Book Junk

In the New York Times they are always grilling people like "What books are on your bedside table?" I have a stack of books on the bedside table but I don't think the New York Times could figure out anything about me by inventorying them. I mainly use them as a kind of pedestal. And then there's a book on top, which is whatever book I currently read in bed. But the ones underneath it have been sitting there for so long that as far as I know they may have fused into a single volume. But! Something interesting happened the other day when I started reading the giant big huge enormous big large big dragon book by Joe Hill. I found that THE PENGUIN BOOK OF SPIRITUAL VERSE, which has long capped the mighty pedestal of books, was too small and flimsy to serve as proper direct support for the hulking dragon book. "Where the hell am I going to put this book of spiritual verse?" I said to myself blasphemously. This story just gets better and better. Well, I moved it to the little table that sits alongside my favorite chair. And that provoked me to do something I haven't done in years, I guess: open it up. And what do you think I saw? An owl? You're right! And it was in a poem I've read before... haven't I? "Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake. And yes, of course, I've read it before. But I guess I haven't read it in at least 14 years, as William Blake has not until now featured in my long list of books with owls in them, begun all that time ago. Or... could it be I just never finished reading this poem before? It's longer than I remembered! My memory of it gives out pretty early, with "A Horse misusd upon the Road/ Calls to Heaven for Human blood"... I feel like every time I get to that part, I kind of sit there and nod thoughtfully for a while... and then do I shut the book? Anyhow, it turns out that a little later on we have "The Owl that calls upon the Night/ Speaks the Unbelievers fright"... a line that does not sound familiar to me at all. I'll tell you something else strange! Are you excited? And have I actually told you anything strange? Well, I noticed for the first time that this Penguin paperback is signed by its editor, Kaveh Akbar. Maybe that's not strange. I don't know why, but I never thought of a Penguin paperback being signed... maybe because the author is almost always dead. Also, I bought it new at Square Books, on an ordinary shelf, not specially marked... and I do always think of Penguin paperbacks as something like... cans of Vienna sausage? I don't expect the person who shepherded those Vienna sausages through the process to sign the can! Although, if someone personally selected each sausage, and nudged them all perfectly and snugly together, which would be analagous to Kaveh Akbar's fine work here... I am too tired to follow this line of thought. In a final bit of book news, the City of Oxford, Mississippi, has, for mysterious reasons, suddenly rescheduled its Christmas parade! The Christmas parade will now occur at roughly the same location and time as my event with Ace tomorrow night! I guess we'll finally find out who's more popular: Ace Atkins or Santa Claus.

Don't Flip Out

Hey, remember when I was reading, oh, let's call it a semi-experimental fragmentary "literary novel" and at the same time I was reading, oh, let's call it a pulse-pounding thriller, and they both mentioned Gogol and everybody got so excited? Well, I finished those two books and started on two more mismatched volumes... this time, a book of academic lectures by John Ashbery and a mystical sci-fi adventure by Philip K. Dick. And hold onto your hats, because THEY both mentioned John Dowland, noted composer of the English Renaissance. Are you flipping out? I need you to get a grip on yourself! Anyway, I have moved on to KING SORROW, a book by Joe Hill about a scary dragon. Now, look. I would have been happier had I not known about the dragon, and I was just reading along for 100 pages like, where is this going, and all of a sudden there is a dragon. That would have been a surprise! But I don't think telling you about the dragon is a spoiler because the big scary dragon is on the cover of the book. All right! So one character in the book offers to go to a place called the Nite Owl and pick up some beer, which I mention for the usual reasons. On the previous page, however, Mr. Hill has informed us that the characters shop exclusively at 7-Eleven. Now we are getting into the kind of stuff that makes me the foremost literary critic of our times. First of all, I never really thought about how to spell 7-Eleven before. Left to my own devices, I would put it like this: 7-11. That's wrong! I thought about it because the novel brings up 7-Eleven enough to make one ponder the spelling. That being said, why does the character offer to go to the Nite Owl instead of the 7-Eleven? Well, the character in question is rather quippy, and maybe he thinks "Nite Owl" has a better ring to it for the quip he is making at the time. I have to say, he's right! Or maybe Joe Hill decided he had mentioned 7-Eleven enough on the previous page. We'll never know! Also, is "Nite Owl" the actual name of a chain of late-night pharmacies or something? That's something else we'll never know, because I'm so lazy.

It's Okay When I Say It

Another advantage of having the hardcover edition of a book you first read in manuscript form is that you can check out the "Acknowledgments" and see if you made the cut. So, Ace indeed gives "Perennial thanks to Jack Pendarvis" (so far so good!) for my "fuzzy memories" (!!!) of "the Atlanta bar scene and life down on Highland and Ponce." I would argue that Dr. Theresa and I supplied Ace with memories of our old neighborhood that were vivid, crisp, and sharp as a tack! I do realize that I described my brain as "fuzzy" as recently as November 9.

Everybody Wants to Read the Book

Hey! I'll be interviewing Ace Atkins about his brand new action-packed novel EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD at Off Square Books on Tuesday at the usual time. Why am I telling you this? Is it because I think the "blog" is a great place to advertise? Hell no. It's because way back in June of 2024 I read the first draft of the manuscript, which had the acronym OWLS in it, a fact with which I tantalized you mercilessly. So now I can finally reveal the source! Which is, as I may not have made clear, EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD by Ace Atkins. I just double checked the beautiful hardcover first edition and confirmed that OWLS is still there, much as Francis Scott Key once excitedly remarked about a flag. I bet that's a big relief. Unlike Dr. Theresa's birthday murder book, in which OWL stood for "Olympic-Wallawa Lineament," Ace's OWLS stands for (I don't think this is a spoiler) "Older, Wiser, Livelier Souls." I wondered: was this something Ace made up? I guess not! I found, for example, an OWLS program in Jones County, Iowa, where "events include snowshoeing, cross country skiing, a hike to discover skunk cabbage... [and] several evening hikes to Codfish Hollow Hill Prairie." Sounds great! I'd include a "hyperlink," but I know it would just become a zombie "link" one day, and anyway, the hike to discover skunk cabbage took place in 2022. I'm sorry to get your hopes up!

Marvelous McNeil's Mad Martian Movie Musings

Anyway, McNeil wrote to say he recently watched the brand new UFO documentary that, I assume, has the very nation abuzz. I said oh, should I watch it, and McNeil said no. His favorite part was how the interviewees were placed in settings that, to quote McNeil, "were all different, but they were all very Dino-ish. Cozy. Sophisticated." With the characteristic adjective "Dino-ish," McNeil alludes to 20th-century entertainment icon Dean Martin. McNeil went on to note that one interview subject was not afforded the same luxury as the others. He, to again quote McNeil, "was in a black t-shirt in front of a chalkboard. Walking around a lake, alone, cold, hands in pockets. Sitting at the foot of some national monument - alone. Hahaha."

Everything Is a Screen

"The appearance of a very small owl?" I don't even feel like telling you why that is phrased as a question in a Lydia Davis book I'm reading. It would be easy to tell you, probably, but it seems like it would require loads of typing. I have this Lydia Davis book sitting by my laptop in my home office, where I used to keep a book because the awful AT&T "internet" stopped working at the drop of a hat, but even though I have better "internet" service now, I still keep a book there, maybe for when I get tired of staring at the screen. Then I can stare at a page, which is really just another kind of screen, isn't it? I should shut my eyes. But isn't that a screen? Isn't everything a screen when you think about it? Who said that? Plato? By now it should be clear I don't know what I'm talking about. Oh! Also, this owl in the Lydia Davis book is an owl she read about in ANOTHER book, so now I have to put THAT book on my big long list of books with owls in them, too. That happens from time to time: from time to time the owl in a book will be an owl from a different book than the book the owl is in. I said what I said.

The Lonely Pelican

You know how I have books just thrown strategically all around the house so I can pick them up wherever I am and fill my noggin with the interesting thoughts that make me so special. So yesterday I read parts of two different books, one a... oh, let's call it an "impressionisitic literary collage"... and the other a crime thriller. And they both mentioned Gogol! You can imagine how I ran around the house waving my hands in the air. Imagine it, I said! But I don't care when a book has Gogol in it. I only care when a book has an owl in it. And you'll say this is cheating, but while reading about Mary Sidney in that Million Dollar Book Club selection, I grew interested in how she translated the Psalms into rhymed English poetry, finishing a project begun by her famous brother Philip Sidney, who had died when... oh, I can't remember. I think he forgot to put armor on his knees when he went into battle? Don't quote me on that! You can look it up and tell me how wrong I am. So, as I say, you'll call it cheating, because I went in knowing that the one psalm I love to babble about all the time has an owl in it. The one that in my King James Bible goes "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert." Well! In the Sidney version it goes "And so I bray and howl,/ As use to howl and bray/ The lonely pelican and desert owl,/ Like whom I languish long the day."