The Elegant Variation

COMING ATTRACTIONS ...

If you'd like a sense of the reviewing style of newly annointed LATBR editor David Ulin, you can check out today's Newsday, where he reviews the new Henry Roth biography.

The question all this raises is why a writer so overtly self-reflective should need a biography. What can a biographer tell us that Roth cannot? To his credit, Kellman addresses that dilemma from the outset: "What is left," he asks, "for biography to say about a man who wrote hundreds of articulate pages about himself?"

The answer, of course, is plenty - "Mercy of a Rude Stream" ends in 1927 - yet "Redemption" can't help but exist in the shadow of Roth's work. Although Kellman does a nice job of tracing the author's lost years, he never quite gets at the inner life, the psychological tumult of his subject's world. This is especially true when it comes to Roth's relationships with his wife, Muriel, whom he credited with saving him, and his sons Jeremy and Hugh, who grew increasingly distant as they got older. In many ways, this suggests the limitations of biography, which must imagine a life from the outside, rather than the other way around. At the same time, it also highlights Roth's ultimate achievement: to use literature as a means to reconstruct himself. That's a tricky process; for all the power of "Call It Sleep," "Mercy of a Rude Stream" is a more uneven effort, by turns brilliant and overwrought. Yet if "Redemption" has anything to tell us, it's that even this is something of a miracle, given what Roth had to overcome.

ULIN TO LATBR

L.A. Observed once again breaks the news - David Ulin has been named new editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review.  (We find this sentence from the announcement memo - "The result is a sensibility that is singularly unafraid to appear parochial because it never is provincial." - singularly odd.) 

We approve.  We like David, we like his work.  We once tried to help him jump start his car.  We wish him the best.  And yes, the Thumbnails will continue and no free rides will be given, though an acclimation period will surely be observed. 

If David needs some ideas where to start, we direct him here ...

UPDATE: Dan Wickett has been kind enough to forward us PW's coverage, which you can find hidden after the jump.

LATBR UPDATE

We have always detested the Los Angeles Times, almost from the moment we set foot on California soil nearly 20 years ago.  It's a big, fat mess, jumbled, disorganized - wading through the Sunday paper can make one suicidal - and it's generally written at about a middle school level.  But we subscribed last November - for Sunday delivery only - so that we might start paying closer attention to the Book Review.

The editorial side of the paper, however, is Nirvana compared to the absolutely deplorable customer service side.

We called today to find out why we received no paper.  We were told that the subscription had expired and there was now a balance due.  Now, we remember very specifically purchasing a full year back in November - one of those intro offers - but we were advised that no, that was only a six-month introduction.  Which is utter hogwash.  A classic bait and switch.

So we told them to keep their paper, that we were not interested in renewing.  And there it stands.  So what does that portend for the Thumbnails?   We're unsure.  We'll probably try picking up the paper on Sundays on newsstands like normal folks and see how that works out.  Or we might alternate that with focusing critiques in depth on a single review.  Or we might just let it go altogether.  We're not quite sure.  But either way, as noted, no Thumbnail this week.  Stay tuned for further developments.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - AUGUST 14, 2005: THE "KNOCK US OVER WITH A FEATHER" EDITION

OK, we're later than normal.  We got one of those spiffing Treo phone thingys and we've spent the morning obsessively configuring it.  And no, you can't have the number, like we're not distracted enough already.  As for the Book Review, it's a flimsy little thing at 12 pages but damn if it doesn't perform with distinction at turns - though hardly gaffe-free.  That would be too much to ask for.  Still, there are good things within, so let's get to it:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 4.  First time we can recall that the fiction was granted the same space as non-fiction, which obviously pleases us no end, even if one of the covered novels was Lunar Park. 
Full length non-fiction reviews: 4.
Columns: Discoveries.
Essay: 'Bone People,' fishing and a search for "Bait'

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Living Dangerously by Mark Cotta Vaz.  Reviewed by Richard Schickel Grade: B
Luna Park by Bret Easton Ellis.  Reviewed by Janice P. Nimura Grade: D -
Willfull Creatures by Aimee Bender.  Reviewed by Diana Wagman Grade: RECUSED
War Powers by Peter Irons.  Reviewed by Nicholas Thompson. Grade: D -
Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah.  Reviewed by Richard Eder.  Grade: B -
If This Be Treason by Gregory Rabassa.  Reviewed by Michael Henry Heim Grade: A
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann.  Reviewed by Merle Rubin.  Grade: C
Germs by Richard Wollheim.  Reviewed by Edmund Fawcett.  Grade: A
Discoveries Column: Language of the Geckos by Gary Pak; The Perfect Egg by Aldo Buzzi; and Reading, Writing and Leaving Home by Lynn Freed.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: C+
'Bone People,' fishing and a search for 'Bait" - guest essay by Neil Hanson.  Grade: A

WHAT WE LIKE ...
Look at us tossing around A's like condoms from Paris Hilton's purse ... The Rabassa memoir sounds absolutely fascinating - if anyone from New Directions is reading, send us one yesterday, please - and is a wonderfully written piece of work, even as the reviewer discloses his prior relationship with his subject ... though it does put us in mind of the Wiggins/Irving flap, and set us wondering ... The literary world is, finally, such a small place, that perhaps these sort of connections are inevitable ... But what stokes your outrage more, a good review from a friend, or a hatchet job from an enemy?  Each can probably be dismissed in their own way but this one sounds too good to pass up ... We also thought that the Germs review was a model of great book reviewing, taking a figure unknown to us and making his memoirs feel like essential reading by the end of the ten column inches ... And we thoroughly enjoyed the back page essay which takes a look at elusive Booker winner Keri Hulme, whose novel The Bone People won twenty years ago - she's still working on her follow up ... A couple in the "B" range we liked as well ... Schickel's Kong review does successfully manage to capture the whiff of an adventure-laden world no longer available to us ... and although the Eder lurches off with a mumble-mouthed opening, it's ultimately a worthy look at a deserving title.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
We've never been shy about our near total loathing of Bret Easton Ellis' writing, and although we're inclined to agree with all the reviewer's assessments here ("vritually unreadable ... alternately loathsome and stupefyingly boring") the review never amounts to much more than a book report with some name calling ... It's a pretty pedestrian look at what is, for better or worse, one of the big books of the season ... The review of War Powers starts off strongly - it's a provocative work suggesting that conservatives should decry the current war as a violation of Original Intent, namely that of Congress' ability to declare war - but unravels amid its own political agenda by the end, too easily dismissing the notion that the current imbroglio in Iraq might, in fact, be oil-inspired ... The review of the Mann is dry and ponderous, and perhaps that's in order given the subject matter but damn if we weren't cross-eyed by the end of it.

GRADE:  B-.  We recuse ourselves from the Bender review, as we know the author.  That leaves an unusual number of A's and B's this week, adding up to a better than usual outing and a review that's actually worth taking a little time with.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - AUGUST 7, 2005: THE "INDIFFERENT SHRUG" EDITION

The LATBR appears to have settled with a thud into its post-Wasserman format - a group of more or less random reviews of varying quality full of sound and fury signifying not a whole helluva lot.  It's harder and harder to spend a Sunday afternoon pawing through the pamphlet, especially when sunny skies, a racing bike and GOTEV beckon (and not necessarily in that order).  But we're nothing if not devoted to our readers, and so the bike is stowed, the shades drawn and the phone off the hook.  On to the grades.  And note the stylin' new use of archiving categories!

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: Just one.  But there was also a full length poetry review - nervy stuff for George Lucas' paper of record - and two shorter fiction reviews.  We're also pleased to note the return of First Fiction which wisely gave the whole column to a single title, improving the proceedings considerably. Total fiction reviews: 5. 
Full length non-fiction reviews: 3.
Total non-fiction reviews: 4.5.
Columns: First Fiction and Discoveries.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Little Beauties by Kim Addonizio.  Reviewed by Regina Marler Grade: B
Room Full of Mirrors by Charles R. Cross.  Reviewed by David French Grade: C+
False Alarm by Marc Siegel; and Fear by Corey Robin.  Reviewed by Benjamin Barber Grade: D
The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel.  Reviewed by Marc Weingarten. Grade: D
Theodore Roethke edited by Edward Hirsch.  Reviewed by Thomas Curwen.  Grade: B
Magic Street by Orson Scott Card; and So Long Before Dreaming edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan.  Reviewed by James Sallis Grade: F
The Design of Dissent by Milton Glaser and Mirko Illic.  Reviewed by Carol A. Wells.  Grade: B-
Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk.  Reviewed by Michael Frank.  Grade: C+
Babylon Sisters by Pearl Cleage.  Reviewed by Paula L. Woods.  Grade: F
New Rules by Bill Maher.  Reviewed by David Ehrenstein.  Grade: C
First Fiction Column: The Loss of Leon Meed by Josh Emmons.  Reviewed by Mark Rozzo Grade: B+
Discoveries Column: What's God Got to Do With It? edited by Tim Page; and The Prophet of Dry Hill by David Gessner.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: B+

WHAT WE LIKE ...
The review of Little Beauties isn't badly written, almost grownup in an atypical for LATBR fashion, and makes the book sound interesting in spite of its apparent flaws - although we scarcely consider a comparison to Anne Lamott's fiction to be remotely reassuring ... Despite our intial scorn for the Hendrix cover story (who needs another rock star bio?), we were drawn in - despite some occasionally portentous prose (" ... he would be swallowed up by the claustrophobic haze that he had allowed his life to become.") - to what sounds a fascinating story ... and we were shocked to realize that he was only 27 when he died ... By the way, we we herewith ban all variations on "a musician's musician," "a writer's writer," "a pornographer's pornographer," et alia ... Though the review of the Roethke is given to a sweeping generalization or two (" ... poetry is, even in its most secular expression — perhaps best in its most godless expressions — a religious art."), is beautifully written once it settles down - we especially like the idea of "any word that didn't have its own velocity" ... And with a word like tessellation appearing in print in LATBR, surely Steve Wasserman is smiling wherever he is ... We're always interested in Orhan Pamuk, and this review would have scored higher if it hadn't committed the unforgivable no-no of making unsupported claims (another of our pet peeves) ... Reviewer Frank chides Pamuk for failing "to differentiate telling moments from trivial ones and illuminating memories from the merely remembered," but provides no examples to back up his claims ... Finally, the back page columns are reliably interesting, as usual.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
The Barber review is unfortunate in that it takes an important topic - the role of fear in our cultural and political discourse - and turns in a wordy, dry academic muddle that above all fails to effectively codify his central assertion, that of fear's inherency within liberalism (meant here to reflect the 19th century view, not the current day manifestation) ... Either way, Barber misses his mark, which is too bad as it's a topic that merits a clearer eye ... The review of the Zweibel is a fairly typical example of the "book review as five paragraph book report" that seems so endemic to LATBR ...  But greater horrors are in store from Sallis who appears to be honor student of the week at the Eugen Weber school of reviewing ... check it out for yourself, it's more or less ridiculous (and what's with the ass ugly artwork, mercifully unavaiable online) ... Sadly, Paula Woods gives Sallis a run for his money with her review of a book that sounds like a compendium of every melodramatic cliche out there ... and just when you're hoping for a conspiratorially snarky coup de grace, she actually has the nerve to like the thing ... and the review of the Maher is another disjointed toss off.

GRADE:  C-.  We add a half point to the final grade for keeping Eugen Weber locked up this week,  But let's get a new editor named soon, people?

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - JULY 31, 2005: THE "ROAD WARRIOR" EDITION

SACRAMENTO - If collecting bemused stares is your idea of fun, you can't do much better than to sit on a Southwest flight marking up the Los Angeles Times Book Review muttering and groaning to yourself.  What our fellow passengers made of us we can't begin to guess, although we half expected air marshals to escort us off the plane.  Surely our cry of "NO! NO MORE WEBER, WE IMPLORE YOU!" raised a few eyebrows.  But we like to think that once people took the trouble to scope us out and realized that LATBR was the source of our agony, they felt waves of pity and compassion overtake them.  At a minimum, we got an extra helping of peanuts.  On to the grades:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: None but there were three of those 2/3 page novel reviews which we're somehow meant to take for a full length review.
Total fiction reviews: 7.  This includes another 4-in-1 ejaculation from everyone's favorite illiterate Eugen Weber.
Full length non-fiction reviews: 3.
Total non-fiction reviews: 5.
Columns: Discoveries
And still no sign of the First Fiction column ...

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Woman by Richard Matheson.  Reviewed by Jonathan Krisch Grade: F
Rebuilt by Michael Chorost.  Reviewed by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang Grade: B+
The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds Grade: C-
Coach by Michael Lewis.  Reviewed by Gordon Marino. Grade: B
Trance by Gilbert Sorrentino.  Reviewed by Carmela Ciuraru.  Grade: C-
The Design of Dissent by Milton Glaser and Mirko Illic.  Reviewed by Carol A. Wells.  Grade: B-
Pol Pot by Philip Short.  Reviewed by Warren I. Cohen.  Grade: C-
The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry; The Inside Ring by Michael Lawson; Premeditated Murder by Ed Gaffney; and Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky.  Reviewed by Eugen Weber.  Grade: F
Discoveries Column: The History of Vegas by Jodi Angel; Brain Work by Michael Guista; and The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas by Davey Rothbart.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: B-

WHAT WE LIKE ...
We're more or less well past giving a tinker's fart about memoirs but Rebuilt sounds like the kind of memoir that could draw us back in, and it receives a sensitive and intelligent treatment ... We were tempted to give a high grade to the Coach review just on the basis of the reviewer bio - "Gordon Marino, an assistant football coach and a former boxer, is Boldt distinguished professor in the humanities and director of the Hong Kierkegaard Library at Minnesota's St. Olaf College." - and we found ourselves nodding a tad too eagerly at the observation that "Young men will jump through hoops of fire to gain the respect of someone perceived as having the authority to bless or curse their sense of themselves as males." ... We'd only add "Not so young men" as well ... and although the look at The Design of Dissent is a bit too long, a bit too earnest and a bit too unfocused, it seems a worthy take on a fascinating subject.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
Jonathan Kirsch is always the LATBR Crapshoot ... some Sundays he comports himself with style, and other Sundays ... well ... this is one of those other Sundays and Kirsch rolls snake eyes ... This is the sort of sloppy lede he unleashes from time to time ...

Richard Matheson is one of the grand masters of the suspense, terror and science-fiction genres, a fact that is best evidenced by the praise so readily and so ardently bestowed by far more famous authors such as Ray Bradbury and Stephen King.

Are the plaudits of King and Bradbury really the "best" evidence?  That seems a bit lacking in critical rigor for us.  From there he slips into the downright dotty ...

Her name is Ganine, and she is something of a gamine.

Um ... OK, Jon ... let's put down the sherry bottle ... Reynolds is unusually equivocal in her review of the McMillan, nearly apologetic for disliking a book you couldn't have paid us to read ... The Sorrentino review is full of all sorts of awful stuff, from sheer laziness - " 'Trance' might be characterized as Don DeLillo, circa "Libra," meets "Pulp Fiction"-era Quentin Tarantino." - to dull thinking: "Sorrentino has an inspired way of looking at people and places, one that suggests a wry sensibility and acute perceptivity." ... The Pol Pot review is one those that focuses more on the reviewer's knowledge of the subject matter than on the book at hand ... and, saving the best (!) for last, Eugen Weber shows up again this week and, well, we've come to the conclusion that now he's just fucking with us.  No one can be this consistently unreadable, so we're convinced that he takes the same perverse pride in being incomprehensible - "All Paretsky's plots are convoluted and this one has more whorls than a gastropod mollusk (conch to you)" - that the British take in making their cooking inedible.

GRADE:  D.  We yawn, therefore we are.  We leave our copy of the Review in our hotel wastebasket with an extra tip for housekeeping for the hazmat removal.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - JULY 10, 2005: THE "BETTER LATE THAN NEVER" EDITION

Are we getting soft in our dotage?  Perhaps it's this odd confluence of personal circumstance that our therapist describes as "happiness" but we're oddly unable to work up much of a lather over the mediocrity that is this week's Book Review.  Sure, it's not without its outrages, Eugen Weber reliably among them.  And he's hardly alone - leaden notes drop with abandon this week.  But there's an odd absence of spittle at the corner of our mouths and we feel more and more like Salieri grinning sublimely at the end of Amadeus, gleefully absolving the world's mediocrities.   On to the grades:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 3  Things are looking somewhat better on this front, it can't be argued.
Total fiction reviews: 7.  This includes the above-referenced 4-in-1 Weber monstrosity.
Full length non-fiction reviews: 4.
Total non-fiction reviews: 5.
Columns: Discoveries
And what, we can't help but wonder, has become of the First Fiction column?

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Dangerous Games by John Shannon.  Reviewed by Dick Lochte Grade: B+
Conduct Under Fire by John A. Glusman.  Reviewed by Claire Panosian Dunavan Grade: C+
Runaway Waltz by Frederic Morton.  Reviewed by Wendy Smith Grade: D
Son of the Rough South by Karl Fleming.  Reviewed by David J. Garrow. Grade: C+
The Chairman by Stephen Frey; Prince of Fire by Daniel Silva; Cold Service by Robert B, Parker; and Drama City by George Pelecanos.  Reviewed by Eugen Weber.  Grade: F
Until I Find You by John Irving.  Reviewed by Heller McAlpin.  Grade: B-
William Empson by John Haffenden.  Reviewed by Miranda Seymour.  Grade: A
A Matter of Opinion by Victor S. Navasky.  Reviewed by James D. Squires.  Grade: D
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.  Reviewed by Gavin J. Grant.  Grade: D+
Envy by Kathryn Harrison.  Reviewed by Jane Ciabattari.  D
Discoveries Column: Scenes from a Receding Past by Aldan Higgins; The Devil's Pool by Goerge Sand; and Teaching the Trees by Joan Maloof.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: B-

WHAT WE LIKE ...
The review of the Empson biography is surely this issue's highlight ... an intelligent, erudite look at a volume worthy of our attention - almost too good to have run here .... We're pretty sure most of you seldom click through the links and read the reviews themselves, but we urge you to take five and read this one, even if it means blowing off the rest of our twaddle ... We're pleased that John Shannon's latest Jack Liffey novel got some prominent love (although you did read it here first) ... We're not remotely interested in the fictional offerings of John Irving but we concede he probably must be reviewed, and McAlpin takes on Irving in an admirably straight and tough fashion ... But that's more or less it this time around ... although, despite our exsaperation with this irritating movie tie-in impulse, we were surprised and excited to learn that Edward Gorey had illustrated a version of War of the Worlds (which is the only thing that kept that review from an F.)

WHAT WE DON'T ...
Picking on Eugen Weber is kind of like making jokes about Dubya's intelligence ... at this point it's just so easy that the fun has more or less gone out of it altogether ... We'll content ourselves to suggest that Weber's latest reads not so much like it was written, but rather that the old boy merely unzipped his fly and began to contemptuously slap his johnson across the keyboard for 600 words ... He must be stopped ... The review of the Glusman was moderately interesting but - yet again, in the fashion of Important Non Fiction Review - way too long, hence its C+ grade ... Conversely, the review of the Fleming memoir deserved more room, starting strong and then fading into jarring disjointedness ... The review of the Morton book is a disaster, which is a shame because it seems an interesting title ... but what to make of infelicities like "10 chapters capture paradigmatic incidents from 1936 to 1994" and such profound insights are "Morton applies fictional techniques to real-life events, revealing complex emotions through actions and sensitively analyzing motivations" ... Welcome to Fiction 101, class is in session ... The Harrison novel sounds just wretched (we're not fans) and gets, one supposes, appropriately overwrought handling - "shattering series of scenes" and the like ... and the Navasky memoir deserved better than this sort of foolishness:

You may indeed think so if you are Navasky's "ideal reader," the one for whom he writes — a habit he has indulged with great success in editing the magazine and did not break for this memoir.

Um, can anyone out there tell us what the fuck exactly the means?  We thought that writing for one's ideal reader was more or less a given.  But what do we know - our ideal reader struggles with fortune cookies, and how's that for setting the bar low ...

GRADE:  C- Setting the bar low seems to be the first order of business at the Times these days.  If beautiful bike rides and companionable new friends keep competing for our Sundays, we're not sure how much longer we can keep this up ...

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - JUNE 26, 2005: THE "WHY DO WE BOTHER" EDITION

We're even more insufferably pleased with ourselves than normal.  We spent the morning on a 45-mile bike ride, and then followed with a two-hour afternoon indoor ride and still we managed to get to the Book Review on your behalf.  It's a shame that the news isn't better ... We're clearly moving into the first of the Wasserman-less issues, resulting in a Book Review that's even more hodge-podge and pointless than usual, not to mention virtually unedited.  Oh, and as what can only be a tired bit of space filling, they've begun to print letters, which only serve to demonstrate that LATBR readers can match LATBR reviewers for incoherence.  On to the grades:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 0.  Nope, not one.  And wait until you see what they fill the space with.
Total fiction reviews: 9.  Don't let the number fool you - six are crammed into one review about Hollywood D-girls.
Full length non-fiction reviews: 4.
Total non-fiction reviews: 5.
Columns: Discoveries
Additional material:  Laurel Maury includes a sidebar to her graphic novel review which is almost - though not quite - as bad as the main review.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
The Bradbury Chronicles by Sam Weller.  Reviewed by Jonathan Kirsch Grade: D
The Twins of Tribeca by Rachel Pine; The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor and Mimi Hare; The Loves of a D-Girl by Chris Dyer; How to be Famous by Rachel Alison Bond; The Assistants by Robin Lynn Williams; and The Mr. Famous by Carol Wolper.  Reviewed by Amy Wallace Grade: D - A.I. ALERT
Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte.  Reviewed by Nicholas A. Basbanes Grade: C
Saudi Arabia Exposed by John R. Bradley; and Secrets of the Kingdom by Gerald Posner.  Reviewed by Simon Henderson. Grade: C-
Alexandria by Michael Haag.  Reviewed by Nathaniel Rich.  Grade: B-
Salonica: City of Ghosts by Mark Mazower.  Reviewed by Patricia Storace.  Grade: C
No Direction Home by Marisa Silver.  Reviewed by Jane Ciabattari.  Grade: C
Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes.  Reviewed by Laurel Maury.  Grade: F
Bookmark Now edited by Kevin Smokler.  Reviewed by Marc Weingarten.  RECUSED
Discoveries Column: A Very Good Year by Mike Weiss; and Mozart in the Jungle by Blair Tindall.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: B+

WHAT WE LIKE ...
There is oh-so-little to write home about this week ... For not the first time, we feel like the LATBR would be a complete lost cause if it weren't for Susan Salter Reynold's column, for which we remain perpetually grateful ... and the highest single grade, to the Alexandria book, was a reflection of a generally well written review about a book we didn't really care about.   We were pleased to see Kevin Smokler's collection get a good review but since we're pals we can hardly claim to judge that one fairly, so we've recused ourselves from what was surely the issue's bright spot.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
Do you remember Bill Macy's turn in My Favorite Year?  He was especially memorable for bellowing "Crap!" around the set of the King Kaiser show, and we were in similar fettle all afternoon ... We were tempted to flunk Jonathan Kirsch outright for his traffic in cliches ("exhaustive, it is never exhausting" - we've never seen that line before) since a reviewer of Kirsch's experience ought to know better but we settled on a "D" despite his failure to bring a bit of rigor to some of the book's more outlandish claims ("Arguably no other twentieth century literary figure can claim such sweeping cultural impact.'), since Bradbury is a legitimate L.A. story, however cranky ... Holy shit, did anyone need to see six books about the loves and lives of D-Girls reviewed in one place?  If you did, please stop reading this site at once ... and reviewer Wallace can't keep herself out of the review, even if she deserves an outright "F" for quoting Laura Miller as an authority on, well, anything ... The review of the Perez-Reverte is a garbled mess which flunks the credibility test (We've read him; he's nothing special) and wants for serious copy editing ... Would someone drop a line to the copy editors at LATBR and explain to them why they words "all the same" are entirely unnecessary in the following sentence: "Part of the fun here is the succession of glib aphorisms, which must be musical in the original Spanish but are rendered nicely into English by translator Margaret Sayers Peden all the same." ... Amateur hour ... The review of the Saudi books looks at potentially important material but spins into incoherence by the end ... A full page on a book about Salonica?  Someone surely must have gotten paid off there ... unless the D-Girls/Greek lore connection is immediately apparent to you (C'mon, Jimmy, we gave you that one nice and easy over the plate) ... The Silver review is a workmanlike enough report on a book that just doesn't sound very interesting to us ... As for the Clowes review, we've mentioned that reviewer Maury wastes our time with one of these stupid "oh, won't we please take graphic novels seriously" sidebars ... but her quest would be simpler if she didn't include idiotic notions like this one (for which she receives an immediate "F") in her review: "One of the benefits of comics over movies or conventional novels is that you can bring in more than the usual five to seven main characters and still make them memorable." ... Read a little fucking Dickens, honey ... Grrr.

GRADE:  D+  Crap!  Time to accelerate the Wasserman replacement hunt, folks.  A few more issues like this one, and we're staying on our bikes.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - JUNE 12, 2005: THE BACK FROM NYC EDITION

Holy smokes, have we been away for a month?  Blame the various NY travels which are, mercifully, now ended.  So you won't have to brave the pages of the Book Review unprotected again.  And it looks like we're back just in the nick of time with another insidiously dull issue highlighted by - wait for it - ANOTHER MOVIE TIE-IN!  Apparently, the West Coast's premier literary journal didn't feel it could allow the opening of the new Batman movie to pass uncommented upon, and so in a burst of original thinking, the Dark Knight graces the cover.  But, lest we let our preconceived notions overtake us, there are a few surprises within.  To wit:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 1.  It's a typically non-fiction heavy issue, once again.
Full length non-fiction reviews: 5.
Columns: Discoveries
Additional material:  James Marcus takes a break from First Fiction to cover Book Expo.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Translation Nation by Hector Tobar.  Reviewed by Michael Jaime-Becerra Grade: C-
Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham.  Reviewed by David Ebershoff Grade: D
No god but God by Reza Aslan.  Reviewed by Zachary Karabell Grade: B+
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage.  Reviewed by Wendy Smith. Grade: C-
Superstud by Paul Felig.  Reviewed by Steve Almond.  Grade: C+
The Batman Chronices by Bob Kane; and Batman, Year One by Frank Miller amd David Mazzucchelli with Richmond Lewis.  Reviewed by Max Allan Collins.  Grade: A
Batman Cover to Cover.  Reviewed by Nick Owchar.  Grade: F
Legends by Robert Littell.  Reviewed by Michael Harris.  Grade: D-
Text Messages by James Marcus.  Grade: B
Discoveries Column: An American in Paris by Veronique Vial; Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson; and You Poor Monster by Michael Kun.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: A

WHAT WE LIKE ...
As our introductory paragraph suggests, we were fully prepared to hate and flunk the Batman review on principle alone ... so no one was more surprised than we were to give it an "A" ... It's a sensible and clear view of the Batman story aimed at the general reader with none of the geekish and peevish alienation that too often informs graphic novel coverage ... We also thought that the No god but God review was a reasonably intelligent and thoughtful bit of business that reinforces our interest in checking out this title ... Susan Salter Reynolds' Discoveries column is reliable as ever, scoring bonus points with us for the Paris book ... and we enjoyed James Marcus' coverage of BEA even if we felt he wasn't sufficiently critical of the quotes he received ... Dennis Loy Johnson delivers the predictably self-important stuff which is easy enough to dismiss (we've never been sure how reissuing public domain classics constitutes selling ideas, but ok), but for Vintage's Paul Slovak to state that "the mood is good" as sales remain flat (remember, this with an additional 20,000 books this year over last year) strikes us as a bit of denial at best, or severely schizophrenic at worst ... The other surprise is our C+ grade to Steve Almond ... although he's given to his usual propensity for far-reaching pronouncements, and his self-control buckles in the last graf as he sticks himself into the story, it's a better review than we expected given our own well-known predilections. 

WHAT WE DON'T ...
As has becoming increasingly the norm, nothing that totally offends (well, except for Nick Owchar's Batman sidebar, of which more presently), just a shitload of reviews that are either dull as dishwater or eye-poppingly badly written ... The review of the Tobar is a disjointed read, which is a shame for a book that sounds like it deserves better (although its author is a former LA Times reporter - are we the only ones who are annoyed by stuff like this ... with only 12 pages to fill, there are lots of non-LA Times alum books that could be reviewed, altogether sidestepping sticky ethical questions like this) ... Ebershoff's review of Specimen Days veers from hokey chatter to overripe to merely banal in the space of three columns ... It's one of the big books of the season and deserved a reviewer with a bit more gravitas than Ebershoff brings to the game ... A History of the World in 6 Glasses sounds like a perfectly amusing book but flunks our (admittedly arbitrary) "who cares" test ... and it's not served by Wendy Smith's earnest but lousy writing ... The review of the Littell thriller is busy and confusing and gave us a headache ... but nothing was as bad as Owchar's Batman sidebar ... From his use of "hopefully" - Holy Illiteracy, Batman! - to his breathlessly familar chatty style to his rampant A.I. (authorial intrusion), we're frankly just stunned that he's a Book Review editor - although that explains a great deal.

GRADE:  C  Saved by the Batman.  Let's try to read some fiction next week, people.  Or you might just end up driving us back to NYC after all.

LATBR THUMBNAIL® - MAY 15, 2005: THE BETTER LATE THAN NEVER EDITION

Well, it appears that last week's good outing was a blip, indeed. Setting aside for the moment our disappointment at the Star Wars cover (c'mon guys, leave that shit to Calendar), the reviews were generally a sorry lot, ranging from the banal to the awful with few standouts.  Starting this installment we are now providing links to the reviews, so you can confirm (or dispute) or judgments for yourself.  OK, on to the grades:

STATS
Full length fiction reviews: 1.  Three mini-reviews of fiction as well, but two of those add up to a page of - yup - thrillers, proving once again that LAT editorial thinks movie tie-ins and page turners are all people are interested in.
Full length non-fiction reviews: 3, plus two long-though-not-quite-full-page reviews.
Columns: First Fiction and Poets' Corner
As we've noted above, and as won't be apparent to you internet visitors, the cover page is devoted to George Lucas with the misleading headlines "The man behind the Sith" - misleading in that the books afforded this glut of space focus on the creative teams behind the films.  Not that we would have cared about it any more with any accurate headline - we're kinda grouchy that way.

TITLES, AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
Chaplin and Agee by John Wranovics.  Reviewed by Richard Schickel Grade: A
Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner.  Reviewed by Michael Shermer Grade: C-
A Stroke of Midnight by Laurell K. Hamilton.  Reviewed by James Sallis Grade: F
Hard Truth by Nevada Barr.  Reviewed by Paula L. Woods. Grade: F
The Closers by Michael Connelly.  Reviewed by Eugen Weber.  Grade: F
Armaggedon by Max Hastings.  Reviewed by John Lukacs.  Grade: B
The Cinema of George Lucas by Marcus Hearn; The Art of Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith by J.W. Rinzler; The Making of Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith by J.W. Rinzler.  Reviewed by Charles Solomon.  Grade: D
Star Wars and Philosophy.  Assorted titles reviewed by Nick Ochwar.  Grade:D-
Perfect Soliders by Terry McDermott.  Reviewed by Brian Michael Jenkins.  Grade: C+
The Beatles Solo on Apple Records by Bruce Spizer.  Reviewed by Randy Lewis.  Grade: C
First Fiction Column: The Lake, The River and the Other Lake by Steve Amick; The Red Carpet by Lavvanya Sankaran. Reviewed by Jmaes Marcus. Grade:B+
Discoveries Column: Big Weather by Mark Svenvold; and Death and the Sun by Edward Lewine.  Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds. Grade: B
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea.  Reviewed by Rudolfo Anaya.  Grade: C

WHAT WE LIKE ...
Precious little.  Schickel has recovered from his earlier bout of Authorial Intrustion Disease and turns in a terrific piece of book and film criticism, looking at the odd relationship between Charlie Chaplin and James Agee ... We were pleased to see John Lukacs' byline but we really wasn't given enough space to score a home run ... and Brian Jenkins' review is a workmanlike but fascinating attempt to provide a  glimpse into the minds of the 9/11 hijackers.

WHAT WE DON'T ...
Plodding, earnest book reports.  That's what we got time and time again this time out ... Although two reviews lured us in touching on our obsessions - cycling in the Freakonomics review, and the Beatles elsewhere - promising beginnings tailed off and failed to deliver ... The whole Star Wars gatefold spread was just silly and embarrassing, and we're disappointed beyond words at the decision to give it any play at all, much less allotting it such prominent real estate ... The fiction reviews are the worst ... the Sallis review of ... um ... vampire killers? ... C'mon guys, what were you thinking? ... Paula Woods seems never to have met a cliche lede that she can pass up, although at least she's coherent ... unlike Eugen "Stop Me Before I Review Again" Weber's jaw-droppingly stupid lede ... It just gets worse and worse ... Bleah.

GRADE:  D+  May the snores be with you ... Star Wars, vampire killers, thrillers ... Yes, we're a world-class literary publication all right ...