Results tagged “books”

Last Sunday during the Texas Book Festival, I sat down for lunch with Jonathan Foer, author of Eating Animals. I wanted to talk about his new book and at the same time introduce him to one of Austin’s treasures: the vegetarian food at Casa de Luz. As we walked into the less-than-full restaurant, he said, "Nice. Wow, if this were Brooklyn, the place would be packed. What's going on?" "New York City prices," I replied. Your book will be released next week. Have you had any reaction so far?

OH SNAP! So, Austin is considered the Live Music Capital of the world? Well that’s not all that’s crackin’ up and spacklin' in and amongst our cultured ranks. Some of us can read, and certainly do. Which is why Austin is blessed to host the Texas Book Festival again for 2009. Music’s nice and all for listenin’ and whatnot, but BOOKS and WRITERS will be on the main stage this weekend at the Texas Book Festival!

In Cheever, A Life, Blake Bailey combines a biography with some literary criticism. Weighing in at 679 pages, it is an even-handed and meticulously researched picture of this fiction writer best known for short stories. Bailey’s authority comes from his knowledge of John Cheever’s writing and access to his unpublished journals. Although it pains me to say this, in general writers make boring nonfiction characters.They are of deep interest only to biographers and close family. In this case, however, the troubled man-boy who never finished high school made both a mess and magic out of his personal life, creating enough controversy to carry a story.

Not that we'd ever try adderall without a prescription, but we've heard that effects include heightened concentration, attention to detail, and sudden lack of apathy or fatigue. San Francisco-based author Stephen Elliott, in town for a reading this week, embodies many of those same attributes. His prose is clear, direct, and very human, while his artistic life is a swirl of activity, maintaining constant literary output while editing The Rumpus, a taste-shaping national arts and culture blog.

James Hannaham’s God Says No is narrated by the book’s primary character: Gary Gray, a sweet overweight black Christian who loves God, Disney Land, and sweets. He has one big problem, though: a nagging sexual attraction to men. Convinced that his deeply buried homosexuality will condemn him to eternal hellfire, Gary embarks on a quest to convince himself and everyone around him that he is indeed a normal guy, 100% straight.

When one writer critically examines another respected author, readers should be skeptical. In Notes on Sontag, Phillip Lopate reflects on Susan Sontag’s essays, book-length nonfiction and fiction. He works from his strength as a personal essayist: intimate, balanced, and a generalist. Lopate’s appreciation of literature keeps the focus on her writing and not her personality. In fact, he cautions this is not, “Thank God,” a biography. He does, however, interweave some personal encounters with this fellow New Yorker. More significantly, he digs deeply into her writing. He quotes widely and at length from her body of work. And he chooses wisely. Look at this Sontag gem from an essay on Nazi symbols: “The color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death.” Throughout, Lopate writes honestly, as readers should expect from an essayist, on her strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

The Drive-By Professor talks wise in your ear on philosophy, art, science, and other non-profitable acts of genius. The declarations voiced by The DBP do not reflect those of anyone else in the Ist network. While The Orchid Thief, a fascinating effort in personal journalism, probably is best known as the inspiration for Charlie Kaufman's book-mutilating film Adaptation, Susan Orlean's study of orchid obsession covers everything from mid-century Florida land-scams to irresponsible adventuring to the seedy underbelly of plant collecting to the complexities of botany, hybridization, and cloning. Citing the orchid as evolution's most prized plant (orchids do not self-pollinate, thus requiring them to adapt especially crazily to their environment so as to avoid extinction), perhaps the most notable acclaim I can give this sometimes-meandering book is that, after all, it was captivating enough to get a dude to read 300 pages about flowers.

Google's pending settlement with authors and publishers groups will make more books from University of Texas libraries available online.

At the Carver Library and Cultural Center, Austin held its other book festival on Saturday, June 27th: The Third Annual African American Book Festival. Less well-known than that book gathering held in the Capitol each fall, it still attracted some prominent authors. One, Annette Gordon-Reed, spoke of her obsession with the story of Sally Hemings, the now famous slave and mistress of Thomas Jefferson. She described a journey that began with reading Jefferson's biography as a third grader to research on his life as a college history student and the eventual publication of two books. Jefferson scholars dismissed the relationship as just "negro news," she said. In 1997, her first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, examined the entire historical record. Soon after, DNA evidence confirmed the liaison. Then, using Jefferson's obsessive record keeping, the oral history, and his letters, she reconstructed the Hemings family story in, The Hemingses of Monticello, for which she received the 2008 National Book Award and 2009 Pulitzer Prize. She expressed regret at not listening more carefully as a child to her grandmother’s family stories. "Slavery was a part of my life," she said; her grandmother's mother was a slave. Gordon-Reed, now a law professor, wanted to individualize Sally, describe her family context, and allow her to be known as more than just a "slave girl." It was a short hour listening to the story behind the story.

A respected American humorist, writer, and frequent panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, Roy Blount Jr.'s career spans nearly two dozen books (most recently, Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South) and clips in publications far and wide, from The New Yorker and The New York Times to Esquire and Sports Illustrated. He's coming to Austin next week to participate in the live taping of "Wait Wait" at Bass Concert Hall on Thursday, and will also be around the evening before to deliver a special presentation for the Writers' League of Texas.

Short-story master William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) is remembered for his twist endings. Each year, twenty stories published in the US or Canada receive the prestigious award that bears his name. Editor Laura Furman, a professor at UT’s Michener center and founder of Austin-based lit mag American Short Fiction, had the onerous task of sorting through heaps of submissions for inclusion in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009.

Overqualified is ideal for reading in public. Because it's good to laugh and cry in public. Most of us go through a range of emotions when writing cover letters for job applications. We know the doubt, the fear, the frustration, and the possible sliver of hope that comes from contriving the most professional and least complicated versions of ourselves we can present. Overqualified, by A Softer World’s Joey Comeau, dispenses with everything your Career Advisor told you

Most of the seats for beloved author and humorist David Sedaris' April 20th appearance at Riverbend Center went to Paramount season subscribers, but we're told that a very limited number of individual seats are still available. Some of these have obstructed views, but should clearly indicate as such. [Tickets]

The Writers' League of Texas is now taking entries for its 2009 Book Awards contest. Previously known as the Violet Crown Book Awards and the Teddy Children's Book Awards, the combined prize honors the year's best works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and literary prose, and children's short and long works.

There's good news if you're looking to turn your blog into a book like Stephanie Klein, Guy Kawasaki, or Hugh MacLeod have done. Heck, they're even happy to help you. All you have to do is make something great.

Online innovators Clay Shirky and Deborah Schultz wanted to help jump-start their old-media book-publishing brethern with fresh ideas for their industry in the "New Think for Old Publishers" panel at South by Southwest Interactive.

Philipp Meyer has been a published novelist for about two weeks now, but already his book is getting the sort of reception usually reserved for household names. American Rust, released in the U.S. by Speigel and Grau in February, is a great book at the right time-- a character-driven drama of the collapse of manufacturing in America and the violent changes in a culture that no longer seems to control its own destiny. In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani writes, "American Rust announces the arrival of a gifted new writer — a writer who understands how place and personality and circumstance can converge to create the perfect storm of tragedy." Reviewers have compared his work to Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Salinger, McCarthy, and Lehane.

Voices speak out about Ott's proposed budget cuts at last night's public meeting. Robbery spree last night in Central and East Austin; police suspect the same group of guys did it all. Man tried to stop his girlfriend from reporting his abusive treatment to the cops by kidnapping her from in front of a police substation (she escaped). Hilton employees open a strangely marked FedEx package addressed to "MTP" to find 6 lbs of pot; police arrest the man who signs for it. Sen. Cornyn is keeping money donated by Stanford. Some Texas GOP politicians (including Cornyn) support proposed bill that would require ISPs/WiFi-providers to keep user records for 2 years to assist police investigations. Mayor's Book Club pick for 2009: The Septembers of Shiraz.

Last week we sat down for a brief chat with Roy Spence, co-founder and CEO of GSD&M Idea City. Over the course of a career spanning nearly four decades, Spence has helped grow a tiny upstart agency in Austin into a global advertising powerhouse, which today represents giant firms such as BMW, Southwest Airlines, and American Red Cross. Spence has a new business book out today, entitled It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For, which argues that "purpose"—a "definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make in the world"—is the secret ingredient in any recipe for success.

Playwright and filmmaker David Mamet is returning to UT this Thursday—oddly enough, a year and a day after his last appearance on campus—for a chat with UT Austin President William Powers Jr.

Just this year alone, at the ripe young age of 50, they managed to acquire the archive of acclaimed British author Jim Crace, letters from Tennessee Williams and John Steinbeck, and an ancient Bible written in parallel in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic.

Tonight at Joe’s Coffee on South Congress next to the San Jose, Austinist favorite Owen Egerton and a likely Austinist soon-to-be-favorite Doug Dorst will be reading and other shenanigans to celebrate the Fall Issue of American Short Fiction. Their cahooting will be accompanied by the decidedly Austin tones of Blood Country (formerly Chili Cold Blood), who appear to have a swell sense of humor about their motherfuckin’ selves. Words, music, and the potential for public wrestling betwixt the two writers are all practically inevitable. This is a splendid trifecta display of Austin creativity, and the potential for the accidental production of a unified singularity of said creativity which would cause an implosion of all that we know is, well, actually that idea is completely absurd. And absurdity is the name of tonight’s game.

Obama's grandmother died this morning of cancer. Travis County projects 80% voter turnout for the election (50% of registered voters already voted early). Public Safety Task Force met today to discuss crime statistics and red light cameras. Scalpers scammed 500 fans with counterfeit tickets to the UT-Tech game Saturday night. Robert A. Caro wins the Bookend Award at the Texas Book Festival this past weekend. "Watch the early vote totals. They likely will tell you whether Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain will carry Texas and by how much." Woman in camper at Texas Motor Speedway hit by stray bullet.

Duran: It's important to remember that the Television is part of the American culture. Therefore it's only natural that food has become a theme to be covered through this medium. As long as these chefs are inspiring viewers to start cooking in their own kitchens, I see no issues with what they are doing.

Travis County asks you to please vote early if you can. KOOP will air a debate on Prop. 2 tomorrow afternoon. Police issue arrest warrant for Georgetown woman after her infant tests positive for meth exposure. The parents of a 3-year-old who was seriously injured in a Bastrop County car accident earlier this month are asking for a no-texting-while-driving law. Despite some parents' attempts, the Round Rock School Board votes to keep TTYL on the shelves of the middle school library. World's largest beach ball touches down in Dallas. Two men tried shoplifting equipment from a Kerrville WalMart to use in a planned robbery of a Super S store. They were not successful.

Sarah Vowell is one of those talented people whose job description covers a lot of territory (radio journalist, columnist, humorist, actress) and she’ll be at BookPeople tomorrow night – because she’s an author, too, of course.

As Halloween approaches, autumn’s brisk air often provokes our hunger for shivers. While revisiting some of your favorite scary stories this year, consider Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. His newest endeavor, written for children (children who would no doubt play well with Wednesday Addams), relates the musings and adventures of Nobody Owens, a boy who, orphaned after the murder of his family, grows up in a graveyard, raised by ghosts from a variety of backgrounds and time periods.

UPDATE: The RSVP is now full. But you can still try the standby line. Why not? If you missed the screening of Choke at SXSW earlier this year, you now have another last-minute chance to see it before it hits theaters. Tonight, the Dobie will host a free 9:30pm screening of the film with writer/director Clark Greg in attendance to conduct a Q&A; immediately following the screening.

With a new school year starting, the Utter Reading Series is turning its attention to two local hotshot writers who are still students at UT's Michener Center for Writers. Both were finalists for the 2008 Keene Prize for Literature. Both will complete their MFAs next May, at which point who knows if Austin can hold on to them, so we're going to be sure to catch them tonight.

In this clip, he discusses his new book (The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart), Texans buying more guns, and strange Austin lawn art: "My wife and I moved to Austin . . . we'd drive around and see neighbors with bowling ball art . . ." Jon Stewart tells Bishop at the end of the interview, "You live in a f*cked up neighborhood."