Kim Smith on "New England Grows"

I recently spent several days exploring New England Grows, the trade show event supported by area educational institutions and landscape industry professionals. The Garden Writers Association's annual meeting and luncheon for the region was held there; it was a great way to make new acquaintances and reconnect with old friends. The booths sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum's Landscape Institute and NELDHA provided a wealth of information and, whenever I happened by, were packed and generating much interest in their programs. My butterfly garden photos from Willowdale Estate were part of the "before and after" slide show, one of the many landscape designs presented by NELDHA members. Several people inquired as to how to grow such great batches of morning glories: moon vine and morning glories benefit from twice-weekly doses of Neptune’s Harvest fish emulsion. (Willowdale Estate is a special events venue; watering with fish emulsion was done at least twenty-four hours prior to any event.)

I stopped at the New England Grows bookshop to sign copies of my new book, Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! Unfortunately, Oh Garden! was situated at the table labeled "Business Books," sandwiched between Small Business Grants and Discipline of Market Leaders. Highly doubtful that any sold. One of the other writers from Garden Writers Association said she had seen my book there, but passed it by because she thought it “was just another marketing book.” When a display problem such as this is completely out of my control, I really don’t know how to fix it, but I would be interested to hear from readers who may have encountered similar problems of this nature.

The GWA event was well attended and the guest speaker, JP Faiella of Image Unlimited Communications, led an informal talk on improving business communication skills. I especially enjoyed meeting Thomas Mickey, professor of communications at Bridgewater State and garden writer for the Patriot Ledger. His book-in-progress sounds fascinating — The Seduction of the English Garden: The Nineteenth Century Seed Merchants Sold More than Plants — and is based on his year-long work at the Smithsonian, where he researched the public relations materials of the nineteenth century seed industry.

I only had a brief moment to meet and speak with Hilda Morrill; her website bostongardens.com is brimming with articles and informative listings of upcoming New England gardening events. Debra Strick, the former communications director from New England Wild Flower Society was seated at our table. She has recently launched Damera Communications, a green marketing and public relations firm. Best wishes to Debra! I hope you have as much success for yourself as you helped to create for NEWFS.

Jennifer Masiello, a representative from Droll Yankees bird feeders was also present at our table. I love Droll Yankees bird feeders for their streamlined designs and because they last for years and years. Jennifer is a treasure trove of backyard bird feeding tips. I had been looking for an alternative way to clean bird feeders, typically scrubbing with a ten percent solution of bleach. We are trying to avoid chlorine bleach as much as possible. Droll Yankees is now recommending a fifty / fifty white vinegar to water solution to sanitize bird feeders. Their recently launched line of tubular feeders, designed with a simple-to-remove base, allows a clean, fresh fill every time, which will also help to prevent the growth of mold and toxins.

Photo credits: 1. Morning glory embowered doorway at Willowdale; 2. Pine Siskins

On Independent Bookstores and blogs

If you are an independent bookseller reading this post, let me say that I don't think there is any greater proponent of the independent store than David R. Godine. He treats them all — every store, every buyer, every quirk and oddity — like a big extended family. If you've received one of his many thank you cards or other hand-written notes, or if you have been nicknamed in some way, then you probably understand. If you're in New England and he's never visited you personally — he handles our sales for this area — do call the office, and we'll set up an appointment: he's usually more than happy to stop by, show you our books, and chat about the book world. Independents have always been the cornerstone of this company, and I think many small publishers feel, as we certainly do, that as you go, we go too.

At this year's ABA Winter Institute, Patrick from Vroman's Bookstore reports, 'Bob Miller [of HarperStudio] was adamant that booksellers needed to be leveraging their roles as tastemakers through blogging, vlogging, podcasting, and using social media. Entrekin [of Grove / Atlantic] seconded that notion, with the statement that "Every bookseller needs to have a blog."' Patrick later writes, 'the digital world is built on relationships, just like the non-digital world. If you want people to take an interest in you, it helps to take in interest in them. This can be hard for people used to thinking of media as a one-way broadcast. Twitter, blogs, and the like must be about dialog if they are to be successful. And that takes time.'

I completely agree, and believe David would say the same thing. The internet is not an oddity or something that businesses can choose to ignore anymore, it's as important as customer service and stocking the shelves. I think many booksellers might be uncomfortable with the idea of being a 'tastemaker,' as Miller and others have phrased it, and that's a reasonable concern. But there's a humbler, more down to earth way of thinking about what blogs do, and Patrick hits on that: buying a book is an act of trust — in the author, the publisher, and the bookseller — and anything you can do to build a relationship with customers will help build that trust.

In hard times especially, people want to feel reasonably sure they're putting their money to good use. The better a person feels that they know a bookseller's tastes, breadth of knowledge, and character, the more inclined they'll be to trust that store's choices and recommendations. Blogs and other online spaces are perhaps the best way to do that; they're the twenty-first century version of the block party, the pub, the dinner party, the diner. The internet isn't like beaming a signal out of a radio tower, or even publishing a newsletter; it's a big group conversation, where acquaintances spread gossip and news, recommend books, and tell jokes — but you have to speak up to join in.

From the desk of David R. Godine

A Note on Bruce Rogers

People used to say of T. E. Lawrence that he had a genius for backing into the limelight. I think the same could be said of Bruce Rogers, the peripatetic American typographer, who probably has had more ink spilled over his work than any practitioner of the graphic arts of the book since Gutenberg. Rogers had certain natural talents, and among these were his abilities as a pasticheur; he could put himself into the skin of almost any century and make it his own. Nowhere are these talents displayed with more vigor and inventiveness than the books he produced in the sixteen productive years (1896-1912) he worked at The Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He had big shoes to fill; D.B. Updike had left to start his own shop in 1893 and both Houghton and Mifflin saw the need for a captive private press that could produce first-rate editions and printing at moderate costs. They had the editorial taste; they had the plant at Riverside on the other side of the Charles; they had willing and skilled workman. What was needed was a leader who could both direct a program and oversee the details of design and production. In Rogers, they found the perfect candidate, a typographer who was able to take over a small corner of the enormous factory on the bank of the Charles, select the titles, and produce the volumes without regard to either estimates or costs.

This was the decade immediately following Morris's final efforts as a printer and designer and, above all, of the Kelmscott Chaucer, a book that appeared in 1896 and was, in so many ways, the culmination of Morris’s remarkable career as a craftsman and visionary. In its total integration of text and image, paper, printing, and ink, it would forever change what would be expected a privately printed edition and set the bar high (perhaps impossibly high) for any future "private press." Although Morris died shortly after DBU left Riverside, his influence was strong and pervasive on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps Rogers absorbed some of it; he could hardly not be aware of it. And how could he ignore it working in Boston alongside Goodhue, Copeland and Day, and the arts and crafts revival that took the region by storm? But BR was nothing if not eclectic and inventive, and his three decades at Riverside produced books that hearken back to Jean de Tournes and the French sixteenth century, to Bulmer and Bensley of the late seventeenth, and to Pickering and Whittingham of the mid- nineteenth. As I said, he could slip into almost any clothes and make them fit.

As Jerry Kelly makes clear in his fine appraisal of Rogers during this period, these were his happiest years. And it was no wonder, for he was given free reign, and was the highest paid employee at the plant, which must have grated the older workmen no end. BR could devote his attention (as did Morris) to every detail of the books’ production. Here is a small note from the Autumn 1905 announcement of Riverside Press Editions:

"For more than two years, the question of ink has occupied his (i.e. BR’s) attention, and now, after many trials, failures, and partial successes, it is believed that a thoroughly satisfactory printing ink has been obtained. Made only of the finest materials, and ground with special care, in a shop whose proprietor is the only workman, the result is a black ink of unusual density and richness, and without gloss. A red has also been produced, not brilliant, but full, clean, and of absolute permanency."

Rogers neglected to point out that it also cost $6.00/can, probably five times the going rate.

But to say that Rogers was “happy” is also not saying much, for BR was never, it seems to me, a very happy man. If you read his letters to Henry Watson Kent at the Metropolitan, he was always unsatisfied with something or someone — the climate, the food, the printing equipment, the heating system. Although they lived and worked in the same city, he and Updike were like oil and water, and while they were careful to respect each other's work and DBU went to bat for Rogers on any number of occasions, they were clearly uncomfortable in each other's company. This is not surprising; each was thorny and prickly characters in their own way; Updike clearly unhappy and repressed, and Rogers, although later married and a father, never displaying much loyalty to or affection for anything but his work, which always seemed to take precedence over the comfort or happiness of his family (at least if his letters are to be trusted). But at Riverside, Rogers was really his own boss and the cock of the roost. For his sixteen years in Cambridge, until he finally lost the support of the management after Henry Houghton’s passing in 1906, he had every reason to be “happy”; he was being paid the equivalent of $110,000/year, he had a full compliment of trained workmen at his disposal, and until some bright eyed accountant began looking at the real costs of the operation, he had the support of the publishing firm and management. Many of his editions sold out before publication. But the writing was on the wall. In a letter to Henry Louis Bullen, Rogers understands how precarious his position really was at the plant:

"The plain fact is that it doesn’t pay — at least not well enough to please the newer and younger element in the firm, and in the general retrenchment going on, my head, as that of the highest salaried man in the concern, was naturally one of the first to fall. I am really greatly pleased, though I haven’t any idea what I shall do."

By 1912, BR had left Riverside, although for two years (at east) the firm continued to issue books from his plans and designs. They were, and remain, among the most beautiful books ever produced by a large commercial establishment whose objectives were to make both beautiful books and a profit. But in this case, at last under Houghton, the books came first and BR himself said that only the books he printed while at Riverside Press “give me a definite satisfaction.”

Spring 2009 Catalog

You can now download our Spring 2009 Catalog from www.godine.com — the list includes Desert, the "definitive breakthrough as a novelist" of our current Nobel Laureate, J.M.G. Le Clézio; The Mower, selected verse by the sitting British Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion; stunning theater photography by Angus McBean; a trilogy of novels, Lark Rise to Candleford, that is currently airing as a miniseries on PBS, and more — Godine, apparently, does not flounder. We're really as shocked by this as anyone else.

~ Nota Bene ~
“People who want only to live, and who reckon living is absolute freedom, the exclusive pursuit of happiness, the sole satisfaction of their desires and instincts, the immediate enjoyment of the boundless riches of the world — Jérôme and Sylvie had taken on this vast programme for themselves — such people will always be unhappy. It is true, they would admit, that there are people for whom this kind of dilemma does not arise, or hardly arises, either because they are too poor and have no requirements beyond a slightly better diet, slightly better housing, slightly less work, or because they are too rich, from the start, to understand the import or even the meaning of such a distinction. But nowadays and in our part of the world, more and more people are neither rich nor poor: they dream of wealth, and could become wealthy; and that is where their misfortune begins.”

— from Things, a novella by Georges Perec

Washington Post's Book World

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Washington Post's long-standing and very well-regarded book review section, the Book World, is going to be rolled into the Opinion and Style & Arts sections, with the final stand-alone issue coming out February 15. While this isn't the first time that the Book World has found itself out of favor at the Post — Motoko Rich writes that it was similarly absorbed in 1973, only six years after its inception, before making a comeback in the early 1980s — it is certainly a bad sign for newspapers and book sections, and the book sections still in newspapers, when one of the contemporary pillars can't make it work. The number of reviews will only diminish slightly, they say, and the staff is not being cut, but still it's hard to imagine that the tenor and focus of reviews from here on will be unaffected by the material that now surrounds them; for myself, it would be strange to find Michael Dirda's column snug between a crossword and a review of "Lost." I do hope that the editors and staff there will be able to make up for lost column inches with online content.

From the desk of David R. Godine

Yesterday afternoon, I heard the news that John Updike has passed away. This is a sad turn of events for the world of letters, and also for this press — we had the privilege of publishing at least three of his Introductions and Prefaces, the first for our Nonpareil edition Edmund Wilson's "Memoirs of Hecate County," the last for Daniel Fuchs' "The Golden West." I have often argued, and in public, that if any American deserved, and had earned, the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was John Updike. He was a writer whose curiosity knew no bounds; he could do anything and, when it came to literature in its broadest sense, at one time or another he did do everything, even memorably recording Ted Williams' last time at bat at Fenway Park. His energy and his output were astounding. He wrote verse, criticism, short stories, an important string of novels, book reviews, essays, and he was no slouch as an art critic either. He was as much an advocate for foreign literature and foreign authors (a bias and distinction that should not have been lost on the Nobel Committee) as for the efforts of his American peers, and it could be argued that his lengthy and learned book reviews in The New Yorker did more to introduce unknown writers to an American audience than all other hype sites put together. He was among the fortunate Knopf authors (along with Julia Child) who had Judith Jones as his editor for almost his entire writing career, and among the very few Knopf authors who had total control of his jackets, which were not, to my mind, terribly distinguished, but showed a mind engaged in the process of design and typography. He was among a small handful of authors I ever encountered who could actually name more than one typeface and who had very pronounced opinions about all of them (including a peculiar and unfortunate affection for the designs of Frederic Goudy). He was, in short, our consummate man of letters (both written and drawn), the Boswell and the Johnson of the twentieth century. We will not see his likes again.

Wanda Coleman @ Harriet

Anyone who has read her widely-admired collection of essays The Riot Inside Me knows that Wanda Coleman is a woman who does not mince her words. Today at The Poetry Foundation blog, Harriet, the eminent Los Angeles poet, author, and essayist grieves for the state of American poetry. She writes, 'The chilling, if not complete silencing, of contemporary American poetry at peak bloom is an awful thing to watch. Educational factors are too numerous to mention; however, the insistence by the mainstream that poetry sell, the death of independent bookstores, book reviews, and the overall throes of a publishing world that must revamp or die, is brutally ugly.'

Enjoy!

Elizabeth David's Christmas on NPR

National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" today interviewed Florence Fabricant regarding our new title, Elizabeth David's Christmas. Fabricant reviewed the book for The New york Times, and is the regular food columnist there.You can listen to the interview by clicking HERE. The show's website reads, "Elizabeth David, perhaps the most celebrated English food writer of the past century, enjoys a place in British cooking and culture akin to that of Julia Child in the United States. Now a new cookbook, Elizabeth David's Christmas, details the late writer's wisdom and recipes."

In the Forest of Paradoxes

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio's complete, translated, Nobel Lecture is now available at the Nobel Prize Website. He begins, 'Why do we write? I imagine that each of us has his or her own response to this simple question. One has predispositions, a milieu, circumstances. Shortcomings, too. If we are writing, it means that we are not acting. That we find ourselves in difficulty when we are faced with reality, and so we have chosen another way to react, another way to communicate, a certain distance, a time for reflection.'

Prospector is in!

2008 Nobel Prize—winner J.M G. LeClézio's The Prospector is in and ready to ship! Order today – it makes a great holiday present.

Lark Rise to Candelford on PBS, January 2009

We've just heard some very exciting news: PBS has purchased the rights to a 10-part BBC miniseries based on Lark Rise to Candelford, by Flora Thompson. The miniseries is scheduled to air in January 2009, and her single-volume trilogy will be available from Godine just in time.

From the Godine description: Flora Thompson (1876–1947) wrote what may be the quintessential distillation of English country life at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1945, her three books Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), and Candleford Green (1943) were published together in one elegant volume, and this new Godine Nonpareil edition, complete with charming wood engravings, should be a cause for real rejoicing.

"Flora Thompson's great memoir of her Oxfordshire girlhood [is] a model of the form. The richness of the language, the lingering over detail and incident creates a haunting classic."
– The New York Times

Le Clézio at NPR

At the National Public Radio website, listen to a short portrait of this year's Nobel Prize winner, and to Emmanuel Lenain read from Godine's own title, The Prospector. Let's hope there are a few more shows on Le Clézio!

Le Clézio Roundup

There has been plenty of press – as is to be expected – on yesterday's announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The New York Times describes laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio as an author "whose work reflects a seemingly insatiable restlessness and sense of wonder about other places and other cultures," and the Los Angeles Times supports that assessment with this quote from the author: "Western culture has become too monolithic. . . The entire unknowable part of the human being is obscured in the name of rationalism. It is my awareness of this that has pushed me towards other civilizations."

The Washington Post reports on the new Nobel-winner with one eye here at the states, "There was little joy among New York publishers at this year's Nobel news. With recent winners such as Britain's Doris Lessing and Turkey's Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureates' American publishers could count on cleaning up with increased sales of backlist titles. But no major publisher in this country since Atheneum, more than 30 years ago, has bothered with translations of Le Clézio's work. This left the celebrating to small publishers such as David Godine."

And at Publisher's Weekly you can get a quick glimpse into life here at Godine through this classic David Godine quote. "David R. Godine published The Prospector in 1993. An ebullient Godine recalled a walk among the booths at Frankfurt, where, he said, he asks the same question of most foreign publishes each year: Who are your great writers who aren’t in English? 'Anne-Marie Solange, at Gallimard – she’s always bitching that Americans don’t read French writers. So I asked her the question. She gave me three names – Sylvie Germain, Patrick Modiano and J.M.G. Le Clezio. I published all three, and for the right reasons. And now one pays off!' Godine said, 'I must’ve been on drugs' when he discovered he originally printed 6,000 copies of The Prospector, but was happy to find he had 500 copies in stock – all of them spoken for in a matter of hours after the Nobel announcement [almost—ed.]. The Boston-based house will go back to press for a paperback version, and has another Le Clézio book already in the works, Le Désert, due next year."

Le Clézio: Nobel Prize 2008

David R. Godine, Publisher, is proud to announce that J.M.G. Le Clézio – author of The Prospector, the first title in our Verba Mundi Series – is the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1993, Godine published Le Clézio’s The Prospector (Le chercheur d’or, Gallimard, 1985) as the inaugural book of the Verba Mundi series, offering the best of modern world literature in translation, including works by José Donoso, Isaac Babel, Georges Perec, and others. A novel rich with sensuality and haunting resonance, The Prospector tells of one man’s obsessive search for a legendary buried treasure – and, through it, for the “lost gold’ of his childhood. The quest takes him from the lush tropical island of Mauritius to the hell of the first World War, and from a mysterious love affair to a shattering confrontation with his own motives. The Prospector was praised in France as “a parable of the human condition” (Le Monde), a “fabulous story” (Liberation), and “an ambitious, masterful book” (Le Point).

“Hypnotic and mythic … Le Clézio brilliantly conveys the sublime and terrible beauty of life and its twin, death, in devastating evocations … a remarkable work.” – ALA Booklist (starred review)

“A gentle portrayal of a man haunted by visions of his ideal childhood … [Le Clézio’s] writing is deeply evocative and descriptive.” – Publishers Weekly

“An entertainment of the highest order that neither diminishes nor insults the intelligence and emotions of the reader.” – Chicago Tribune

“The Prospector offers a wonderful one-volume compendium of all the grand myths rooted in the European colonial experience, combining elements from Paul et Virginie, Robinson Crusoe, and Indiana Jones….A key text” – Washington Post Book World

For further information, please contact Susan Barba, Editor, 617- 451-9600, ext. 26.

The Likes of Us

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just received word that The Likes of Us: Photography & the Farm Security Administration has finally, after many years of hard work, arrived in our warehouse. From the book's page at our website:

Housed at the Library of Congress, the archives of the Farm Security Administration constitute an essential visual record of American life from the late 1920s through the onset of the Second World War. Guided by the adroit hands and watchful eyes of the master photo editor Roy Stryker, the FSA archive includes the work of dozens of photographers, from acknowledged giants like Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, and Dorothea Lange to Marion Post Wolcott and Russell Lee, whose names and work may be less familiar.

Stryker's approach to his photographers' assignments was a bracing mix of structure and improvisation. He sent his artists across the country to shoot for a few weeks, mostly in small towns and rural areas. They worked from what Stryker called shooting scripts – laundry lists of possible subjects and situations – but were always free to explore their own perspectives on a locale, its inhabitants, and their activities. When negatives and prints arrived, Stryker would guide his artists with suggestions, advice, and sharp-eyed criticism, all designed to elicit their best work. At this he was strikingly successful.

This book collects work from nine of these trips – Evans in Louisana and Alabama, Shahn in West Virginia, Lange in California, and others – uniting them with Stryker's shooting scripts, letters, and other relevant archival documents. What emerges, beyond the images themselves, is a complex and vital overview of the FSA at work, not just the work, but how the work evolved and matured under Stryker's guidance. Appropriately, the book concludes with photographs of New Orleans, the only city photographed in depth by the FSA artists.

Reproduced in duotone, the 175 photographs in The Likes of Us – all printed from the original negatives at the Library of Congress – offer a rare opportunity not only to see a choice selection of famous and little-known images but also to understand the working of one of the government's most original and creative pre-war initiatives.

William Logan Poem of the Day

This is a bit of nota bene. Today's poem over at Poetry Daily is "The Fatal Shore," a fine piece of verse by William Logan. The poem is from his new collection, Strange Flesh, forthcoming from Penguin. Until then, have your fill of Logan's work with two titles from Godine – Difficulty and Sullen Weedy Lakes.

Kenneth Burke and WALL-E

Inside Higher Education explores the connection between the new hit Disney / Pixar film WALL-E and author Kenneth Burke. Scott McLemee writes that 'Burke’s fiction and poetry tend to be overlooked by chroniclers of American literary history. But his experimental novel Towards a Better Life has exercised a strong influence on other writers — especially Ralph Ellison, whose Invisible Man was deeply shaped by it. He also had a knack for being in interesting places at the right time. For example, he discovered and made the first English translation of Thomas Mann’s "Death in Venice"; and in the course of his day job as editor for The Dial, Burke helped prepare for its initial American publication a poem called “The Wasteland,” by one T.S. Eliot.'

Overlooked no more! Burke's Here & Elsewhere: Collected Fiction is on sale at the Black Sparrow Books website, just $11.00 for the softcover edition only through our website.

Davenport at Harper's

This weekend at the Harper's blog Wyatt Mason discusses Godine's own The Geography of the Imagination, by Guy Davenport. Mason writes that the collection is 'one of the twentieth century’s most varied, diverting, probing and re-readable works of thought and prose. . . . its forty essays on literature and art have provided a generation of writers and readers a continuing education on how to look, think, write, feel.'

Aftershocks – New Arrival!

The newest Verba Mundi has just arrived in our warehouse – Grete Weil's collection of short stories, Aftershocks – and it is available right now through the Godine website! Weil's stories powerfully explore the role of immigrants and displaced people though the lens of post-Holocaust Jews scattered across America. It is a moving, artfully constructed collection of stories, translated from the German by John Barrett.

Adam Kirsch wrote of Weil, in The Boston Phoenix, that 'In her desire to bear witness to the Holocaust . . . Weil wisely doesn't attempt to show us what it is like to be a victim or a murderer; [she] shows us what it is to be a bystander. And, as she delicately suggests, we are all bystanders to something.' You can also read Ben Lytal's review of Aftershocks at The New York Sun.

Bob Williams at Three Percent reviewed George Perec's classic avant-garde 'novel', Life A User's Manual. He writes, 'Life is thus a collection of tales – and especially of tales within tales. Despite the persistently urban setting, Life is in the oldest of literary traditions, that of the storyteller. . . . a masterful assembly of lunatic scholars and assorted eccentrics as they pursue slightly or very demented goals. There is humor and humanity in all this and every detail is richly rewarding, the kind of book rewarding enough to forever leave the reader breathless and gratified.'

Skylight Books is a fine local bookstore in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, specializing in literary fiction, cinema, and LA-related titles. This weekend they revive the Revolution-era practice of the salon (what a great idea!), and the topic of conversation just happens to be the catalogue of David R. Godine, Publisher.

To wit, 'Yearning for witty repartee and intellectual stimulation? How about wine and hors d'oeuvres? Come join us for our new monthly series, Skylight Salon, where our staff shares their faves from small presses and independent publishers. A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. This month: Monica highlights the David R. Godine, Inc., a sweet little publishing house out of Boston, MA that puts only the best fiction and nonfiction that wouldn't get published otherwise. Home of Black Sparrow Books as well as Verba Mundi, this a diverse publisher with a superb list of beautifully bound books with intellectual weight.'

Linda Bamber Reading

Black Sparrow's own Linda Bamber, author of the debut collection of poetry Metropolitan Tang, will be reading at the legendary Blacksmith House at 56 Brattle Street in Cambridge this upcoming Monday, April 28, at 8:00 pm. She will be reading with fellow poet Ann Killough. If you're in the area on Monday night, we hope to see you there!

Jonathan Williams

We were sad to hear of the recent passing of Jonathan Williams, a wonderful avant-garde author and photographer, and the founder of The Jargon Society Press. He was a student of Black Mountain College, like so many of the great artists of his generation, and as an independent publisher supported the careers of many important authors: Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, Denise Levertov, and Robert Duncan, to name a few. In 2002 Godine published a selection of his photographs accompanied by short biographical entries, entitled A Palpable Elysium. Included within are portraits of Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and others. We offer the book at a special rate through our website, in honor of this American original.

Leland Kinsey – Burlington Free Press

Sally Pollack at The Burlington Free Press reviews Leland Kinsey's new collection of poems, The Immigrant's Contract in the "Big Ideas" section. She writes that 'Kinsey's book-length poem functions nonetheless as biography and history – and as an original and riveting form of both. His work is a strong and moving evocation of a person, a place and a way of living that exist no longer.'

Motion in the Times II

Another review of Andrew Motion's memoir In the Blood in the New York Times today. Richard Eder writes that 'Andrew Motion, Britain’s current poet laureate, has written a childhood memoir that is Arcadian in the first or golden sense, though not without pain. . . . The memoir’s energy lies less in a vital urge to face the past than in an urge to shape it with language.'

Arthur Krystal Interview

At BiblioBuffet, there is a great interview with Arthur Krystal, and some very kind words about his collection of essays The Half-Life of an American Essayist. Lisa Guidarini writes, 'Whether writing on topics such as beauty, sin or laziness, literary essayist Arthur Krystal embodies the very best of what the essay should be: informative, interesting and eclectic. Elucidating his subjects by way of his at literary yet accessible style, his refreshingly snarky wit shines through in a way that’s completely endearing. It’s hard to imagine a more delightful or appealing combination in an essayist.'

The Immigrant's Contract, Kingdom Books

Kingdom Books in Vermont has posted a very nice review at their website of our upcoming collection of poems The Immigrant's Contract, by Leland Kinsey. Beth Kanell writes, 'There it is: That taste of a tongue that's word-swollen from another time and another experience. . . . Here's what Philip Levine might sound like if he'd been raised among the water and wood mills of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, instead of finding his way in the factories of Detroit.'

Toad to a Reviewer

Toad to a Nightingale, Godine's second collaboration of the brothers Leithauser, was reviewed in the Boston Globe this week, along with XJ Kennedy and Kenneth Koch:

'Light verse of an elegantly whimsical bent has long been a sideline trade for the industrious poet and novelist Brad Leithauser, who nevertheless once likened the genre to the Carolina parakeet, a candy-colored chatterbox that's been extinct for more than a century. One gathers he wasn't entirely kidding, which would explain why he seems determined not to let the charms and graces of larksome versifying die out.

Leithauser's latest collaboration with his brother, Mark, an artist and senior curator at the National Gallery of Art, has the retro feel of a cozy fireside picture book, but it's no antiquarian bauble: Arrayed in eight constellations of sprightly lyric sequences, mainly composed in neatly turned octaves and fine-tuned haiku stanzas, the poems brim with an urbane jeu d'esprit that knows the difference between the winsome and the twee, leaving no doubt as to just how much exacting discipline the delectations of sparkling light verse entail. Bracketing the book's mixed bag of impish bagatelles (ranging from "Periodic Riddles" on "Neon" and "Uranium" to a clutch of eldritch nocturnes called "Furnishings of the Moon") is a lively flyting match between the heralded songster and the lowly amphibian of the title, and anyone with a rooting interest in the survival of poetic wit and fancy should find it heartening as well as fitting that the underdog toad gets the last word: "Earth's fairest dreams are born of earth - / Born sometimes, even in the scummy Ooze of a drainage ditch . . . including those / Where I am your ventriloquist, / And you, my dear, my dummy." '

Congratulations Newton Award Winners

From the desk of The Daily Gazette: 'Swarthmore’s Newton competition is the oldest college book collection competition in the nation. Students vying for the top three places submit annotated bibliographies of their book collection, which are judged by committee of librarians and a faculty member. . . . First-place winner Jake Brunkard’s collection consists of about 65 books published by Black Sparrow Press, an independent press that publishes “underground” literature.' Glad we could help!

In the Blood – NY Times Review

A very nice review of this beautiful memoir by the British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion – Langdon Hammer of The New York Times describes In the Blood as 'superbly clear, intimate and evocative,' and writes that 'The power of this sad, attractively modest memoir comes in his resistance, which can only fail, to the demandthat he grow up.'

Keep an eye on our events listings (to the left of this column) for Motion's readings and appearances in New York this Spring.

Holocaust – The Boston Review

A really insightful and generous review from Kathryn Crim at The Boston Review, of Charles Reznikoff's moving long poem, Holocaust. Crim writes that Holocaust 'remains open like a photograph, shocking and repellent. Unlike a photograph, however, we cannot easily turn away from it; its length demands engagement with these atrocities for the duration and requires us to become – as the poet became – a witness. . . . The reissue of Holocaust and the resurrection of its modest author argues for the kind of moral vision and voice perhaps only poetry provides.'

Country of Pointed Firs

At the So Many Books blog, Stephanie has posted a very sweet review of Sarah Orne Jewett's classic novella The Country of Pointed Firs. Stephanie writes that the book was 'filled with moments that made me laugh. There were some that made me cry too and others that were so beautiful they took my breath away.' In finishing the book, she writes, she 'felt like I was leaving home.' A perfect sentiment. The Godine edition is gorgeously illustrated with by Douglas Alvord.

Jazz & Twelve O'Clock Tales – The Village Voice

The reviews for Wanda Coleman's new collection of short stories Jazz & Twelve O'Clock Tales just keep rolling in. Yesterday in the Village Voice Carol Cooper wrote, 'Coleman's musical ear allows her to capture subtle differences in class, regional origin, self-confidence, and aspiration with every word her characters utter. She reveals the complex inner lives of hipsters and hustlers, actors and addicts, all striving as they struggle with romance, racism, and economics. These portraits are sympathetic but unsentimental, drawn with almost surgical precision to encapsulate problematic aspects of black America's reality. It's Coleman's particular genius to make sense of these puzzle pieces; once she puts them together, they read like a map of psychological trigger points for personal growth and transformation.'

You can also listen to the ecstatic NPR review of the book from 'All Things Considered,' and read the review from Joan Frank at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Every Eye Review

At One Minute Book Reviews, Janice Harayda looks at Black Sparrow's Every Eye, by Isobel English. Jan writes, "This elegant novel might sound like the literary godmother of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. Like that Man Booker Prize finalist, Every Eye is a slender book about an English couple on a honeymoon – in this case, belated – near the ocean. And like On Chesil Beach, it comes from a distinguished British author who writes about how early misunderstandings can reverberate for a lifetime. Yet Every Eye is everything that On Chesil Beach is not – subtle, persuasive and rich in insight."

Blueprint: the Martha Stewart Magazine

Men of Letters & People of Substance got a great write-up over at the blog of Blueprint, the Martha Stewart magazine: "This topographic gem features portraits of distinguished authors composed entirely of the letters in their names. De Vicq de Cumptich (phew!) also chose fonts that he feels capture the spirit of each writer's work – a quill-rendered script for good 'ol Shakespeare and a self-consciously modern-yet-stylish type for Truman Capote." Take a look at the book (and buy it!) at the Godine Website.

Titles Now Available!

The Superior Person's Field Guide to Deceitful, Deceptive & Downright Dangerous Language, by Peter Bowler and illustrated by Leslie Cabarga is a perfect holiday gift for the erudite, the whimsical, and those in your life who simply love language.

In the Blood is the beautiful, moving childhood memoir by British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. In a recent review in the Boston Globe, Barbara Fischer wrote, "The first chapter of this beautiful and brilliant memoir by the present British poet laureate is so moving, gripping, and suspenseful that, needing to discover the result of the accident it describes, I skipped to the last chapter of the book, something I never do."

Catie Copley & Dice K

Catie Copley & Daisuke Matsuzaka

We are not taking credit, or saying it was our good luck, but they did win after Daisuke's daughter received a copy of Catie's wonderful Boston tale...

Men of Letters!

A very exciting Friday here as the new Roberto de Vicq title Men of Letters & People of Substance has arrived. In his follow-up to the widely acclaimed Bembo's Zoo, de Vicq has constructed portraits of his literary heroes, as well as faces of singular emotions, out of the letters and ornaments of more than 100 typefaces – hence the title! Visit the book's page at www.Godine.com and take a peek at some PDF pages from inside the book. We promise once you begin, you won't want to stop.

Andrew Motion's Writing Room

Do you find yourself wondering what the British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion's writing room looks like? If so, you are today in luck – The Guardian offers us this peek, with a tour by the poet himself.

John Banville Giveaway

Today our friend Mark Sarvas at The Elegant Variation is giving away a copy of the Godine edition of John Banville's 1982 novella, The Newton Letters. Godine was one of the first American publishers to publish Banville, and we are extremely pleased that he has found such a devoted following here with people like Mark to champion his books.

Andre Dubus in the Phoenix

Nina MacLaughlin at the Boston independent newspaper, the Phoenix, wrote a nice tribute to Godine author Andre Dubus (1936-1999). You can buy his books on the Godine site. The Phoenix also notes, "'The Times Were Never So Bad: The Life of Andre Dubus,' directed by Edward Delaney, screens as part of the New England Film and Video Festival in Brookline, October 4–8. Visit nefvf.com for schedules and information."

Touched by grace
Andre Dubus’s unending gifts
By NINA MACLAUGHLIN
September 24, 2007 1:53:48 PM

On the train back from New York City late last fall, I held a collection of Andre Dubus’s short stories, a recent gift from a beau. Walking out of a Cambridge bookstore not long before, he had said, “I got you something,” with that mix of pride and nerves that comes with passing along something that you love to someone else, and handed me a copy of Dubus’s Selected Stories. I knew the name — a local guy, Haverhill, it turned out, and the father of novelist Andre Dubus III. But I didn’t know the elder Dubus’s work. So on the train, I started a novella called Rose. And when the violence and emotional heat in that story reached their peak, I put the book on my lap and looked out the window at the passing coast — small bays and crowded harbors and the shadowed backs of old brick buildings, this, around November, when New England’s bones start to show — and I realized my heart was beating faster. The story had quickened my pulse.

As I read more Dubus, special-ordering his story collections from his longtime Boston publisher, David R. Godine, I started to feel for the author as I did for another artist, painter Andrew Wyeth. The two have much in common: realists who believe in ghosts, and who, in their art, grapple with mortality, intimacy, the minutiae of domestic life — dishes in the sink, geraniums on the window sill. Their work is somber but not joyless, sad but not maudlin, controlled but never dispassionate.

But it’s how they portray women that attracts me most. With his Helga portraits, Wyeth captures quiet, loneliness, defiance, confidence, connection. Dubus, even more so, has a way with women. He writes them in a manner that suggests a profound respect, especially for those characters who can only be described as housewives. He is never condescending, and always attuned to their specific complexities and pain. It was Anton Chekhov “who showed me that a woman’s soul has a struggle all its own, neither more nor less serious than a man’s, but different,” Dubus wrote in an essay, “Of Robin Hood and Womanhood,” in 1977. And his women do struggle (though that doesn’t sway me from wanting to be one of them).

“I became so sympathetic to the sounds of pain from the female soul that I went through androgynous periods,” Dubus wrote in ’77. That ability to exist in a character’s head — in their sex — shows. It shows in Edith, from the novellas Adultery and We Don’t Live Here Anymore (which together were the basis of a decent film with Peter Krause, Mark Ruffalo, Laura Dern, and Naomi Watts), who tends to her dying lover while her husband cheats with his best pal’s wife. It shows in the story “Miranda Over the Valley,” when the young title character discovers she’s pregnant. And it shows in Finding a Girl in America, when 19-year-old Lori tells her older lover that her friend, the man’s prior love, aborted what would’ve been his child.

Infidelity abounds in Dubus’s work. Doubt in the ability of men and women to sustain lives together suffuses his stories. The tenor of his writing resembles the crushing realism of Richard Yates, a teacher of Dubus’s at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. (The two often shared drinks at the Crossroads, a bar and restaurant at the corner of Mass Ave and Beacon Street.) But unlike Yates — who was equally admired as short story writer and novelist — Dubus stuck with shorter forms: “I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live,” he wrote in 1977. The disintegration of love gets frequent treatment, sometimes slow, sometimes abrupt and violent, always sad. Dubus himself was married three times. But despite all the women and his affinity for them (inside his stories and out), his writing is not feminine. There’s a muscle to it, a physicality, and a need, spoken or not, presents itself: to be a provider, to be a protector.

Because the violence that his characters perpetrate against each other is not just emotional. Dubus carried a gun with him for many years for “the protection I believed they gave people I loved, and strangers whose peril I might witness, and me,” he wrote in the essay “Giving Up the Gun.” He had good reasons to be armed. His older sister had been raped at knifepoint. And he did witness strangers in peril: he watched a young man smash a 15-year-old girl’s head against a wall because she had spilled soda on his car. He didn’t have the gun on him then, but pulled an axe handle from the trunk of his car, “one that I would use only to prevent or try and stop local violence,” and threatened the boy away from her. He pulled the gun once, in Alabama, at a white man approaching a black man with a knife, but did not need to shoot.

In his stories, though, the violence occurs between intimates. In “Killings,” a story of jealousy and revenge (made into the Oscar-nominated film In the Bedroom), a young man is murdered by his girlfriend’s ex-husband. In the novella The Pretty Girl, one of Dubus’s most powerful, exhausting works, a man rapes and terrorizes his ex-wife. The story’s power rests within Dubus’s ability to allow the reader not to like the main character — for what he does is odious — or even pity him, but to understand him. We can hate what he does, but we cannot hate him; he is flawed, cruel, but human. It is this ability, perhaps even more than his gift with women, that is Dubus’s genius, his truest gift.

In Voices from the Moon, a young boy tells his priest how his father is marrying his ex-daughter-in-law. The priest urges the boy toward compassion and forgiveness. Dubus was Catholic, a devout believer in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and his religion figures heavily in his stories. I did not grow up with God (my mother is a quiet but firm atheist; my father speaks of a Force or Energy more akin to Star Wars than anything to do with the Bible), but the beau who introduced me to Dubus did — and how. My first attempts at trying to understand his background were aided by these stories. Dubus articulates some of the mystery of faith, particularly the profundity of the Eucharist and the importance, within the church and without, of sacrament and ritual. So began a process of undoing the stereotypes and preconceptions I had about church and God and those who believe in the power of both.

In Rose, a man throws his son across a room, then sets the apartment on fire, his two daughters still inside. We are not meant to forgive him. We are not meant to feel compassionate. But we are meant to forgive what his wife, Rose, does in response. She tells her story to a man at a bar, years later. “What had she been sharing with me?” the narrator asks himself after her story’s done. “I believe it was the unexpected: chance, and its indiscriminate testings of our bodies, our wills, our spirits.”

And just so, chance did test Dubus. It was his instinct to aid, to protect, that drew him to pull over on I-93, heading north from Boston to Haverhill, on a July night in 1986, to help two people stuck on the side of the road. While he was helping them, a car swerved on the otherwise empty highway. Dubus pushed the woman out of the way. The man was struck and killed. And Dubus lost one of his legs above the knee, and most of the use of the other one, and was wheelchair-bound until his death in 1999.

The accident changed Dubus’s work. He published two books of essays and one more collection of short stories. The sorrow and anger are more explicit, and the pieces are filled “with the demons that always come on a bad wind; loneliness, mortality, legs.” But they are no less filled with moments of grace. Sacraments pervade these pieces. He writes of making sandwiches for his daughters, the sanctity of bread and meat and mustard, of bringing “our human, distracted love into focus with an act that doesn’t need words.”

A couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday in early September that pushed over 90 degrees, my beau arrived, sweating from the 20-minute walk from Harvard Square. He tossed a book on my bed: Dubus’s final collection of essays, Meditations from a Movable Chair. With that volume, I now had all of Dubus's works. Before I could say thank you, he pulled off his shirt and headed toward the shower. I don’t know God, but this gesture, this gift, felt like one of Dubus’s wordless moments of grace.

Event Photos

Some photos from our event at the Boston Public Library .

Richard Wilbur reading


Barry Moser speaking on the nature of portraits

BPL Event; Next Up

Thanks to everyone who came to our reading for Light Within the Light Tuesday evening at the Boston Public Library. There were 250 people packing the beautiful Abbey Room – standing room only. Donald, Richard, & Maxine were all terrific, as were both Jeanne Braham, our moderator, and the acclaimed artist Barry Moser, who produced the gorgeous wood engraving portraits for Light Within the Light.

Next up:

Saturday, September 15, 2:00 pm & 3:30 pm – At 2 pm Joe McKendry, author of Beneath the Streets of Boston, will appear for a talk & signing at the Boston Globe Children's Book Festival in Copley Square, downtown Boston. At 3:30 pm Ilse Plume, author & illustrator of several Godine titles, will appear at the festival to talk about her book The Farmer in the Dell.

Thursday, September 20, 7:00 pm – Talented brothers Brad & Mark Leithauser will be giving a talk on their collaborations over the years and signing copies of their new collection of illustrated light verse, Toad to a Nightingale, at the Mt. Hoyoke Art Museum. Mark's original illustrations will be on display at the museum for the event.

Green Ginger Lands in Wall Street Journal

The WSJ picked up The Land of Green Ginger (which, by the way, I'll read to my kids one day). Their take:

The Land of the Green Ginger
By Noel Langley
Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone
Godine, 149 pages, $10.95

reviewed by Meghan Cox Gurdon
September 1, 2007

When Aladdin sat on the throne of Imperial China - and yes, gentle reader, he did - it came to pass that a genie informed his handsome son, Abu Ali, of his destiny. Abu Ali's task, the genie explained, was to find the Land of Green Ginger, a magical garden that behaved rather like a flying carpet by floating over the world and only rarely coming to rest. Abu Ali would furthermore have to lift a spell from the wizard who had created this wonderful place. Only then might Abu Ali seek the hand of the loveliest girl in all Asia, Silver Bud of Samarkand. From the start of Noel Langley's amusing tale, first published in 1937, there is no doubt that Abu Ali will succeed, for he is clever, amiable and so precocious that he engages in saucy banter with his astonished father within hours of being born. What makes this familiar hero-undergoing-ordeals-to-win-pretty-girl plot unusually fun are the absurd supporting characters - two wicked rival suitors are named Tintac Ping Foo and Rubdub Ben Thud - and the skilled, playful writing. (The South Africa-born Langley was a playwright and screenwriter whose credits include the script for "The Wizard of Oz.") Here he describes the itinerant garden: "It was sprinkled with ginger trees laden down with branch upon branch of sparkling sugar-coated green ginger; and big bright beauteous flowers grew out of the soft velvety grass, and water-lilies floated on a cheerful little hubblebubbling stream. It was all charmingly rural. No bits of paper, no empty bottles, no initials carved on the tree trunks. You cannot imagine such natural wonders, gentle reader; you must simply take my word for it." The sometimes excessive whimsy of "The Land of Green Ginger" means that it won't suit a world-weary child, but readers ages 6-10 who still love fairy tales are likely to find it very entertaining.

Linger Awhile in New York Times

The NYT recently read Linger Awhile, and here's what they had to say (and draw):

Technicolor Dreamboat
By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
Published: September 2, 2007

(Stephen Savage)

It might seem a strange thing to say about a writer who has spent so much of his working life producing children’s books — more than 60, at last count — but simplicity doesn’t come naturally to Russell Hoban. In his adult novels, of which the 1980 “Riddley Walker” is the best known, Hoban’s default setting is head-splitting complexity: the plotting tends to be fiendishly elaborate, the language dense and punny, the relationship between fiction and reality intricately vexed.

On the face of it, the ingenious “Linger Awhile,” his latest book for grown-ups, is fairly typical of the odd concoctions Hoban likes to cook up in his laboratory: a brief, fanciful narrative about reanimating a dead B-movie Western starlet from the “visual DNA” of a black-and-white videotape, by means of a chemical process the novel’s very mad scientist refers to as a “suspension of disbelief.” This sounds like the sort of thing the French call a jeu d’esprit, and the English call too clever by half — a charge that would certainly stick to a good deal of Hoban’s fiction. Not this one, though. “Linger Awhile” is a friendly, shaggy little thing, eager to please and only a tad smarter than it has to be. It’s too clever by 10, 15 percent, tops.

Hoban is 82, and this is distinctly an old man’s book: cranky, wistful, riddled with mortality. What sets in motion all the monkey business about reanimation is the erotic obsession of an 83-year-old London widower named Irving Goodman with one Justine Trimble, the female lead in an undistinguished ’50s oater called “Last Stage to El Paso.” Irving, in the throes of an “end of life” crisis, brings his well-worn videocassette to Istvan Fallok, proprietor and presiding genius of a somewhat dubious Soho tech outfit known as Hermes Soundways. Fallok, a sexagenarian, falls hard for the svelte cowgirl too, and after restoring her to the land of the (barely) living decides to keep her for himself.

Once Justine has been resurrected — it happens gratifyingly quickly — the novel settles into a relaxed, old-pro routine of genre parody, light irony and gentle philosophizing: nothing too taxing for an aging fabulist and his aging characters. The story starts out as “Frankenstein,” then turns unexpectedly into something more like “Dracula,” thanks to Hoban’s best joke: for Justine to live in full color, rather than in the unnerving black-and-white in which she has emerged from Fallok’s “primordial soup,” she needs blood and plenty of it. And lots of sex, which delights her admirers (until it exhausts them). Jealousy poisons the atmosphere, and things get uncomfortable when Justine’s nocturnal blood-hunts attract the attention of the police, but for the most part the eccentric senior citizens of “Linger Awhile” seem energized by their sci-fi experiment in nostalgia, happy to trade in their tattered-coat-upon-a-stickness for a lustier, more colorful, wider-screened sort of existence. Whatever is clapping its hands and singing here, it’s probably not the soul.

The creature’s charms aren’t lost on the middle-aged either: she has a third passionate fan in Chauncey Lim, a 40-ish purveyor of “optical novelties.” Age notwithstanding, none of these men seem interested in sailing to Byzantium anyway: Justine’s got them all on the last stage to someplace wilder and scarier, where Yeats’s “monuments of unaging intellect” are thoroughly beside the point. This is, in a peculiar way, a fortunate development in Hoban’s fiction, which has in the past sometimes lusted too strenuously for intellectual significance of the monumental, unaging sort. “Linger Awhile” is, for example, enormously more readable — and more affecting — than the novel in which, 20 years ago, Hoban introduced Istvan Fallok, the gnomic, grimly frolicsome “Medusa Frequency.” That book labors mightily to retell the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the strain shows: the wit is arch, donnish, and the deep thoughts about art and life are pretty consistently gaseous. (The fact that most of these fetid pensées spring from a disembodied head of Orpheus, conjured by Fallok and often taking the form of a cabbage or a soccer ball, doesn’t even begin to excuse them.) The pop-culture mythology of “Linger Awhile” has the welcome effect of tamping down Hoban’s instinct for profundity. But it gives him room to show off his true gift for dark farce, with just a spritz of music-hall metaphysics. The pleasantly cheesy Borges-on-Viagra tone suits Hoban’s peculiar talent well.

Artists, like the rest of us, think of old age as an inconvenience, an infirmity, a curse. With novelists, the books tend to get shorter, terser, bolder (or should it be balder?); the writer’s energy isn’t what it used to be, so he cuts to the chase. That last stage runs a fast, direct route through some perilous territory. But age clearly has its benefits for a writer like Hoban, who, in times of greater stamina, displayed a penchant for wandering off course and leaving himself (and his readers) stranded in a lush, obscure semantic wilderness. In one of this book’s most apparently inexplicable turns, Irving Goodman, after losing interest in Justine, begins to have dreams about William Bligh, the infamous captain of the Bounty. The old man finds himself admiring the determination — “plus his practical knowledge and his seamanship” — that enabled Bligh to guide his men to land in a small boat through treacherous waters.

Goodman’s ardor for Bligh seems unaccountable, but in the context of this funny, lucid novel and in the larger context of this writer’s complicated career, it makes a lovely kind of sense. Russell Hoban never longed for simplicity, but now that old age has thrust it upon him he has discovered that he kind of likes it. Or to put it another way, he has finally — in the nick of time — learned to appreciate the value of navigation, of knowing how to arrive safely at the place you set out for: El Paso, Pitcairn Island, Byzantium, wherever.

Terrence Rafferty is a frequent contributor to the Book Review.

Reviews in Publishers Weekly, New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 8.26.07

by MATTHEW PRICE
Published: August 26, 2007

The Half-Life of an American Essayist. By Arthur Krystal. (David R. Godine, $24.95.) Arthur Krystal is not really a go-getter. A self-described “aimless, melancholic, bumptious freelance writer,” he shirks fashionable topics, even if they might bring in a buck. In the engaging title piece of this slim, occasionally stuffy volume, Krystal makes a vigorous case for the virtues of old-fashioned literary criticism, twitting the navel gazers of “creative nonfiction,” which he dismisses as just a fancy word for memoir: “Writing interestingly about Jane Austen requires more imagination than confessing to having slept with someone named Jane Austen from Beaumont, Texas.” Krystal ranges widely, taking on subjects ranging from the typewriter to boxing, and he’s not afraid of weighty topics: he slogs through the notebooks of Paul Valéry, ponders different theories of beauty and offers a defense of the seven deadly sins. (“On the whole,” he writes, “it helps to have sin around; it’s like having a set of instructions for building a life that God approves of.”) In “My Holocaust Problem,” Krystal (whose grandparents died in the camps) complains that the profusion of Holocaust books, films and memorials — “the pomp and circumstance of remembrance” — has trivialized the event. If the argument isn’t terribly original, he subtly ponders the obligations of remembrance. In his charming concluding essay, “Who Speaks for the Lazy?,” Krystal returns to justifying his underachieving ways: “Let’s face it, some boys and girls become writers because the only workplace they’re willing to visit is the one inside their heads.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, 8.27.07

Saint Francis and the Wolf
Jane Langton, illus. by Ilse Plume. Godine, $16.99 (32p)

With a smooth storyteller's pacing and an eye for kid-friendly detail, Langton (The Fledgling) retells the legend of how Saint Francis of Assisi used kindness to negotiate peace between the people of Gubbio and the wolf that was terrorizing their village. Though many tales of Francis's good deeds and selfless service are well known, children especially will gravitate to this story and its elements of suspense. Children stay indoors, warned that “The wolf will gobble you up”: the farmer, the miller and the baker, suffering their own hardships from the menacing beast, frantically express their concern for Francis. And the hungry wolf “licked its chops, dreaming of fat sheep,” while the villagers cower. As a complement to the dramatic tension, the young friar's Dr. Dolittle–like communication with animals also holds much appeal. The book's design goes far in capturing the flavor of Saint Francis's Italy. The font suggests, in a more humble style, the sturdy forms of calligraphy and illuminated letters of the day. On each spread, Plume (The Bremen-Town Musicians) alternates spot illustrations of flowers and plants with slightly larger scenes of Gubbio framed in Renaissance-inspired shapes. Her delicate lines and sunny watercolor palette depict the flourishing flora, fauna and stone dwellings of the Italian countryside. A brief biography of Francis is included, and his “Canticle of the Sun” appears on the end papers. All ages. (Oct.)

Upcoming Event – September 11

We are planning a fantastic FREE event at the Boston Public Library in a couple of weeks and it would be great if you were to join us there.

September 11, 2007
The Abbey Room, Boston Public Library
6:00 pm, FREE
A reading & conversation with former Poet Laureate Donald Hall, Maxine Kumin, and Richard Wilbur. The poets will be reading from their work and then answering questions from the audience. The event will be moderated by Jeanne Braham, author of Godine's Light Within the Light: Portraits of Donald Hall, Richard Wilbur, Maxine Kumin, and Stanley Kunitz. Signed copies of Braham's book will be available at the event. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see three of the greatest poets of this generation reading together, and talking candidly with their admirers.

In the Blood — Review

Publisher's Weekly, week of August 13, has a very complimentary review of the upcoming Godine title In the Blood, a memoir of the childhood of British poet laureate Andrew Motion. To wit:

In the Blood: A Memoir of My Childhood
Andrew Motion. Godine, $24.95 (336 pages) ISBN 978-1-56792-339-1

Motion, Britain's poet laureate, was 16 in 1968 when his beloved mother fell into a coma after a hunting accident and his childhood “ended suddenly.” After this shock opening, Motion recounts the scenes and events of that childhood, which range from warm early memories of growing up “country gentry” in Hertfordshire to being sent off to a Dickensian boarding school—with disgusting food, terrible sanitation and a headmaster who enjoyed beating little boys—at age seven. The book soars into the extraordinary when Motion recounts his early teens. A new boarding school brought a sympathetic headmaster who recognized the potential in the unread country boy's love for Dylan and Hendrix and encouraged him toward poetry. (A heartwrenchingly beautiful scene describes his slow, awed discovery of Thomas Hardy.) By age 15, Motion had made his first real friend and entered a new relationship with his mother, who read eagerly in partnership with him. Motion perfectly conveys the “new faster time” of adolescent thinking and subtly conveys us back to his mother's tragedy with a new understanding of its importance to his entire life.

Head-Start on Gift Ideas

Care of One-Minute Reviews, a head start on your Christmas gift list:

A VERMONTER (OR VERMONTER-AT-HEART) Noel Perrin admits Vermont has “a rotten climate” and other drawbacks as a place to live. But his love for his state – and for New England in general – shines in Best Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer (Godine, $24.95), an eloquent collection of essays on such topics as calving, maple sugaring, and the influx of tourists, introduced by Terry Osborne.

A Browsing Find

As I wandered across the internet seeing if we had any new reviews, I came across this comment by a gentleman named Andy Laties who kindy wrote this about David: "Every time I get a handwritten note from David Godine thanking me for my recent order, I feel this sense of — what — simple reality. Why can't it be a wonderful thing that publishers like David EXIST? ... There ARE great individual publishers out there, and more wading into the business every day."


Thanks Andy.

Hymn to a Comb-Over

* There is a very funny poem by Godine author Wesley McNair at Choriamb. McNair lauds the admirable efforts of retreating hairlines who try to cover their lost territory.

"...Let us praise the sprays
that hold them, and the combs that coax
such abundance to the front of the head"

* Over at Artnet Charlie Finch has posted an review on the George Orwell essay "Benefit of Clergy," – available in As I Please, 1943–45 – in which Orwell tries to come to terms with his own revulsion at the work of Salvador Dalí. Finch writes, "Orwell analyzes Dalí's perversions as a displacement of the need for politcal power." Surrealism was widely reviled by liberal-minded critics of the time who saw art (especially European art of the mid 40s) as a way to publicly stand in opposition to fascism. Marxist critics especially declaimed Dalí's work as bourgeois. All very interesting, from the great journalist of the twentieth century, George Orwell.

Brad Leithauser – NY Review

This month's New York Review has some very fine articles in it, including an excellent essay by Godine author Brad Leithauser on the British poet Louis MacNeice, entitled "The Shadow Man." Brad Leithauser is a poet, and is the author of two titles at Godine — Lettered Creatures and the forthcoming volume Toad to a Nightingale, both volumes of collected light verse, both of which are illustrated beautifully by his equally-talented brother Mark.

On MacNeice, Brad writes, "...what remains for me most memorable about MacNeice is his 'pure poetry'—his shorter lyrics. They make a peculiar group, both in their versification and in their surrealistic effects. It may be with them, in all their harsh and haunting loveliness, rather than with the more nakedly autobiographical longer poems, that MacNeice emerges most distinctly—and with them that MacNeice, burning his brightest, comes out from under Auden's shadow and anyone else's."

Hairy Putter?

In the midst of all the craziness that is surrounding Harry Potter's final turn in the bookstalls, we at Godine kindly remind those of you who aren't as excited that there are other options, and other literary things to be excited about. Take, for example, the July sale at Godine and Black Sparrow, available only through the Godine website.

Can't escape to any exotic destinations this summer? Pick up Black Sparrow's Mirage – a story of star-crossed lovers, a tragedy fueled by petty jealousy, sexual desire, and religious fervor, set in a modern Arab Kingdom. Or how about Six Israeli Novellas? Six works by some of the most important contemporary writers working in Israel.

Even if you can't knock open a fire hydrant, The Brooklyn Novels for just $11.00 will transport you back to those summer days in 1930s New York. Or try a little Emerald Ice to keep cool— Diane Wakoski's fabulous collection of poems selected from her entire pantheon of sexual, self-empowered, mythical and lyrical free-verse (perfect for those idyllic pastoral scenes). Truly a modern classic.

Position Opening Fall 2007

There is a rare job opening here at Godine. We are looking for a Sales Manager to begin this Fall / Winter 2007. All the details can be found on the Godine web site.

On a related note, Godine has – for many years – employed 2-3 interns per season (roughly) each year. We accept applications for Spring, Summer and Fall internships during the preceeding season. It is a fantastic way to gain hands-on experience in a small publisher. The interns here are a vital part of the way this company runs, and have gone on to work in every possible field related to publishing from editors and managers to book reviewers and writers.

All Catie, All the Time

Catie Copley is swiftly becoming the Godine celebrity author. Yesterday, July 16th, Catie appeared on Fox News Boston with Deborah Kovacs, the author of our book, and her handler Jim, the concierge at the Fairmont Copley. She even made the headlines of the Boston Globe, schmoozing down in the Big Apple with Mary Tyler Moore and other fabulous celebrities:

Dog's life leads to Broadway
She made no special demands for her Broadway debut, but Catie Copley, the Fairmont Copley Plaza's canine in residence, was the toast of the ninth annual Broadway Barks cat and dog soiree held on Saturday. Actresses and well-known animal lovers Bernadette Peters and Mary yler Moore presented Catie with a special services award at the event held in the Shubert Alley to benefit the ASPCA and other New York animal shelters . The Labrador retriever made the trek to the Big Apple with her faithful companion Jim Carey, the hotel's director of concierge services. Catie walked the red carpet with Peters and Moore and pose d for photos with a host of Broadway luminaries including Angela Lansbury, David Hyde Pierce, Charlotte d'Amboise, Jo Anne Worley, Christine Ebersole, and Hollywood couple Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna. However, we're told the Boston pooch showed the most tail wagging when meeting Bruiser and Rufus, the dogs from the musical "Legally Blonde."

Punctuating their Origins

Have you ever wondered about the origin of modern punctuation? I happened upon this interesting article, thanks to Outside the Lines, which describes the origins of the ampersand ( & ) and the question mark ( ? ), among other common modern punctuation marks. I've personally always favored the ampersand, especially in more formal contexts, and no wonder since it is derived from a stylized version of the latin et. The explaination for the question mark seemed dubious to me, so I looked elsewhere and found this hypothesis at Wikipedia: "The point has always indicated the end of a sentence. The curved line represented the intonation pattern of a spoken question and may be associated with a kind of early musical notation, like neumes."

Alfred Chester

Hot off the press is Black Sparrow Books' Jamie is My Heart's Desire, cult-icon Alfred Chester's first novel. Chester was a curious fellow. He'd lost all the hair on his head and face from a case of childhood scarlet fever, and was one of the more charming and extraordinary literary men of his time. Fellow BSB author Edward Field wrote an excellent account of Chester in The Boston Review:

"...a doomed, self-destructive, but larger-than-life mad genius, much in the 'outlaw' genre of a Rimbaud, a Genet, or perhaps more pertinently, J.R. Ackerley, the English author famous for his multiple pickups of soldiers, sailors, and guardsmen. In a review, Alfred Chester was described as 'one of the most bizarre characters in an expatriate community (Tangier) where eccentricity was the norm,' and an article about him in a New York paper, recently, was headlined, 'A Charming Monster's Comeback.' "

One of the great figures in American literature at the start of the 1960's, Chester sunk into a solitary world of paranoia and delusion. One has to think of Ginsberg's "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked," written before Chester was lost to his disease, but a vision none the less. Field writes, "He heard voices in his head and exaggerated sounds from outside, making the children's taunting and banging on his fence [in Jerusalem, just before he died] unbearable." Field quotes a reviewer as once writing, "Circle his name with your red pencil. He out-writes such other and better known writers as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Jean Stafford and Saul Bellow."

You can find all the Black Sparrow Books titles by Chester HERE.

Dutton's Brentwood Books

Score one for the good guys. It doesn't happen very often, and I don't feel there is about to be a surge of businessmen's turned hearts, so this particular case is probably one for the scrapbook. On the other hand, I could be (and hopefully am) wrong. The LA Times reports on this Disney-esq, feel-good story:

Billionaire Charles T. Munger said Thursday that he has scrapped plans to build 60 luxury condos on San Vicente Boulevard in favor of erecting a two-story retail complex that would retain Dutton's Brentwood Books in a new and improved space.

"I was wrong," Munger said of his plans, made public in January, to build high-end residential units as part of a mixed-use development at the property just east of Bundy Drive. The idea sparked an uprising among residents and longtime fans of Dutton's, who feared the store's demise.

Munger, 83, said the neighborhood's staunch opposition to the project and concern for Dutton's prompted his change of heart.

"Bookstores are fragile," he said. "Jostle them slightly and they never reopen. The best thing is to make sure it never closes."

Andrew Motion / American Boys

* Soon-to-be Godine author and British poet-laureate Andrew Motion is making the news in Britain. Motion is pressing the new Prime Minister to help keep literary manuscripts in British institutions via tax-incentives.

"The writer has expressed concerns that work by figures including Tom Stoppard, Ted Hughes and Evelyn Waugh, is being snapped up by US institutions. Professor Motion told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that there are 'magical and meaningful' reasons to preserve original documents for the nation. The British Library has said it cannot pay as much as US universities."

He worries that there is a cultural “black hole” developing in Britain because of the loss of these literary-historical documents. I'd never heard of this as a problem, but I'm glad Motion is working to make changes. Intellectuals flock to universities and libraries for manuscripts and letters, even contracts, for research on authors, so having these kinds of papers is much more than a matter of national pride. Collections like the ones to which he is referring can be the building blocks of intellectual communities.

* In other news the Dangerous Book for Boys is topping all kinds of sales lists and recently got a long review in The Weekly Standard. Roger Kimball of the New Criterion writes, "The Dangerous Book for Boys is a book that implicitly endorses Aristotle's observation that courage is the most important virtue because, without courage, it is impossible to practice the other virtues." Too true. The success of Dangerous Book for Boys has created some new interest for our American Boy's Handy Book series.

Dangerous Book for Boys and American Boy's Handy Book are pretty similar. Their aims are to occupy children without the assistance of a TV or video-game system, and maybe even to enbolden them towards courage and virtue, as Kimball writes. The biggest difference is that our retro look comes from the book's being written in the 1880's, and our author – Daniel Carter Beard – was a founder of the Boy Scouts. The Dangerous Book for Boys is more up-to-date in a few ways, with chapters on making a battery and the fifty states (there were only 41 when American Boys was first published), where Godine's Handy Books include things like making blow darts, how to build a number of rafts, war kites, novel modes of fishing, and – my favorite – 12 illustrated pages on snowball warfare. We also have two volumes for boys, the American Boy's Handy Book and its more outdoor companion the Field and Forest Handy Book, and a girl's volume—the American Girls Handy Book.

Ah the joys of childhood.

July Sale!

The Monthly Online Specials page is hot off the html press! In case you don't already know, we hand pick a number of back-list titles each month to sell at a discount only available through www.Godine.com. Think of this month as Godine's summer reads. The discounted titles are:

Adultery & Other Choices, by Andre Dubus, softcover was 13.95 | now 6.00 — Animal Fables from Aesop, by Barbara McClintock, softcover was 10.95 | now 5.00 — The Brooklyn Novels, by Daniel Fuchs, SC was 24.95 | now 11.00 — Emerald Ice, by Diane Wakoski, SC was 19.00 | now 7.00 — The Green Piano, by Janine Pommy Vega, SC was 19.00 | now 7.00 — Here & Elsewhere, The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Burke, SC was 22.95 | Now 11.00 — In the Flesh, by Christa Wolf, SC was 15.95 | now 10.00 — Mirage, by Bandula Chandraratna, SC was 15.95 | now 7.00 — New American Poets, ed. by Jack Myers & Roger Weingarten, hardcover was 21.95 | now 10.00 — The Poems of Charles Reznikoff, SC was 21.95 | now 11.00 — The Riot Inside Me, by Wanda Coleman, SC was 18.95 | now 10.00 — Six Israeli Novellas, SC was 19.95 | now 8.00, HC was 27.95 | now 12.00 — A Year with Emerson, ed. Richard Grossman, SC was 18.95 | now 10.00

From your friendly neighborhood independent publisher.