The Written Nerd

I was at a NAIBA board meeting most of today, discussing exciting plans for the fall trade show in Baltimore (hope to give you the full report later this week). So it's rather late, but here's some Monday linkage I've been collecting. (I'm hoping to be a more regular blogger now that I'm officially self-employed -- cross your fingers for me.) * A delicious irony in the Brave New World of e-books: Amazon sneaks into your Kindle and takes back your 1984. (via @beverlyqueery on Twitter, aka sweet pea of King's Books .) * And, since we're feeling rather 1950s paranoid, a fantastically propagandistic video about the environmental effects of shopping local from the fine folks at Regulator Bookshop (via Bookselling This Week ): * I love the long-running feature on the music/culture blog Largehearted Boy in which "authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book." The most recent entry is by Joan...

Shop Indie Bookstores The Size of the World by Joan Silber (W. W. Norton) (Bonus: most under-rated writer in America!) I'll say it again: Joan Silber is one of our truly great writers, and deserves wider recognition. I fell in love with her work in Ideas of Heaven (which was shortlisted for the National Book Award), and her new work takes the novel-in-short-stories to yet another level. The Size of the World is a masterpiece both epic and intimate, quietly straightforward and ambitiously interconnected. Her characters are heartbreakingly human, and her sentences will floor you. This is a great book to read on a trip, or while contemplating the vastness of it all right at home. And check out my lengthier rave about the book from earlier this year. This is one of my must-reads: highly recommended for any reader. And as yet another bonus, Joan is a local author and shops at McNally Jackson; it's always a thrill to see one's heroes in the flesh (and shopping indie to boot).

I've been thinking for a long time I'd like to do more talking about books around here, as well as talking about the book industry. I have the perfect place to start this week, as my buddy Steve at W. W. Norton asked if I would write about one of the best novels I've read recently. Below is what I sent to him -- perhaps less a review than a love letter for one of my very favorite contemporary authors. The Size of the World goes on sale today, and you can see Joan Silber reading at McNally Robinson on June 17. * * * THE SIZE OF THE WORLD By Joan Silber (W. W. Norton, June 2008, $23.95 hardcover) I honestly think Joan Silber is one of the most under-rated writers in America (even after her National Book Award finalist nod). Perhaps her voice is both too calm and too ambitious for critics accustomed to histrionic Great (Male) Novelists… but don’t quote me on that. To tell not just one life story, but over half a dozen, in first-person voices both precisely distinct and unive...