aside to let you know what’s going on.

The big reading of the day is Keith Gessen, reading from All the Sad Young Literary Men at Elliott Bay Book Company. Jonathan Crimmins directed his giant brain toward the book in this week’s paper:

In each story, AtSYLM metaphorically mates love pangs with political troubles: For Sam, perpetually failing to write the great Zionist novel, women are like an intifada; for Mark, a graduate student in Russian history, women are dangerous Bolsheviks to his idealistic Mensheviks; and for Keith, the earnest cultural and political observer, women are like writing itself, an activity he watches, worshipfully, from afar. Taken too seriously, this structure would be as demeaning to history as it is to women. But the book remains light and jocular, endearing even in those places where it tries so hard to be funny.

At Ravenna Third Place, Jennifer Lowe-Anker reads from Forget Me Not, which is a memoir about love and mountain climbing. I haven’t read the book, but I do believe that the love is for a fellow human being, and not for a mountain, which would be a good plot for a Peter Hoeg novel.

If you’ve got 45 bucks to blow, you might want to attend the Kevin Phillips reading at the Westin, where he reads from Bad Money, about how global over-speculation might be assisting forces of ill (i.e. terrorists). This is not to be confused with the recent Queen Latifah/Diane Keaton masterpiece, Mad Money, which is also not worth $45.

UPDATE
: Phillips is also at Town Hall tonight for 5 bucks. Thanks for the information, commenter Wier, and have I mentioned how much I love having my new intern in the office? The schedule next week will be flawless.

David Cay Johnston is also at the Elliott Bay Book Company, two hours before Gessen, reading from Free Lunch, about how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and so on. Perhaps Mr. Johnston will talk about how some wealthy authors are doing $45 author readings, thus making their readers poor.

And if literary fiction readings aren’t your thing, you might be into Ursula LeGuin, reading at the University Book Store. I’m not at all crazy about her new book, Lavinia, but if you’ve spent any amount of time reading sci-fi, you probably have enjoyed Ursula LeGuin at some point in your life.

Don’t forget to check out the full readings calendar for upcoming events.

RSS icon Comments

1

Actually, Kevin Phillips is just $5 at Town Hall tonight, 7:30p. Sadly, Latifah/Keaton free...

Posted by Wier | April 30, 2008 10:49 AM
2

Ursula LeGuin's reading her new book tonight? That would be worth going to. Seeing as she's dead.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 30, 2008 10:58 AM
3

@2 - Ah, unless you just killed her, no, she's not.

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Index-Lavinia.html

Posted by Levislade | April 30, 2008 11:14 AM
4

Mmm, you're right - I was thinking of Madeline L'Engle. All the more reason to go see her tonight; you may not have another chance.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 30, 2008 11:26 AM
5

Just a warning, if she lets the audience ask questions, any men in the audience won't get their questions answered, so make sure your gf asks the question instead.

Posted by Will in Seattle | April 30, 2008 1:27 PM
6

Jonathan's review of All the Sad Young Literary Men is well written. So this isn't a criticism of his review, which I liked.

But, I've read about 5 reviews of that book now (all fairly positive actually) and each review has made me less and less inclined to read it.

Am I missing something about this book because I'm a girl? Seriously, I read all sorts of books and usually the gender of the characters has absolutely zero to do with whether I read a book or not.

I mean I guess it is fine because everyone has their likes and dislikes and God knows there are already way too many books stacked on my nightstand waiting to be read.

But I can't figure out what is so great about this book. And for some reason that annoys me.

Posted by PopTart | April 30, 2008 2:02 PM
7

It's slacker fiction. When one slacker reads about other slackers it makes the first slacker feel better about reading SLOG all day instead of working.

Posted by erin1980 | April 30, 2008 2:40 PM
8

PopTart, it's very much an acquired taste, as most writing about writers is. You really shouldn't let it get to you--of course it's set the literary world on fire, because it's about the literary world. This doesn't mean it's good or bad, it just means that it gets a lot of attention. If you're not interested, you shouldn't force it.

Posted by Paul Constant | April 30, 2008 6:36 PM
9

@8 Thanks Paul. Sadly, my degree is in writing so that probably makes it worse.

However, I spent a bunch more time reading reviews on the internet and now I am sure I don't need to read it and moreover I'm vindicated in my reasons why. I love how on the internet you can usually find back up support for your opinions. I guess I hate that about the internet too though...

On a completely unrelated topic, I thought your piece on Amazon in this week's issue was well written and thought provoking.

Posted by PopTart | April 30, 2008 8:00 PM

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