The Elegant Variation

THE RETURN of the LATBR THUMBNAIL® - APRIL 15, 2007: THE "STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS" EDITION

Like every other reading adult in the Greater Los Angeles area, we were dismayed when the combined Books/Opinion section scheme was unveiled.  No matter what they did, we were pretty sure the net result would not be more space for book coverage.  Sadly, we were right.  As we fished the Books section out of the paper, we didn't initially mind the combination because it had given the Review an illusion of newfound heft.  We couldn't remember the Book Review ever feeling that heavy in our hands.  Then we opened it up and found the Business section tucked within.  Once removed, the Book Review assumed its familiar flimsy proportions, made all the more depressing by the fact that they now had an unwanted roommate hogging up half the space.

But the promise of a host of Web-only content and a "synthesis between print and online content" kept us from forming hasty conclustions.  So we plopped into an easy chair and started reading through.  On the one hand, it was very much the Book Review we left behind when our subscription lapsed - the same melange of fine work and frustrating inanities.  But we were, finally, disappointed at how poorly thought out the web component of this enterprise appears to be.  Now, it's early in the game, and this is a bit like hitting a new restaurant during its first week of operation.  But, as we're about to see, a few key things suggest that the Times editors still don't quite get what the web can do for them.

We're mixing up the usual format a bit to look at the changes.  First we'll look at the Print and Web changes, and then we'll get into the usual business of scoring the review.

THE CHANGES: PRINT
The overall design is generally cleaner than we remember it and the (dwindling) pages are appealingly laid out.  The "This Week In Calendar" item, which provides a heads-up for the week's upcoming book reviews is a nice touch.  And it's nice to see the Bestseller List staying prominently placed.  (More on that anon.)

But it's simply impossible to ignore that the Review is precisely 11 pages.  (The remaining nine belong to Opinion.)  So, with that in mind, we come to one of our enduring frustrations about the Los Angeles Times Book Review.  In an era where every column inch counts - now more than ever  - why is the majority of the cover given over to a photo of Witold Rybczynski?  It's extravagant, recklessly wasteful.  The front page should contain more than a review's lede paragraph.  You could start two reviews here and recover more room inside.  Why does the Book Review see itself as a magazine?  Does the Business section give up their front page with artwork?  Honestly, why would you not use every inch at your disposal?

THE CHANGES: WEB
Editor David L. Ulin introduces this issue with the following Editor's Note.

What you are holding is more than a different-looking Los Angeles Times Book Review. It's the first step in an effort to rethink our approach to books and book news at The Times, to forge a synthesis between print and online content that will allow us not only to maintain our commitment to engaged reviews and criticism but also to expand the very nature of our books coverage.

Here, you'll find a fresh design for some familiar features; others, like Book Calendar, have been moved online, where we will also provide an expanded bestsellers list. Our new Books home page (www.latimes.com/books) will be a central resource for The Times' books coverage. A primary component will be the Sunday Book Review, but we will also offer links to book-related stories from around the paper, as well as an array of Web-only material in the weeks to come.

Today, we inaugurate a rotating cycle of Web-only columns with Sarah Weinman's "Dark Passages," devoted to mysteries and suspense fiction. Next Sunday, Ed Park will initiate a science fiction column, followed by Richard Rayner on paperbacks and Sonja Bolle on children's books. In addition, look for "Jacket Copy," a staff-written book news and information column, plus live online author chats during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 28 and 29.

Sarah Weinman is a friend of ours, so we necesssarily recuse ourselves from assessing her work.  But she is one of the best voices in the mystery/suspense field and Ulin was wise to grab her.  We do hope, however, that the web columns will ultimately prove to be more than merely genre outposts, which is all that's on offer at the moment.  Given the opportunities the web offers, we hope the editors will cast a wider net with these columns. 

In general, however, the web offerings - at this early stage - seem to display a curiously flat sense of the internet's potential.  Jacket Copy seems like the editors' wan attempts a blogging and, at least at present, offers the kind of thing already found better and sooner on numerous blogs including Weinman's Galleycat, and it lacks the high style of Dwight Garner's Inside the List.  In short, there's nothing to make it a Must Read.  The Book Calendar contains not a single hyperlink anywhere - not to hosting book stores, not to ticket outlets, not to authors' home pages.  Zip.  And we have to assume there's an RSS feed for this stuff somewhere but it's sure not easy to find.

OK, that's all work in progress stuff.  Here's our real issue thus far.  Ulin promises a "synthesis between print and online content," and - so far - there is no evidence whatsoever of any synthesis.  The print review can be found online and there are a few additional web columns.  But any real synthesis?  Show it to us.  Now, don't get us wrong - it's a fantastic notion and it could well be that in the Downtown vaults there's a master plan to get there.  But every online version of each review is no different than the print version.  Remember this thing called hyperlinks?  Or related items?  Half the stories present exciting opportunities to offer some additional material for Times readers.  Why couldn't someone have tracked down this portrait of Edwin Forrest or this look at William Charles Macready to augment the online review of The Shakespeare Riots?  They've not begun to leverage what being online offers.

Consider this - the URL to the Times book page appears precisely once in the issue: in Ulin's column.  That's some synthesis.  (Advice to the editors:  Stick it on every page, right up there with your name.)  But, as we've said, it's early.  We'll see what the months ahead bring.  In the meantime, on to the stats:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 3. 
Full length non-fiction reviews: 5.
Full length poetry reviews: 1.5
Columns: Discoveries.
Essay:  Jonathan Safran Foer's introductory essay to The Diary of Peter Ginz, 1941-1942 is reprinted.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Last Harvest by Witold Rybczyynski.  Reviewed by Judith Lewis Grade: B
American Youth by Phil LaMarche.  Reviewed by Jerry Stahl Grade: D
Deadman's Switch by Barbara Seranella.  Reviewed by Diana Wagman RECUSED (Friend of reviewer)
The Amputee's Guide to Sex by Jillian Weise.  Reviewed by Leslie Schwartz. RECUSED (Friend of reviewer)
John Donne: The Reformed Soul  by John Stubbs.  Reviewed by Wendy Smith.  Grade: A
Easter Everywhere by Darcey Steinke.  Reviewed by Erika Schickel Grade: B-
Because a Fire Was in My Head by Lynn Stegner.  Reviewed by Donna Seaman.  Grade: C
Discoveries Column: Kinfolks by Lisa Alther; The Mayflower Papers edited by Nathaniel Philbrick and Thomas Philbrick; and Without a Map by Meredith Hall.  Reviewed by Susan Reynolds. Grade: A
My Body: New and Selected Poems by Joan Larkin.  Reviewed by David L. Ulin.  Grade: A
Age of Betrayal by Jack Beatty.  Reviewed by Jonathan Kirsch.  Grade: A
The Shakespeare Riots by Nigel Cliff.  Reviewed by Phillip Lopate.  Grade: A
Essay: Hope between the lines by Jonathan Safran Foer. Grade: F

SCORING THE BESTSELLERS
One of the things they get right is presenting the extended Hardcover and Paperback lists online.  (The print version looks at the top 10, whereas online we get the top 15.)   Now, we understand that the LA Times list is based on Southern California booksellers, whereas the New York Times looks at the whole country, but that's even more reason, frankly, to take pride in our city's reading habits.  It's great to note the likes of Jonathan Lethem, John Banville, Dave Eggers, Milan Kundera, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri and others making our list.  Any time someone takes that tired old "LA is shallow line" with you, send them that link.  (Are you listening, Shalom Auslander?)

WHAT WE LIKE ...
Quite a lot, actually, as the preponderance of A's and B's above attests.  Judith Lewis's cover review is smart and thoughtfully argued though it does feel ever so slightly like one of those mischievous matchups that book editors love ... Wendy Smith's look at the Donne biography is awfully worthy, a fine piece of criticism as befits a big city paper ... After a false start with her lede (about which more below), Erika Schickel's review of Darcey Steinke's memoir is affecting and empathetic ... We've always liked Susan Reynolds's Discoveries and continue to enjoy them though we'd love to know more about how they are selected ... David Ulin's brief look at Joan Larkin's poems is a true marvel of compression; in six short paragraphs, he manages background, criticism and quotation ... It's first-rate and if they really wanted to send people to the website, they'd post a dozen or so of these every week ... Jonathan Kirsch's review of Age of Betrayal scores an unexpected "A" since our first response was "Oy, another fucking train book?" ... But Kirsch makes the book actually sound relevant ... and Phillip Lopate's look at The Shakespeare Riots set us thumbing through our copy, though we would have liked to see more specifics about the circumstances of the riot's eruption ...  So that's a whole load of fine work, really worthy stuff, which makes what follows all the more maddening ...

WHAT WE DON'T ...
Well, we can say this much - when they're good, they're quite good.  But when they're bad, get out of the way ... Not sure what the editors were thinking with Jerry Stahl's review of American Youth (who allowed the term "emotionally devastating" into a review for grownups?) but it's not the opening throat clearing, nor the overly familiar writing that gets us, although this is pretty bad:

A dead kid who looks like he was pledging allegiance … genius! I can't think of a writer alive — or dead — who wouldn't get down on his or her knees and thank the Lit Gods for granting an image like that

This is what passes for criticism these days?  OK, maybe it's a matter of taste.  And Stahl is a fine novelist.  But what's maddening is this:

There exists, of course, no more defining American image than death by bullet.

Oh.  Is that so?  We suspect readers of this site could come up with plenty of equally quintessential American images.  What creeps into the Book Review, time and time again - and remains unchecked by the editors - is this tendency toward grandiose posturing, as though only via sweeping statements can one's book review be considered meaningful.  Consider this from the opening line of the Steinke review:

The problem with religion is its insistence on denying the physical.

Oh, that's the problem?  Gosh, how foolish of us, we thought it was, oh, intolerance of other viewpoints or, well, you know, a dozen other things.  Thank you for clarifying.  Then there's this in Donna Seaman's review of the Lynn Stegner novel:

One of the most daring and rewarding acts a novelist performs is to give voice to a morally suspect, even repugnant, main character.

OK, do we start to see a pattern?  Seriously, folks, isn't it the role of the editor to play traffic cop when sentences like these scamper across the page?   Why they're allowed to stand is something of a mystery.   The remainder of the Seaman's review sounds merely cloying in its summarization of the novel in question, although things like this grate:

A novel fully realized on every level, "Because a Fire Was in My Head" is a provocative literary work of weight and luster. A risky, intermittently melodramatic tale, it casts light both on the timeless mysteries of the human psyche and on the paradoxes of a notoriously contrary epoch, namely, post-World War II North America.

So, we're thinking, if it's actually "fully realized on every level," there would be no melodrama.  Did that question occur to nobody on the editorial staff?  But this all pales beside the annoyance the Safran Foer piece unleashed in us.

One can understand the New York Review of Books, with its sixty plus pages, or even the New York Times Book Review, with its thirty plus pages, handing over a full page of precious space to reprint a book's introductory essay.  But when you've just had your section hacked in half, there's something perverse about this kind of profligacy.  It would be understandable if the piece in question was too brilliant to pass up but it isn't.  It's absolutely awful - and we like Safran Foer.  But it's a jejune embarrassment to all concerned. The less said about it the better.  The same criticism applies, on a smaller scale for the space given over to a Henri Cole poem, which could easily have been placed online - as part of, hey, an ambitious poetry month page - and given over space for another strong, short review.

GRADE:  For the overall enterprise - web and print - we think this one gets a C+.  Yes, it's early; yes, they are finding their way.  But it's clear that not much thought went into the online presence, and it's clear that despite some really fine work that is coming our way, some real clunkers are waved on through the gate as well.  The space crunch is not the fault of the editors, obviously.  They were dealt a shitty hand over which they have no control.  But how they respond to what they've been given, and what they make of the new opportunities - if they can identify them - will determine whether the LATBR will earn a place in the hands of discerning readers.

LATBR CHANGES

We've had a draft post in the works for weeks that suggests doing away with the print version of the Los Angeles Times Book Review section altogether - it's, frankly, something of a flimsy, limp embarrassment in its present state - and replacing it with a robust, full-featured (and possibly more cost-effective or even proitable) online Book Presence that would probably serve its local readership better and might even make it something that the rest of the country would have a reason to keep up with.  Well, we're not quite there, but over at LA Observed, news is breaking of proposed web-only features for the "new" Book Review.

This Sunday, Book Review/Opinion will offer up a host of web-only features. For books there will be columns be about mysteries, science fiction, children's literature, literary news and more reviews than in print.

Baby steps.  Gotta walk before we run.  But it's definitely time to revive the LATBR Thumbnail.  Coming soon in this space ...

TODAY'S LATBR RIDDLE

Can anyone explain why, after all these years, the Los Angeles Times Book Review continues to announce its nominees not in Los Angeles but - wait for it - New York!  Playing into every cliche of continental inferiority complexes.  We're happy, as a service to the Los Angeles Times, to provide a list of venues that would serve at least as well as New York's National Arts Club:

* Canter's Deli
* The corner of Sunset and Vine
* The Whiskey a Go Go
* Parking Level Two at the Beverly Center
* David Ulin's house
* The Magic Castle

Or there are, you know, legitimate venues like movie theatres, the Disney concert hall, and others.  Of course, at this rate, the 2008 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will probably be held in Central Park.

CHANGES AT THE LATBR

LA Observed, with its direct pipeline into the Los Angeles Times newsroom, reports that change is afoot at the Book Review:

Newsroom sources at the Times expect the Sunday Book Review will be folded into a new hybrid opinion section and delivered in Saturday papers. The new section that some staffers have seen would be tabloid-sized, with the favored format apparently using dual front pages like the New York City tabs. A reader could pick up the section and begin with the book pages, or flip to the back page — then rotate the whole section 180 degrees — to begin with the opinion pieces. Books fans and readers looking for opinion would both get a section front to draw them in, but those who like to browse through from front to back could be annoyed at having to rotate mid-way through.

Eh.  To be frank, we have always been somewhat embarrassed by the wan flimsiness of the Book Review, which always seemed to underscore management's lack of commitment to serious book coverage.  This does not, on the face, seem like a positive development but we'll defer judgment until we've seen it.  If it means sharing an already wafer-thin supplement with opinion pages, well, that would be unfortunate.

MORE ROOM FOR FICTION!

The Los Angeles Times has announced weekly book review of business titles.

As part of its expanded business coverage, The Times is adding a weekly review of books on business, management and the economy. Today's review examines three recent books about how business is done in China.

THE RETURN of the LATBR THUMBNAIL® - FEBRUARY 5, 2006: THE "THINGS ARE LOOKING UP" EDITION

As promised, we've given new editor David L. Ulin a fair amount of time before checking back in to see what's going on over at our neighborhood book review.  This weekend was the first time we've actually opened up the Book Review since our last LATBR Thumbnail® back in October.  Ideally, we'd like to tell you it was because we wanted a clean break, some time to be able to get some distance before coming back and assessing Ulin's contributions which, presumably, would be more noticeable if we stayed away for a while.  (It's kind of like watching a friend gain weight - if you're there day in, day out, exposed to the gradual change, you don't notice it as sharply as if you haven't seen one another for months.)  But the truth is we're still pissed at the delivery department, and so it took us this long to get it together enough to get a newsstand copy.

Still, whatever the reasons, we've had time away, and so we have a few general impressions coming back.  On the plus side, we think the selection of titles is a bit more interesting, veering away from some of the more predictable choices.  (Occasionally, they veer a bit too far but if we have to have tilt in one direction or the other, we'll opt for avoiding the madding crowd.)  The reviews are generally a bit more thoughtful (although some pretty awful writing still slips through; see below).  But fiction still gets the short end of the stick, at least in this issue - only two novels get full length reviews.  And the cover is still being wasted on horrible artwork.  The NYTBR hasn't gotten a whole lot right in its redesign but starting reviews on the front page, in age of precious column inches for books, is a move worth imitating.

On a grander scale, the LATBR doesn't yet feel - on the strength of this one issue - as though it's got a clear identity yet.  Now, that might not be what Ulin's after, and it might never have one - that's an editorial decision as much deciding what to put on the cover.  But there's nothing here yet that speaks directly to this city and its sensibility, and doesn't seem - again, on the strength of just one issue - to draw enough contributors from some of the heavy intellectual firepower on offer in L.A. 

But is a work in progress, and the good seems to be outweighing the bad.  Best of all, Eugen Weber is nowhere in evidence.  On to the stats:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 2. 
Full length non-fiction reviews: 6.
Columns: Discoveries.
Essay:  Editor Ulin himself weighs in on - wait for it - the Frey scandal.  (More below.)
And although we won't pretend for a moment that we had anything to do with it, the pointless Letters section has disappeared.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Uncentering the Earth by William T. Vollmann.  Reviewed by Margaret Wertheim Grade: C+
The Book of Trouble by Ann Marlowe.  Reviewed by Marion Winik Grade: D-
Hokum edited by Paul Beatty.  Reviewed by Lynell George Grade: B
Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be by Jen Trynin.  Reviewed by Erik Himmelsbach. Grade: B+
Strivers Row by Kevin Baker.  Reviewed by Allen Barra.  Grade: B-
Legends of Modernity by Czeslaw Milosz.  Reviewed by Robert Faggen Grade: A
Skinner's Drift by Lisa Fugard.  Reviewed by Laurel Maury.  Grade: B
Discoveries Column: Without Roots by Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera; Look at the Dark by Nicholas Mosley; and Letters to a Young Artist by Anna Deveare Smith.  Reviewed by Susan Reynolds. Grade: B
Essay: The lie that tells the truth by David L. Ulin. Grade: B

SCORING THE BESTSELLERS
Once again, the literary tastes of L.A. readers seem to far outstrip those of the country at large, as Arthur and George sits at the Number One spot (up from number 7 after two weeks on the list).  Other literary titles in the top 15 include Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (#3); Memories of My Melancholy Whores (#4 - and how chuffed do you think See is just now, able to brag she's outselling a Nobel Prize winner); On Beauty (#7); and The Accidental (#15).  And Gilead sits happily at the top of the paperback list.  We've said it before, we'll say it again - we love L.A.

WHAT WE LIKE ...
Although we thought Lynell George's review of Hokum was a bit long and dry, it was also serious and thoughtful and surely worthy; it's the sort of thing we're glad to see covered, even as we marvel that in a four-column review of an anthology of African-American humor, George barely got a chuckle out of us ... Although it's a book we'd never pick up, Erik Himmelsbach's review of the Jen Tynin memoir made it sound engaging and fresh ... Allen Barra's review of Striver's Row was a bit workmanlike but didn't offend with the exception of this one ridiculous remark:

Does a white writer have a right to go there?

Where "there", in this case, represents a novel about the pre-X days of Malcolm Little.  It's a stupid question with an obvious answer.  Of course he does.  Any writer has to the right to write about anything he or she wants.  Some people might not like it but hard cheese.  Still, Barra manages to make Baker's "City of Fire" trilogy sound like a work worth seeking out ... Robert Faggen's review of the Milosz essays and letters was more or less perfect ... bracingly intelligent, commanding and worthy of its audience ... Bravo ... Laurel Maury's review of the Lisa Fugard novel doesn't constitute a terribly close reading but she conveys enough of the flavor of the book to have it added to our "seek out" list ... Matthew Price's review of A Godly Hero is surely the strangest "A" we've ever given ... there's much in his review we disagree with and find suspect but we finished it thinking furiously, puzzling over just what the hell he was after, and we were still thinking about it hours later.  That's what a book review should do, and so we awarded it an "A" even as we challenge some of its thinking.  (For example, Price fails to draw obvious connections between the religious progressives of the 1930s and the religious right of today; he also doesn't comment on what seems to us some fairly blatant anti-semitic imagery in Bryan's famous 1896 Democratic Convention Address) ... And, finally, it's nice to see Susan Reynolds back in good form, although she'd have scored higher if her review of Without Roots would have given us a clearer sense of what she thought of it.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
We went back and forth on Margaret Wertheim's review of the Vollmann ... One the one hand it's marred with some truly terrible writing - overreaching, overwritten, just plan silly.  To wit:

Quantities of ink have been expended by historians ...

OK, a bottle of ink is a quantity, as is a barrel.  Then, right on the heels of that one:

... have variously interpreted the Copernican system as everything from the last gasp of medieval obscurantism to the shining dawn of modern scientific rationalism.

Which sounds to us, you know, like the same fucking thing!  You might be able to slide an onion skin between that "from" ... We've always wondered just what kind of editing really goes on up there, and this does nothing to allay our worries.  That said, she does manage to get to the heart of what we find annoying about Vollman (earning brownie points by tying him to David Foster Wallace).  So it was a tough one, but awful writing trumps insight this time around ... But she's James Wood compared to Marion Winik's review of The Book of Trouble, to which we can only ask:  why?  Why this book?  Why this review?  Why didn't someone say "awful and pointless on all fronts" and round file it?  Why, why, why?  ....   Still, only two outright clunkers whispers "progress" to us ...

THE EDITOR SPEAKS
Which leaves us with Ulin's own essay on the James Frey scandal.  He admirably uses it as a jumping off point to try to think a bit bigger, and it's a thoughtful effort.  We disagree with some of what he says, and some of how he says it but we approve of the impulse to have the discussion and to raise the bar a bit.  Some quibbles:

Ulin says in the first paragraph that ours is a "culture that seems willing to believe anything as long as it comes in a neatly digestible package."  We disagree.  We think one of the lessons of all this - and the bigger problem - is that our culture doesn't really need to believe anything.  That's immaterial - entertainment and emotional pulls are the draw, and truth, non-fiction, fiction, those are all easily ignored labels.  But he goes on to score a bullseye with this:

... what's at issue is emotional truth, the need to re-create the sensibility, the tenor, of an experience in a reader's mind. This is the essence of literature, which like all art, operates at a level beyond the rational, according to rules of its own. In literature, truth is not so much known as it is felt, and empathy is as important as understanding. In literature, the logic of the story can sometimes trump the logic of the world. If this sounds disingenuous, it's not meant to — on the contrary, it's what makes art resonate.

Hear, hear!  Which makes it all the greater shame when he takes this tack:

For a lot of people, the very phrase "creative nonfiction" is an oxymoron. There's nothing creative, they would say, about the truth. But the more you think about it, the more such an argument becomes specious or (worse) unsophisticated, a misunderstanding of how creative writing works.

... where he simply loses good manners points for condescension to those who don't feel truth is quite so elastic.  But that's little more than bad manners.  The real problem for us lies in this assertion:

The decision to tell a story is a fictionalizing impulse: to take the chaos of reality and shape it, looking for order, meaning, where none inherently exists. This is as true of memoir as it is of the novel.

We disagree with this on many levels.  We suspect plenty of non-fiction writers would bristle at the notion that conveying a true story is animated by fictionalizing impulses.  But on a deeper level, Ulin's just described the plight of both philosophers and physicists as well as writers, and the notion that looking for order somehow goes back to a fctionalizing impulse strikes us as wrong turn.  We suspect that his underlying idea is that to erect a narrative framework sometimes requires a bit of literary spackle, but that's a far cry from a "fictionalizing impulse."

But check it out - the L.A. Times has got us thinking and talking and arguing.  Hence the positive grade of "B" even if we disagree with some of the finer points ...

GRADE:  B.  It's starting to gel.  We'd like to see more fiction, the last of the terrible writers, and some real thought given to the identity of the publication ... But things strike us as being much better than they were last October when we checked out.  Watch this space for more.  (Note: The Sunday LATBR webpages have now been moved inside of the registration-heavy calendarlive.com.)

COMING SOON ...

We finally picked up the LA Times Book Review this weekend.  (Actually, GOTEV was kind enough to round it up for us while we holed up and worked on the book.)  So it's entirely possible that you might finally see a return of the LATBR Thumbnail in the next day or two ... stay tuned.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - OCTOBER 9, 2005: THE "JUST WARMING UP" EDITION

We imagine it will be a month or two before we begin to see the effects of incoming editor David Ulin on the book review pages.  But we figured it couldn't hurt to pop back in for a look (we've been away for a while), especially since we were in recovery mode and not riding this weekend.  It reveals no great surprise to tell you all up front that we're looking at another decidedly mediocre outing.  What was a bit surprising, though, (even if it shouldn't be) is how much smarter we Angelenos appear to be than both our East Coast brethren (and pretty much everyone else, too) - not that we're in competition or anything.

Now before you shake your head with bemusement at the final breakdown of good sense here at TEV, consider, if you will, the Best Sellers lists of both the NYTBR and the LATBR.  What does NYTBR say the top three books the country is reading are:  Anansi Boys, Goodnight Nobody and The Da Vinci Code.  Ho-hum.  West coast smarties, by comparison, find The March, On Beauty and Shalimar the Clown gracing our top three.  And it doesn't stop with hardcover - we're smarter in paperback, too!  Our top five paperback fiction includes the likes of The Known World, The Line of Beauty and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.  By comparison, NYTRB includes a Baldacci thriller, a Nora Roberts and other horrors.  We could hug the whole lot of you ...

Now if we could just do something about the Book Review itself ... Hope you're busy, David - too busy to read this:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 0.  Not a single, full-length fiction review.  A full page is given over to two chick-lit titles (well, it's actually a half page with a ludicrous half-page illustration) and the Calvin and Hobbes collection gets a full gatefold spread.  There's even a full page given to a poetry collection!  (Gusty move, kids.)  But nothing this week for the reader of serious fiction. 
Full length non-fiction reviews: 3.
Columns: Discoveries.
Also included:  Letters.  Now this one seems pointless - a precious half-page given over to letters.  When you've got a 35 page book review, we can talk about letters.  Obviously, someone wanted to show off that Dershowitz bothered to write in but c'mon people ... a little restraint?  It isn't as though the world is starved of Dershowitz's words of wisdom ...

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Warren Beatty, A Private Man by Suzanne Finstad.  Reviewed by Richard Schickel Grade: B
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt.  Reviewed by Nicholas Delbanco Grade: C-
Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid.  Reviewed by Geraldine Brooks Grade: C+
Mozart and Leadbelly by Ernest J.Gaines.  Reviewed by Mary Ellen Doyle. Grade: D+
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.  Reviewed by Charles Solomon.  Grade: A-
Ashes for Breakfast by Durs Grubein.  Reviewed by Benjamin Lytal Grade: A
Confessions of a Serial Dater by Michelle Cunnah; and My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler.  Reviewed by Carol Wolper.  Grade: D
Discoveries Column: Japanland by Karin Muller; In Case We're Separated by Alice Mattison; and What Happened Here by Eliot Weinberger.  Reviewed by Susan Reynolds. Grade: C

SCORING THE BESTSELLERS
Aimee Bender's Willfull Creatures seems to have dropped off the list but Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan hang in at #13.  There's generally a higher proportion of serious fiction showing up on this list than the NYTBR list.  Benjamin Kunkel's Indecision noses its way into the bottom of the list showing up at #15.  And, of course, L.A. is no more Oprah-immune than the rest of the country, as A Million Little Pieces sits comfortably atop the paperback list, where we expect it will remain for quite some time.  (The Oprah Effect hasn't yet appeared to lift My Friend Leonard onto either the NY or LA lists but we've got our eyes peeled.)

WHAT WE LIKE ...
Pretty hit or miss, as it turns out ... Schickel's review of the Beatty is admirably snarky ("virtually unreadable") but goes on far too long for its own good ... The Calvin and Hobbes review scores high although we wonder if it's merely our residual love for the strip, especially given an inexplicably long digression on "Frazz" that knocks a half-point off the score ... The poetry review gets a clean "A" on principle - any time you give a full page to a German poet in translation, we're gonna thank you ... Little else, though, to be thankful for.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
The Berendt review ironically notes its own deficits at the outset, observing "it's hard to be original about this fabled place." ... Apparently, it's also hard to be original in this review, which is a virtual carbon copy of the dozens of reviews that have already appeared on this title - weeks ago, for that matter.  So what took you guys so long? ... We can't recall reading a more plodding book report than the review of the Gaines collection, which takes an earnest, linear approach to the book ... The first part is an intro and it's good ... the second part is an essay and it's really good ... the third part ... Well, you get the drift.  We exaggerate slightly for effect.  But only slightly ... No earthly idea why someone thought it was a good idea to devote a full page to two forgettable chick-lit volumes ... at least drop the horrible line art and use the half-page responsibly ... but no, no, no ... let's get the lady in the lingerie and the man in the speedo front and center ... Color us aghast ... Even the usually reliable Susan Reynolds misses the bar this week - the first of her three reviews seems chopped, confused and disarrayed ... and the last seems to take unaccountable issue with the inarguable observation that "George W. Bush is the least qualified person ever to become President."  Oh yeah, and it seems links to the Book Review are once more unavailable.  Which, you know, on the whole makes our lives a whole lot easier but sucks for you.

GRADE:  D.  Lose the letters, lose the lousy line art and remember to review the odd novel or two, ok folks?  David, you've got only one direction to go ...

THREE-MINUTE INTERVIEW (3MI): DAVID L. ULIN

Like many others, we were pleased to learn that David L. Ulin had been selected to run the Los Angeles Times Book Review.  He's been a longtime player on the L.A. literary scene and has a sensibility that we think we dovetail nicely with LATBR readers. 

Ulin is author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award, and he recently consented to take a stab at a 3MI.  (The rules, remember, are that the first three questions are custom, and the last two are the small for all respondents.)

1) Can you describe something of the selection process that led to your hiring? How extensively were you prodded and probed?

DU: The process was pretty intensive, although I wouldn't characterize it as prodding and probing so much as a series of engaged conversations. First, I was asked to outline my ideas for Book Review; then, I went through a number of interviews with various people up the editorial chain. We talked a lot about the section, but also about autonomy and responsibility, and what it would be like to work together. Running a section like this, within the context of the paper as a whole, is by its nature a collaborative enterprise, and I think it was important for everyone to get a sense of how that kind of relationship would work.

2) So what's your first order of business when you get yourself settled in?

DU: It's difficult to talk in terms of specifics having not yet begun the job. But the broad answer is this: I want to rethink the notion of a Book Review, to consider how such a section needs to position itself in a world where literature is often marginalized. What is the nature of reading and writing? How are they relevant? And how do we integrate them into our lives? In the most basic sense, this means considering a more diverse range of work for the section, both in terms of the kinds of books that get covered, and the types of writing we showcase. I'd hope, for instance, to see more non-review material - essays, overviews, think pieces - and certainly, there will be a more consistent balance between fiction and nonfiction from week to week. But also, I'd like to take on a wide array of ideas and aesthetics, from traditional literature and scholarship to new media and electronic arts. Reading and writing, it seems to me, occur in all sorts of venues, from the page to the computer screen. Robert Coover's new collection features a story printed on playing cards; the narrative changes each time you shuffle the deck. How do we cover all of this, and still make the coverage cohesive and intelligent? I'm looking forward to finding out.

3) What do you consider to be the role of a Book Review? Do you feel an obligation to local writers? Or to cast a wider net? Is it to review popular books that people are reading? Or to alert them to things they might not be aware of? And how do you hope to reconcile the explosion of titles being published yearly with the shrinking number of pages given to Book Review sections? (And, for a bonus point, why do you suppose that the Book Reviews get smaller even as publishers' catalogs get bigger?)

DU:  I don't like the word "obligation," but I do feel a commitment to local writers and to Southern California as a literary landscape. Much of my work for the last ten years or so has been in this area, and I continue to see it as important and profound. That said, I don't intend to edit a regional section, but rather a national section that grows out of its community to take a broader point-of-view. I'd like to cast as wide a net as possible, to alert readers to new books while also taking on more popular titles, to be smart and accessible at once. I don't think these desires are mutually exclusive; in fact, I believe, they're representative of how most people read. Right now, I'm reading Philip Roth, China Mieville, and Simon Winchester's book on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and each informs me in a different way. Book Review should function in such a fashion also, treating reading and writing not as fixed but fluid, activities that require us to readjust our responses depending on where we are or what we're doing on any given day. As far as reconciling the explosion of titles with the decrease in editorial pages, all you can do is to have a vision and represent it as best you can. At the Times, we'll cover 1000, maybe 1200, titles a year, which is a lot by contemporary standards, but is really just a drop in the bucket considering how many books are published in the United States. Rather than worry about it too much, though, I choose to see it as liberating. Since, no matter what, we can't be comprehensive, we might as well be true to ourselves.

4) Who's the best writer we've never heard of?

DU: Alexander Trocchi. He was a Scottish novelist of the 1950s, part of the postwar Paris expatriate community that included George Plimpton, Terry Southern, William Styron, and Peter Matthiessen. As an editor, Trocchi put out the short-lived journal Merlin, the first place ever to publish Samuel Beckett in English; as a writer, he supported himself writing high-class erotica for Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press, while producing two other novels - Young Adam (source of last year's film) and Cain's Book - that embraced a particularly flinty sort of nihilism. Trocchi was a long-time heroin addict, a lifestyle he claimed to have chosen freely, as a matter of philosophy, with the intent of nullifying his life. The truth, of course, was far more complicated, and he never published much of anything after Cain's Book appeared in 1960. Despite giving up on writing, however, he became involved with Guy Debord and the Situationists, and went on to play a role in the British anti-university movement of the late 1960s. He died in 1984, of complications from pneumonia, and if he's remembered at all these days, it's because of his notorious lifestyle, which is unfortunate, since he was a brilliant stylist and an unflinchingly philosophical writer, unafraid to take his ideas to the most relentless extremes.

5) And finally, ask yourself any question you'd like - but be sure to answer it.

DU:  When is criticism a creative act?

Actually, it's probably more appropriate to pose this question from the opposite perspective: When is it not a creative act? For me, criticism is fundamentally creative because it begins with a writer or a thinker interacting with the world. Such a process is, necessarily, one of engagement; when we read or go to the movies or listen to music - when we walk down the street, for that matter - we are first and foremost experiencing something, and all criticism stems from the desire (need?) to make sense of that. This shaping impulse is at the heart of creativity; life may be chaotic, but there is order in thought. What does this mean in regard to Book Review? I'd suggest it gives us permission to look at reading and writing through whatever filter works. The best criticism, after all, has less to do with answers than with questions, and the more we embrace that, the more open and creative our questions can become.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - SEPTEMBER 4, 2005: THE "ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER" EDITION

So maybe we've just missed the sucker ... or maybe the gang at LATBR is flexing their muscles a bit to show incoming editor David Ulin what they can do ... or maybe we've been out riding in the sun too long ... but we weren't appalled by the Labor Day issue of the Book Review.  Offenses were, with one exception, relatively mild - though we did have the return of the A.I. (Authorial Intrusion) Alert - and a few reviews out and out distinguished themselves.  Additionally, we introduce a new feature this week and we note the mysterious disappearance of "Salter" from Susan Reyonds' byline.  Let's go and have a look, shall we?

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 2.  A bit skimpy this time but the Rushdie review deserves the most of the space it's given.  And the letters of Robert Lowell, non-fiction strictly speaking, will appeal to fiction devotees.
Full length non-fiction reviews: 5.
Columns: Discoveries.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich.  Reviewed by Chitra Divakaruni Grade: B-
Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie.  Reviewed by Jonathan Levi Grade: B+ - A.I. ALERT!!
Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid.  Reviewed by Geraldine Brooks Grade: C+
Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich.  Reviewed by Wesley Yang. Grade: A
The Spectacle of Flight by Robert Wohl.  Reviewed by Michael Haag.  Grade: C
Here's Where I Stand by Jesse Helms.  Reviewed by Matthew Continettu Grade: D-
The Letters of Robert Lowell edited by Saskia Hamilton.  Reviewed by Marc Weingarten.  Grade: B+
Discoveries Column: Live! From Death Valley by John Soennichsen; The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe; and How Not to Get Rich by Robert Sullivan.  Reviewed by Susan Reynolds. Grade: A

SCORING THE BESTSELLERS
Inspired by a longtime Publishers Marketplace feature, we thought we'd peruse the LATBR Bestseller List and report on interesting and different titles appearing there.  This week, we take note of two local authors climbing up the charts ... Aimee Bender's Willfull Creatures shows up at #12, and Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (a copy of which we recently spotted prominently placed at the entrance of Chevalier's Books in Larchmont) sits at #10.  (The list is described as "based on a Times poll of Southland bookstores" which sounds wildly imprecise but we promise to find out more.)

WHAT WE LIKE ...
Lotsa stuff, as it turns out.  Although the Erdrich doesn't sound like a title we'd be much interested in (we find her a bit mawkish), she receives an intelligent appraisal from Divakaruni, whose byline we're pleased to see ... Reviewer Levi recovers from an unseemly A.I. in the first two paragraphs of the Rushdie review (Does his memory of a 40 year old documentary on Kashmir have the remotest impact on a critical assessment of the novel?  See Subjectivity, below.), and lands with panache, turning in a review that would have won him an "A" sans the unfortunate opening ... He sends us to pluck our copy off the shelves ... Wesley Yang's review of the Ehrenreich is smart, economical - he nails what a solid, two-column book review can be.  (Full Disclosure - Yang interviewed us for a piece on the Litblog Co-op but the piece never ran, so recusal seems unnecessary.) ... The review of the Lowell letters has us hungering for a copy, and the Reynolds column scores an automatic "A" for its coverage of The Devil's Picnic, in which its author recounts eating some of the strangest and most unpalatable foodstuffs imaginable, including bulls' testicles and Epoisses cheese "which smells so bad it's said to have been banned from the Paris Metro;" ... You know, we've ridden the Metro with a few Frenchman who should've been banned as well ... But where, or where, has your Salter gone?

WHAT WE DON'T ...
As we said, offenses are minor and, in at least one case (well, probably in all cases except Eugen Weber) terribly subjective ... The review of the Shadid is a disappointing look at what sounds like an important and serious work, but it's riddled with "I" this and "I" that which leads us to confess a deep-seated prejudice - reviews with the word "I" in it ... Although we acknowledge that all reviews are, essentially, the thoughts of an "I", it has always felt an approach that lacks critical rigor, more appropriate for a coffee klatsch than a book review ... Count the number of "I"s in a James Wood review - you'll find them infrequent visitors ... In the case of this review, there are far too many "I wish"es and "I think"s for its own good ... (If you have thoughts about the use of "I" in a book review, please feel free to leave them in the comments section - and we have no doubt there are exceptions; this just isn't one of them.) ... The coverage of the Wohl is appropriate enough - he's a UCLA professor and all - but did we need two full pages?  And the review is a bit too laudatory of Lindbergh without even touching on the ugly side of the pilot ... The issue's big offender is the review of the Helms memoir ... Is it just us or does it seem that LATBR always seeks out a conservative to review liberal political titles ... but here the softball pitch goes to a Weekly Standard writer ... so Helms' horrendous record on race, though mentioned, is fairly glossed over (without so much as a mention of his despicable run against Harvey Gantt) ... At least play fair and hand this one to, oh, I don't know, Al Franken to review ...

GRADE:  B.  Not bad, people, not bad.  But as we said at the outset, it could be heatstroke talking.  (The current issue does not appear to be online at press time, so in the interim we direct you to last week's review of Percival Everett's latest, Wounded.  We're big fans, and once GOTEV finishes up we plan to check it out.)