As one who has braved JDate, aka desperatehebrews.com, I know why the caged bird swings in hope. The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books provide opportunities for the bookish and alone to meet. But Americans and the British have completely different styles when it comes to personal ads. We Americans commodify and market ourselves with can-do! go-get ‘em! spirit that weighs heavily. We’re singing the lyrics from Best Foot Forward to the tune of Sinatra’s One For My Baby, One More For the Road, a torch song beneath the bright, snappy prose composed to wring...
Drive a Book Into Another World
The following poem was recently posted to Slate with a podcast reading by the author.To Read by Michael McFeeHe held the opened bookin both hands, at arm's length,as if he were a student driverpracticing steering this Model ABCthat resisted his touch,that he could tell he wouldn't knowhow to control once it started,not yet able to ease his gripor surrender his frownand learn to let the sentences unwind,letting their momentumcarry him down the waiting road,Stopping and starting his wayinto a world of words.__________Poet Michael McFee directs the Creative Writing Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. The author of ten books of poetry and...
Free Kindle For Tweeters
To promote the release of her new book, Perseverance: True Voices of Cancer Survivors, author Carolyn Rubenstein and publisher Forge Books, a division of Macmillan, are giving away a Kindle wireless ebook reading device on Twitter each day from August 18 through August 21 to four lucky tweeters.This will be an interesting exercise in marketing books, using an ebook reader to promote the sale of an actual book and whether the strategy will cannibalize sales of physical copies of the book. Ms. Rubenbstein’s website page for the promotion has a link to Amazon which is offering both the hardcover and...
"Have Books Destroyed Your Life, Too?"
(The following originally appeared in Fine Books & Collections magazine on March 20, 2009. I reprint it here at Book Patrol for your enjoyment, and to set up a sequel featuring more from the English-speaking world's lovelorn book lovers).We book folk are often socially inept or, if ept, we'd rather be reading: excepting the occasional clunker, a close relationship with books is very satisfying to the single/divorced and persnickety printslut.But even the most cerebrally occupied must bow to the will of the flesh and the desire for human company. Thus the appearance of personal ads in the New York Review...
Bubba Loves Books: What Bill Clinton Has Been Reading Lately
That former President Bill Clinton is an avid reader is not news. What is news is that he reads book blogs. (Can you hear me now, Mr. President?). As Carolyn Kellogg, lead writer for the Los Angeles Times blog Jacket Copy and laundry-challenged because of it (tell me about it, sister!), today reports, she just about fell over when the former POTUS wrote a note to her in response to a Fourth of July post of hers about his reading habits. After offering a correction of fact, he then provided an unsolicited heads-up on what he’s been reading lately. The...