There is one reading today.

Ferre Whitney reads from The Artist Within: A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit at the University Village Barnes & Noble. Whitney would like to provide a workout for your art muscle.

Instead, you should visit the used bookstore nearest to you, buy the book with the catchiest title you can find (regardless of content), and read it this afternoon. This has worked well for me in the past, leading to the discovery of books like The Man Who Killed Mick Jagger, Only in America, and Lawrence Welk's oddly readable biography Wunnerful, Wunnerful!

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

There are no readings today, but I suggest you read some Hunter S. Thompson in honor of Independence Day. Pages 19 through 24 are a good start, but "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which starts on page 24, is always good on holidays, too.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

The Millions has a look ahead at the next year's worth of books scheduled for release, and the prospects actually look quite good: 2 from Dave Eggers, a giant non-fiction book that William Vollman refers to as "my Moby Dick," Lorrie Moore, Thomas Pynchon, Audrey Niffenegger, Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Lethem, R. Crumb, J.M. Coetzee, Philip Roth (shocking!), Jonathan Safran Foer, Sam Lipsyte, Rachel Cusk, and many, many more.

This is an exciting look ahead. Good job, The Millions; way to focus on the bright side.

There is only one reading today, at Fremont Place Book Company. S.G. Browne reads from Breathers: A Zombie Lament, a book about a "nebbish" of a zombie named Andy who finds a lady zombie named Rita and falls in love. You can read a preview of the book above.

I really like Fremont Place Book Company, and, to my knowledge, this is the first reading they've hosted in at least a year, so we should support this sort of behavior by attending the reading. And also hit up Ophelia's Books across the street, too. It's a bookventure!

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

A Federal Way man named David McKenzie has won the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which is a yearly challenge to write the worst first line of an imaginary novel.

Here's McKenzie's winning sentence:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

That is some fine, awful work, Mr. McKenzie. You have made Washington proud. Seattle is home to a winner, too; our own Stuart Greenman won the Fantasy subcategory of the awards:

A quest is not to be undertaken lightly—or at all!—pondered Hlothgar, Thrag of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty stallion Hralgoth through the ever-darkening Thlargwood, beyond which, if he survived its horrors and if Hroglath the royal spittle reader spoke true, his destiny awaited—all this though his years numbered but fourteen.

And here is the winner of the Detective Fiction subcategory of Bulwer-Lytton. The author is not local, but I found this sentence to be particularly awesome:

She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.

That last sentence is the only one that makes me want to read the rest of the novel. You can read all the runners-up and other categories here.

As you know, I bring lots of free books to Slog Happy every month, with the request that people write book reviews for all of us here on Slog. As you probably also know, many people haven't written book reports for us to enjoy lately; you people should be ashamed of yourselves. But Geni—wonderful, brave Geni—has stepped up to the plate and delivered a Slog Commenter Book Report of a book titled Love Will Tear Us Apart, by Sarah Rainone.

As always, you should remember that any errors or inelegancies you may find in the text are not Geni's fault. They are the fault of the editor. I am the editor.

OK, I'll admit it. I grabbed the book because a) I was at Slog Happy and it was free, b) I was at Slog Happy and the books went fast, so I grabbed the closest one, and c) the hubris of choosing that particular title intrigued me. I thought, if nothing else, it should provide good material for supercilious mockery.

Little did I realize, the title was only the beginning. Each chapter of the book is named for an 80's pop song (some classics, some, thankfully, near-forgotten). In some cases, the chapter title works with the storyline; in others, the author has gone to some near-prepubescent-Chinese-acrobat-type contortions to squeeze it in there.

The structure of the book is slightly irritating; it's written as first-person entries from the perspective of several different self-absorbed 30-something yuppie brats. The setting is the wedding of two persons, Lea and Dan, who do not narrate any of the chapters. The narration is done by the wedding guests: Ben, Cort, Shawn, and Alex, all of whom are so fucked-up and narcissistic as to make one wish to beat them with sticks. As the narration continues, one realizes the six all met in the "gifted" program back in their hometown as kids, and each bemoans their subsequent ostracism by the small-town '80s caricatures inhabiting their respective classrooms.

Strangely, I actually kind of enjoyed the book. Granted, my expectations were pretty low; this was an unsolicited manuscript received by a book reviewer at a free newspaper, given out free to drunks. However, there is something deeply satisfying about reading about characters who are more fucked up than I am. I was never actually convinced any of them belonged in the "gifted" program, though—the writing is so self-consciously imitative of Bret Easton Ellis and the like as to seem utterly devoid of any vestige of literacy.

The story itself isn't bad. The problem is that there is no sympathetic character in the book. I thought initially that maybe the sweet little gay boy, Shawn, would prove to be the exception, but no, he turns out to be as selfish, vapid, and shallow as the rest. The most interesting theme running through the book is cocky, overcompensating, jock-archetype Ben's inability to orgasm without picturing Shawn, but sadly, that promising avenue is not explored, only hinted at. One tantalizing vignette featuring the Lost Dead Boy (every novel of this type requires a dead character who's more interesting than all the rest combined - why is that?), Jason, Alex and Shawn edging toward a three-way gets completely dropped. Meh to that!

I'd be interested to see what the author, an editor at HarperCollins, can do when she stops imitating Ellis and McInerney and writes in her own style.

Thank you to Geni for the very entertaining review, and I hope all you other Slog Commenters will send me your book reports soon.

Three events today.

Mike Lawson signs at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop at noon. House Secrets is a political thriller about dead guys and politics.

And Elliott Bay Book Company hosts Mary Lou Sanelli, a local author who has written a book called Among Friends. It is reportedly about friendship.

But most importantly, Wall of Sound is hosting the Ong Ong Issue #5 Release Party. Ong Ong is an awesome local zine, and this party celebrates the release of its newest issue. With refreshments and music! You can read more about Ong Ong here, but here's a bit of information about the new issue from their website:

Two nesting booklets, 116 pages of art and non-fiction, a free CD of mostly private press LP rarities from the Ong Ong archives, interviews with Mississippi Records label person Eric Isaacson, record producer Scott Colburn, and musician/Dragon's Eye Recordings runner Yann Novak.Silk screened cover by Chris Ando.

Also: Bunnies, friendship bracelets, field hippies, piles of textiles, Czech new wave, alternate realities, tree tops, Hotel art installation, advice, mental institutions, instrument selection, rings of history, people holding hands in a circle, Scott Davis at 17, pure purr energy, tree tops, lotuses, relationships, perception, floating skulls, tripped out line quality, Halley's comet, fire damage, father figures, show reviews, AFCGT caricatured, snow, ladies with long hair carrying stars, Rumi... coalescence!

This is obviously the reading of the night.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

NYTimes says:

In a victory for the reclusive writer J. D. Salinger, a federal judge on Tuesday indefinitely banned publication in the United States of a new book by a Swedish author that contains a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Is it just me, or does it feel sort of weird to celebrate a judge indefinitely banning the publication of a book?

Three good-looking readings tonight.

At University Book Store, Lance Reynald reads from his new novel, Pop Salvation, in which a high schooler tries to become the next Andy Warhol. This looks like a pleasant-enough light read—probably perfect for summer, especially if you like high school drama.

Up in Wallingford, it's time for another Subtext Reading. I'm pretty sure that Subtext is now Seattle's longest-running serious literary series. If you're into intelligent poetry, this is your thing. The readers tonight are Stacy Szymaszek and Don Mee Choi.

And over at Elliott Bay Book Company, Kate Christensen reads from Trouble, a novel that "explores the sexual lives of three women in their 40s." Which sounds kind of Sex and the City-ish, but Christensen is a wonderful novelist (her last book, The Great Man, was a powerful book about an egotistical painter as viewed through the women in his life, and you should read it) and this will be worth your time. This is the reading of the night.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

Butt Magazine has an interview with a group of gay men from Washington D.C. who regularly get together and play Dungeons & Dragons.

Now do you guys have gay characters in the game?

Sean C: My character is gay in the game, it doesn’t come up a lot-
Jim: I tend to play tough women. I don’t know why, but they always tend to be strong women.
Sean W: I haven’t really thought that far out, it’s still too new a game. All of our characters are young and exploring ourselves.
Brian: But we have had a lot of gay characters in previous campaigns. Most of our characters like men, whether they’re male or female.

It's a really interesting interview (and in case the name Butt Magazine has you worried, it's totally Safe For Work, although the website is a bright, garish pink).

(Via The Awl, which might get bought by AOL. Which would be a huge mistake in my opinion, but then nobody at The Awl is asking me.)

(Rainbow 20-sided dice from Eclipse Ball.)

After Alice Hoffman's Twitter meltdown, you'd hope that would be all the authors-behaving-badly business on the internet this week.

Sadly not. After Caleb Crain wrote a negative review of Alain de Botton's new book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work in the New York Times Book Review, de Botton left a long negative comment on Crain's blog. It's pretty exceptional:

Caleb, you make it sound on your blog that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment. In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value...You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review...I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude.

Apparently, pampered middle-aged authors throwing tantrums is the hot new thing.

UPDATE: Looks like de Botton won't be apologizing for his blog post anytime soon.

There is a new story by Lorrie Moore in the New Yorker this week. If you're unfamiliar with her, Lorrie Moore is one of the best American short story authors in the business today, perhaps only after Amy Hempel.

I didn’t know anything about adoption. I’d known only one adopted girl when I was growing up, Becky Sussluch, who at sixteen was spoiled and beautiful and having an affair with a mussed and handsome student teacher whom I myself had a crush on. In general, I thought of adoption much as I thought of most things in life: uneasily. Adoption seemed both a cruel joke and a lovely daydream—a nice way of avoiding the blood and pain of giving birth, or, from a child’s perspective, a realized fantasy of your parents not really being your parents. Your genes could thrust one arm in the air and pump up and down. Yes! You were not actually related to them!

“Congratulations,” I murmured now to Sarah. Was that what one said?

The story—about Chinese food, the Midwest, and child care—is at once warm and lonely and observant, and you should read it. Lorrie Moore will be publishing a novel titled Gate at the Stairs this September. It'll be the first book of original fiction she's published since 1998, and the first novel since 1994.

I wrote yesterday about Alice Hoffman's Twitter meltdown. She called a Boston Globe reviewer of her book a moron and an idiot; she announced that the reviewer wasn't a writer (when in fact, the reviewer had published many books, and had stories published in The New Yorker); she claimed that Boston wasn't a real city; and she finally published the reviewer's e-mail address and home phone number, urging her fans to harass the reviewer. Several hours later, Alice Hoffman's Twitter account vanished.

And then a little later, she issued this utterly half-hearted apology through her publisher:

I feel this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion...Of course, I was dismayed by Roberta Silman’s review which gave away the plot of the novel, and in the heat of the moment I responded strongly and I wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry if I offended anyone. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that’s the name of the game in publishing. I hope my readers understand that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone and I’m truly sorry if I did.

If you ever have to give an apology you really don't want to give, you should use the above Hoffman apology as a Mad-Libs-style template. It's really a masterpiece.

Four readings tonight.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, Catherine Whitney reads from Soldiers Once: My Brother and the Lost Dreams of America's Veterans, which is about the sad way that we treat our soldiers when they come back from war.

Elizabeth Austen reads new poetry up at the Northlake branch of the Seattle Public Library. You can read more about her here.

Up at Third Place Books, Kate Christensen, author of The Great Man, reads from Trouble, her new book about sex and age and women. The only thing keeping this from being reading of the night is that Christensen is also reading tomorrow night at Elliott Bay Book Company.

And Karen Joy Fowler, who is an award-winning sci-fi author, reads at University Book Store as part of a celebration for local sci-fi workshop Clarion West. Fowler is one of those rare authors who has crossed boundaries to write literary fiction—her book The Jane Austen Book Club was an entertaining romantic comedy that also served as a love letter to Jane Austen. This should be an interesting crowd. This is the reading of the night.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

Slog Tipper Tyler wants to make sure that we all know about this Penguin reissue of 117 Days: An Account of Confinement and Interrogation Under the South African 90-Day Detention Law by Ruth First. Tyler learned about it by reading this essay that explains why the book is so important:

What energizes this narrative is not the singularity of her experience—First was a white woman—but her dedication to the cause and her stoic clarity in moments of uncertainty and terror. Released after ninety days and allowed to walk out of jail, she was immediately rearrested and subjected to intensified interrogations. Afraid she would say something revealing, First wrote a farewell note to her family, swallowed a vial of pills, and was surprised when she woke up. Throughout her experience, she occupied herself with thoughts of what “was going on outside the prisons, in the streets, the townships, the secret meetings. . . . In prison you see only the moves of the enemy. Prison is the hardest place to fight a battle.”

And we should all take a moment to appreciate the book's new cover: Simple, explanatory, and striking. Previous covers for 117 Days were good (click on the small black and red cover to enlarge a previous edition's book cover), but this new cover is a lovely bit of restraint that will hopefully draw new readers in to the book.

At University Book Store, Jacqueline Carey reads from her new book Naamah's Kiss. This is the seventh installment in the Kushiel series, and it features an "affectionate ex-bandit." Like Burt Reynolds, I hope.

At Town Hall, Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman read from Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty. This is a case of a book that asks a good question, but chooses the wrong time to ask it; a year ago, audiences would probably have been more receptive to this title. Which is a bummer.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reads at Elliott Bay Book Company from her first story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck. Her wonderful first novel Purple Hibiscus nearly won the Orange Prize, and she's definitely a young author to watch. This is the reading of the night.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

One reading today.

Judith Kitchen and Ted Kooser read at Open Books from The Poets Guide to the Birds, a poetry anthology that collects 151 poems about birds. I am weirdly excited by the idea of this book.

Otherwise, go have fun. Visit a bookstore and buy a couple books. There's a lot of summer reading to do.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.