Texas Pages

Here's a local writer to watch: Shilpi Somaya Gowda is the author of Secret Daughter, a book that was developed in part during a continuing education creative writing program at Southern Methodist University.

Secret Daughter has already garnered some impressive reviews (watch for our take soon). You can meet the author at an official launch party 7 tonight at Barnes & Noble, 7700 W.Northwest Highway. She also has an event scheduled for 6 p.m. March 22 at the Dallas Institute of Arts & Humanities, 2719 Routh St., and with the SMU Writer's Salon 7 p.m. April 9 at Legacy Books, 7300 Dallas Parkway, Plano.

It may not be "the world's most prestigious literary prize," as their e-mail claims. But Bookseller.com's Diagram Prize for oddest title of the year is easily my favorite.

This year's shortlist has just been announced. And the nominees are:

David Crompton's Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter
James A Yannes' Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures With Hyperbolic Planes
Ronald C Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots
Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky's The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Tara Jansen-Meyer's What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?

Previous winners include The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60mg Containers of Fromage Frais, How to Avoid Huge Ships and the timeless Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality.

You can cast your vote at the bottom of this page. The winner will be announced March 26.

On the eve of today's release of Karl Rove's memoir, Staff writer Wayne Slater spoke with another Texas conservative -- former state Republican chairman Tom Pauken. Who has his own book out, titled Bringing America Home. Wherein he has few kind words for Rove and his former boss.

"Republican politics is barely recognizable to many of us who were grassroots activists in the early days of the conservative movement - especially after eight years of a Republican administration headed up by George W. Bush, who claimed to be a conservative," Pauken writes.

Slater is co-author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.

And Rove can offer his defense in person next week , when he will be in the area for a series of events.

The Los Angeles Times got an early copy of the book; their review is here.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The archive of writer David Foster Wallace, best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center library and museum at the University of Texas, the center announced Monday.
Hailed as a visionary of his literary generation, Wallace suffered from depression and committed suicide in 2008 at age 46. His archive includes handwritten notes and drafts of Infinite Jest and other works, poems written as a child, his personal library and writings from college.
Material for Wallace's posthumous novel, The Pale King, will remain with his publisher until after the book's scheduled release in 2011.

The latest newsletter from the Texas Institute of Letters is filled with newsy nuggets, none more fascinating than word that the band WhoDo will play at the organization's May 1 gathering in Austin.

Up until today, I'd not heard of WhoDo, much less heard them. But if their musical ability matches their literary skill, they have a good thing going: The band includes Ricardo Ainslie, author of Long Dark Road: Bill King and Murder in Jasper, Texas; Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer-winning author of The Looming Tower; and John Burnett, whose always excellent radio work is discussed in Uncivilized Beasts and Shameless Hellions: Travels With an NPR Correspondent.

You might assume that the band is a joke, along the lines of the infamous Rock Bottom Remainders. But no less an authority than the New York Times Media Decoder blog writes, "we hear the band is wonderful."

Which made me want to know more. So I went to the source and sent an e-mail to Wright.

In his reply, The New Yorker writer modestly declared himself "the least talented member" of the ensemble. And then, as befitting his master storyteller status, he spun a narrative for me.

Columbus, Ohio-based author Carla Buckley, whose debut novel The Things That Keep Us Here was reviewed by us (well, me actually) in last Sunday's GuideDaily, will be in town for a book signing next Tuesday. She'll appear at 7 p.m. March 9 at Borders, 10720 Preston Road at Royal Lane. 214-363-1977.

I'm about halfway through Sherlock Holmes: The American Years. It features 10 original stories about Sherlock Holmes' years in the U.S.

So far, my favorite story is "My Silk Umbrella." It's an account by Mark Twain of his meeting with Holmes. I don't know much about Mark Twain the man, though, I read his novels and stories in grade school. About the man himself, I knew he had a quick wit and was eminently quotable.

Ah, the joys of the meaningless best/worst list. So trivial. So irresistible.

Case in point: The current American Book Review, published by the University of Houston-Victoria, has contributors from across the country weighing in on the "Top 40 Bad Books."

Among those slapped with the label: Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor, ("fails to live up to high expectations," says Walter R. Jacobs of the
University of Minnesota); All The Pretty Horses ("I think of it as a romance novel for men ... like all good romance novel writers, McCarthy uses clichés and derivative characters to sell millions of copies," says Christine Granados) and F. Scott Fitzgerald ("If badness is related to perceived greatness, then I offer The Great Gatsby (1925) as the worst novel in American literature. I haven't read it for many years, since the only time I used it in a Modern American Fiction class, but I remember it as incredibly smug about its relationship to the traditional realistic novel," says Tom LeClair at the University of Cincinnati -- remind me never to take his class.)

Eyal Amiran of the University of California, Irvine declares that "Ian Fleming's novels consist entirely of clichés, coordinating conjunctions, and appositives." But The Da Vinci Code gets this mixed observation from Bonnie Wheeler of
Southern Methodist University:

"This formulaic knock-off of fascistic conspiracy theories is a trite study for a film script--and no wonder the movie was also bad. I love the chapters that are only a couple of lines long. ... Yet for many of my students, it is the book that brought them into the English major. For others, it is the only book they've ever enjoyed reading. IS it possible that even a Bad Book can do Good?"

These types of observations are perhaps the critical and intellectual equivalent of standing up in an Austin bar and singing "Boomer Sooner." But hold my beer -- I'm diving in.

Missy Buchanan of Rockwall is the author of the new book "Talking with God in Old Age: Meditations and Psalms," and it's been favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly. Click here, and scroll down a bit.

Buchanan says this about her book: "Many times people want to know how a Boomer like me got involved in writing for seniors. In a nutshell, my books and columns were born out of real life experiences with my own elderly parents. Though my folks are no longer living, I still visit a number of older adult friends each week at several different senior residence centers in the Dallas area. They are my inspiriation. In a culture that values youth, it is important that the spiritual needs of our older adults be addressed."

On a day that has featured news about Karl Rove, Laura Bush, possible fraud in Hiroshima and video game literature, it seems only fitting to add video of best-selling author Ozzy Osbourne, from his Saturday appearance at Barnes & Noble.

The store reported no problems from the crowd at 2,000.

To answer the question posed by the enthusiastic gentleman in the video: Sarah Palin signed for 1,000, although I believe the crowd was actually larger than that, and her time limit was strictly capped.

Karl Rove, who will be speaking with the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth about his pending autobiography, Courage and Consequences, My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, has added a Plano event to his itinerary.

He'll be at Legacy Books, 7300 Dallas Parkway, 4 p.m. March 15 for a three-hour event.

Full details on how to get your book signed are after the jump.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Publication has been halted for a disputed book about the atomic bombing of Japan that Avatar director James Cameron had optioned for a possible film, The Associated Press has learned.
Publisher Henry Holt and Company, responding to questions from the AP, said Monday that author Charles Pellegrino "was not able to answer" concerns about The Last Train from Hiroshima, including whether two men mentioned in the book actually existed.
"It is with deep regret that Henry Holt and Company announces that we will not print, correct or ship copies of Charles Pellegrino's The Last Train from Hiroshima, '" the publisher said in a statement issued to the AP.
Doubts were first raised about the book a week ago after Pellegrino acknowledged that one of his interview subjects had falsely claimed to be on one of the planes accompanying the Enola Gay, from which an atom bomb was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945. Holt had initially promised to send a corrected edition.
But further doubts about the book emerged. The publisher was unable to determine the existence of a Father Mattias (the first name is not given) who supposedly lived in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, and John MacQuitty, identified as a Jesuit scholar presiding over Mattias' funeral
"I read a number of books on this period of time and none of them mentioned Mattias or MacQuitty. I knew there was no way those people could have been omitted if they were real," said history professor Barton Bernstein of Stanford University.
Pellegrino's own background was also questioned. He sometimes refers to himself as Dr. Pellegrino, and his Web site lists him as receiving a Ph.D. in 1982 from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. But in response to a query from the AP, the school said it had no proof that Pellegrino had such a degree.

And she'll be speaking at Arts & Letters Live May 7:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Former first lady Laura Bush's memoir is coming out in early May.
"Spoken From the Heart" is scheduled for release May 4 from Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It released a cover image Monday showing a smiling close-up with her light brown hair brushed to the side.
A memoir by her husband, former President George W. Bush, is due in the fall.

I should have seen this coming.

First, there was the fan fiction based on "Pong" that I showed you last year.

Then there was "Dante's Inferno," the video game.

Followed by what I thought was a post-in-jest a friend sent me about plans to develop the arcade classic "Missile Command" into a movie.

(My proposed screenplay:

FADE IN

CITIZEN: Watch out for that missile!

FX: BOOM!

ROLL CREDITS )

But now, things are getting serious. The Wall Street Journal (tip: Shelf Awareness) reports that Random House is putting writers to work on storylines for video games.

Around 15 employees are involved in the new venture. Several, including Mr. Clayton, have been involved in adapting videogames into books, and were responsible for building the "Star Wars" book franchise in partnership with Lucasfilm Ltd.

Random House plans to tap its stable of authors to help write storylines for the games, as well as write books based on them.

I think the key to their success will be whether they can get the price down to, say, a quarter.

But the question of the day is: Do we consider this to be the clearest sign yet of our pending cultural Apocalypse? Or does it just mean that publishers are running out of ideas for books about well-meaning lawyers who stumble onto corporate malfeasance?

Or should we celebrate because somewhere, a writer is being employed to turn video games into something literary?

Cnn.com reports: Angelina as Kay Scarpetta angers Cornwell book fans.

Long story short: Cornwell is excited, but some fans are not. My mom is a big Scarpetta fan. She's excited. But I've read a few Scarpetta books, and I see her as more of a Glenn Close character. The story says the role was originally offered to Jodie Foster, whom I think would be a perfect fit.

What do you think?

I've been meaning to write about two of my favorite books from last year: Pops, the Louis Armstrong bio by Terry Teachout, and The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece, by Eric Silbin. The brewing iPad hype gives me an excuse.

The books don't have much in common, besides music and overall excellence. Pops is a straight-out biography, one that challenged and changed the way I think about my favorite performing artist. Armstrong comes across as great as ever -- and, for the first time in my readings about him, fully human as well. We're at least a generation past the period where thinking people viewed the trumpeter as an Uncle Tom who stopped doing serious work in the 1920s; Teachout's work should help bury that image by portraying Armstrong as an intense artist who was, in contrast to his always-clowning stage persona, "given to inexplicable explosions of anger that came and went like summer storms."

Teachout's portrayal, gleaned in part from previously inaccessible records, hardly tarnishes the legend, though. As Armstrong told a doctor late in life after being warned that he might drop dead if he went through with a planned series of concerts: "Doc, that's all right, I don't care. My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to bloooow that hooorn." Teachout adds welcome depth to our understanding of that lovely soul and the music that expressed it.

The Cello Suites is a blend of criticism, musical history, personal essay and biography -- or rather, biographies, because I learned just as much about J.S. Bach as I did about Casals. It's the story of how the remarkable Cello Suites came to be -- or at least, how they are thought to have come about. Because it turns out that the music, which today is accepted as timeless, had been virtually forgotten until Casals stumbled across the sheet music at a shop in Barcelona in 1890 and eventually led them from obscurity to ubiquity.

It's a rich story, one that is infused with Siblin's sense of obsession (the pop music critic at one point takes cello lessons to understand Bach better) but never overtaken by it. A serious music scholar might be bored by his journey. I was enthralled.

The two books had one one other thing in common, which is where Steve Jobs comes in.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sherman Alexie and Barbara Kingsolver are among this year's finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
The nominees for the fiction prize worth $15,000 were announced Tuesday. Alexie was nominated for the story collection War Dances and Kingsolver for the novel The Lacuna.
Other nominees are Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor, Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs and Lorraine N. Lopez's Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories.
The winner will be announced March 23. Previous recipients include Philip Roth, John Updike and E.L. Doctorow.

Last month, we ran a short review of Last Train From Hiroshima, by Charles Pellegrino. The book had been generally acclaimed, although this reviewer (Jeffrey Burke of Bloomberg News) noted: "The extent of the details his subjects recall sometimes strains plausibility. Yet it's hard to see how the writer could possibly overstate such horrors."

Unfortunately, one of the subjects apparently did some overstating. A New York Times report (carried in the print edition of the Dallas Morning News) says that author Charles Pellegrino "now concedes that he was probably duped" by one Joseph Fuoco, who is described as a last-minute substitute on one of the two observation planes that escorted the Enola Gay.

"I'm stunned," Mr. Pellegrino said. "I liked and admired the guy. He had loads and loads of papers, and photographs of everything."

The public record has to be repaired, he added. "You can't have wrong history going out," he said. "It's got to be corrected."

A movie version by James Cameron had been planned. At the moment, the author's Web site still carries a large promotion for Avatar, so perhaps the two remain on good terms. But in the discussion area of the site, the author says,

I am trying to reach out now to [veterans'] families and get the rest of the story, and will begin at once to rewrite the few chapters that have Joseph Fuoco in them, replacing them with the story of the man who actually sat in the seat claimed by Joe Fuoco.

The bottom line is that I cannot have wrong history going out there - repeatedly, in future editions. These pages will be corrected, at once.

[UPDATE: Macmillan has issued a press release about the book; it's posted after the jump.]

That's not entirely accurate since I read a big book o' 37 Sherlock Holmes mysteries, which also included two novels.

Somehow I'd gone though high school and college without ever reading a Holmes mystery, and admittedly, it was Robert Downey Jr.'s turn as the famous Baker Street detective piqued that my interest in the books. But it was definitely worth the wait.

Tobias Wolff will be speaking tonight as part of the Highland Park Literary Festival. The free event takes place 7 p.m. at Highland Park High School.

Can't make it? Organizers have posted some audio from a prior reading. You can also catch him in the 1 p.m. segment of Think on KERA-FM (90.1).