December 17, 2008
Thinking in circles, about big and small presses
As you might have been able to tell by my waffling tone, I was not altogether comfortable with my “Top Eleven Indie Picks of 2008”. Not with the books themselves, for the books are very good, but with the very fact that I made such a list at all. As though the books by independent publishers that I’d read this year were a sideshow, “a subspecies”, or do I even dare to say it, a ghetto? Because I don’t mean to imply any of these things. No, I don’t mean that at all.
The problem is this, I think. That my original Top Eleven Picks of 2008 was assembled in very vague terms. These were most certainly not “The Best Books of 2008”, but rather a list of the ones I liked best, and I am conscious enough know that what I like best and what is the best is not necessarily the very same thing. Particularly because I’m the sort to fall in love with a book because it contains a teapot, or references the postal system, and these are two of my favourite things.
I like fiction that innovates, I like books that challenge what I feel or believe, I admire a book that attacks me like a pipe to the head, but I’ve just got this thing about books I can curl up inside like a warm blanket. Or books that recreate the world and let me walk around easy in it, as opposed to one that makes a whole new world that I’ve got to think a lot to discover. Perhaps if I didn’t read corporate documents for eights hours every day, this would be different, but at the moment I like a book that grabs me and holds me, and even pushes me along. (If I only read books like this I would be in a coma, but I do require them on a regular basis.)
Which is to say that many (but certainly not all) of my Top Eleven books were old fashioned good reads, which is mostly what I talk about here at Pickle Me This. They may not have rewritten the book on how to write the book (though I’ll argue for a few) but I loved them true, and that was sort of my sole requirement.
But I did so enjoy my year of more intensive reading of independent publishers, and when I reflected that I’d missed them in my picks, I was more than a bit regretful. But I was hardly going to just slot them in between the lines, and hope that nobody noticed. I loved these books for different reasons than I loved the others, and it wasn’t so much that they couldn’t play with the big boys, but rather they were playing a whole other game. Which, of course, is as dubious a statement as any other– there is certainly nothing decidedly “Indie” to link each of these eleven books, but I couldn’t help but think of them differently. Why? I’m not sure.
But I am not sure I’m totally wrong about this– I’m still not comfortable, but I can’t help but acknowledge a difference between fiction from big publishers and small ones. Just like how, try as I might otherwise, I read a difference between fiction written by men and that by women (for example). Always, always, there will be exceptions (I’m waving at you, Ian McEwan!), but I am thinking in general terms. I am thinking of the Orange Prize, and how instead of a ghetto, I see it as a celebration of something uniquely itself. Similar with the small presses then, instead of just a sideshow, although to imply that small press books couldn’t make it on my main list is definitely offensive, and I see that now. Further, that these books were as good as they were but didn’t get on my list is making me reconsider how I evaluate what I read.
Anyway, I expect to make full sense of this around the same time I finally read Anna Karenina. So probably don’t hold your breath.
December 17, 2008
What Elephant? by Geneviève Côté
I’ve discerned that one key to successful children’s stories is to keep the kernel packed up tight. For example, by all means write a story about the elephant in the room, but really have that story be about poor George who comes home one day to find an elephant watching his TV and eating chocolate chip cookies. When George explains the problem to his friends, none of them believe him. Naturally– elephants don’t watch TV or eat chocolate chip cookies. So George has no choice but to go home again, and there he finds the elephant asleep on his bed, covered in newspapers, because the elephant has blown its nose on every single one of his bedsheets.
Geneviève Côté’s What Elephant? goes on to tell the story of George’s roommate from hell, who eats up all the food, lingers too long in the shower, takes up the entire (now broken) sofa, and steals the morning paper. Worse, George fears he’s going crazy because he knows elephants don’t actually do any of these obnoxious things, and he has nobody he can turn to. If his best friend Pip can see the elephant, he won’t admit, being just as conscious as George is about saving face.
Author/illustrator Côté has created a marvelous story with such wonder in its details– I was particularly struck by George’s prized collection of teapots, and George’s teddy bear clutched in the elephant’s trunk. The story’s resolution is sweet and surprising, complete with a trek off into the sunset, but of course the matter is far from resolved, as we’re left with the question of the talking pink poodle.
December 16, 2008
Postal Motherlode
Today we arrived home to a bundle on the doorstep– ten (10!) Christmas cards, all for us. It was as good as Christmas morning, really, and we opened them one-by-one, delighting. And then had to add a second string to our fireplace display, which is quite remarkable for one day’s pickings. Oh, for the love of December and perpetual post.
We are also happy this year to have a fireplace at all, though of course hanging our stockings on the bookcase was never a bad thing, but there is a certain authenticity here at the new house, even if the fireplace is a wee bit bricked up and a storage space for magazines. We trust Santa will find his way…
December 16, 2008
Stuff and Things
My new favourite blog of the moment is The Rachel Papers. Find out what Maud Newton has enjoyed reading this year. Hilariously (via Broadsides) is Target Women: Jewelry. Stephanie Nolen is amazing. Rebecca Rosenblum’s best books of the year, and her book shows up on Steven W. Beattie’s. Justine Picardie inspires me to want to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time. (Should I? Am I a fool to have waited this long anyway?) I am now reading Darkmans by Nicola Barker, which I’ll be writing more about in a day or two, because how could I possibly not? And Oh Baby, the Places You Will Go (A Book to be Read in Utero) has found its way into my life (via post)– what a treat. Nigel Beale in conversation with Anne Enright.
December 12, 2008
The fullest possible reckoning
“Along the way, during the editing process, or at least before the interview finally goes to press, the writer who has been interviewed is given the text to review and revise. This collaborative approach to the final product is unapologetically at odds with journalistic practice, where it is presumed that the reporter’s accuracy depends on strict independence from the subject’s influence. The Paris Review‘s purpose is not to catch writers off guard, but to elicit from them the fullest possible reckoning of what interests them most– their lives and work as writers, who they are and what they do all day. A few Paris Review interviews were accomplished in a single sitting, but it is far more common for them to be conducted over several seasons, even several years, with multiple sessions in person and many rounds of written correspondence as well.” –Philip Gourevitch, “Introduction”, The Paris Review Interviews, I
December 12, 2008
Top Eleven Indie Picks of 2008
My favourite books by independent publishers this year in no particular order (except perhaps a bit chronological). And my list’s explanation.
- Pulpy and Midge by Jessica Westhead (Coach House)
- Things Go Flying by Shari Lepena (Brindle and Glass)
- Stunt by Claudia Dey (Coach House)
- Flirt by Lorna Jackson (Biblioasis)
- Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books)
- Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig (Coach House)
- Silent Girl by Tricia Dower (Inanna)
- Once by Rebecca Rosenblum (Biblioasis)
- Entitlement by Jonathan Bennett (ECW)
- What It Feels Like for a Girl by Jennica Harper (Anvil Press)
- The Myth of the Simple Machines by Laurel Snyder (No Tell Books)
December 12, 2008
Indie Explanation
This year I’ve done a tremendous job at succeeding at my annual goals (mainly because they were very flexible [e.g. “Buy a house or move”, “Sell your novel or publish a whole bunch of other stuff”. 2008 was perhaps the year of the “or…”]). I am also pleased that I managed to meet one goal I didn’t even get around to making (though I meant to), which was to read more books by independent publishers.
But perhaps life made the goal for me, however, because so many indie books found their way to me this year. I read so many through fabulous initiatives like Fiery First First Fiction, and events like The Scream in High Park and the Eden Mills Festival, and then of course by word of mouth. Reading so many independent books has made 2008 a remarkable reading year.
But then it occurred to me that my Top Eleven contained none of these books. And as I tried to figure out why that is, I came up with two reasons. First, that independent publishers take risks that the big houses don’t, and so the results are more mixed, however incredible notable, important, brilliant. And second, which is related, my list is appealing to pretty mainstream tastes (such are often my own). I feel pretty sure about offering my Top Eleven up to anyone and figuring they’ll hold some appeal. This is not always the case with the independent books, which I’m sure neither writers nor publishers see as a wholly bad thing.
But they deserve a list of their own, surely. Top Eleven Indie Picks, for those readers looking for something challenging, alternative, off-the-wall and wonderful. So a list is to-be-posted, but first I wanted to write an explanation of why it appeared.
December 12, 2008
My little alligator pear
Is it tacky that I love my unborn child just a little bit more now I’ve learned it’s now the size of my favourite fruit? I picked one up at the market today, and felt more than a little bit moved. What a long way from an orange pip.
