"...the short story and the novel have completely different DNA"

Gil Adamson on the short story and the novel:

Keep in mind that the short story and the novel have completely different DNA. The reader's experience of the two forms might be similar. But at the nuts-and-bolts level, they share almost nothing. This, in my opinion, will explain why Alice Munro has never made the "obvious" jump to novels. The two forms are not as similar as they seem. To steal a joke from Mitch Hedberg (who was asked to write sitcoms just because he was a funny guy) it's like someone saying: "Oh, you're a chef? Well, can you farm?"

The Austere Pleasures of Nordic Crime Fiction

Laura Miller on Nordic Crime Fiction:

Despite the existential malaise that frequently afflicts the characters of Nordic noir, the stern, bare-bones simplicity of its problem-solving methods is one of the form's austere pleasures. Like the arctic cold, the rigor is bracing. It transports us to a world where charm and glamor barely exist and count for little when they do, a world refreshingly free of flimflam, hype or irrational exuberance. What matters is putting one foot in front of the other and not stopping. There's something reassuring about this faith in sheer perseverance when your surroundings are in a state of bewildering flux. It's the kind of calm you get from the simple act of sitting down to make a to-do list in the wake of an incalculable loss.

For the rest of the article, in which Miller traces the form back through current stars such as Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, to pioneers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, all the way back to Old Norse sagas, click here.

The Girl Who Hated Books

I saw this marvelous animated short over on Kerry's blog, and couldn't resist posting it here as well. It's about ten minutes long, and well worth watching.

To Be Surprised Every Day

Daniel Burgoyne on Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden (one of my all time favourite poetry books):

Nominated for the 2008 Griffin poetry prize, Why Are You So Sad? is the most compelling book of poetry I have read this past year. These are poems that invite perpetual rereading, alive in each instant and open upon return. "To be surprised every day" might have been a better title for the selected poems of a writer whose daily produce seems so effortless and unpretentious, whose constant innovation with the line, with voicing, with the very idea of a poem yields astonishment with the turn of almost every page.

To read the rest of Burgoyne's review, click here.

2009 Reading Roundup & 2010 Reading Resolutions

The Numbers

I read 112 books in 2009.

95 of those books were fiction and 17 were non-fiction. The fiction included 93 novels and only 2 short story collections. The genre breakdown was as follows: 45 mysteries, 8 fantasy, and 42 literary or general fiction. As far as age-range goes, 43 would be classified as YA or children's literature, and 52 as adult fiction. The non-fiction titles covered a range of topics including literary criticism, biography, memoir, essays, history, politics, food, and running.

61 were published in the 21st century, 21 of those in 2009. 51 were published in the 20th century, only 19 of those pre-1950. None were published before 1900.

73 were written by female authors, 32 by male authors, and 7 were co-authored by a combination of men and women.

24 were translations, mostly of books originally written in Swedish, but also of books written in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Icelandic. Those originally written in English were by Canadian, U.S., Scottish, English, and Irish authors.

79 were books I borrowed from the library; 33 were books I'd recently bought or already owned.

32 were rereads.

Shifts, Continuing Trends, and Gaps to be Addressed

There is much more of an emphasis here on YA/children's literature than is ordinarily the case for me, and there are more rereads than usual. But neither of these developments is surprising given that I've been writing essays on my childhood reading and have, in connection with them, been revisiting many old favourites. This will continue in the new year. What is surprising is the paltry number of short story collections that I read and the absence of a single poetry book. But I'm going to assume that those are temporary aberrations that will correct themselves rather than actual trends that require conscious reversal.

It's good to see that the genre of fantasy has maintained a bit of a foothold, after I laboured under the misperception for so many years that it just wasn't my sort of thing. And it's not all Pratchett this time either⎯in 2009 I belatedly discovered Neil Gaiman and also steam punk, and I plan to read a good deal more of both.

I'm pleased to see 24 translations on my list. In 2006, I read only one work in translation. In 2007, I set out to up that number with my "Reading Across Borders" Challenge and, as a result, my year-end tally included 11 translations. Since then, that number has continued to rise every year without much conscious effort on my part. Long may that trend continue.

Of course, that's not to say that my reading list couldn't use further diversification. It includes more translations than it used to, yes, but it remains dominated by North American and European works and I'd like to change that. Also, it has a resolutely contemporary tilt that I'd like to shift at least a bit. So, on to the resolutions...

Reading Resolutions for 2010

Last year I eschewed resolutions opting instead to read at whim. That generally works out pretty well for me and, for the most part, I'll continue to read that way. But sometimes I need to push myself to expand my reading horizons and I plan to do that to fill some of the aforementioned gaps. So, at a general level, my resolutions for 2010 are to expand my reading beyond the borders of North America and Europe, and to delve back into the 19th century and earlier. My concrete plans for realizing these goals include a challenge, a couple of big reads, and a rereading project.

Dorte's 2010 Global Reading Challenge is the perfect vehicle to expand the continental scope of my reading. I'm opting for the "Medium Challenge" that involves reading two novels each from six continents (spanning 12 different countries).

As for the big reads, there are a few weighty, classic tomes I've long been meaning to read. Indeed, I've resolved to read them before and not made good on the resolutions. But in 2010, I'm having another go. The books in question are Cervantes' Don Quixote, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Isaac Babel's Collected Stories. I've enjoyed dipping into all three but in each instance got distracted well before I reached the end. So, wish me perseverance this time round!

And finally, the rereading project⎯I like to periodically revisit favourite authors in a sustained way and this year it's going to be Louisa May Alcott. Not just Little Women and other beloved books from my childhood, but also her adult works (last read 20 or so years ago), her journals (which I'm not sure I've ever read though I do own them), and a biography or two for supplementary reading.

I'm in for an interesting reading year, I think.

Stay tuned for a post within the next couple of days detailing my ten favourite reads of 2009, and then it will be on to the new!

Reviving the Short Story Reading Challenge for 2010

I hosted the initial incarnation of the Short Story Reading Challenge in 2008 and was thrilled at the number of readers that I encountered through it who proved to be already devotees of or who were willing to embrace the short story form. I took a year off from challenges this past year, but after several expressions of interest in another round, I'm feeling enthusiastic about a revival of the Short Story Reading Challenge for 2010. So here goes. The challenge could take a number of different forms depending on your level of familiarity with short stories and on the amount of reading time you expect to have at your disposal in the coming year.

Options 1 & 2: If you're short on time, you can simply commit to reading ten short stories by ten different authors over the course of 2010. If you're relatively new to reading short stories, any ten will do. If you’ve already got a lot of short stories under your belt, make it ten short stories by ten writers whose work you have not yet read. How about that—a year long challenge that you could conceivably complete in the course of a day! Of course, I would encourage you not to do that but rather to heed the words of Mavis Gallant, short story writer extraordinaire, who advises:

Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.

Completing this version of the challenge could be as simple as participating in the short story discussions at A Curious Singularity throughout the year (after a lengthy hiatus, A Curious Singularity is also slated for revival in 2010⎯stay tuned for an announcement about that). Or picking up a short story anthology, whether of classic or contemporary stories, or of stories of a particular genre or on a particular theme, and slowly working your way through at least ten of the stories contained within. Of course, my hope is that once you get started you’ll get hooked and you’ll spiral out into other stories by those writers and more!

Options 3 & 4: If you've got a bit more time to devote to this endeavour, you can commit to reading between five and ten short story collections over the course of 2010. Again, if you're a short story novice, the world is your oyster as far as selection is concerned. But if you're a seasoned short story reader, you'll want to choose collections by writers whose short stories you have not yet encountered.

Option 5: This is the custom option under the rubric of which you can tailor your reading list to best meet your personal reading aspirations. You might wish to craft a list that focuses on a particular place, or era, or genre. Or you might wish to include reading about short stories as well as of short stories, for example, such works as Frank O'Connor's The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. It's entirely up to you.

The blog dedicated to this challenge can be found here. On it, participants can post reading lists, recommendations, and reviews of specific short stories and short story collections, as well as ruminations on and links related to the short story form more generally. If you'd like to participate in the challenge, let me know in the comments section below or via e-mail. Even if you don't plan to participate in the challenge, please post the titles of some of your favourite shorts stories or the names of your favourite short story writers below so that participants in the challenge can benefit from your recommendations.

First Lines Meme

I've borrowed the First Lines Meme from Melanie. The idea is to reproduce the first line from the first post of each month from the past year and to thereby create a collage that represents your blogging year. I altered it a little by skipping over posts that were quotations and also, after the first one, my ubiquitous library loot posts. If I included all of the latter the result would be awfully repetitive and you would be left with the impression that I spent the entire year lugging enormous stacks of books home from the library. Oh, wait, that's exactly how I spent the year. No matter, on with the slightly revised meme…

January
I stopped in at the library on my way home today and found a tantalizing haul awaiting me on the hold shelf.

February
Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is part memoir, part treatise/meditation on sustainable agriculture and ethical eating.

March
George Orwell's Books v. cigarettes is a recent volume in Penguin's "Great Ideas" series.

April
It's a good thing that so many people raved to me about Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; otherwise, I might not have persevered beyond the first thirty pages.

May
I'm stealing a moment from my end-of-term grading to pop in here and give a quick heads up to fellow North American fans of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels.

June
I fear that Penelope Fitzgerald and I are not meant for one another.

July
I'm off on a pilgrimage to Mankato (aka Deep Valley), Minnesota to attend the Betsy-Tacy Convention.

August
My jaunt to Sweden began with five days in Uppsala and continues with five days in Stockholm.

September
The first book listed by Nancy Pearl in her recent NPR feature on “Mysteries You Might Have Missed Along the Way” is Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection.

October
With the release last week of new double-volume editions of the final six books in the series, all of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books are back in print.

November
I count myself among the L.M. Montgomery fans who feel a great sense of kinship with Anne Shirley but little or no affinity for Anne Blythe.

December
I began my grand Nancy Drew reread with a visit to the bookstore and, I confess, I felt my heart beat a little faster at first sight of the row of familiar yellow hardbacks on a shelf in the children's section.

The exercise presents an altogether accurate picture of my year in reading, beginning with a focus on food, ending with ambitious rereads of childhood favourites, and covering much else in the middle but with an emphasis on Swedish crime fiction⎯and of course, the summer highlights of my attendance at the Betsy-Tacy Convention in Mankato in July, and my trip to Sweden in August. A good year!

If you're a fellow blogger, why not have a go at the meme and see what it reveals about your reading year?

Talking About Books on the Radio

I was a guest yesterday on CKLN's "In Other Words" talking with host Jennifer LoveGrove about our favourite reads and some noteworthy literary happenings of 2009. My picks included Their Finest Hour and a Half, The Manual of Detection, Bright-Sided, the Betsy-Tacy reissues, The Blythes are Quoted, and more. You can listen to a recording of the show by clicking on the play button on the player below.

Ursula Le Guin on Tove Jansson

Ursula Le Guin on Tove Jansson:

Anyone familiar with Jansson knows it would be unwise to dismiss her or patronise her work on any grounds. Her books for children are complex, subtle, psychologically tricky, funny and unnerving; their morality, though never compromised, is never simple. Thus her transition to adult fiction involved no great change. Her everyday Swedes are quite as strange as trolls, and her Swedish village in winter is as beautiful and dangerous as any forest of fantasy.

To read the rest of Le Guin's article, a review of a new translation of Jansson's novel The True Deceiver, click here.

Thackeray on Dickens's A Christmas Carol

In his introduction to The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits, Les Standiford notes:

Dickens's contemporary, William Makepeace Thackeray, as scathing a critic as ever walked the streets of London, once said of [A Christmas Carol], "Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness."

Standiford's book is full of interesting tidbits like this. I'm a quarter of the way into it now and finding it to be a fascinating bit of literary scholarship. I will no doubt write more about it here when I've reached the end.