A Few Quick Links
Because my children are ignoring me and refusing to get dressed, I’m going to ignore them right back. So much for the high road.
The bracket for the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books is up! Adjust your reading list priorities accordingly. (I’m reading City of Refuge now, which seems bootless, since it’s up against Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.)
At the WSJ, a bunch of financial experts on what to do with your financial stimulus money. Link from Morning News.
At New York Magazine, Nate Silver statistically predicts the Oscar winners.
A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago will be live-blogging the Oscars.
On last night’s Top Chef, Finnish Stefan wore a T-shirt and hat emblazoned with “Suomi”. According to Wikipedia, Suomi means Finnish or Finland. One of the finalists commented that Fabio’s mohawk meant there had been one in every finale. Season four was Richard. Season Three was Dale. I don’t know who it was for the first two seasons.
On Colicchio’s blog at Bravo, he gives more information to the decisions from last night’s New Orleans finale part 1. It’s brief and insightful, plus divulges the technical term pro chefs use for other chefs’ food they admire.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Is City of Refuge your first read for the ToB, or have you been saving up your reviews to post alongside the tournament? I have to confess, I really haven’t had much luck with any of the books I picked up for the tourney. Maybe it’s because I could only get my hands on the ones that were not that great (I’ve made it through 4… the rest are all on hold at the library, with my number quite far off in the distant future)?
February 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Also, I just wanted to say that I’ve never checked out Colichio’s blog before and I did find it really insightful. Before reading it, I was pretty disappointed that the person who had to win first place didn’t (I’m trying to keep this spoiler free and vague!), but upon reading Tom’s comments, I was at peace with the judges’ decision.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:19 am
I felt exactly the same way, and was glad for the additional info from his blog. I found Emeril a very good judge–he shelved his over the top personality, and found only positive things to say about the food. No snarky mean stuff, like the not-missed Toby.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:23 am
Sad to say, City of Refuge is the first one. I really wanted to finish Edgar Sawtelle. Next is Harry Revised, then Home. I’m in a similar situation. The wait for many of the top seeds is long. I think I”m going to read the ones I have, then start trying to work my way through the top seeds, bottom down rather than top up, since there’s no way I’ll read all sixteen, esp. the monster 2666.
Our Central library has one copy of most new books that can’t be reserved, just checked out in person, so I’m going to try to nab a bunch of the top seeds that way. I may also break down and buy a few like Unaccustomed Earth, and I find 2666 strangely tempting, even though I didn’t care for Savage Detectives.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:26 am
Yes, I was also pleasantly surprised with Emeril’s judging. I thought he was actually very thoughtful and that his comments were well-considered. They were the complete opposite of Toby, who seemed to focus more on coming up with mean-spirited things to say or bizzarely irrelevant pop-culture references.
As for the ToB, I have just had such a lukewarm response to the four books that I have read that I’m reluctant to buy any of the ones that I haven’t for fear of a repeat. Based on my personal experience with Unaccustomed Earth (you can check out my review on my site if you’re interested), I would strongly advise against buying it for your personal collection… You might get a kick out of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, though.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Frankie is one of the books I want to read anyway, not just for ToB. Which others did you read?
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Along with Frankie & Unaccustomed Earth, I also read Steer Toward Rock, & A Partisan’s Daughter. I was lukewarm re: Rock, and HATED A Partisan’s Daughter. Thank goodness it was short.
I’ve reviewed all of these on my site if you’re curious about any of these titles, but of them all I probably enjoyed Frankie most. Unaccustomed Earth was ok, but extremely repetitive and I didn’t think it deserved half of the praise that’s been heaped on it.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I did check out your reviews, which made me decidedly reluctant to read Rock and Partisan. Perhaps we should do a ToB cooperative, and share the reading of low seeds, which frees us up to read the ones we wanted to anyway. I’ll let you know what I think of City of Refuge (thus far, the story is good but the writing is more telling than showing.) and Harry Revised. I really enjoyed My Revolutions when I read it last year, and thought it worthwhile. I think I’ll skip Dart League King.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I’ll be curious to hear what you think about Harry Revised. I was intrigued by it, but haven’t been able to get a copy of it. And our library system doesn’t even have a copy of Dart League King, so that’s a no go for me!
I think splitting off some of the low seeds would be a good idea! I took out a copy of City of Refuge, but the copy I borrowed smelled so strongly of someone’s perfume that I was physically repulsed by it. Can’t wait to hear how you find a (hopefully) copy that pleases the olfactory system.
February 24th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Try putting it in the freezer next to some baking soda for a while. But I’d have to give that copy a miss, too. I have a very sensitive schnoz.
February 24th, 2009 at 10:12 am
I did try putting it in the freezer for a few days (didn’t think to put baking soda… our freezer is pretty packed, so I don’t know if it would have fit!), and it still reeked. So I caved and put it in the pile to take back to the library.