THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Roberto Bolaño wrote "2666," which was named Time Magazine's Best Book of 2008. Difficult, cranky, opinionated--and dead--he is finally catching on in the English-speaking world. It's about time. For more on Bolaño, click here.
Read the NYRB review of "2666" is here. Read an insightful piece on "2666" by Marcela Valdes in the Nation here.


Christmas shopping for books?

This year, my favorites were "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz; "Tree of Smoke," by Denis Johnson; "The Midnight Disease," by Alice Flaherty, "How Fiction Works," by James Wood, "The Savage Detectives," by Roberto Bolaño, "Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, and "Lush Life," by Richard Price. (I just started the last book, and I can already tell you it will make my list.) That's four fiction, and two non-fiction, if anyone is counting.

For more Best Books of 2008, check out these lists:

New York Times Best Books of 2008

Michiko Kakutani, NYTimes

Janet Maslin, NYTimes

Publisher's Weekly

2008 National Book Award Winners--listen to them read HERE.

PAST POSTS ON WRITERS AND WRITING
Since we started this blog, a good deal of space has been devoted to writers and writing. The list below will help you look up past stories and interviews.

Jorge Luis Borges is HERE

Thomas Pynchon is HERE

Cormac McCarthy, Ken Kesey, Jonathan Lethem, & Jonathan Franzen are HERE.

Denis Johnson and David Foster Wallace are HERE

Colson Whitehead, & Tin House Writers Conference is HERE

David Foster Wallace is HERE

Roberto Bolano is HERE

Tim O'Brien and Amy Hempel are HERE

Tim O'Brien on War Stories are HERE

Junot Diaz is HERE

Henry Miller is HERE

Charles d'Ambrosio is HERE

Norman Mailer chats with Martin Amis HERE

Norman Mailer's obituary is HERE

Ray Bradbury is HERE

"Great Short Stories" are HERE

"Reading Books" is HERE

Michael Chabon and Oakley Hall are HERE

"Every Day I Write the Book" is HERE

PUGILISTS AT REST

Some writers write about nothing, huge airy clouds of nothing, shopworn romances and thrillers and fake memoirs with character types instead of characters who slog through meaningless, overly familiar plots. People love the stuff! This is the literary equivalent of fast food. These doorstops with the glossy covers sell well at airports and may comprise most summer reading, but when the vacation ends they're usually left behind on the plane or by the pool.

While some write airy nothings, others try to grapple with the times in which they live. These writers are generally crankier than the pop writers. They rodeo-ride the zeitgeist and try to hold on till the bell rings. They takes risks. Unfortunately, they write books you can't read lying in a hammock after six pina coladas.

Here are two from the latter camp, Martin Amis and Norman Mailer, chatting in 1991.

PUGILIST AT REST

Norman Mailer (American writer, 1923-07) died early Saturday morning at the age of 84. Mailer is the last of the post-war literary lions to go, and his legacy will remain several great novels and works of "new journalism" combining the novelist's skill with reportage, books such as "Armies of the Night" and "The Executioner's Song," winning Mailer the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize twice.
A scrappy, combative writer, Mailer was a fierce opponent in debate, combining Harvard-honed intelligence with Brooklyn street smarts to trounce any contenders (Hannity was suitably shredded recently). Mailer's view of the universe was both existential and Manichean, a struggle between equally matched good and evil, a contest in which there was no guarantee of good prevailing. He was a lifelong political lefty, though not in any simplistic sense, and he continued to fight at an age when most older writers seem content to accumulate laurels. Mailer despised George Bush and the Iraq War, delineating his arguments in the book "Why Are We at War?" and countless articles and speeches. Here are a couple clips from interviews.

"Iraq is the excuse for moving in an imperial direction. War with Iraq, as they originally conceived it, would be a quick, dramatic step that would enable them to control the Near East as a powerful base - not least because of the oil there, as well as the water supplies from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to build a world empire." International Herald Tribune, 2003

"Well, I can present other scenarios than the one offered by our two good Doctors of Magic, Rove and Bush, Masters of Advertising Sciences (Mendacity and Public Manipulation). Their access to confidential material is orders of magnitude larger than is available to any of us, but their scenario has been skewed by the outsize need to mischaracterize the greater part of intelligence they do receive..Embarking on a full-scale war to rid oneself of terrorists is analogous to hunting a hornet with a Sherman tank." From a letter in the New York Review of Books, 2003

Here, Mailer speaks with Charlie Rose about "The Spooky Art of Writing." His section begins about fifteen minutes in, so skip ahead to that point.