The Mascot by Mark Kurzem

On the last day of 2007, I find it fitting to recommend a truly astonishing book: The Mascot by Mark Kurzem.

To be honest, before I finished this book I was really lukewarm about the books I read in 2007. A few weeks ago I half-heartedly started collecting book recommendations from friends, but most just suggested one title or didn’t respond to my email. I didn’t mind so much because that’s how I felt about my year in reading: I read of lot of good books, but not a lot of great books.

I didn’t read most of the books that have made the Top 10 lists, such as the new one by Denis Johnson or Junot Diaz. I have Michael Chabon’s book on an alternative Jewish state in Alaska on my bookshelf, signed by the author but not yet opened.

In looking at the 35 books or so I have read this year, two stand out. I thoroughly enjoyed David Nasaw’s biography of William Randolph Hearst. It was an epic look at a fascinating man. Before I picked up The Chief, I thought I knew a lot about Hearst. I was wrong.

I also really liked Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I loved her complex characterizations and interwoven stories, which were energized by a compelling mystery. This book isn’t for everyone, though. My husband loved it, but my daughter and a friend were mystified by my recommendation.

But The Mascot wins my book of the year award, not for the writing, but for the story. It is almost unbelievable.

The book tells the true story of Alex Kurzem, a 60ish Australian immigrant. When the book opens, Alex is starting to confront some uncomfortable memories about World War II. For most of his life, he has believed that he was the son of Russian pig farmers. Somehow, during the fighting in Latvia, he was separated from his family. Although he was only five years old, he managed to spend the winter wandering in the forests around his village.

Alex was finally rescued by a battalion of Latvian soldiers, who decided he made a great mascot. They dressed him in an SS uniform and took him around the countryside where they searched for “partisans.” (A euphemism for Jews.) The soliders thought Alex was their good luck charm. From a small age Alex witnessed the murder of hundreds of Jews at the hands of his protectors. He also experienced their kindness and love. He survived the war and emigrates to Australia with a Latvian Nazi family that had adopted him.

One day Alex shows up unexpectedly at the home of his son Mark, who is studying in Oxford, England. Unpleasant memories have started to intrude into Alex’s life and he asks his son for help discovering the source of the visions.

It turns out that Alex, was, in fact, a Jew who witnessed the slaughter of his mother and two younger siblings. Once he was rescued by the Latvian soldiers he had to hide his religion or face certain death.

The Mascot traces the journey Alex embarks on to discover who he is and where he came from. The central question is whether Alex was a victim of the Nazis or an accomplice to killing Jews. While he witnessed many massacres, he never participated in them Besides, he was younger than 10 and totally dependant on the soliders for survival.

I have read a lot of books about the Holocaust, but never one as strange and disturbing as this. It proves the old adage that life is stranger than fiction.

Other recommendations:

My friend and avid reader, Nancy Chirinos, sent me a list of her favorite reads of 2007:

Huck Finn--loved it
Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle
What is the Whatby Dave Eggers
The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
The Sea by John Banville
What the Dead Knowby Laura Lippman
Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
Death in a Strange Country--Donna Leon
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (graphic novel)
The Girls who Went Away by Ann Fessler
Embers by Sandor Marai
Mary by Janice Cooke Newman
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugum
Ben in the World by Doris Lessing
Run byAnn Patchett
Lincoln's Sword by Douglas Wilson
Away byAmy Bloom--loved it

Christmas Books

For the last dozen years or so, our family has had a Christmas tradition around books. Some years we do a book swap, and everyone brings once-coveted hardcovers to exchange. We are an eclectic group of readers, so the books up for grabs range from lots of mysteries and thrillers to cookbooks to books with a more literary bent. One year my brother snuck in a book with a manufactured cover. The title of the fake book was “I.W. Hellman: An Intimate and Comprehensive History” (With Over 500 Photos!)

Now, I had been working on a biography of I.W. Hellman for about three years at that point, and the thought that another book of that topic was already published AND put into a book swap made me roar with laughter. Steven and I must have laughed for 15 minutes over this joke; it was one of the best Christmas presents I ever received.

We still have this book-centered Christmas tradition, although lots of other kinds of presents have slipped into the mix. This year I gave both my brothers books, but not ones they will probably ever read. Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I found two books with “Dinkelspiel” on their covers. One was “Dinkelspiel’s Letters to Looey,” written around 1900 by the author and screenwriter George V. Hobart. The other was called “Lady Rum-Di Doodle-Dum,” written by S.B. Dinkelspiel in 1914.

Now I have no idea who these authors are nor can I find out much about them on the Internet. I always grew up with the delusion that my family was the only Dinkelspiel family. I now know there are Dinkelspiels around the world, including in Sweden where Ulf Dinkelspiel serves in the government. But until recently I never knew Dinkelspiel was a character in a book or an author.

So what books did I get for Christmas this year?

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

That’s it. Only two books! What a drought! How will I survive? More importantly, what changed about our families Christmas tradition that I only ended up with so few books? I definitely must investigate.

Oh course, there’s no real need to feel sorry for me. I have stacks and stacks of books to be read by my bed and even more on my bookshelves. It’s just that I have book addiction. I usually try and curb it by taking books out of the library, but Christmas is one time I can indulge.

Los Angeles Times, Redux

Tim Rutten wrote an interesting piece on Sam Zell’s takeover of the Los Angeles Times, which happened on Thursday. He ruminates over the Tribune Company’s disastrous ownership of the paper, concluding that large corporations make terrible stewards of the news:

“The era of corporate accumulation has been an unmitigated disaster for American journalism. Money has flowed like a fiscal Mississippi into the pockets of investors and fund managers, draining one newspaper and TV station after another of the resources necessary to serve their communities' common good. Nearly every American newspaper and local television station sucked into one of the chains -- from the largest to the smallest -- during that period is today a lesser journalistic entity of less real service to its audience than when it was acquired.”

Does the West Coast Drive American Literature?

The National Book Critics Circle is taking a show on the road and they are bringing it to San Francisco.

For those unfamiliar with the group, it's a collection of independent - and influential - book reviewers. Each year they nominate works in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry for an award. It's considered one of the most prestigious literary awards in the country.

The NBCC board will hold its board meeting in San Francisco in early January and announce the finalists at City Lights Books at 6 pm Saturday January 12.

Before that, though, the group is holding a series of seminars that examine the literary world. I am particularly interested in going to this one:

NBCC LitPanel #3,111 Minna Gallery, Zappa Room,6:30 pm

THE VIEW FROM HERE: IS THE WEST COAST DRIVING AMERICAN LITERATURE?

The jumping off point for this discussion is the comment Sam Tanenhaus made to NBCC board member Ellen Heltzel of BookBabes when he became editor of the New York Times Book Review.Oscar Villalon, San Francisco Chronicle Book Editor and NBCC board member moderates.

PANELISTS
Andrew Sean Greer, novelist (THE CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI, THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE)
Mary Ann Gwinn,Book Editor, Seattle, NBCC board member
Ellen Heltzel,BookBabes, Portland, NBCC board member
Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly, NBCC member
David Ulin, editor, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Blog Fatigue

I note blog fatigue setting in.

Longtime blogger and noted success story (he gets thousands of hits a day) Ed Champion has declared the end to Return of the Reluctant.

“This morning, I filed for divorce from Return of the Reluctant, citing irreconcilable differences. It was an amicable parting. No children, no property to squabble over. No embarrassing deposition testimony read to the jury. No alimony. Reluctant and I have had ourselves a good time over the years. But I’m a different person now. And I finally confessed to a good friend on the phone that I really had nothing more to say about books or the literary world in the Reluctant format. And I laughed for ten minutes over how absurdly simple the choice was. When something stops being fun, it’s pretty easy to become decisive.”

My blog has been limping along, although I am trying a bit harder. My friend Tracey Taylor, who writes Not a Soccer Mom, is spending more time at her professional blogging gig than her personal one. She writes a blog about real estate for Redfin Realty. It’s actually very entertaining.

Elizabeth Speiers, who started the MediaBistro line of blogs, admits she is missing in action.

"I don't really blog anymore, so when I update here, I tend to cram a bunch of little things into one post so that my mom and the two other people who check this site regularly can get everything in one go."

Goodbye, Kitty Cat

I have death on my mind today, as my cat was hit and killed by a car yesterday. I went out on a walk in the early morning and then picked up my older daughter from a friend’s house. When we pulled into the driveway, she saw Cuddles lying prone on the front steps. He looked as if he could be sleeping, but unfortunately he was not.

Our entire family feels torn apart. We all had different relationships with Cuddles and used to joke about which cat each of us loved more – Cuddles, a gray 8 year old tabby, or Owen, a 16 or 17 year old brown tabby. Now those jokes seem hollow.

Of course I always knew I would feel bad when one of the cats died. But what makes Cuddles’ death so difficult is its unexpectedness. We were all conducting our lives normally and then – WHAM! – someone we loved was gone.

Life is so ephemeral. We just tend to forget it in good times.

There was no note, no message from the driver of the car. Either they were deliberately cruel or were unaware they hit a cat.

We buried Cuddles underneath a California lilac bush in our backyard. My husband could barely look at his body; he loved him so much. My daughters gathered rocks to put on his grave. Charlotte wrote his name on a flat rock. Later on, we put down flowers. They look so lonely in the rain.

What Good is the Web Anyway for the Book Business?

The Internet has been around in full force for about 20 years and reporters are still trying to figure out how it impacts the publishing industry.

If you look at a recent article in the newspaper amNew York, you will learn that being a popular blogger does not necessarily make you a popular author.

But if you look at another article, this one in the New York Times, you will discover that having a hot property/topic/subject on the web can make you a best-selling author.

Huh?

Which is it? The web is a bust. The web is a miracle.

I guess I would have to say neither and say it is time to stop writing these kinds of articles. Isn’t it obvious by now there is no foolproof, sure-fire way to sell a book? Those bloggers with big names, like Ana Marie Cox, formerly of Wonkette fame, and Jessica Cutler, formerly of Washingtonienne fame, couldn’t translate their on-line popularity into bestseller-dom. Their smaller-than-expected book sales even came after there had been dozens of articles written about them.

Yet the New York Times has a story today that argues some people who have given their work away for free on the web have become bestselling authors. Diary of a Wimpy Kid has been available at www.Funbrain.com for three years. It was released in hardback in April and has gone on to sell almost 150,000 copies.

In some ways I find this encouraging. It means people aren’t persuaded by corporate media hype – at least not all the time. They find books that are quirky and distinctive, even though some of those books don’t seem commercial.

Of course, when I went out to sell my book (or my agent did) I tried to capitalize on the fact that I had a blog. I think I included a reference to it in my marketing materials. When the deal was announced on Publishers Marketplace, I characterized myself first as a blogger and then as a reporter.

It was a waste of time. Although I enjoy blogging for my ability to write about anything at any time, it certainly hasn’t raised my public profile in any significant way. That could be due to my shortcomings or to the fact that there are just too many darn blogs out there for one to really matter. (I prefer to think it’s the latter reason, not the former)

There just is a lot of noise in the world and the fantasy of using the Internet to break through is just that, a fantasy. Everything comes down to word of mouth, from movies to books to new restaurants.

I guess the phone is still a good invention.

Kite Runner, the Movie

I got to see a sneak preview of “The Kite Runner” with 150 kids from my daughter’s high school. We all walked up Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley to the Pacific Film Archive, a process that took about a half an hour and crowded the city streets.

The kids were all from Berkeley High’s International High School and they had just finished reading The Kite Runner. With the book fresh in their minds, they turned out to be harsh critics of the film.

I would say the film is a lot like the book: Manipulative, predictable, but it pulls your heart strings. The acting is very good, especially Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, the two boys who play Amir and Hassan, the central protagonists in the book. They are sweet and innocent in the film and effectively convey a friendship that crosses class boundaries. (Amir is a Pashtun, a Sunni Muslim and Hassan is Hazara, lower class and a Shia Muslim). The man who play Amir’s father, Hamayoun Ershad and Shaun Toub, who plays his friend, Rahim Kahn, are also very good.

It’s the script that feels forced. I winced at the opening scene where Amir, a grown up, gets two cartoons of his newly published book delivered to his home. He opens the book and the dialogue with his wife is so stilted it’s ridiculous. The script is written by David Benioff, who wrote the fabulous 25 Hours. This is not one of his best efforts.

But the central core of the story – the destruction of Afghanistan and the downfall of a proud civilization – is very moving. Afghanistan was a beautiful, vibrant country until the Soviet invasion, at least according to the film. The Soviets destroyed the place and the Taliban finished it off. (There is no mention of the time in between when the war lords were engaged in a bitter, violent, civil war.)

The high school kids disliked the film for all the parts of the book it left out. In the book, Hassan has a hare lip and his father is disfigured and the gap between the ruling and lower classes in Afghanistan is much clearer. In the film, the small Hassan is adorable and seemingly as educated as Amir. In the book, another central figure tries to commit suicide. There is no mention of that in the film.

The actors in the film mostly speak Dari, a dialect of Persian, and it will be interesting to note audiences reaction to a film with so many subtitles. It was great for a group of high school students in a program that emphasizes internationalism, however.

Another pleasure of this film is seeing all this terrific Middle Eastern actors. Where have they been? They were uniformly engaging. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Atossa Leoni, who plays Amir’s wife. Khalid Abdalla, who plays the grown up Amir, also was terrific. These actors deserve to be cast much more frequently, not just relegated to ethnic roles. We live in such a multi cultural world. Let’s see a better reflection of our world up on the big screen.

Bay Area Book News

Mill Valley writer David Sheff’s new memoir will be featured at 6,500 Starbucks around the country. Beautiful Boy tells the story of his son’s addiction to methamphetamine.

Julia Flynn Siler’s book The House of Mondavi has been named by BusinessWeek as one of the ten best books of 2007.

Andy Ross, the longtime owner of Cody’s Books, has stepped down as president. He said the changing nature of the book business has tired him out.

Chronicle reporter Lance Williams and former Chronicle reporter Mark Fainaru-Wade (who now works for ESPN) sold the rights to Game of Shadows to HBO Films.

Former San Francisco police chief Earl Saunders and his co-author Bennett Cohen have sold the film rights for their book, The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness and Civil Rights to Dreamworks.

Grotto founder Po Bronson won a first place award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his New York Magazine article on parental praise. Bronson also sold a book on the topic to Jonathan Karp at Twelve.

A Perfect Tree

Did you know that the American chestnut tree once spread from Georgia to Maine? Its green canopy was so dense that people talked about how a squirrel could traverse thousands of miles through the tree tops without ever stopping? The tree was such a perfect specimen that its wood was used for everything from fence posts to furniture and its nuts were prized for their sweetness and nutritional value.

Unfortunately, the American chestnut tree is almost extinct, felled by an blight that was inadvertently brought to the U.S. on an Asian variety of chestnut. While the virus did not seriously damage the Asian trees, it killed off millions of acres of American chestnut forests.

The death of the American chestnut tree struck those living in Appalachia particularly hard. The tree was well-loved and well-used in the mountains of Virginia, and its disappearance transformed the culture of the region. Old timers in the area still talk reverently about the tree, as if it were a living, breathing creature.

I didn't know any of this until I read Susan Freinkel's fascinating book, American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. Freinkel, a science writer whose work has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Discover, Health, and Reader's Digest, movingly recreates the history of the tree. The book also documents the work of a cadre of scientists dedicated to saving the tree. Even though there are just a handful of American chestnuts left -- none of which are healthy enough to produce nuts -- there are men and women in the United States who refuse to let the species die.

Freinkel's book also touches on another theme. What responsibility do humans hold to try and preserve species? If they die naturally, is our obligation different than if they died because of human-related causes?

I went to Freinkel's book release party a few weeks ago. She is a member of North 24th, my writing group, and we held a celebration for her. The guests were a cross-section of Bay Area media types. Mary Roach, the author of the bestsellers Stiff and Spooked, was there. She wrote a blurb for Freinkel, calling American Chestnut "a perfect book." Nan Weiner, the executive editor of San Francisco Magazine came, as did my brother, Steven Dinkelspiel, the president of the magazine. Jim Steyer, who started Common Sense Media, showed up, as did Betsy Blumenthal, an avid reader and executive at Kroll Associates.

Unfortunately, the story of the American Chestnut tree is not unique. Other species, such as the elm tree, have been decimated by disease. The California coastal oak is under attack. Thousands of those trees are dying from a mysterious blight that can't seem to be stopped.

But Freinkel's book is not a downer. The scientists determined to find a cure for the chestunt blight or to create a hybrid strain that can resist attacks againt it are inspirational. I hope they succeed.

Authors' Inscriptions

Lynne Johnston has been drawing the comic strip “For Better or Worse” for 30 years. It’s the evolving story of an apple pie, middle-class, Canadian family named the Pattersons. In the last year, Johnston has had one of her characters, Michael, write a novel, find a publisher, and see it in print in record time.

During the last few days, the strip has shown Michael signing his book at a bookstore. There have been a number of jokes about what he signs for each reader, which made me wonder what real authors sign in their books.

While many authors just sign their names, many include a pithy phrase that is linked to the theme of their books. My friend and writing group partner Susan Freinkel just came out with a book called American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. She signed one of my books: “Here’s to Rebirth,” and then her name.

The question of how to inscribe a book is not trivial. Imagine having to sign over and over again. Would you rather just sign your name and save your hand or write something that is going to bring you and your reader a little closer together?

I looked through my shelves and found a number of authorial autographs. They are fairly varied from the unadorned to the lengthy. Some of these inscriptions are rather personal, which in most cases means I knew the author slightly. I wouldn't say any of them are close friends, yet their inscription feel intimate.

From Michael Pollan, from his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

“4-26-06, For Frances, Fellow Writer, Vote with your fork.”

From Sean Wilsey, who wrote “Oh The Glory of It All.”

“For Frances, It’s all crazy true life in here, but it turned out more or less OK. Thank you for reading and blogging.”

Daniel Handler as Lemony Snicket inscribed his first book to my daughter using an embossed seal that said “The Library of Lemony Snicket.”

Then he wrote “To Charlotte, a future orphan.”

From Sandy Tolan, author of The Lemon Tree:

“To Frances, with warm wished to an admired colleague.”

From Jason Roberts, author of A Sense of The World:

“To Frances, A Fellow (ink-stained) Traveller.”

From Kemble Scott, author of the novel SOMA

“To Frances, From One Author to the Next.”

From Julia Scheeres, author of Jesus Land:

“To Frances, Thanks for Reading!” Julia

From Michael Patrick MacDonald, author of Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under.

“To Frances, Much Peace and Many Blessings.”

Michael Chabon, Alan Alda and Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries, all just signed their name.

Which one works best?

I’d have to go with Pollan’s “Vote with your fork.”

Why the Lack of Communication

Sorry for the radio silence. This has been the longest I've gone without posting -- a record 27 days. I have my reasons, believe me. I haven't been lazy, or on vacation, or reading up a storm. No, nothing really fun like that.

I have been finishing my book. I started this project seven years ago and can't quite believe it's coming to an end. I've had my share of ups and downs -- the editor who acquired the book left St. Martins and my new editor had so much backlogged work it took him many months to read my manuscript. Waiting to hear what he thought was excruciating.

The good news is he liked Towers of Gold. He returned his comments to me in late October and I have spent the last three weeks working like crazy. I feel like this is a term paper and I have to pull consecutive all-nighters to finish. I didn't really have many substantive changes to make, but like all writers, I love to tinker. I could play around with words endlessly, changing adjectives here, tightening descriptions there.

I haven't quite let go of the book, but think it will be complete very, very soon. Like in the next few days. I will still have to gather photographs and all that sort of stuff, but the writing and thinking will be finished.

The book is 133,000 words and about 450 pages. I am not sure how many pages that will turn out to be in book form. But Isaias Hellman's life was pretty fascinating and I tried to highlight lots of good parts. Readers will learn about Los Angeles when it was still a dusty pueblo; ferocious rain storms and droughts, the Nevada Silver boom, the Huntington family and Southern Pacific, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the ensuing graft trials. World War I and the influenza epidemic and most importantly, the Jewish contribution to the settlement of California.

(This is MY blog, so I can plug my own book, right?)

Anyway, hello again.

A Blog Becomes a Movie

Well, we've seen blogs made into books, but I believe we have a new first: a blog made into a movie.

Apparently, Hollywood is going to make a film based on the blog by Julie Powell, who wrote about her attempt to make every recipe in Julia' Child's cookbook, the Art of French Cooking. The blog became a best-selling book, and now Meryl Streep is set to play Julia Child in the movie. Nora Ephron wrote the script and is directing.

Fire, Fire, Everywhere

View of the fire from satellite.

I can't stop obsessing over the southern California fire, which is probably no surprise since I lost my house in the 1991 Oakland Hills fire. I know just how these people are feeling: torn between happiness they are alive and shock they have lost their way of life. In many ways it is worse for them. The Oakland Hills fire raged for a day. I knew by 4 pm that my house had burned down, one of 2,800 dwellings turned to ash. Some of the people in San Diego County left their homes three days ago and still don't know their fate. They must be in pure agony.

Jews and Books

If it is late fall, it must be Jewish Book Season.

Every year towards the end of October, Jewish organizations around the country bring together dozens of Jewish authors for day-long book fairs. In California, there will be at least three fairs happening almost simultaneously, one in Contra Costa County, one in San Francisco, and one in Los Angeles.

It’s no coincidence that the fairs happen at the same time because the events are partially orchestrated by a group called the Jewish Book Council. The group was founded in 1925 by a Boston librarian who arranged a display of Jewish-themed books and called the event Jewish Book Week. The idea was formalized and retooled, and today a subsidiary of the Council, known as the Jewish Book Network, helps coordinate 70 book fairs around the country featuring 160 authors. It’s a $3 million industry and the major way for those with Jewish-themed books to reach a targeted audience.

That makes the Book Council’s director, Carolyn Starman Hessel, one of the most powerful people in publishing, even though she has nothing to do with the actual printing of any book. If the axiom that Jews buy a lot of books is true (and I’ve heard that while Jews only make up 2% of the population, they buy 20% of the hardcover books) Hessel is a woman who influences the reading choices of thousands of Jews around the country. If she likes your book, she stands behind your book. A lot of people listen to her opinion.

It used to be that Hessel would go to Book Expo America and interview various authors to see if they would be appropriate for Jewish Book festivals. Then she would talk to coordinators around the country and recommend names and titles for the book fairs.

That informality is long gone. Now authors literally audition for a slot in a Jewish book festival in a process that Rachel Donadio of the New York Times Book Review described as “a combination of “The Gong Show” and speed-dating.” Each year, authors get about two minutes to pitch their book and convince Hessel and other book fair coordinators that they will entertain and inform audiences. While subject matter counts, so does an author’s ability to deliver a rousing talk.

Hessel’s “tours have also helped kick-start the careers of promising young novelists including Nathan Englander, Myla Goldberg, Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer,” writes Donadio.

“Hessel has an “uncanny ability” to get people enthusiastic about Jewish books, said Krauss, who first went on a Jewish Book Network tour to promote her 2002 novel, “Man Walks Into a Room.” “If ‘Finnegans Wake’ were even a little Jewish, Carolyn could convince thousands of people in J.C.C.’s across the country to read it.”

I met Hessel a few years ago as she accompanied two of her favorite authors on a small book tour. Samuel Freedman, whose most recent book was Who She Was, a memoir about his mother, and Ari Goldman, who had just written Living a Year of Kaddish, toured synagogues and community centers on the West Coast. Hessel, a diminutive, well-coiffed woman, was there in the audience, cheering them on and promoting their books.

The San Francisco Jewish Community Center BookFest tour will be on November 4^th at the Jewish Community Center on California Street in San Francisco. It is free, and will feature many stellar authors, including Michael Chabon, Shalom Auslander, whose new memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, is drawing rave reviews, (and was strongly promoted by Hesel) Dalia Sofer, who wrote The Septembers of Shiraz, Steve Almond, author of Candy Freak and the essay collection Not That You Asked, and Michael Wex, who is following up his hit book Not to Kvetch with Just Say Nu.

The Contra Costa County Jewish Book and Art Festival runs Oct. 30 through Nov. 15 and features KQED host Michael Krasney and Berkeley author Peggy Orenstein, among many others.

In Los Angeles, the University of Judaism is hosting the first Celebration of Jewish Books from Nov. 5^th-11^th. Authors include Michael Chabon, Tony Kushner, Daniel Handler, and Daniel Mendelsohn, among others.

Check out Jewish book events in your area.

Literary Tidbits

Doris Lessing wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is a choice I can relate to, as I read and reread The Golden Notebook numerous times in my early 20s. I haven’t read her recent books, I confess, which are science fiction.

Jeffrey Toobin blames the success of his new book on the Supreme Court, The Nine, to his ineptitude as a novelist. (via Galleycat)

Litquake is upon us! I intend to go to the pub/reading crawl on Saturday with my writing group, North 24^th. One of the members of our group, Julia Flynn Siler, will be reading from her House of Mondavi. It’s about the winemaking family and they have put her with a group of other authors who write about food, including Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters. The panel's title is Tasting Course: Authors Write About Food & Wine.

Once again the Lit Crawl is an embarrassment of riches. (The schedule is here.) There are too many authors to hear and the ones I want to see all seem to appear at the same time. Some conflicts I am mulling: do I go to the panel on Heydey Press and California history or the one on bad girls acting out? The latter is sure to be a hoot with Joyce Maynard, Ellen Sussman, Mary Roach, Lolly Winston and Lisa Taggert. But I am writing a book on California history and consider the Heydey authors my compadres.

In another time slot, it’s writers from the Grotto versus writers from Bay Area Word of Mouth, a group of highly accomplished published women writers. (I am nominally a member although I mostly lurk and read their emails.)

Last year I adored the Grotto presentation. Marianna Cherry was a special surprise and she will be reading again this year. I’d love to hear Gerard Jones and Andy Raskin as well.

The WOMBA list is equally tempting. There’s Meredith Maran, whose work I have adored since What It’s Like to Live Now, Harriet Scott Chessman, who I just met the other night, Lalita Tademy, a class act if I ever saw one (I did a profile of her for People Magazine about Cane River. It was a wonderful assignment) and many more.

Of course I could skip those and hear mystery writers Cara Black and Cornelia Read, two more authors whom I enjoy.

Help!

Journalists Come Together To Investigate Chauncey Bailey's Murder

Good news on the investigation into Chauncey Bailey’s murder. An ad hoc group of reporters from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and various newspapers, radio and television stations are banding together to investigate the murder.

The group, led by former Chronicle Managing Editor Robert Rosenthal, plans to investigate past and current activities of the Bey family and other issues that impact Oakland residents. The investigation will be called the Bailey Project in homage to a project launched after the murder of another journalist, Don Bolles, in 1976. Bolles was investigating the workings of the mafia for the Arizona Republic when his car was bombed. After his death, scores of reporters came to the state to continue his work and the investigation was known as the Arizona Project.

"We cannot stand for a reporter to be murdered while working on behalf of the public," Dori J. Maynard, president and CEO of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education told Editor and Publisher. "Chauncey's death is a threat to democracy. Journalists will not be intimidated. This type of crime cast a chilling affect over our community. We will not be bullied. We have to prove that there is no gain, and hell to pay, when the very structure of our society is challenged."

Journalists from the following organizations are participating in the Chauncey Bailey Project:

Bay Area Black Journalists Association
Bay Area News Group
Center for Investigative Reporting
Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.
KGO-AM
KPIX-TV
KQED Public Radio
KTVU-TV
Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
National Association of Black Journalists
New America Media
New Voices in Independent Journalism
San Francisco State University Journalism Department
San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Jose State University Journalism Department
Sigma Delta Chi of the National Society of Professional Journalists
Society of Professional Journalists - Northern California Chapter
University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism

Finally, a "Why" to Chauncey Bailey's Murder

I gave the local newspapers a hard time after the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey. I was dismayed and a little surprised that no Bay Area paper tried to uncover the facts that led to Bailey’s assassination. I ascribed the indifference, in part, to the recent media consolidation that left the region with just two newspaper chains – The San Francisco Chronicle, owned by Hearst Corp. and Dean Singleton's MediaNews.

It’s been more than two months since Bailey’s murder and the Chronicle redeemed itself today with a story explaining the rise and fall of the Bey family and their Black Muslim Bakery. This is the story that Bailey was apparently reporting when he was killed. It’s a nicely done story by Erin McCormick and Jaxon Van Derbeken as it touches on many of the issues that make this killing so disturbing – the rise and fall of Yusef Bey’s empire, his children’s hoodlumism, the inability of the police to stop their crime spree. It’s kind of shocking that no one was able to stop the violence.

Part One was a profile of Chauncey Bailey.

Bay Area Book Deals

There have been some interesting book sales by Bay Area authors in recent days, one for a first-time author for more than $1 million. (From Publisher's Marketplace)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Patrick Dillon and Carl Cannon's CIRCLE OF GREED: The Rise and Fall of the Most Feared Lawyer in America, about the rise and fall of Bill Lerach of Milberg, Weiss, Lerach, once the leading class-action lawyer in America and now a convicted felon, a morality tale of greed and corruption in the legal and corporate worlds, set against the biggest financial boom in our history, pitched as in the spirit of Conspiracy of Fools and The Brightest Boys in the Room, to Phyllis Grann at Doubleday in a significant deal, in a pre-empt, by Andrew Stuart at The Stuart Agency (NA).

Patrick Dillon is the editor of California Monthly and a former editor and columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Carl Cannon is a native of San Francisco, but he spent his reporting career elsewhere.

Former San Francisco Chronicle reporter and Global Warming Fellow at the Goldman School of Public Policy, Robert Collier's first-hand account of China's disastrous "carbon footprint," TOO HOT: China's New Economy and Global Warming, to Naomi Schneider at the University of California Press, for publication in 2008, by Amanda Mecke at AMecke Co. (world English).

Robert Collier spent 16 years at the Chronicle and left in August in the recent wave of buyouts and layoffs.

San Francisco MD Josh Bazell's debut novel BEAT THE REAPER, a genre-bending thriller narrated by a charismatic and dangerous hitman-turned-doctor, to Reagan Arthur at Little, Brown, in a major deal, for seven figures, for publication in July 2009, by Markus Hoffmann at Regal Literary (NA).

UK rights to Jason Arthur at William Heinemann, in a good deal, at auction, for one book, by Lauren Pearson at Regal Literary (UK/Commonwealth).

Dutch rights to Pieter Swinkels at De Bezige Bij, in a pre-empt.

Dr. Josh Bazell works in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF.

Buying Books versus Taking Them Out from the Library

In the last five days I have spent more than $100 dollars on books, not a huge sum, but not a small one either. I bought Scott Kemble’s Soma, Jason Roberts’ A Sense of the World, Kevin Devlin’s The Numbers Behind Numb3rs, Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, Charles Shields’ Mockingbird, and Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn. They were all paperbacks.

In the same period, I took three books out of the library: Ann Packer’s Song Without Words, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and David Oshinsky’s Polio: An American Story.

Looking at this small sample, it seems that I buy more books than not. But the opposite is the case: I rarely buy hardbacks, unless they are by my friends, and I only occasionally buy paperbacks.

As an aspiring author who hopes lots of people will buy my book, how do I defend this position? I admire and respect so many writers and I root for them and cheer them on even when I don’t know them. This should translate to buying lots of books, but it doesn’t.

When I first started this blog I wrote about my obsession with working the hold lists at various libraries and the rental bestseller list at the bookstore A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland. The bookstore no longer has a rental program, much to my dismay, but I have continued to finesse the books I have on hold at the Berkeley and Oakland libraries. I can’t tell you how much pleasure I get from hearing about a book and then rushing to reserve it, gaining a third or fourth or occasional first place in line. If I don’t rush, there can be 30 to 40 holds on a book.

I could go out and buy these books, but I get a lot of satisfaction from the chase. It’s perverse, and doesn’t support authors, but it gives me purpose in life. How many people think about their library hold list a few times a day? Not many, I can guarantee.

For the last few weeks, I have maxed out the number of holds I can place with the Berkeley Public Library. The limit is 16, although a librarian told me yesterday the limit might soon go to 60! So I have had to cancel some books I had reserved (sorry Martha Raddatz, but your book on the Iraq war was just taking too long. Ditto Nancy Horan. A friend I respect told me she found Loving Frank a bit contrived) Just yesterday I added Shalom Auslander’s new memoir to the list, so I am maxed out again.

Here is what I am waiting for:

What you Have Left by Will Allison

He’s taught fiction at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers a few times. I’ve heard him read before, and he is wonderful. His publisher took out a full page ad in the New Yorker touting this book, but I don’t know if it has gotten much recognition. (Oops, I just checked and saw this book has been declared lost. Now I may never get it.)

Four Seasons in Rome: on Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr. He is the son of the novelist Harriet Doerr. I heard this one was great. It’s a memoir about the time he spent at the Rockefeller Foundation on Lake Como.

The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt. This is a novel about Britain during World War I and an East Indian mathematician. My husband and daughter love math, so I thought they might enjoy this.

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. One of the hits of the season. I could have purchased it for $12 at Costco, but didn’t. What’s worse: buying from a chain or getting it from the library? I bet the author would encourage me to buy, regardless of place.

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. (This, too, is for my daughter, who loved The Lovely Bones)

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta. I really enjoyed Little Children.

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer. My friend Ilana DeBare said not to miss this one.

Trashed by Alison Gaylin. Then there are those books I reserve and can’t remember why. I think this one is a mystery featuring a reporter.

The Genetic Strand, by Edward Ball. I really do love nonfiction and this one could be good.

One Drop, by Bliss Broyard

How Starbucks Saved my Life : A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else by Michael Gates Gill. This sounds hokey but actually has gotten some interesting reviews.

As you can see, my reading tastes are eclectic. I probably should focus but what fun is there in that?