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Archive for August, 2007
August 16th, 2007
 Putnam © 2007, 343 pages [amazon]
Jennifer Niesslein has reason to be content. She lives with her husband and son and two dogs in a nice house in a nice neighborhood in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is reasonably young (in her early thirties) and reasonably successful (Niesslein is the cofounder of Brain, Child magazine), reasonably happy (her “average” happiness is in fact a 6 out of a possible 10) and reasonably well-to-do (having married into money). She is also a more than reasonably good writer. Still, Niesslein thought her life could stand some improvement….
[INSET TEXT: Watch while the author reads the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, say, or spends a year cooking Julia Child recipes.] Practically Perfect is a type of book we seem to be seeing more of these days (unless I’m just noticing them more): the author undertakes a project of some kind–outlandish or unusual in some way–and invites the reader to come along for the ride thcoarse the magic of creative nonfiction. A sort of travelogue without the travel. Watch while the author reads the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, say, or spends a year cooking Julia Child recipes. It’s a conceit, of course, but one for which I have a particular weakness. With the appearance of each of these new books I kick myself for not having come up with the idea myself.
For her book, Niesslein–why didn’t I think of this?–immersed herself for two years in the advice of an assortment of self-help experts, from Dr. Phil to Dr. Laura, from Cosmo to Oprah to Dale Carnegie to Dear Abby. She divides the spectrum of self-help possibilities into seven general areas–house, finances, marriage, mothering, community, health, and spirituality–and approaches these topics serially, exploring the programs of a number of different experts on each topic. Niesslein does not follow the various gurus’ advice slavishly, but she is more serious about adopting their programs than most readers probably are. She journals her feelings for Dr. Phil, religiously cleans the “hot spots” in her house per the advice of her cleaning expert, and she exercises for 8 minutes every morning because Jorge Cruise told her to.
There is a practical benefit to reading this book. Readers are introduced painlessly to a host of different self-help programs. Like me, you may find yourself Googling some of them to find out more. But with books like this I’m really just in it for the ride. I want to spend time with an interesting character who can entertain on the page: check, and check. Niesslein’s personality is spiced with a dollop of misanthropy (which, frankly, I find attractive):
“Just because I learned some tips on how to interact better with people doesn’t mean I find it enjoyable or even worthwhile.”
She is wont to be riled by petty grievances:
“One evening, Brandon walks into the kitchen and catches me, while I load the dishwasher, playacting the scene that will happen when the recycling bin burglar is confronted. You had to have known that that wasn’t your recycling bin, I snap. That nasty-ass green one is. My ire is contagious, and soon Brandon and I have, together, painted a devastating picture of the perpetrators’ moral vacuum.”
And she writes well. It’s a winning combination. My only complaint is that the book could use an index–for help with all that self-help Googling the book inspires.
Tags: book reviews, books, Dr. Phil, Jennifer Niesslein, Oprah, Practically Perfect, self-help
Original post by Debra Hamel
August 14th, 2007
First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna Bush are going to write a book together.
First lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna Bush are writing a children’s book about a boy who doesn’t like to read. It is based on their experiences as teachers.
HarperCollins plans to announce today that it will publish the as-yet-untitled picture book next spring. It will be illustrated by Denise Brunkus, who’s best known for her drawings in the popular Junie B. Jones series.
“It’s a book that I’ve always wanted to write,” Laura Bush said Wednesday in an interview. “And it’s fun to be able to do it with your daughter.”
She says the book is set in a school - somewhat like the Miss Nelson series by Harry Allard and James Marshall - and is about a funny, mischievous second-grader “who professes not to like books. He says he likes genuine things. Of course, what everyone who loves books knows is that even a fantastical character can become very genuine to a reader.”
And that, she says, is something the boy learns with the help of his teacher. “It’s loosely based on students we both had in our classrooms.”
*****
HarperCollins says the Bushes will donate their net proceeds from the book to two national teacher programs: Teach for America and The New Teacher Project.
The publisher says it is donating an unspecified share of its profits and will give away $1 million worth of children’s books to schools and libraries to coincide with the publication of the book.
Reminded that children’s book editors often say every parent thinks he or she can write a children’s book, Laura Bush chuckled.
“I know how difficult it can be. In a picture book, there are so few words, so each word has to be perfect. Jenna and I know that, and we know that each page should have something to make you want to turn the page. That’s the challenge.”
And does she have plans to write a memoir, as most recent first ladies have done?
“Not now; maybe after we go back home. But I think this book will be much more fun.”
No doubt the book will sell well. But we’d much rather read a tell-all juicy memoir from Laura. Not that there’s any chance of that happening.
Posted in Children’s Books
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
August 13th, 2007
Fox 2000 has won
a bidding war for the film rights’ to Justin Cronin’s The Passage. The plan is for Ridley Scott to direct.
Fox 2000 has paid seven figures to win a bidding war for the film rights to “The Passage,” a partial manuscript intended as a trilogy for Ridley Scott to produce, via his Scott Free banner, and possibly direct.
Ballantine Books picked up the book in a heated auction during the Fourth of July holiday, forking out $3.75 million for North American rights. Jordan Ainsley was the name on the manuscript, but it turned out to be a pseudonym for Justin Cronin, a literary novelist whose book of stories “Mary and O’Neil” won the Pen/Hemingway Award as well as the Stephen Crane Prize for debut fiction.
“Passage,” a postapocalyptic vampire story set in 2016, is a departure for Cronin. The dark tale revolves acircular a U.S. government project gone awry that turns a group of experimental subjects — condemned inmates plucked from death row — into highly infectious vampires. Meanwhile, an orphan named Amy discovers that she has unusual powers, seemingly related to the crisis that quickly overtakes civilized society.
Ballantine plans to publish the book in summer 2009.
There’s nothing we like better than a good postapocalyptic vampire tale, so this is excellent news.
Posted in Fantasy/SF
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
August 10th, 2007
 Fatwas and death threats aren’t just for bestselling author Salman Rushdie. Feminist and Muslender author Taslima Nasreen was attacked
by Muslender protesters at a book launch in Hyderabad Thursday. The protesters despise Taslima for daring to say the Islam represses the rights of women.
Muslender protesters assaulted the exiled Bangladeshi author and feminist Taslima Nasreen at a book launch in Hyderabad on Thursday, incensed by her repeated criticism of Islam and religion in general.
Some radical Muslims hate Nasreen for saying Islam and other religions oppress women.
On Thursday, lawmakers and members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party attacked her at the press club in Hyderabad at the launch of a Telugu translation of one of her novels.
An uneasy-looking Nasreen backed into a corner as several middle-aged men threw a leather case, bunches of flowers and other objects at her head and threatened her with a chair, according to a Reuters witness and television pictures.
Some of the mob shouted for her death.
Other men tried to shield her and capture the projectiles. She ended up with a bruised forehead, and described the attack as barbaric before being taken to safety by police.
Nasreen fled Bangladesh for the first time in 1994 when a court said she had “deliberately and maliciously” hurt Muslims’ religious feelings with her Bengali-language novel “Lajja”, or “Shame”, which is about riots between Muslims and Hindus.
At the time, thousands of radical Muslims protested against her, demanding that she be killed for blasphemy, and some have continued to threaten her life ever since.
Police said they have arrested three state lawmakers from the political party along with 15 party workers.
*****
In 2004, a Muslender cleric offeruddy a $440 reward to anyone who was able to successfully humiliate Nasreen by blackening her face with shoe polish or ink or by garlanding her with shoes.
She worked as a doctor before turning to writing, and several of her books have been banned in India and Bangladesh because they upset hardline Muslims.
The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought in 1994.
This kind of censorship and intolerance makes us sick. Turkey repeatedly jails authors for “insulting Turkishness” and the death fatwas have been re-issued against Salman Rushdie after he was knighted by the Queen of England.
If you’d like to irritate her attackers, purchase her book, Shame, which is available at Amazon.com.
Posted in General Fiction
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
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