LISNews: Librarian News

teaperson writes "Although this was discussed already when reported by the Independent, the Christian Science Monitor's book editor, Ron Charles, gives his take on Nicholson Baker's upcoming book:

'The last time a US president and Nicholson Baker appeared in the same sentence, the subject was sex: In 1998, Kenneth Starr discovered that the world's most famous intern had given Bill Clinton a copy of Mr. Baker's erotic novel "Vox."...

Baker's newest work, "Checkpoint," is literary fiction, and

...it carries Michael Moore's case against Mr. Bush to extremes that the partisan moviemaker has never dared approach. It may also be the most specifically articulated argument about killing a sitting US president ever published by a major commercial publisher.'

"

Aleksandar Hemon has written a review of over at Slate. He calls it the worst book he has ever voluntarily read. He says he wrote this review because this scribbling is that it is exactly what you end up with if publishing and fiction writing become a pursuit of cheap hipness and movie rights.

"Perhaps it should be encouraging to young writers to know they are running out of cool authors in New York, so they have to import them from Switzerland. Or to witness that the democratic ideal inherent in literature—everybody has something to say—has reached its limit in Wagner's case: It is no longer necessary to be able to write in order to be a writer."

Fang-Face writes "Here's something that should fan the flames of hysteria. An article about
a book entitled Imperial Hubris . The name of the author is given as "Anonymous". This author, however, is an insider and 20 year veteran of the CIA, and he does not treat the administration kindly, it seems. Although he was also critical of the Clinton administration, so the Bushites can capitalize on that to trumpet, "I Told You So!"

Also, I'm sure that all the conservative leaning among us will be quick to point out that this person's opting to not reveal his name invalidates anything he could possibly have to say, but I will pre-emptively reply to that with Tomeboy's refrain. He has to be allowed to remain anonymous because getting caught speaking out could cost him his job. (Even though the CIA pre-approved the book.) Personally, I think it could cost him his life, given the precedent the Bush administration established by outing Jack Plame's wife."

nbruce writes "There's a review of a fascinating book Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier at Books & Culture. The reviewer commented:

Perhaps what most weighed upon my mind as I read Lockwood's book was his diagnosis of religious responses to the locust plagues. On the American frontier, farmers who faced the oncoming cloud of ruin were forced to ask for aid. At first, they asked the church, and the church responded with prayers. But when it came time to ask for more than prayer, the church shut its doors. As Lockwood states, "Offering up prayers was one thing—giving up wages was quite another."

In the end, the destitute turned to the federal government for their subsistence, eventually raising a series of fundamental political questions that would set precedents for agricultural policy, natural disaster, and federal relief into the present time. Today, we wait for the government to pronounce a "natural disaster"—where "natural" means precisely that.

The reviewer's enthusiasm fades near the end of the book where he thinks the author gets a bit flighty. I haven't read the book, but wondered if it had been 1975 instead of 1875 that locusts devastated the U.S., would the environmental movement have tried to save them?"