Books
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Books Nelson George speaks at Hammonds House
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Tue, May 15, 2012 at 8:00 AM
Longtime music journalist and cultural critic Nelson George will be on hand tonight at the Hammonds House to discuss his recent novel, The Plot Against Hip Hop. Back when the book came out, my review explained that the book follows a high end security guard who uncovers a conspiracy including "undercover FBI agents running record labels, secret corporate studies of the hip-hop market, answers to who killed Biggie and Tupac, and, oh, an aside about Lil Wayne being set up, among other things."
As I wrote then, "If all that conspiracy stuff sounds a bit silly, well, it is silly and it's also great fun. George's most pleasurable skill as a writer is weaving the factual texture of history and real people into the fabric of his fictional world. Did Kanye West really release a video game named Graduate Student? I don't know, but when it pops up in a chapter here, it seems both hilarious and completely believable. George alludes to lyrics by Notorious B.I.G. in the same way Chandler would nod to the poets of his time. All of this adds up to a clever play on the past few decades of cultural history, rewriting what we already know into a neatly drawn web of dark and seedy secrets."
The event tonight begins at 6:30. More details at Hammonds House.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Books Augusten Burroughs tells us how
Posted by Andrew Alexander on Fri, May 11, 2012 at 12:42 PM
- Christopher Schelling
- Augusten Burroughs' latest is a self-help guide.
Most readers are probably familiar with you as "that crazy guy who writes about his crazy family and all his crazy problems." What inspired you to write a self-help book, and a pretty serious one at that?
It's something I've been wanting to do for a while. The more I went around the world with these memoirs, I've always been surprised by people's reactions. More than a story, people want to hear, "How did you survive this?" or "How do I survive this?" It becomes my favorite part when I actually have an answer. So much time I totally know what the person is talking about when they bring up an issue or problem. I've experienced a lot from such an early age and I never had adults in my life to guide me. I never had school. I never had teachers. Fourth grade is all I did for school, and my family history is well-documented. Everytime I had a problem I had to solve it myself. The way I've solved every problem is just to try to nail through to what is the absolute truth of my circumstances. I wanted to write something that was advice from someone who was streetsmart, from someone who really did live through it, rather than from someone who has a terminal degree in their field, has studied it, and wrote some impressive papers. It's for people who want to fix themselves.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Books Townsend Prize to be announced at Botanical Garden
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM
- WIKIPEDIA
- Ann Beattie
The ceremony tomorrow evening will be classed up by a keynote address from Ann Beattie. After remarks from that rather iconic master of the short form, a winner will be announced from the following nominees:
Daniel Black for Perfect Peace, St Martin’s Press
Lynn Cullen for Reign Of Madness, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Ann Hite for Ghost On Black Mountain, Gallery Books
Joshilyn Jackson for Backseat Saints, Grand Central Publishing
Collin Kelley for Remain In Light, Vanilla Heart Publishing
Thomas Mullen for The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, Random House
Andrew Plattner for A Marriage Of Convenience, BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Josh Russell for My Bright Midnight, Louisiana State University Press
Joseph Skibell for A Curable Romantic, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Amanda Kyle Williams for The Stranger You Seek, Bantam Books
If you're looking to brush up with Ann Beattie, you could do worse than turn to this recent interview with ArtsATL.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Books / Community Fox Theatre Institute receives grant for Georgia preservation handbook
Posted by Debbie Michaud on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM
- Dustin Chambers /CL file
- The Fox Theatre's iconic marquee and with the historic Georgian Terrace Hotel towering in the background
It's well known locally that despite their storied histories and architectural significance, both buildings have faced demolition: the Fox struggled through the ’70s and the Georgian Terrace was condemned in the mid-’80s. In both cases, it was the efforts of savvy preservationists that saved the buildings and eventually turned the intersection into what the National Register of Historic Places has dubbed the Fox Theatre District (which also includes the Georgian Terrace's sister building the Ponce de Leon Apartments).
The grassroots campaign to save the Fox in the ’70s eventually led to the creation of The Fox Theatre Institute, a nonprofit focused on historic theater preservation around the country. FTI recently was awarded a $1,000 grant by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to fund The Georgia Historic Preservation Handbook, a collaborative effort between the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and the Department of Natural Resources to be published in May.
“The goal is to educate residents about historic preservation, the people that make it happen, and how anyone can join this vital movement,” said Carmie McDonald, Program Manager for Fox Theatre Institute in a press release.
"This publication advocates the building of sustainable communities in Georgia while promoting diversity and place. By educating readers on restoration projects, federal and state tax incentives, preservation financing, and sustainability laws and standards, they aim to further economic sustainability for Georgia’s communities," explains the press release. Given Atlanta's penchant for new construction (something the current recession slightly allayed), a handbook sounds like a good idea.
The Georgia Historic Preservation Handbook will be available online for free or for purchase in print.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Books / Events Author readings and Chris Verene performance at Five Points Literary Journal spring release party
Posted by Debbie Michaud on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 2:30 PM
- 5ptsjournal.wordpress.com
- Author Lauren Watel
Co-edited by Megan Sexton and Georgia poet laureate David Bottoms, the Five Points Literary Journal is published three times a year and includes poetry, essays. fiction, interviews and artwork. One of the issue's centerpieces is the trio of poems by Andrea Carter Brown, the journal's most recent James Dickey Prize for Poetry winner. Brown's “Cloud Studies: Hudson River School – Homage to Constable,” “Ars Poetica – After 9/11,” and “In the Desert” are pieces of a larger manuscript titled September 12, the poet's reckoning with September 11 that included a cross-continental move from her "contaminated home a block from the WTC" to Southern California following the attack. Brown discusses her inspiration for the series in a blog post for Five Points.
Tonight, the publication partners with local arts nonprofit Possible Futures for a spring issue release party at Inman Park's Whitespace Gallery. Watel, along with other Georgia-based contributors Gregory Fraser and Anya Silver will read and former Atlantan Chris Verene, whose photographs are featured in the issue, will give a musical performance.
More info on the writers and event details after the jump.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Visual Arts / Books Phillip March Jones discusses his roadside memorial photo project tonight
Posted by Debbie Michaud on Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 11:06 AM
- Phillip March Jones
Atlanta-based artist Phillip March Jones divvies his time between creating art, curating exhibits and running foundations such as Institue 193 in Lexington, KY, and Atlanta's Souls Grown Deep, "a nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about African-American art of the Deep South." In January, Jones published the photo book Points of Departure: Roadside Memorial Polaroids, a series of snapshots of the highway shrines erected in the memory of lost loved ones. Jones comes to Westside gallery {Poem88} to discuss and sign copies of the book tonight. CL's Wyatt Williams interviewed Jones last fall in anticipation of the book's release.
Read an excerpt from Williams' conversation with Jones and see images from the book after the jump.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Books / Q&A Winston Groom explains how the Battle of Shiloh changed the Civil War
Posted by Debbie Michaud on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:00 AM
- Squire Fox
- Author Winston Groom
And while Tom Hanks' Oscar-winning turn as the titular idiot savant helped secure Groom's place in pop culture history, the book is something of an anomaly when considering the rest of his work. Most of his books have centered on war. Groom fought in Vietnam, and his Conversations with the Enemy, a Vietnam POW tale co-authored with Duncan Spencer, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Alabama-native reveals a particular affinity for the Civil War, travelling backward through the conflict with historical precision in Kearny's March: The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846-1847, Vicksburg, 1863 and now Shiloh, 1862, "the first great and terrible battle of the Civil War" that just commemorated its sesquicentennial (neat word for 150 years). Groom visits the Carter Center Wed., April 11, 7 p.m. to discuss the 448-page tome.
What sparked your interest in the Civil War to the extent that you've researched and written about it in such detail?
Well you know in the South, you get sort of a heavy dose of the Civil War. I had read Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote as I grew up, and they were what I guess you would call "generalists," meaning that they covered the entire war. And I have written a lot military instances besides the Civil War, I've written about World War I, World War II, War of 1812, Mexican War, so I'm not really stuck in that Civil War history, but I have done several books on it. And in particular, in the war in the West, which hasn't been covered as much as the war in the East, meaning the fighting in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
I think it was very important, the war in the West. For one thing, it produced General Grant. But after I had done Forest Gump, I started thinking, you know, every writer has, if you're lucky one good book in you, and if you're really lucky you have two, and if you're extremely lucky you might have three. But the light is that novelists, they keep on going because they don't know what to do and I was thinking I don't want to wind up like [F. Scott] Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, drinking himself to death. Or Hemmingway, blowing his brains out. And that was not a path I wanted to go down, and I was thinking I really wanted to try my hand at history.
What do you particularly find fulfilling about digging into history, is it the learning process?
Where the hell else can you get paid for reading? It's not a bad life. As I go along, I generally have chosen, when I write, things that I don’t know about as opposed to things that I do know about. As opposed to say a professor who has studied the same subject for 40 years. And I go into it as a learning experience, and I guess maybe I'm vain enough to think my observations and thoughts about how this story should be told will hold interest with other people.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Books Bon Rappetite is an actual thing now!
Posted by Gwynedd Stuart on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 4:58 PM
Well, two months weren't enough time to launch a restaurant, but they were enough time to put together a cookbook. "Bon Rappetite: The Cookbook, Vol. 1" apparently features 50 rapcipes (I made that!), most of which are brand new. The website says, "We've got desserts, we've got cocktails, we've got rappetizers, and we've got almost 100 pages of beautiful images, delicious recipes, and hilarious hip hop inspired jokes."
Tonight, Bon Rappetite is taking over Taco Tuesdays at The Book House Pub on Ponce tonight, where they'll be serving Too $hort Rib Tacos, Native Tongue Tacos and the veg-friendly SproutKast Tacos, as well as a Bon Rappetite-inspired drink.
The cookbook's official launch party is on Saturday night at the Basement in East Atlanta. Details:
Performers include Greg Porn (of the legendary Roots crew), Atlanta’s BNMC, Deuce Ducartier, Small Eyez, Stealth, Rogue, Blonju and Ina Escobar, with DJ Mudfish (Best Mixtape Creative Loafing 2011).Doors at 9 p.m., cover charge is $8 including a complementary drink before 10 p.m. Event page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/415544758461934/
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Visual Arts / Books Stuart Horodner pastes together scraps of The Art Life
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:14 PM
Though it seems designed and prepared with the young artist in mind, The Art Life's main impulse is scrap-booking, the personal documentation of inspiration. Horodner writes, "My own daily ritual of pasting choice items gathered from magazines, newspapers, and journals into black bound sketchbooks provides me with several pleasures, from the physicality of arranging things on a page and gluing them down, to the space saving satisfaction of keeping a "best of" collection in a condensed and managable size ... and the combining of like elements or the pairing of strange bedfellows to establish new relationships and unpredictable outcomes." The book feels like this very personal "best of" collection for Horodner, even includes a few reproduced pages from his own notebooks.
Horodner writes a short introduction to each chapter, reflecting on his formative years at Cooper Union or his current duties as a curator, but the main attraction are these "strange bedfellows." Maurizio Cattelan is followed by Dave Eggers followed by Keith Haring followed by Bettye LaVette and so forth. Occasionally while reading it, I felt the impulse to tear one of these scraps out of the book and paste it somewhere else.
A book launch for The Art Life: On Creativity and Career will be held at Octane Coffee on the Westside on Fri., March 23 at 7 pm. More details.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Books ATL Bookmarks: The Starboard Sea
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:00 AM
>> ArtsATL interviews Agnes Scott professor Amber Dermont about her new novel The Starboard Sea. The novel has been getting some serious praise, not the least of which includes two reviews from the New York Times. Janet Maslin says, "It is a rich, quietly artful novel that is bound for deep water, with questions of beauty, power and spiritual navigation as its main concerns."
>> A Cappella Books is holding a Ballroom Book Bash on Wednesday to celebrate the release of Kevin Young's new non-fiction work, The Grey Album. Young will be on hand to sign copies in the Highland Inn Ballroom and hopefully someone will playing cuts from the many musical works referenced in the book.
>> Empire State South owner and Five and Ten chef Hugh Acheson got a nod from the James Beard Foundation for last year's cookbook, A New Turn in the South.
>> CL's Vene Franco spoke with Anne Lamott about her collaborative new memoir with her son, Some Assembly Required. Of working with her son, Lamott says, "I would just beg and nag, nag and bribe, and threats, underline threats. It worked when he was a little boy. It works somewhat less effectively now."
