We've got issues.
In tomorrow’s paper, I review — in a roundabout, bowled over kind of way — Ursula K. Le Guin’s new novel, Lavinia. I had to write swiftly, and I kept thinking how, given about 1200 words, I’d have a million things to say — things that have since flown out of my head. But, er, the point is, I left out one very pertinent thing: the book doesn’t officially come out until Monday, April 21. Continue reading
Lately, I’ve developed a knack for opening books to random pages and finding upon those pages sentences which, taken out of context, are truly funny. OK, so maybe a two-time occurrence isn’t quite a knack. And it’s entirely possible that only Suzi and I find these things funny. But I’m going to practice this apparent talent (my boyfriend has a variation of this talent; he can open to the smut in any given title) and see if I can’t keep coming across delicious things like these: “Have you ever fucked a Bulgarian?” Continue reading
Three things to brighten a certain kind of person’s Thursday: Continue reading
Oh, lord. I wrote a whole blog. And then I hit preview. And then I forgot to post. I’m too tired. In short: 1. Ninkasi now comes in bottles! And the Mercury blogged it first. Good for them. I thoroughly enjoyed drinking some Believer while watching the Ducks squeak past OSU on Sunday. And I wondered aloud whether they might be among the first breweries to include their MySpace page on their labels… Continue reading
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association announced the winners of their 2008 awards today; six titles were chosen from the almost 200 nominees: Continue reading
Should you feel inclined to peruse a more tangible version of our annual Winter Reading issue, you might stop in at the UO Bookstore (yes, I’m still refusing to call it the Duck Store), where this nice little display awaits your browsing fingers and purchasing dollars. Continue reading
So just yesterday I posted a little thing that mentioned The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the handmade book by Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling that was sold at auction for nearly $4 million. (For those not keeping up, Tales is referenced in — is in fact quite important to — Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows.) All yesterday’s news said was that an agent purchased it. Turns out the real buyer was Amazon. What does this mean? Continue reading
It amuses me that on the same day we all learned that J. K. Continue reading
The truth is, I first hated Chuck Klosterman. The reason for this is simple: The first piece of his that I read was the Lloyd Dobbler essay that starts Sex, Drugs, and Coca Puffs. The premise is that every woman of a certain age wants Lloyd Dobbler, the sensitive, kickboxing, eminently quotable character played by John Cusack in Say Anything. Continue reading
Maybe it’s a little American-centric of me, but I wish, oh, I wish that when they announce the Booker Prize longlist, they’d, say, tell me which books are published in the U.S., so I don’t have to go hunting through the interwebs to try to find them. How many of these have YOU heard of? And no, having heard of the McEwan doesn’t count. You ought to have heard of that one. Continue reading