Texas Pages

File this under "O" -- either for "offensive" or "Oh, come on now."

But GalleyCat reports that there has been backlash to the Bud Light Super Bowl ad that showed a guy lured into a women's book club because they were serving Bud Light. Blogger Edward Champion opines that the ad has a "misogynistic message with an anti-reading subtext."

To which I say, well, yeah. But is it exactly news that beer ads promote bad behavior? Is it an affront to women to portray them as interested in books, or is it more of an affront to portray men as sweaty, sex-obsessed illiterates? And why should that make me want to drink beer, anyway? And has anyone actually ever attended a book club where beer was served? I mean, wine in a box, maybe.

And while we're at it, when it comes to offensive behavior at the Super Bowl, wasn't the repeated exposure of Pete Townshend's navel more traumatizing than anything revealed in that Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction from a few years back?

But I digress. Here's the ad, which I will allow you to watch only if you promise that you won't actually buy any Bud Light -- which offends me just by the way it tastes:

The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference has posted its speakers for this year's event.

Mary Karr, author of Lit (review here), will kick things off on Friday, July 23.

Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden will deliver the Saturday keynote.

And award-winning Sports Illustrated writer Gary Smith will deliver the Sunday keynote.

Other presenters are listed here. Among them: David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (review here); Scribner editor Colin Harrison; Hampton Sides, whose forthcoming book, Hellhound On His Trail, is about the pursuit of Martin Luther King Jr.'s killer; Bryan Burrough, author of The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes (story here); Mandalit del Barco of National Public Radio; S.C. "Sam" Gwynne of Texas Monthly; and many others (myself included, way down at the bottom of that list.)

We'll post information about registration when it's available. Meanwhile, you can review coverage of past Mayborns here.

Texan Libba Bray, who recently won the Printz Award for young adult literature for Going Bovine, is a big deal. Especially after her new deal with Little, Brown.

The publisher won a six-way battle for a new supernatural fantasy series called "The Diviners." Estimated price, according to Publishers Weekly: around $2 million.

Bray grew up in Texas, graduating from Denton High School and the University of Texas, before moving to New York. Our interview with her, from the archives, is still here.

PW says the new series will launch in 2012.

More.com has compiled a list of the "Top 100 Books Every Woman Should Read," which will be put on the Web site in installments. The first three 20-book selections, "The Classics," "Noteworthy Novels" and "Nonfiction" are also up on the Web site.

Do you agree with their selections? What would you have chosen that's not there?

I've been pretty bad the last six months to a year on staying up to date on comics news, so it's time to start making up for it.

Today brings the release of a trade paperback I've been looking forward to and didn't even know was on the way: Bill Willingham's Fables Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover. This DC Comics release brings the Fables and Jack of Fables storylines back together as their worlds are "introduced to a whole new set of characters: The Literals. The Literals are characters that embody, literally, different literary genres such as Mystery, Comedy and Romance. One of The Literals goes by the name The Storymaker, one who can vanquish the world of Fables with one stroke of his pen," so says the description on Amazon.com. Sounds deep. And a good excuse to pick up Jack's series, which is working on volume 7 now, if you haven't yet.

I just got Fables Vol. 12 : The Dark Ages for Christmas and have now found my motivation to quickly finish it off.

Below is a list of noteworthy (in my opinion) releases in stores today. For more, visit comiclist.com or get over to your local comic shop.

Bradley Trevor Greive had quite an exciting life before becoming a full-time writer -- a native of Tasmania, he served in Australian special forces as a paratrooper, and notes that he's one of the few (one would suspect only) New York Times best-selling authors who has had five treatments for rabies (during his work as an international ambassador for wildlife) and was "one time almost raped by a giant bat." (It was apparently made extremely frisky, in a romantic sense, by Greive's Jovan musk cologne.) He's been bitten by penguins three times, gored by just about anything with that ability, and served in Cambodia when the Khmer Rhouge were still in charge. ("Not particularly cordial," he calls them.) He also did a full-body wax to serve as a body double for one of the stars of the Marlon Brando version of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

So OK, he's seen some danger. And he's written about a gazillion best-selling little books of philosophy and photographs: The Blue Day Book, The Meaning of Life, Tomorrow and others. But now he's really stepped in it: He's gotten into the dog vs. cat question. At a talk Friday night at Legacy Books in Plano, Greive noted that he's "pro-dog, not anti-cat. ... I love cats, despite their sociopathic tendencies."

Jeff Abbott's Twitter feed has been busy today: in the latest, he announced a new series that will be published by Grand Central in 2011.

If I'm not mistaken, this would be the one mentioned at the Texas Book Festival that stars a CIA agent who owns bars around the world, which will require some hard-nosed research on Mr. Abbott's part. Possibly followed by some intense rehab.

As Amazon and Macmillian have been battling over the price of e-books (Publishers Weekly coverage here, latest Associated Press recap below), Austin author Jeff Abbott is throwing his support behind the writers.

Which is kind of obvious, him being a writer and all. But he's doing more than talking.

Abbot (his latest thriller, Trust Me, is reviewed here) has tweeted the names of five Macmillan authors he bought at his local bookstore. Those authors have been frozen out of Amazon, which has sent mixed signals on when they might be restored.

The titles: Break Neck by Erica Spindler, Old Man's War by John Scalzi, The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld , City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley and [UPDATE:] Roma by Steven Saylor.

He notes: "My Macmillan buying spree is not being anti-Amazon, it is being pro-writer. I am confident Amazon/Macmillan will sort this out."

[UPDATE, 4 p.m.: GalleyCat has the latest on the battle, along with Scalzi's call for author support from earlier today.]

My thought on the conflict: I tend to be for author rights and the ability of publishers to make a fair profit -- which is kind of obvious, me making my living off of writers and all. But check out the comments on this New York Times blog. The reading public is not exactly going to rally around a battle cry of, "Let's pay more for e-books!"

Shin Yi Pai, a poet and an exceptionally supportive early contributor to this very blog, will be reading 8 p.m. Saturday at Paperbacks Plus, 6115 La Vista.

Details of this Wordspace event are posted here.

Alan Cheuse is an author and regular contributor to the books pages here. I asked him for his thoughts about J.D. Salinger.

The Catcher in the Rye is the great-great-grandson of Huckleberry Finn, and in its lifetime -- still in full bloom -- has given pleasure to almost as many readers. Sad to think that Salinger is gone. But some potentially good news in rumors of those manuscripts in bank vaults somewhere. Let's hope his estate, managed by his estranged children, as the word would have it, opens those vault doors soon. And finds more novels and stories than we might have hoped for while J.D.S. was still alive.

For those interested in that alleged vault -- here's what The Associated Press had to say about it:

Here's are some additional thoughts on J.D. Salinger, this time from Austin playwright Suzanne Chesshire.

Holden Caulfield changed my life. Until I met that cynical, rebellious teen, I thought teachers were smart and parents were right. Holden showed me the error of my ways. With one word he taught a generation of conformist to question everything in their world. "Phony", he said and we suddenly noticed that everything we grew up with was a sham.

School? Phony. Parents? Phony. Hollywood? Really phony. Some things were so phony they made him want to puke and I wanted to puke with him. We all did. We all became metaphorical pukers. I don't think Dustin Hoffman would have turned down that job in plastics if Holden hadn't been in his head telling him plastic would eventually make him
want to puke. Plastics were hot, but The Graduate and Holden knew there was a better, more authentic future out there...somewhere...maybe. Although like the Graduate, Holden had the uneasy feeling that when he finally found it, it would turn out to be something that made him queasy.

Then there was the Glass Family. Oh, how I wanted to be part of the Glass family. I wanted a mother who wore a blue kimono instead of an apron. I wanted a superficial knowledge of Buddhism which I could use to make everyone feel stupid. I wanted to eat too many banana fish. I really, really did. It was all so urbane and painful and hip and yet scornful of hip. It was a perfect world.

After J.D. Salinger died last week, I started asking around for writers' thoughts on his significance. Some of those ideas ended up in this roundup. I'll be posting some additional items today, starting with this from Waco attorney and writer Alan Nelson.

In 1971, I stole J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye from my brother's duffel bag that sat in a vacant house near the Houston Ship Channel.
I already traveled in that too-familiar disconnect from parents and friends. I was 13. I lost a girlfriend to my brother, a high school senior, who then lost her to a high school football player. My brother, who I considered my hero, became my rival. Adults in charge called me an unemotional "robot," but their attention diverted to my older, wilder brother.

In anguish I stole that moldy copy from a vacant house in which my brother and his friends hung out. I thought I was stealing a dirty book, something along the lines of Terry Southern's Candy I'd stolen from him a few weeks earlier.

From Holden Caulfield's reference to "all that David Copperfield kind of crap" and the phoniness, the book gripped me. I read it from cover to cover that night. It propelled me into actively sorting the disconnect of my own perceptions of reality into a world view instead of taking the accepted legends at face value. It scared me I was doomed to grow into an adult, and perhaps become part of the machinations that Holden condemned. I wrote Salinger my first fan letter. I never heard back, of course. I wrote every author I that I liked after that (if I know they are still alive). I still do, and a tiny few reply.

From the press release:

Borders stores in Texas will host fun-filled in-store parties designed specifically for fans of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians book series by Rick Riordan on Feb. 6 beginning at 2 p.m. The first book in the series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief will be released as a major motion picture in mid-February and Borders' in-store parties, scheduled for the Saturday prior to the movie, will provide fans the opportunity to come together to celebrate Percy, their favorite trouble-prone teen demigod.

During the parties, fans will enjoy a spirited debate on topics surrounding the books, the upcoming film, movie cast and more. Party attendees will also enjoy an adrenaline-pumping trivia challenge, as well as "Olympian" style games that could include a toga wrap race, arm wrestling, discus and javelin throwing and more. Activities may vary by store. Visit the Store Locator tab on Borders.com to find a participating location."

Continue reading to find out about a free gift with purchase and exclusive online content available from the event and Borders.com. And to prep yourself for it, read Bridgette Williams' take on Book 1.

Is Percy Jackson the new Harry Potter?

GalleyCat has gathered an assortment of J.D. Salinger reviews through the years. Included is this one from John Updike, reviewing Franny and Zooey in 1961:

"His fiction, in its rather grim bravado, its humor, its morbidity, its wry but persistent hopefulness, matches the shape and tint of present American life. It pays the price, however, of becoming dangerously convoluted and static. A sense of composition is not among Salinger's strengths, and even these two stories, so apparently complementary, distinctly jangle as components of one book."

For subscribers, The New Yorker has posted several of Salinger's stories from its archives. (Thanks to critic and comrade John Kuebler for the tip.)

And very recently, I found this link to Salinger's Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters. The book came up during my interview with David Wroblewski. This Zen lesson is not even in Salinger's voice, but it was one of my favorite lessons from his books. So I offer it here in honor of all those deep, Vitally Important conversations Salinger inspired among me and my fellow 17-year olds:

I admit it: I'm a sucker for books set to become movies. Nothing makes me want to read a book more than hearing it's about to be butchered by somebody determined to bring it to the big screen. (OK, so some movies have done justice to their literary origins. And, then again, some distinctly have not.)

Add to this that I'm an impulse buyer who likes interesting packaging, and you can work out how I ended up with a paperback copy of The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 1. (Oddly enough, I also dig young adult fiction, so that's a factor as well.)

J.D. Salinger has died; The Associated Press report is below.

Your comments on what he meant to you are welcome below.

NEW YORK (AP) -- J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose The Catcher in the Rye shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's longtime literary representative, Harold Ober Agency. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
The Catcher in the Rye, with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made Catcher a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight -- and concern."
Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing -- more than 60 million copies worldwide -- and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams: to never grow up.

Continue reading

Ah, this is just what I needed to break me out of my it's-Wednesday-and-a-cold-front-is-coming mood.

The site Flavorwire is brimming with nonstuffy books news today. First, they have compiled a list of books recommended by comedians. Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin weigh in, as does Stephen Colbert -- who, for the record, once told me that "I love books so much. Next to my family, books are my best friends. If I hadn't had them when I was younger, I don't know how I would have survived from age 10 to age 21.They're always there for you, you know?" And even though he was speaking at a book convention, I think he was being serious.

And then there's this: a list of the 10 best songs about libraries and librarians. And nothing from The Music Man even made the list.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel and National Book Award finalists Jayne Anne Phillips and Bonnie Jo Campbell were among the nominees announced Saturday night for the National Book Critics Circle prize.
Other finalists include memoir writer Mary Karr, former U.S. poet laureate Louise Glueck and former National Book Award winner William T. Vollmann, cited by critics for his 1,300-plus-page Imperial.
Joyce Carol Oates, one of the few writers as prolific as Vollmann, will receive a lifetime achievement prize, and a special award for criticism will be presented to New Yorker dance critic Joan Acocella.
Winners in six competitive categories will be announced March 11. There are no cash awards.

LONDON (AP) -- Poet Christopher Reid was awarded Britain's Costa Book of the Year Award on Tuesday with a poetry collection written in tribute to his late wife.
Reid's A Scattering -- inspired by his wife's death from cancer in 2005 -- beat four other finalists to the 30,000 pound ($48,426) prize, which aims to reward the most enjoyable book in the last year by writers based in the U.K. and Ireland.

Just in case you missed these fine stories from the weekend:

Doug J. Swanson gives us the story of Alex Lemon, author of Happy, which we reviewed earlier.

And Scott Cantrell spoke with Rainer Schulte, founding director of the 30-year-old Center for Translation Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.