Rabbit at Rest

JOHN UPDIKE, 1932 - 2009

“Preparing his cup of Sanka over the singing kettle, he wears his usual expression: that of a man beset by an embarrassment of delicious drolleries. The telephone starts ringing. A science magazine wants something pithy on the philosophy of subatomic thermodynamics; a fashion magazine wants 10,000 words on his favorite color. No problem — but can they hang on? Mr. Updike has to go upstairs again and blurt out a novel.”

- Martin Amis on John Updike

UPDATE: The New Yorker magazine has started a memorial thread for Updike on its blog, The Book Bench. As of this writing, Julian Barnes and Antonya Nelson have posted their thoughts. Updike contributed regularly to The New Yorker (his first piece appeared in 1954, his final piece last May), so expect this feature to be star-studded and ongoing.

-Brandon

Best. Commercial. Ever.

Turns out Ray Bradbury was right about wall-to-wall televisions. But 2001 has come and gone, and still no pneumatic people tubes!



-Brandon

The 2009 Tournament of Books

The Morning News today announced the contenders in their fifth annual Tournament of Books, a punishing competition in which the editors “take 16 of the most celebrated and highly touted novels of the year, seed them in a March Madness-type bracket, conscript them into a ‘Battle Royale of Literary Excellence,’ and, in honor of David Sedaris’s brother, present the author of the winning book a live rooster.”

Believe me, you’ll want to bookmark the site and check back regularly, both to vote for your favorites as they advance through the rounds, and to leave snarky comments when they fall to the Rooster’s bloody spur. It’s great fun, and far more sensible than whatever obscure mix of bibliomancy, numerology and entrail-reading is used to determine the National Book Award winners every year.

-Brandon

A Literary Man About Town

A paper man takes a stroll through a city made of books -- a literally literary town -- in this wonderful video from 4th Estate. It's not unlike working in a bookstore, really, where daily proximity to books and routine immersion in the sum total of the world's creativity and knowledge become commonplace but never dull. It's rated G, but squeamish bibliophiles take note: Several books were harmed in the making of this film.

-Brandon



(Via Paper Cuts)

Top 5 Books to Remind You...

As a kid, I went through all the drug abuse resistance programs a kid ought to. I still remember Officer Austin, the D.A.R.E. representative for our district. He would come in and crack a few jokes, ham it up through the mandatory all-school assemblies, and then sigh and give the boys noogies. We loved him, dearly, and every one of us promised him we would never get on his bad side.

That didn’t stop me from appreciating the irony of my classmates wearing D.A.R.E. t-shirts to school parties, and lately, I’ve heard that programs like the one I attended are going the way of the dinosaur. Legend has it that caustic contemporary wit simply makes a mockery of sincere do-gooders like Officer Austin and his cohorts. But for the parents of young children, there’s no need to fear – I have an alternative.

Make your kids watch Trainspotting. I know what you’re thinking: is that really child-appropriate? Of course not. But the moment that baby’s head spins around, any desire I ever had to try hard drugs dissipated. Follow it by reading these anti-drug submissions courtesy of staffer Eve.

Top 5 Books to Remind You to Never Get Hooked on Drugs

1. The Heroin Diaries, Nikki Sixx
2. Go Ask Alice, Anonymous
3. Tweak, Nic Sheff
4. Smack, Melvin Burgess
5. Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby

-Rachel

Zombies!

If you haven’t read World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, you are missing out. It has everything. Desperate battles, the near-annihilation of the human race, and, of course, zombies. World War Z is the book I recommend to every red-blooded male between the ages of 18 and 40. But when those same males inevitably return to the store looking for more of the same, I’ve always been at something of a loss. There’s nothing else quite like World War Z… luckily Eve has come to our rescue with:

Top 5 Books to Read if You’re Undead

1. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, Max Brooks
2. Empire: A Zombie Novel, David Dunwoody
3. Down the Road: A Zombie Horror Story, Bowie Ibarra
4. Plague of the Dead: The Morningstar Strain, Z. A. Recht
5. Dying to Live, Kim Paffenroth

-Rachel

Top 5 Books to Re-read and Re-discover

When I first read The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, I was about 14 years old. Reading the book, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that finally, somebody got me. Only Holden Caulfield understood how phony the rest of the world was, and he recognized how I loved my family even while I wanted to break away from them. That narrator – he was a genius.

It wasn’t until I re-read the book in college that I realized just how messed up I was as an adolescent. Holden suddenly seemed like one of the whiniest characters to ever live. He was spoiled rotten and couldn’t appreciate everything he’d been given. I was horrified that I had identified so closely with a character that was nothing like me. At least, nothing like me now.

Every time you read a book, it hits you differently. People change, and they discover different aspects to works of great literature every time they re-read them. According to Stephanie in accounts payable, these are her favorite books to read over and over again.

Top 5 Books to Reread and Rediscover

1. The Stand, Stephen King
2. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
3. Swan Song, Robert McCammon
4. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
5. Sunshine, Robin McKinley

-Rachel

Top 5 Graphic Novels

I never read comic books when I was a kid. I didn’t have a brother and the boys on my street were more interested in video games than serials. Truthfully, it wasn’t a genre I knew anything about until I turned twelve. During an exploration of my Grandmother’s house, I discovered my father’s childhood collection of The Green Lantern.

Over the years, my love for the genre has changed. After a lot of reading, a stint working at Newbury Comics, and even a Comics as Literature course in college, I’ve realized that graphic novels appeal to everyone. After all, when you boil it down, it’s really just a great story set to art. If you know someone who loves comics or if you’d just like to rekindle a childhood addiction, here are some options for the more mature set.

Top 5 comix to make you wish you'd never given up comic books

1. La Perdida, Jessica Abel
2. Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine
3. Pocket Full of Rain, Jason
4. Pitch Black, Youme Landowne
5. Ordinary Victories, Manu Larcenet

As a bonus, there are a few books worth reading about comix and graphic novels. Check out the winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, the soon-to-be released Dream City by Brendan Short, and, a non-fiction option, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu.

-Rachel

Top 5 Cookbooks for the Impossible Child

I pride myself on being an experimental chef – I rarely make the same thing twice, and I frequently don’t need recipes. I inherited this trait, in part, from my mother. Growing up, she would experiment with all kinds of exotic, healthy foods. I grew up eating tofu, drinking soymilk, and knowing that whether you called it a chickpea or a garbanzo, it was disgusting. This early level of experimentation, however, led to some unforeseen backlash. I went into culinary withdrawal when I was about five years old, and for two full years, refused to eat anything other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I don’t pretend to be a nutritional expert, but I do believe this must have had adverse effects on my physical development. Perhaps that is this why I stand an Amazonian 5’2” with bare feet. At the very least, it put me off peanut butter for what may prove to be the rest of my life. Which is why it is so important to have your kids eat healthy foods – but also to teach them to love them. Our staffer Eve – resident mom and children’s expert – submitted the following list of some of her favorite cookbooks to get kids eating right.

Top 5 Cookbooks for the Impossible Child

1. Deceptively Delicious, Jessica Seinfeld

2. The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals, Missy Chase Lapine

3. DK Healthy Cooking for Kids: 50 Fun Recipe Cards

4. Healthy Lunchboxes for Kids, Amanda Grant

5. One Bite Won’t Kill You: More than 200 Recipes to Tempt Even the Pickiest Kids on Earth, Ann Hodgman

-Rachel

Top 5 Solutions to Your Holiday Woes

The holidays are coming, and sometimes it’s nearly impossible to find the perfect gift. Luckily, there’s a book out there for everyone – even the people on your shopping list who hate to read. We’ve asked our staffers – who probably read more than they should – to give us some input about their favorite books. Until the holidays (and possibly a bit beyond), we’re going to publish their suggestions regularly. Check back to find out what the experts have to say about the best books on a variety of subjects – everything from cooking to zombies.

If you want to avoid the maddening crowds at the mall this Black Friday, head over to see us instead. You can get all of your holiday shopping done right here in our plaza, and we want to help you. The hoodlums at Hoodlums Music & Movies are joining in the fun and making some Top 5 Lists of their own – you can find more information about that here. Then join us in the Changing Hands community room at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, November 28 for a free screening of one of the greatest books-turned-movies of all time -- High Fidelity. We’ll talk about some of the hot new titles coming out for this gift-giving season, too.

In honor of movie night:

Top 5 Books That Actually Became Good Movies

1) High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

2) Thank You for Smoking, Christopher Buckley

3) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

4) Oil! by Upton Sinclair

5) No Country for Old Men by Cormac Mccarthy

-Rachel