The first installment of Cathleen Schine's serial fiction The Dead and The Naked appears in today's New York Times magazine. It's setting is an artist's colony on an island off the coast of Maine.
You can read it online here, or listen to the author read the first chapter (found at the same link). If the first chapter is any indication, this is going to be a dandy.
....opens everywhere, this Friday.
It's based on Susan Minot's luminous novel by the same name and the adaptation for screen is by Michael Cunningham (The Hours). Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes and Toni Collette share starring roles. By all accounts, it should be a blockbuster. I'm looking forward to seeing it, but was really disappointed to learn that it was filmed in Rhode Island. A movie set partially on a Maine island is shot in RI?
No disrespect to Rhode Island, but its coast can't hold a candle to the breath-taking beauty of the Maine coast, and quite frankly, the state (and mostly the local mid-coast people) need the money generated by a huge production such as this.
The movie is co-produced by Ms. Minot, who lives on a Maine island.
Joe Queenan's essay on Summer Reading Assignments in today's New York Times might solve the question about why so many readers choose, fun trashy books from May until October.....it's a subconscious reaction to summers spent reading for Honors English:
I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad thing that schools require students to read books during the summer: culture, like vitamins, works best when imposed rather than selected.
In The New York Times round up of more beach reading books, there is a sentence that best describes the differences between winter reading and summer reading:
....it’s clear that “winter reading,” or “that endless blizzard of pages flecked with the blown soot of words,” isn’t really what they’re after. Summer reading has more to do with charmed lives, blue skies and location, location, location.
Janet Maslin reviews 11 books, some she likes, some she doesn't:
Hilma Wolitzer's Summer Reading gets a nod of approval, as does
David Shallack's travel memoir Mediterranean Summer: A Season on France's Cote d'Azur and Italy's Costa Bella.
The Prince of Nantucket by Jan Goldstein wasn't one of her favorites, but she liked The Savage Garden by Mark Mills a bit more (he also wrote Amagansett--a book that I think was a great summer beach read--so I'll buy his new one, no matter what the NYTimes thinks). She calls the novel alluring and mysterious. Oh Goody.
Ms. Maslin is favorably disposed to Bill Geist's Way of the Road, a travel book about rural America and sometimes its cuisine. He's a pretty funny guy and the book looks to be pretty entertaining.
Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin features a character from Tales of the City (not a bad summer series in case you need more good stuff to read) and is judged to be as endearing as that series.
Elmore Leonard's Up in Honey's Room reviews well, but I'm not sure I'll be reading it. It's set in Detroit in World War II and the premise is that a bunch of German spies (including Himmler's twin brother) are trying to fit into the American Midwest.
Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg "becomes humdrum much too quickly," but Frank Deford's new novel, The Entitled is a baseball novel, featuring the Indians examines the morals of today's athletes and "transports the reader to a world of athletes whose constant traveling leaves them in true limbo."
She calls Anthony Gagliano's Straits of Fortune a memorably crisp debut and gives a positive nod to City of Fire by Robert Ellis.
I've been missing Maine during my travels this spring, but the God (I don't think there's more than one) of publishing has looked down upon me favorably and arranged to publish a number of books about Maine:
Shoutin' Into the Fog by Thomas Hanna. I just finished this book (published by Islandport Press). Initially, the conversational writing style took a bit of getting used to, but after a chapter, I was captivated by the hardships and joys of life in the midcoast of Maine in the depression.
Evening by Susan Minot. Captivating and beautiful. I read this in 1998 while living in a captivating but not lovely New York City. It's time to revisit a wonderful book.
Summer People by Brian Groh. The author grew up in Ohio and moved to Maine. I need know nothing more about the book to be convinced to buy it, but the reviews are good, just in case you need a bit more to go on.
Body Surfing by Anita Shreve. Set on the New Hampshire coast, in a location that Shreve has used previously (Fortunes' Rocks and Sea Glass), it's close enough to Maine and it's an Anita Shreve book, so it makes the list.
Slipknot by Linda Greelaw. Publishes on June 19th, just in time to pack it in the beach bag. This is Greenlaw's first attempt at fiction, but she integrates much of what she knows (Maine and the sea) into the book.
Maine's own Linda Greenlaw heads the USAToday list of beach books for this year.
They asked the author five questions about writing and her life on Isle au Haut.
You can read the interview here and get the complete run-down on all their recommendations.
Updated with picture of Linda's lobster boat.
In preparation for the Pounding Nor'easter expected to hit us on Sunday, I've compiled a pile of books:
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill. I'm almost finished with this book and highly recommend it to all fellow conspiracy theorists or anyone with an interest in Iraq and trying to figure out what's next.
My Latest Grievance by Elinore Lipman. I adore all of her books and this one is no exception. Narrated by a precocious 16-year old growing up in a residence hall of a private college (her parents are professors and dorm parents) it's vintage Lipman--astute, wise and forgiving of human foibles.
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart. Finally out in paperback, it's been called 'masterful', 'brilliant', 'marvelous' and was one of the NYTimes' Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year. Sounds perfect for a rainy/snowy Sunday by the fire.
Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose. Just out in paperback. Just in case I ever become a writer....
And Finally, the best for last:
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. Just out in paperback. I'm ecstatic that my book club has selected this for our next discussion. I read it last year and have been looking for an excuse to re-read it. To be able to do so and then discuss it, well...it won't be easy but it should be worthwhile.
Suite Francaise was written by a very popular French writer in the years leading up to WWII. It chronicles the Nazi invasion of France and the occupation. It's a remarkable work, brilliant and astonishing on its own, but the second appendix to the book is extraordinary.
It is the correspondence between the author and publisher, and later, the author's husband and publisher. These letters chronicle the confusion and disbelief that occurred as the Nazis began and then escalated their plans for the Jewish race. It is poignant and heartbreaking as the reader knows full well what will happen, but it's evident from each letter that the writer cannot imagine such things.
Irene Nemirovsky was deported to Auschwitz in July of 1942. She was exterminated almost immediately upon reaching the camp. It's not an easy or comfortable read, but it is a masterpiece and it is so very worthwhile.
It's out and available at Amazon.
Some bloggers who contributed recipes are: Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Power Line, The Volokh Conspiracy, Little Green Footballs, Captain's Quarters, The Anchoress, Stop the ACLU, Crooked Timber, The Belmont Club, Black Five, The Mudville Gazette ... and Bitch, Ph.D.
Yum. Pan-seared Hillary and a little slow roasted donkey, anyone?
Just reading this list is impressive, but documenting it so almost boggles the mind. At least it boggles a mind suffering from Adult-Onset ADD (self-diagnosed, of course).
Art Garfunkel is indeed a voracious reader and judging by his favorites list, he's a high-faluting reader as well. No pulp fiction on this list, no indeedy.
