librarytart

It’s rather a lot when the words are added

I originally started writing this paragraph to introduce my little book awards ceremony, The Tarts 2009, with a tally of the modest 75 books I’ve read this year (14 from Frankston Library reviewed, 42 in the ‘others 2009’ listing in the blog’s sidebar and the piles of books around the house I’ve read but haven’t done anything with yet). But the idea grew … just how much did I read this year?

A million words a month.

Look. See!

All estimates are conservative and I excluded research and reading in permanent paid employment – this is my reading by choice total.

I can’t upload the spreadsheet here (despite trying only four different ways) so you can have a quick stab at it yourself. Have a go anyway using your own estimates; no one will think you’re insane, promise.

The most humbling aspect of the total is that when I think about all my gaps in the ‘top 100’ lists and books to read before you leave the planet, all the classics I’ve never picked up and all the books written in languages other than English that haven’t been translated for my reading pleasure, the sum of my endeavours is a speck of dust on a back shelf of the world’s combined libraries.

How many words have you read this year?

Oh yeah, I wrote more than 80,000 words, too.

Out and about with books

A late cool swept in and I could brave taking my car to the mechanic’s workshop without the skin on my legs fusing to the driver’s seat. As my luck would have it, the further north I drove the further my memories of a sea breeze faded in slow traffic and a hot wind and I wasn’t even half-way into my journey.

I arrived in the heartland of industria with a dry-throated sigh of relief but something wasn’t right. My schedule-challenged mechanic had disappeared to buy pistons or somesuch mechanical thing and his workshop’s roller-door was down, locked and bolted. Tenants sharing the same oil-spotted driveway smirked with glee that yet another visitor had been left victim to his mercurial ways.

I smiled, pulled out a stray block of 4×2 from the wood machinist’s offcuts that made a useful seat and extracted a novel from my bag. I can’t remember which book I had packed, but thankfully it was weighty and I was in the early pages: later at the train station I was stranded in the heat for another hundred pages.

(No, I wasn’t born with the wrong feet on my legs. I think etiquette guides instruct that one sits on blocks of wood with legs crossed below the knees.)

My other book adventure last week was far more pleasant and comfortable. After collecting my rejuvenated car I visited Frankston Library and chatted with ‘blograrian’, Harps, about reading, books, the joys of blogs and a lemon tart’s ideal level of tartness (the zingier the better).

I crapped on a lot and Harps has done a marvellous job of making me appear focused and coherent.

Thanks for showing me some of the hidden world of libraries.

Late PS: I deciphered ‘Tomas’ in the photo so the book must be The Thief of Time by John Boyne (most of the characters are named variations of Tomas). Very readable but the twists at the end were obvious too early — The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is his more brilliant work.

Q&A with Jami Attenberg

Jami is the author of Instant Love and The Kept Man, which I found and adored in November. Her third book, The Melting Season, has been sold to Riverhead Books and she also writes short stories, essays, articles, keeps a web site and blog and has been active in the online medium for more than a decade.

Jami is the sweetest of deal makers and asked if I could mention her book tour. Done! If you’re in the USA, don some winter clothes and meet Jami on tour to promote the release of The Kept Man in paperback. She’ll be on the road from 14 Jan 08 in Tucson, Arizona, until 19 Mar 08 for the gloriously-named Drunken! Careening! Writers! series in New York. Dates and venues here.

Q&A

Which came first: book or website/blog?

Blog. I’ve been blogging since ’98. It was called online journaling then. At some point I realized I should take all the energy I put into the blog into writing a book, and that changed my life forever. But I still can’t stop blogging. Old habits die hard.

Writing and publishing books can be a one-way means of communication with an anonymous audience. What was your motivation for inviting more accessible interaction with readers?

I don’t even know if I invite that much interaction. I don’t have a comments section, I never have had one. I think it’s something more along the lines of: I just can’t seem to shut up. I do hear from readers regularly and have made some really great friends off my site. But I consider the site about me and what I have to say more than anything else. It’s my own little art project. Typical narcissistic writer.

Have the types and amount of interaction with online readers differed from your first expectations?

I spend more time taking pictures and posting them now on my site than writing about myself I think. But no matter what I’m putting up there, the process really stimulates my brain and keeps my creativity going. It’s all a part of the big creative whole.

What have you learned from your readers?

That they crave authenticity.  There’s no bullshitting on the internet.

Extra question: What books have you read this year that make you want to wave a copy in your hand and shout from a rooftop, “Everyone, you must read this!”

I read an advance copy of Joanna Rakoff’s A Fortunate Age, which comes out next spring. It covers some of the subject matter as my book The Kept Man, but is more epic in scope, and very funny and compelling and witty.  I just got a real kick out of it.

Q&A with Ali Alizadeh

Following the previous post, Ali Alizadeh kindly responded to my questions about author accessibility and communication with readers. Ali is author of The New Angel, one of the highlights of my reading year, and is also a literary critic, poet and has published three poetry books: Fifty Poems of Attar, Eyes in Times of War and eliXir: a story in poetry.

Speaking of accessibility, one my favourite poems by Ali, ‘March to War’, is available online in Arabesques Review, Volume 2, Issue 4.

Q&A

Which came first: book or website/blog?

If by book you mean the novel ‘The New Angel’, then the website. (But it came after my three other – poetry – books.)

Writing and publishing books can be a one-way means of communication with an anonymous audience. What was your motivation for inviting more accessible interaction with readers?

I got the website up and running mostly because I’m often away from Australia, and I thought it might be good to have a constant (albeit virtual) presence for people who might be interested in what I do. As for interaction with readers, it wasn’t my intention as such (the site is not really a blog; although it uses wordpress, it’s a rather conventional website), but I definitely enjoy it when I get an email from someone who has read my stuff & found my email address on the website.

Have the types and amount of interaction with online readers differed from your first expectations?

I wasn’t really expecting interaction. But I suppose the interaction I’ve had has been pretty much as one would have expected, e.g. from appreciative/curious readers, from other writers/artists, networking, etc.

What have you learned from your readers?

Hard to decide at this point. I feel I’m still very new in the whole writing/publishing game, and I’m just getting used to having readers as such (as opposed to, say, long-suffering friends who buy my books out of politeness). But if there’s one thing that’s been instructive so far, it’s been knowing that there exists a variety of responses to one’s work. And I find that liberating.

I think George Orwell and Colette would have been diligent and interesting blog keepers. Are there any writers from the present or past you wish had a blog?

Ern Malley, maybe?

Extra question: What books have you read this year that make you want to wave a copy in your hand and shout from a rooftop, “Everyone, you must read this!”

Rawi Hage’s ‘De Niro’s Game’.

[tart note: I read it in one sitting -- gritty and stunning portrayal of the friendship, betrayal and choices of two young men in Beirut during the civil war]

Writer accessibility

As part of constructing a blog entry, I leapfrog across the web to find out more about a book’s writer, read critical reviews to balance my instinctive way of going about things, and delve into historical or cultural references that won’t take leave of my curiosity.

In researching the books I’ve read over the past few months, more than half were written by authors who maintain personal web sites or blogs. I contacted several writers (who had up-to-date contact details on their sites) to learn more about the nature of interactions with readers and how an online presence complements their writing.

Ali Alizadeh and Jami Attenberg were generous enough to respond and I’ll post the Q&A interviews over the next few days. From my perspective, I have to admit to emitting a girly squeal or two when I saw replies in my inbox – definitely the modern-day equivalent of waiting by the letter box for a signed photo of Michael Hutchence in my younger years. And faster!

Self-publishing and the internet have also allowed the writer – particularly the emerging writer — to find a voice outside the traditional protocols of securing an agent, sending manuscripts about town and hoping a publisher will offer a suitable deal in a cut-throat and oversaturated marketplace. The already-working writer can also complement the roles of the publisher and agent to build a readership and act as image manager, travelling salesperson, marketer and networker.

In thinking about the voice of the amateur commentator in today’s online environment, I am just a tart with a library card, an opinion and a computer. However, the far-reaching tentacles of web search engines and global searching, ordering and despatch can help readers follow reviews, feed recommendations and fulfil wish-lists with the clicks of a few buttons. Ali recommended a book I haven’t seen in the shops and within 48 hours it was in my hand.

But, as Jami notes in her interview, readers crave authenticity. There’s no doubt it runs both ways for writers and reviewers.

I will read the classics … one day

Most bookshelves hold serious, significant tomes that exclaim their owner is a person … who … reads … literature, whether the instantly-recognisable titles are well thumbed or collecting carbon-dateable eras of dust.

Mine is no different.

I bought all of these books with the best of intentions and no literary pretension, and tried to force myself into the club of people who read and enjoy the classics.

One day.

Here are my shame piles and some poor reasons for not reading to the last page.

The immortals

the ignored immortals

Charles Dickens ~ Nicholas Nickleby. The type is tiny and might hurt my eyeballs. And it’s a very old book (the 1892 print) and the imagined pressure of perhaps hundreds of previous readers to join their literary club overwhelms me.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~ Faust. I don’t know, I have no excuse.

James Joyce ~ Ulysses. Bored the crap out of me; I live in wonder of someone who can chronicle a single day’s events in 45,329 pages (or so it seems) but I can’t read out of a sense of expectation that I should understand and appreciate.

Jules Verne ~ Michael Strogoff. No excuses here, I bought it because it’s absurdly old and I like old books with character. I haven’t a clue what the book is about.

Leo Tolstoy ~ Anna Karenina. I must say a felt a jolt of excitement that I found this hiding at the back of a shelf. I am going to pick this one up because I might now be mature enough to understand Tolstoy.

Homer ~ The Odyssey. There is no excuse except that I’m intimidated by a pretty couplet, and shudder in fear at the awesomeness of an entire journey written in poem. Homer and Dante are at the upper rungs of the oh my god, I am not worthy ladder.

The new classics

the new breed of classics

Arundhati Roy~ The God of Small Things. No reason, just no reason.

John Banville ~ The Sea. This book will probably go down in history as one of the greats in prose (and deservedly so), but I need a little bit more ‘what’ to avoid feeling lost in his sea of imagery and feeling. That’s all my fault and not the author’s.

Milan Kundera ~ The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Again, no reason. I thought I’d read it but the blurb doesn’t ring a bell at all. I’ll try one day.

James Redfield ~ The Celestine Prophecy. I don’t know how I came to possess this book as I didn’t buy it. And I can’t be arsed picking it up because I’m terribly fussy about ‘seeing the light’ books.