Texas Pages

As stated earlier, lots of readers of literature before James Frey have been subjected to the dilemma occurring when the line between fact and fiction gets all bent out of shape. The Pardoner explains to the Canterbury pilgrims how his fake relics bring ease and happiness to his customers because they believe them to be true. He doesn't explain, however, how they might feel if they learned the bones of Christ were actually pig bones and the pieces of Christ's robe were actually pieces of the Pardoner's old drawers.

When many of Frey's once-adoring fans learned they had purchased pig bones and underwear they were angry and hurt, repudiating the joy of what they had received from his book.

Today, Rod Dreher in the Dallas Morning News, explains in a column ("Monk was a fraud, yet now I am blessed") how he owes his lovely wife and children to his devotion to a monk later exposed as a pedophile and con artist. Dreher believes his prayers to an icon associated with said reprehensible monk led directly, he believes, to the joy he now knows with his family, though "it offends my sense of order and righteousness."

Is happiness deriving from falsity less valuable than that emanating from fact?

Geoffrey C. Ward is the author of "A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt," which was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1989 and the Francis Parkman Prize in 1990. He has won five Emmys and two Writers Guild of America awards for his work for public television.

Allen Barra, who wrote our review of "The War: An Intimate History 1941-1945," interviewed him recently.

Before I read "The War" and watched the documentary, I was wondering what there still was for me to learn about World War II. Now I have the answer -- nearly everything. I was amazed at how much went on in my own country from 1941-1945 that I hadn't known about. I think what I liked best is the focus on four American towns -- Waterbury, Connecticut., Laverne, Minnesota, Mobile, Alabama, and Sacramento, California. Where did the idea to select four representative towns come from, and how were the towns selected?

The subject is so vast we needed some simple organizing principle, and four towns seemed like a good one. But the War was so universally felt that I suspect we would have had the same impact if we’d thrown darts at a map. However, Lynn Novick — probably the most unsung member of our team — did the preliminary winnowing. Luverne was picked because the eloquent pilot Quentin Aanenson came from there. Mobile was the home of the late Eugene Sledge and of his boyhood friends, Sid and Katherine Phillips. Sacramento was picked in part because we were interested in the Japanese internment story and knew that several veterans of the segregated 442nd combat team lived there. We also wanted a northeastern town, and when Lynn discovered the surviving members of poor Babe Ciarlo’s family, Waterbury was added to the list. In every case, we found more riches than we could possibly use.

Like all organizing principles, ours proved inadequate, and we felt free to pepper both the series and the book with people who did not live in our towns, ranging from Senator Daniel Inouye to Arthur Mayer, a guy who happens to swim next to me at a pool on West 63rd street and lived through the fighting in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. Everyone we interviewed lived through the War. No historians needed to apply.

We briefly mentioned Filthy Shakespeare awhile back. Here's a more complete take:

By Joseph B. Frazier
Associated Press

In high school, when Miss Grundy rubbed your adolescent nose in Shakespeare, she was perhaps unaware that the Bard of Avon had ye pottye mouthe.
With more than four centuries of language shifts and Shakespeare's unmatched genius for puns and double-entendre, most readers today, unlike those of his time, skim past it.
But help has arrived in a book, “Filthy Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Most Outrageous Sexual Puns” by Oxford Ph.D. Pauline Kiernan.

We're aiming for the stars, both literal and literary, in Sunday's GuideLive.

First, we have an interview with Philip Roth, along with a review of "Exit Ghost," the ninth and final of his Zuckerman books.

Then, we have a roundup of books about the opening shot of the Space Age, 50 years ago this week: "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" by Michael J. Neufeld; "Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age," by Matthew Brzezinski; and "A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 — The Space Race Begins," by Michael D’Antonio.

We also have a pair of World War II books -- "The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945" by Geoffrey C. Ward looks like a coffee-tabel book but is much more, while "The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944" by Rick Atkinson picks up where his prize-winning "An Army at Dawn" left off. (Be sure to come back this weekend to see our online-only interview with Mr. Ward.)

Finally, Ann Packer explores themes of trust and forgiveness in "Songs Without Words."

As always, we want to hear your comments on our reviews, or anything else on the books pages.

The festival has posted its schedule. Which, as usual, is crammed with an incredible array of authors.

This is what I love about the Texas Book Festival ... if you just plopped yourself into the Senate Chamber all day Nov. 3, you'd get a former vice president's daughter, the current vice president's wife, a senator, a George Bush biographer and a discussion of ideas from the history of "The Atlantic Monthly."

And that's maybe one-twentieth of one day's events.

More to come.

Over on the Elegant Variation blog, Mark Sarvas has an in-depth look at "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Nights."

This was Steinbeck's attempt to re-tell the tales of Camelot in "plain" speech. He never finished, but Mark finds much to like.

This month's Wired magazine offers advice on how to concot a title for your next business best-seller.

Interestingly, the same generator can be used to come up with the name for your next mod-rock band. (If anyone out there goes forth and tops the charts as "Folk Destruction" or "World of the Meme," I want a credit in the liner notes.)

Not when I can have classic literature sent to me daily by e-mail. That, at least, is what the DailyLit site promises.

Normally, it makes my eyes hurt just to think of reading a novel on my Blackberry (don't actually have one yet, but let me know when that budget request goes through, boss.)

But the concept here really appeals to me. I think I like the idea of interrupting a meeting with an obnoxious electronic buzz, pulling out my iPhone, peering down at the screen over my glasses, and telling the group, "Sorry, I've got to take this -- it's Dostoyevsky."

(Thanks to Joyce Harris for the link.)

The folks at Plano's Blue Cubicle Press are looking for submissions for their next edition of "Workers Write!"

Their Tales from the Couch will contain stories from mental healthcare workers -- psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and social workers. The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2008.

Workers Write! is published once a year in April. Previous issues were Tales from the Cubicle, Tales from the Classroom and Tales from the Cash Register.

They're currently working on Tales From the Clinic, which we wrote about in the spring.

Wow! I went to a program on Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore last night. It's the story of a friendship between an international art dealer and a man who was homeless for 30 years, a friendship orchestrated--even demanded--by the art dealer's late wife. The program was at a Fort Worth church, and I expected 30-40 people There were probably 400, crammed into Fellowship Hall, and they were a wildly responsive audience. I didn't hear Denver Moore speak, only Ron Hall, but he is dynamic, dedicated and wickedly witty. His passion for working with the homeless and his respect and admiration for his late wife come across every bit as clearly as his friendship for Denver Moore, a friendship that got off to a rocky start (massive understatement, but Mr. Hall made us all howl with laughter as he described their first meetings). They had already sold out of the books at the church, but I immediately went home and ordered if from amazon. If this team presents a program near you, be sure to go--but go early to get a good seat.

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture is presenting a symposium on "The American West: Border and Frontier" from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday

Participating will be Luis Alberto Urrea ("The Hummingbird's Daughter") and professor of creative writing at the University of Chicago.

Members and alumni $65, Nonmembers $75, Teachers and Students $35.
Continental breakfast and lunch included.

Club Dada is presenting "Anything Can Happen in 3 Minutes" at the Slam Dada Poetry Slam in Deep Ellum.

Signup is 7 p.m. A "Musician Friendly" open mic begins at 8.

The slam is presenting $50 for first place, $30 for second, $20 for third.

The Wall Street Journal today reports that novels by cellphone are all the rage in Japan, especially among young women.

Does this mean we can look forward to the day when theaters have to ask people: "Please turn off your novels -- the movie is about to start."

(Spotted on Shelf Awareness.)

Forgive the dearth of posts. Your humble books editor has been hidden away for a couple of afternoons, forced to ponder Important Journalistic Thoughts with some genuinely legendary journalistic figures. It is conducive to creating a good newspaper but not all that helpful at generating blog posts.

It did get me thinking, though, about great writers who got their start at newspapers. Newspapering has always appealed to those who like to write and get paid for it at the same time. I personally had always intended to follow Ernest Hemingway's advice that a newspaper career wasn't a bad thing for a young writer and could actually do some good, if he got out soon enough. But I also read somewhere that inside every journalist is a book -- and in most cases, it's best it stays there.

There have been a few exceptions to that latter rule.

Years ago, I saw a wonderful compilation along these lines that put together a hypothetical newspaper staff of literary greats who did time as ink-stained wretches. I'm sure it's out there on the Internet somewhere, and if you find a link, please submit it. Until then, here is a pale imitation of that original piece. The "help wanted" sign is in the window of the "All-Time Gazette," if you want to nominate your own staff member.

PUBLISHER: Mark Twain

Maybe the greatest of American writers cut his teeth as a reporter out West. "Innocents Abroad" had its roots in a newspaper assignment. He also went bankrupt investing in a new type of printing press. (Note to publisher currently employing Texas Pages editor: Please do not emulate.)

NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John Steinbeck

"The Grapes of Wrath" began as a series of stories for the San Francisco News.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (Paris Bureau): Ernest Hemingway

The Kansas City Star still claims him as their own.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (London Bureau): Charles Dickens

He began his career as a reporter for "The Mirror of Parliament."

CITY EDITOR: Edna Buchanan

Now a successful mystery author, she earned fame as a crime reporter, whose lead, "Gary Robinson died hungry" is one of the greatest ever. (Context here, courtesy Calvin Trillin.)

SPORTS EDITOR: Hunter S. Thompson

Mr. Gonzo got his start as a sports reporter for the base newspaper when he was in the Air Force.

EDITORIAL EDITOR: Frederick Douglass

His autobiography helped him change history -- as did his newspaper, The North Star.

("Front Page" montage by NATALIE CAUDILL/Staff Photographer; Hemingway, Dickens images from Dallas Morning News files.)

From The Associated Press:

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Volunteers sorting through donated books for a book sale found an abolitionist text and a slave's memoir, both dating back to the 1800s.
The books were discovered together last month in a single leather-bound volume that was clearly an unusual find, said Liza Holzinger, coordinator of the Bethlehem Area Public Library's book sale.

Word arrives of a multi-author -- and free-appetizer -- event this evening.

The festivities run from 4 to 7:30 p.m.at the Plano Centre, 2000 East Spring Creek Parkway.

The authors are:

Joel Zeff, "Make the Right Choice: Creating a Positive, Innovative andProductive Work Life"

Bill Cochran, "The Forever Dog"

Colleen A. Rickenbacher, "Be on Your Best Business Behavior" and "Be on Your Best Cultural Behavior"

Dean Lindsay, "Cracking the Networking CODE"

Vince Poscente, "The Age of Speed"

Remember when irony was dead? When we wondered whether we’d ever laugh again? That was so 2001. This fall, publishers will be looking at the funny side of terror. For example:

Where’s Bin Laden? by Daniel Lalic (New Holland Publishers, $6.95) holds a series of Waldo-like illustrations that take everybody’s favorite little nerd and replaces him with everybody’s most hated little killer. Readers can hunt for him and his adorable Team of Terror. If they dare. (Available online this month, in wide release in November.)

The Ultimate Counterterrorist Home Companion, by Zack Arnstein and Larry Arnstein (Santa Monica Press, $16.95) is subtitled “Six Incapacitating Holds Involving a Spatula and Other Ways to Protect Your Family.” Get advice on moat construction and spotting terrorists in your own family. Friendly cartoon characters explain concepts such as Abu Ghraib to the kids.

You can see all the chapter headings, and take a terror preparedness quiz, here. (Question 1: In 25 words or less: Why are you taking this quiz when you could be preparing to fight terrorism?)

More listening for the book-inclined on North Texas this week on "Think:"

1 p.m. today What are you reading right now and, more importantly, why are you reading it? The show will discuss why some books flop and others fly off the shelves with Lisa Adams, co-author of "Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Contemporary Bestsellers."

Noon Tuesday: William and Rosalie Schiff, along with author Craig Hanley, who wrote about them in "William & Rosalie: A Holocaust Testimony." Read the Dallas Morning News features about them here.

1 p.m. Tuesday: FBI Correspondent Dina Temple-Raston, author of "The Jihad Next Door: The Lackawana Six and Rough Justice in the Age of Terror."

1 p.m. Thursday: Susan Warren, deputy bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal in Dallas and author of "Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever."

Cormac McCarthy's book is headed to the big screen.

Looks like Dallas homeboys Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban have a piece of it as well.

This should spark a huge run on the futures market for ashes and cinders. They'll need several tons to decorate the set.

(As spotted on Critical Mass.)

Here's an excerpt from "The Exorcism," the second of two novellas in "The Fires." Copyright 2007, Alan Cheuse. Used by permission.

I awoke at first light, basking in the luxurious silence that enveloped the room, the floor, the entire hotel, the street, the town, perhaps even the state and the entire eastern seaboard, the nation, the hemisphere, the world. The headache hit me just as I lay my head back onto the pillow, hoping for more sleep. I had clocked only about three hours, and I was suffering, and my compassion for the couple in the next room had evaporated in the night.
I knew my room number and from that subtracted two, and picked up the telephone and punched out that new number. Through the wall I could hear their telephone ring once, twice, and then I broke off the call. Three more times I did this before either of them could pick up receiver. I could hear faint mumblings. I punched the number again. I got up, took a shower, and called the number again. Twice more, and then I got dressed. Twice more. And then I left the room.
The lobby was deserted, except for the young college boy behind the desk. He looked up at me as I passed by, but didn't speak. It was cool outside, and the hot coffee I found at a little doughnut shop on the main street filled me with warm cheer. After a while I returned to the hotel, called the room next to mine several more times, and by then it was almost time to meet Ceely for breakfast.
She was waiting on the porch, smoking and staring into space, in a dark sweater and baggy jeans looking beautiful and fresh, which made me, in my nearly sleepless condition, feel as bad as I had ever felt. But Rashid wasn't there, and so I sighed a father's sigh of relief.

In person, Junot Diaz comes across the same way he does in his writing: Friendly, witty, regularly profane and now and then profound.

About 30 people turned out at Borders Preston/Royal to hear him earlier this evening. He chatted amicably before doing a short reading from "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," followed by questions and a second, shorter reading.

"It's sort of like a shrinking experience, artists and folks just getting together and talking," he said, before offering a potential marketing slogan to draw bigger crowds to author signings in this corporate-sponsored era: "Even if the guy's gonna talk nonsense, it's gotta be better than three commercials, right?"

He chatted about the weather and war -- and how rare it was to see signs of it anywhere on his book tour. He was quizzed about everything from the 11-year gap between his published books (he drew inspiration from a Hong Kong action movie "Hard Boiled," where a cop's mentor tells him: "'You can't lose forever.' I know it sounds really screwed up, but that propelled me through my darkest period") to baseball a to the need for young writers to have mentors.

"There's an honesty in sports that I think sometimes in arts gets missed. My friends, when they physically think they can't do something, their coach will yell at them until they do it. They'll be pushed. And as artists we often forget that in our most difficult moments, often you have to be pushed through. And almost every athlete knows that. It's why coaches are so important.

"So I found that with my art, if I didn't have someone there who was willing to put their s--- on the line and say, 'Dumba--, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this,' I probably wouldn't have pushed myself through some of these areas."

After the reading, he answered a couple of questions that have come up on the blog.

The first lady of literacy, Laura Bush, has been chatting about book festivals, her reading habits and her family's writing habits.

(Thanks to the ever-alert galleycat for spotting this.)

Here's what's on tap in the books section of GuideLive:

David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" is the final opus from the legendary journalist, who was killed earlier this year in an auto accident.

Edwidge Danticat tells the story of her father, her uncle and herself in "Brother, I'm Dying."

Regular reviewer Alan Cheuse has his own book out, "The Fires: Two Novellas." Watch for an excerpt from that one.

Texas native George Saunders deals with hard truths humorously in "The Braindead Megaphone."

"Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War Over Anonymous Sources" is former Time, Inc. editor in chief Norman Pearlstine's take on the Scooter Libby/ Matt Cooper case.

"The Last Jew Standing," by Michael Simon, offers gritty police fiction from the streets of Austin.

Read them Sunday ... and then come on back here to comment.

If you liked the previous entry on quote marks, you'll be "happy" to know that concern is spreading ...

By Jocelyn Noveck
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Isn’t it “funny” how something can “really annoy” you for ages and then you discover via “the Internet” that the same thing “really annoys” thousands of “other people,” too?
The blight that Bethany Keeley exposes on her “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks (http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com) is of a benign sort, of course, nothing like global warming or endangered wildlife.
But it bothers people mightily just the same, as this 24-year-old grad student and language-lover has discovered from the hundreds, occasionally thousands of visitors she gets daily. And nary a day goes by when she doesn’t receive a bunch of e-mails with photographic evidence of quote abuse, misuse or overuse.
As in:
—The sign in Fletcher, Okla., that advertised a tractor club’s ANNUAL SHOW -- “Labor Day Weekend.”
—The restaurant billboard in Madison, Wis., that felt the need to put quotes around “Lunch” and “Dinners.”
—The bathroom sign that asked visitors to Leave the Light “On” during business hours. (“On” was also underlined. Twice.)
—The currently featured “Good Luck Amy” cake, which not only wastes frosting on those quote marks, but also adds parentheses around the whole message.

Friends at Borders sent word of an upcoming sale for current and retired educators.

Details are posted on our Shopping Blog.

Elizabeth Gilbert's spiritual memoir - charting her post-divorce wanderings to Italy, India and Bali, in search of enlightenment - has become a #1 bestseller in trade paperback.

Click here for her interview with Beliefnet.

I'm looking forward to catching Junot Diaz at 7 tonight at the