I can’t remember where I found this but I saw it again in my bookmarks today and had to share it. Dylan Hears a Who is a SPOOF Bob Dylan tribute to Dr. Seuss, and with this year being the 50th Anniversary of The Cat in the Hat, I can’t think of a more fitting soundtrack.

Janice Harayda posted her winners of the Delete Key Awards today, a beautiful savage removal of three books’ gooey insides that don’t deserve the paper they’re printed on. It’s a good day when I read someone’s utter disdain for the prose of Mitch Albom, a good day indeed.

The Second Runner Up

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

How did this pretentious novel end up on so many best-of-the-year lists? Who knows? Every year there’s at least one book that earns praise far out of proportion to its merits. (Remember the great reviews Mitch Albom got when he started writing books? How hollow does some of the praise seem now?) The most overrated book of 2006 was The Emperor’s Children, a windy and cliché-infested novel full of repulsive characters who move in eddies around an aging New York journalist.

So why didn’t it win top honors in the Delete Key Awards competition for the year’s worst writing in books? Tedious as much of this novel is, The Emperor’s Children picks up steam in the last one hundred or so pages, when it borrows some drama from the events of Sept. 11, 2001. How many readers will stick with it until then?

The First Runner Up

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Yes, it may seem unfair to give an award to a novel that’s already been named one of the five worst books of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly www.ew.com. Why not spread the embarrassment around? First, because most other bad books aren’t written at a third-grade level, according to the readability statistics on Microsoft Word. (You can learn how to find the grade level of Albom’s and other books, or your own writing, in the Nov. 16 review of For One More Day, “Does Mitch Albom Think He’s Jesus?”, archived with the Nov. 2006 posts.) Second, the bad writing in other books at least makes sense. For One More Day teems with inane lines like: “A funeral is no place for secrets.” At no time do secrets have a more respected – and needed – place than at funerals, where common decency requires us to withhold the truth to avoid causing further pain to the mourners. Bury this one with all those classics of pseudoprofundity like The Bridges of Madison County and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

And the Grand Prize Winner…

Toxic Bachelors by Danielle Steel

C’mon, you’re probably saying, this one was too easy. Sure, Danielle Steel writes at a fourth-grade level (technically, grade 4. 8), according to the readability statistics that are part of the spell-checker on Microsoft Word. But don’t we all know how bad her writing is? Not if you haven’t read Toxic Bachelors. You may not be surprised to hear that this novel has plenty of unintentionally comic lines like: “‘Yes,’ he said succinctly.” But it’s worse than you think.

Nobody expects social realism from Steel, but it’s still shocking to find Jews portrayed as monsters in this novel. Toxic Bachelors is about three men single men, each of whom represents a spiritual as well as social type. Charlie is WASP-y, Gray makes a religion of art, and Adam is Jewish. Guess which one has a weak father, a mother who is “a nagging bitch” and a spoiled sister? That’s right, Adam. His parents are cruel enough to make the Portnoys look like candidates for a lifetime achievement award from Parents magazine. And he has a special contempt for a sister who committed the ultimate sin: “She had never done anything with her life except get married and have children.”

Steel gets away with this because most critics have written her off and no longer review her. Why review somebody, the thinking goes, who writes only mindless romances? Toxic Bachelors presents an answer: If nobody holds her accountable, she’ll keep serving up nasty stereotypes, masquerading as a fairy tale.

All I can say is bravo. I absolutely agree and hope to the highest literary powers in the library heavens that Mitch Albom’s fingers swell up and go numb whenever he comes within fifteen feet of a keyboard.

In a story that only demonstrates further that the publishing industry is willing to give anyone with a recognizable name a chance, Jenna Bush is publishing a childrens book about a 17-year old single mother with HIV in Panama. Apparently, having spent a couple of years there is good enough to write a book, one that Bush says she “‘very, very modestly’ hopes will have some of the influence of two books about girls caught up in the Holocaust: Lois Lowry’s novel Number the Stars and Anne Frank’s The Diary of Anne Frank.”

There are too many jokes waiting to be made, I’ll leave them to all of you. All I can say is I wish my daddy would find a route from technician to president in the next few years so I can have 500,000 copies of my first book on order.

I was reading the Amazon bookstore blog for whatever reason earlier today and noticed that they’ve been focusing a lot lately on top 10 lists and whatnot. I’m a sucker for Top 10 lists, as you can tell from my playlist section. I write them all the time, not only for myself, but for other sites as well. But, I don’t necessarily enjoy reading other peoples’ lists unless I’m learning something new and interesting.

But today they posted about an article from Jessica Allen at the Washington Post about her top 1000 books, that being a list of books she’s read since 1989, totaling around 1000. I thought to myself for a second about the concept of reading 1000 books, then immediately scoured my own file reserves for my list of books read. And I was surprised to see that since 2004, I’ve read over 200 books myself. That’s incredible by any means. It’s roughly the same pace as Allen and her 1000, especially considering the dearth of reading material I managed to sit down to last year after I graduated and stepped away from most academic thought for a few months.

However, the idea that in a lifetime, I might read upwards of 4000 books in intriguing to me. More so when I think about the fact that there are hundreds of new books released every year and I want to be among those. And there are always every book in existance already released waiting to be read. For that matter, there are a few dozen books on my shelves waiting to be read.

There’s no way to ever read everything of importance in a lifetime. The volume of literature is too great, so it’s necessary, like anything else to pick and choose what you experience. My choices tend to be rather willy-nilly; whatever looks good at the bookstore…or for most of the time between 2004 and 2006, whatever I was assigned in class. I feel a certain honus to read the great pieces of literature before I run out of time to, but that said, why? To look smarter to myself…or to leave that list laying around for the first historian to stumble upon my great and illustrious notes and compile them.

I don’t think so. And by the way, filling in the list with short, easy books just to make it longer is just as cheap. I shall never do that either…..anymore.

I have a moderately large and steadily growing book collection. I started it only three years ago after settling into my new home and city and found that it was growing rather quickly. I decided that rather than having stacks and stacks of books with no story other than that I’d read them, I’d try and get as many of them autographed (by the living authors at least) as possible.

So far, I have more than 75 of my 400 plus books autographed. The act of getting an autograph may seem daunting, especially if you live in a smaller town or city where you don’t have access to author readings and specialty bookstores, but here a few tips for everyone for getting all those contemporary pieces signed while you can.

1. Get all the fliers from your bookstores – check often, usually every month or so for the new signing schedule at your local bookstore or bookstores. They’re usually posted online too. You’ll want to know ahead of time in case there’s a need for a ticket that might sell out. Often with big name authors you might not be able to just walk up and get your book signed.

2. Bring a friend. The friend is a good tag along when you go to get your books signed. Often they’ll make a rule of one book per person which means you have to usually buy the new book and get that signed. If you bring a friend, he or she can bring along whichever old book you want signed as well.

3. Bring everything anyways. Sometimes the list says only one or two books, but often times the authors are nice people and will sign everything you have anyways. The rules are usually set by the agents and bookstore staff trying to keep a schedule. The author may or may not care about their schedule, so if they don’t, take advantage of it. I attended a Chuck Palahniuk reading a while back and brought seven books with me. The sign said two, but I brought them anyways and he happily signed them all for me

4. Ebay is a great place to pick up old signed copies of books that may or may not be in perfect condition. If you’re not a super picky collector trying to build monetary value consider going the Ebay route and picking up some of the old pieces you haven’t had time to get signed yet.

5. If a writer rarely comes through and you can’t get tickets try and ask a friend or a colleague, or a teacher if you’re in school to help you out. You might even be able to get a book on hold with the bookstore sponsoring the event to be signed. They always sign extras for the stores, so if you can sneak in a copy with an extra helping hand, you might be able to pull it off without making it into the signing.

6. Local bookstores will sometimes carry extra signed copies of books by an author who lives in the area. Look up where your author lives and check local bookstores to see if they sign books for their showcase. Once again, Chuck Palahniuk signs excess books for a local bookstore in Portland which in turn sells them online to willing buyers for normal MSRP. It’s a good way to get a brand new book signed by your favorite author without having to spend all day in line and not even make it in.

The art of book signing is half skill and half luck. I was lucky to see that Bill Clinton was signing at a certain time in Seattle three years ago and I got tickets, but sometimes it’s also a matter of who you know. I’ve missed out on tickets before and asked a professor of mine to get a book autographed by Salmon Rushdie. She did and now I have a book signed that very few people do as Rushdie spent the years before and after writing it in seclusion. It’s all in the dedication you show.

Over at One Minute Book Reviews, Janice Harayda has posted the 10 finalists for the Delete Key Awards, an ode to the worst best sellers of the past year. These are some truly bad books, not worthy of the sales they seem to be racking up the world over. Check out the list and bow your head in shame if you’ve read any of these instead of one from this list

Here’a complete list of finalists for the 2007 Delete Key Awards, which recognize the worst writing in hardcover or paperback books published in the U.S. in preceding year. The short list appeared Feb. 28 on One-Minute Book Reviews, an independent book-review blog created by Janice Harayda www.janiceharayda.com.

One-Minute Book Reviews will announce the winner of the 2007 Delete Key Awards on March 15, a date chosen because Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March and some of the finalists are trying to assassinate the English language. Visitors to the site may comment on the short list, and some of the best comments will be posted in March 15. Each finalist received a separate post on Feb. 28 that included examples of his or her writing (a total of 10 posts on Feb. 28 in addition to a Feb. 27 post with facts about the Delete Key Awards). You’ll find other information in the original review of each finalist’s book, archived in the category in parentheses on the following list.

For One More Day. By Mitch Albom. Hyperion. (Novels)

The Handmaid and the Carpenter. By Elizabeth Berg. Random House. (Novels)

Hannibal Rising. By Thomas Harris. Delacorte. (Novels)

The Book Club Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Reading Group Experience. By Diana Loevey. Berkley. (How to)

Love Smart: Find the One You Want — Fix the One You Got. By Dr. Phil McGraw. Free Press. (How to)

The Confession. By James McGreevey With David France. HarperCollins/Regan. (Memoirs)

The Interruption of Everything. By Terry McMillan. Signet. (Novels)

The Emperor’s Children. By Claire Messud. Knopf. (Novels)

Toxic Bachelors. By Danielle Steel. Dell. (Novels)

The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness. By Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval. (How to)

Stephen Colbert and John Stewart are not just for the slacker, stoner crowd among us. They’re pushing the literature these days too. The New York Times Online published a story about the power of the late night comedy news hour on the publishing industry of late.
Apparently it’s more desirable to find yourself on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report these days than on Charlie Rose or other Cable news hours when promoting your book. The sales boost one of these appearances can have is immense. I’ll keep that in mind for all those future bestsellers I’ll be writing.

If nothing else, it makes me happy to know that the power of the Comedy Central demographic is being respected as such, and that when Bill O’Reilly and his pompous stable of jackass friends like Hannity and Cavuto call Jon Stewart’s audience a bunch of stoner slackers, they’re completely missing the fact that those stoner slackers are buying books on microeconomics by Nobel Peace Prize winners….a lot of books.

The works of Shakespeare are as timeless as their own sources. His work reached quickly the upper echelons of the classics of Homer and Ovid, Aeschylus and Euripides. Studied throughout the world as the affirmative English language writer, Shakespeare is not only respected so greatly, but imitated and adapted nearly as often.

As a writer of plays, his work is naturally crafted for the stage, and likewise when the stage fell under the focus of the first film reel, movies. One of his most beloved and superstitiously guarded works is Macbeth, the classic tale of bloodletting and madness in the Scottish Highlands. The tale is one of the shortest, and most produced of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I’m not hear to discuss the merits and elements of one of the Bards greatest works.

You can discuss this in school, on the internet, or while actually reading the play. I only seek to share with you a few of the many film adaptations available of this, the vicious dark tale of Macbeth

Macbeth (Orson Welles) – The first of the many epic productions, Orson Welles’ version of Macbeth is a dark, brooding version, done on an extremely low budget and with the wonderful overacting of Orson Welles. Over accentuated and nearly expressionistic in set design, the story here is told with the thick and fake accents of Scotland leading to its critical and commercial flop. However the story is well told and for those that can understand and follow Welles and troupe, the characterization is as strong as any other adaptation around.

Joe Macbeth – This version resets the action in Chicago in the film noir setting of a gang war. The interpretation is liberal, and the work vague at best in its mirroring of the bards themes, but it’s one of the more interesting and compelling adaptations, and it utilizes best the built aspects of the noir genre to tell one of Shakespeare’s darker, more ironic tragedies.

Throne of Blood – Akira Kurosawa, never a stranger to massive productions and interpretations of western works into Eastern forms loved Shakespeare as could be seen in his reproduction of more than one of the bards great tragedies. Macbeth he took on in Throne of Blood, the entirety of Shakespeare’s play told through the screen of 16^th Century Shogunate Japan, and the story of Washizu Taketori, played by the world famous Toshiro Mifune.

Macbeth (Polanski) – Easily the most violent and bloody of all the adaptations, Polanski was in the darkest phase of his career, this film directly following that of Rosemary’s Baby and the violent murder of Sharon Tate and his unborn child at the hands of the Manson family. The results in his films is disturbing and vicious and of all the works of Shakespeare, Macbeth is the most ripe for gory violence. The film itself is par, with an acceptable presentation. Not the greatest, but surely the most intriguing in the visual format.

Macbeth (with Ian McKellan) – Directed by Cason for the small screen, this version of Macbeth is intriguing not because of set design, or production value, but the complete lack there of. Filmed in complete black, with only the actors and a mostly empty stage, some of the greatest stage actors from England this half century populate the presentation, with Ian McKellan and Judi Dench in the starring roles. The acting is thus superb, even if the presentation (and it’s a full presentation…meaning rather long) is a bit sparse.

Macbeth (Zefirelli) – The famed Zefirelli production starring none other than Mel Gibson, Glen Close, and Helena Bonham-Carter is the most star-studded presentation, with the largest budget and most sprawling of intentions. The film takes a fairly straightforward, albeit grandiose approach to the play that works because of the strength of direction and acting, but fails in some of the Shakespearian conventions it sidesteps. Considered to be the most cinematic production of Shakespeare, while trying to appeal to Hollywood ethos of film making.

Men of Respect – This 1991 film reworks the entire story in favor of a modern, business setting. It’s essentially the tale of a mafia battle in modern day New York, spoken in modern English. However, the mafia setting is perfect for the tale of Macbeth and the story remains more or less true to its source. A strong adaptation with little actual deviation, even if that lack of deviation makes for a rather stiff film.

Scotland, PA – This indie sundance flick takes place in Scotland, Pennsylvania in the 1970s, where a local burger shop owner, MacDuff is murdered and his “empire” taken over and rebuilt by Joe Macbeth and his wife. In this version, the role of the wife is enhanced to the point of almost alleviating Joe his responsibility. The film itself is a black comedy, as Banqo is a bumbling fool and the inspector, played by Christopher Walken is a gem. The witches are two men and a women, and hippies…and likely high, but their prophecies are sound. It’s a great movie for anyone who’s worked in fast food before as well.

Maqbool – This Hindi production takes place in the Mumbai underworld, the underworld a perfect setting for the battle of powers and murder of compatriots. The film wasn’t commercially successful, but did go on to win various awards and presents one of the only other non English interpretations of the play, and a beautiful one at that.

Rave Macbeth – A German production, Rave Macbeth is still filmed in English and was never released in America. The film takes place in a rave, with the familiar taking place between club owners and employees this run around. However, the introduction of familiar elements like the witches and the bloody hands is handled with a modern appeal to the drug culture that the film takes place in. The film is just that then, a drug trip of sorts.

Every one of Shakespeare’s greatest works, Macbeth has found a long and productive life in celluloid. The themes of the bards plays work in almost any genre, in any decade of any generation, and will continue to find their home on stage, in film, literature, and beyond.

Paul Auster’s newest book, Travels in the Scriptorium is an interesting creature. When I first read the inside flap and cover blurbs, I was immediately intrigued. I know how he writes, it’s a sort of Brooklyn Swami (quoting that from somewhere…can’t remember where) mysticism that evokes the masters of a forgotten genre. He’s good at it and I enjoy reading about writing…when it’s done properly.

This new book though, a novella at best - too short to be considered a novel really - is something else though. It’s essentially one day with a man locked (or not locked) in a room that he was put in (or volunteered to go in) as punishment (or protection). You get the idea. The meaning is never made explicit, as though Auster is trying to leave it to the reader to discern. However, he doesn’t give you enough to work with. Instead we’re given the plot outline of some or another book he never wrote scattered across 30 of the books flimsy 141 pages and a whole lot of an old man’s incontinence and shady memory.

Here’s your basic plot outline (and you’re not missing anything when I tell you this). An old man wakes up in a room. He can’t remember his name, why he’s there, or who the people who keep coming in to talk to him are. The objects in the room are littered with labels, marking what they are and he’s more or less incapable of free movement. They drug him, dress him, even pleasure him, and yet he’s still a prisoner of sorts. He’s given a manuscript to read and is then asked to complete the manuscript. It’s a mystery of sorts, except there’s no solution, except for the one you figure out in the first 5 pages.

Paul Auster wrote himself into a book in which he is a character and every character he ever wrote hold him captive, awaiting trial for the crimes he, as a writer, committed against them. If you haven’t read all of his books (which I haven’t quite yet) it’s confusing to say the least. If you get turned off by a great writer being entirely too self-congratulatory, this isn’t the book for you. It reads like a project or exercise he worked on one evening in his study, something every amazing writer probably does in their life time at least once - “Borges and I” is the best example - and somehow (or someone) decided that publishing it to make money from would be a good idea.

Of course it’s well written, and of course, what Auster sets out to do is masterfully accomplished. But, what he sets out to do is ever so pompous and doesn’t capture the readers attention anymore than the blurb on the back of the book promises. This labyrinthine attempt to evoke Borges and Kafka fails, not because of how he writes it, but because of what he writes about.

Jonathan Lethem is one of my favorite novelists for more a few reasons; he has a certain skill that few else have that allows him to borrow liberally from different sources, genres, and concepts and mash them all together into one slick, enjoyable package. He’s also an incredibly gifted essayist as well; I happened upon this piece he wrote about the nature of plagiarism in which he liberally borrows and melds from plenty of authors, asking the question - are writers above the law of borrowing ideas? He describes a novel by a man written in 1916 which is almost identical (in plot) to Nabokov’s Lolita, but written 50 years earlier:

The author of the story I’ve described, Heinz von Lichberg, published his tale of Lolita in 1916, forty years before Vladimir Nabokov’s novel. Lichberg later became a prominent journalist in the Nazi era, and his youthful works faded from view. Did Nabokov, who remained in Berlin until 1937, adopt Lichberg’s tale consciously? Or did the earlier tale exist for Nabokov as a hidden, unacknowledged memory? The history of literature is not without examples of this phenomenon, called cryptomnesia. Another hypothesis is that Nabokov, knowing Lichberg’s tale perfectly well, had set himself to that art of quotation that Thomas Mann, himself a master of it, called “higher cribbing.” Literature has always been a crucible in which familiar themes are continually recast. Little of what we admire in Nabokov’s Lolita is to be found in its predecessor; the former is in no way deducible from the latter. Still: did Nabokov consciously borrow and quote?

I’ve written my fair share of collages in my time and they’re always fun and interesting, but there’s no way I could ever publish them with the rights happy society we live in, but how many works of literature would we have now if they sued each other over every little stolen idea only 100 years ago.