Nancy Klingener is Community Affairs Manager for the Monroe County Public Library in the Florida Keys. She is also Board President of the Key West Literary Seminar.
I've now read the entire published works of John Wray -- in other words, I finished his other book, "The Right Hand of Sleep." Like "Canaan's Tongue," it's a historical novel but set in a very different time and place -- this time, it's an Austrian mountain village in 1938, aka the time of the Anschluss. Wray's mother is Austrian and he spent a lot of time there growing up and it's astonishingly surehanded and mature for a first novel. This guy is that good.
A recommended read from Maggie Nelson, one of the New Voices at this year's Key West Literary Seminar, was John Wray and over the weekend I finished his second and most recent novel, Canaan's Tongue. Thank you, Maggie! Wow. The book is one of those written in multiple voices, set during the Civil War, about a gang of criminals engaged in an abhorrent enterprise known as the Trade -- stealing slaves for re-sale; the slaves co-operate because they think they will eventually be rewarded with freedom. Instead, they're murdered.
Wray's first novel, "The Right Hand of Sleep," is also historical, this one set in Austria in the 1930s. And he seems to be an interesting fellow -- according to this interview, he wrote that first novel under some interesting living conditions.
From the National Book Critics Circle Blog, Critical Mass, a very interesting guest post from Molly Giles on judging the PEN Faulkner Awards. I can't imagine.
Her comments at the end of the post are especially interesting, given the upcoming Key West Literary Seminar topic, historical fiction.
I've always been an admirer of graphic novels -- but, I must confess, mostly in concept. I've read some shorter pieces, like the ones published in the New York Times Magazine on Sundays, but never an entire book. Until last weekend, when I got hold of A Thousand Ships, the first volume in Eric Shanower's projected seven volume Age of Bronze, a history of the Trojan War.
I'm on a historical fiction kick anyway, because that's the theme of the upcoming Key West Literary Seminar, and the latest in this series, the third volume, got a boffo review on Salon, one of my favorite sources for new titles. So I tracked down the first volume through interlibrary loan and it really is that good.
Reading this way is, naturally enough, different from reading a text-only narrative and there are some conventions from the comic books that seem kind of funny or cheesy. But it's also an intense experience in a couple ways: one is that you have a visual image for the characters, place and action provided and that helps bring them to life. Another is that it reconnects you to some of your earliest reading experiences, the illustrated books and comics of childhood.
Now maybe I'll finally get around to reading the other well-regarded graphic novels that are sitting on the shelf at home, including Persepolis, which has been adapted into a film now showing at the Tropic.
Just can't get away from the book reviewing habit -- recently I picked up a copy of Michael Pollan's most recent book, In Defense of Food, at work (yes, it's in the collection of the FKCC Library!) and found it a quick, engaging and interesting read -- so engaging I started taking notes. Next thing I knew, I was reviewing it for Solares Hill and the review appears in the current edition (that link takes you to a PDF of the entire issue). The review is also available on the Citizen's website, where Solares Hill's book review appears each week, down at the bottom of the page.
The book is a great, easily understood and entertaining take on America's dysfunctional attitude toward food. Plus Pollan's up there in my personal nonfiction pantheon -- along with the likes of Calvin Trillin, Ian Frazier, and Tony Horwitz (hmmm ... must add some women to that list*). I'll read almost anything these guys write and it's almost all great. Check it out -- here at the college library, from your local bookstore or from the Monroe County Library system -- they have two copies, in Marathon and Big Pine, both currently checked out. And here's to healthier eating!
*I feel compelled to add here that it's not like I don't read and admire women who write nonfiction -- Joan Acocella, Margaret Talbot, Melissa Fay Greene -- "Praying For Sheetrock" is one of those books that every nonfiction writer should read every year -- and of course my personal pantheon of Annie Dillard and Madeleine Blais -- I just think of them as more literary and less reporterly. I wonder if that's some sort of internalized sexist classification system. Got kind of a love-hate thing with Susan Orlean -- for instance, I thought "The Orchid Thief" was one of the world's great magazine articles, but stretched too thin as a book.
