Culture Surfing

Anyone who has spent significant time struggling with weight will tell you how pervasive and frustrating that internal voice can be. The voice that tells you you’re ugly. The voice that chastises you for enjoying food. The voice that congratulates you for abstaining, that picks apart every culinary decision, that fixates on clothing sizes, that wears you down until you hate yourself for being so predictably sado-masochistic.

It’s this voice we become privy to in Frank Bruni’s new memoir, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full Time Eater. Bruni, who has spent the last four years as restaurant critic for the New York Times, has written a book that chronicles in detail his lifelong tussle with his weight. Bruni recounts every self-doubting thought, every fluctuation in pants size, and the tortured conflict of emotions surrounding every mouthful of food.

In many ways, it’s a powerful story, highly relatable and familiar to many of us. But the book belabors in 368 pages what we know in the first few chapters – this man has a fraught relationship with food and self-image. The meticulous detailing of that relationship seems self-indulgent at best, at worst an unhealthy excuse to feed his neuroses.

Continue reading “Book review: Born Round by Frank Bruni” »

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Remember James Frey? “The Man Who Conned Oprah,” to quote the Smoking Gun. According to the New York Times, the A Million Little Pieces author who took some, uh, liberties, with the novel’s details (87 days, a couple of hours … who’s counting, really?) has scored a new book deal with HarperCollins via an anonymous pitch.

A week after submitting a young adult novel anonymously to editors, James Frey, the notorious author of “A Million Little Pieces,” and a writing partner, Jobie Hughes, have sold North American rights to “I Am Number Four” to HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Harper, another imprint of HarperCollins, published Mr. Frey’s adult novel, “Bright Shiny Morning,” last year.

Frey intends to expand the story into a six-book series says the article, which adds “Last week, DreamWorks Studios bought film rights to the series, with Michael Bay, the director of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” signed on to produce and possibly direct the first installment.”

Michael Bay plus James Frey? That could turn into one hot mess if they’re not careful. Oh, and by the way, did you know that Oprah apologized to Frey last year? Mmm hmm, it’s true.

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According to the New York Times, some folks are trying to make the most of the carnage left behind by the Great Newspaper Massacre of ’08/’09 with “guerilla gardening” in abandoned paper bins, among other creative ideas. It’s kinda cool stuff, but kind of bittersweet, too.

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Forget the Kindle vs. paper books debate — apparently the days of actually “writing” a “book” are slowly coming to an end. You know, craft, art, substance(s), the actual minutia that all go into making a book a piece of work — it’s all becoming as outdated as banks crash, attention spans diminish, and robots begin serving us dinner in capsule form (OK, that last one won’t happen ’til 2011). In this new cultural landscape, we will need leaders, like the Jonas Brothers, to rise up and, with a firm hand, guide us to new levels of social media interactivity. Fortunately David Pogue, New York Times columnist and author of many books that teach your grandmother how to check e-mail on her eMac, is here to save us via his forthcoming The World According To Twitter.

From the blog of Pogue (David Pogue, not the Pogues the band, because you know very well that I’d heap high praise on anything penned by Shane MacGowan):

It all started with a live demo of Twitter. During a talk, I was trying to demonstrate the real-time nature of Twitter. On stage, I typed: “Anyone got a pun that can fit in 140 characters?” Your responses started flowing within 10 seconds….

Wait, wait, dear Culture Surfer reader, don’t check out yet, it gets better (in the way that “better” means “worse”):

Next, I posted a picture of a squirrel in my yard, and asked for captions. You turned out to be the wittiest caption writers ever!

(Oh, sorry, I added that exclamation point up there. It just needed it, didn’t it?)

That was it. I knew my mission in life: to compile and edit a whole book of (Twitter) responses, written by my 200,000 followers.

(As you can see, that is not actually the real cover of David Pogue’s book that you wrote for him)

In today’s collapsing publishing landscape this book screams both timely and vital. I’ll be greatly looking forward to Pogue’s well-thought-out treatise on Friendster soon!

No, really, all snark aside, this sort of attempt at an of-the-minute cash-grab really irks me. While publishers, authors and other various incidental folk in the book business are actually working, diligently and full of heart, to discover what it’s going to take to turn the sinking ship of books around, Pogue’s trying to ramp up excitement for 200 pages of @SomeGuy tweeting “hey I really like dogs.”

And speaking of @someguy — if you, lucky you, end up being selected to be a part of Pogue’s scam project, you certainly get compensated, right?

Of course you do. Per Pogue himself, he’ll send you “a free copy of the book, inscribed to you personally.”

Oh, wow, lucky day!

Continue reading “@heywritemybookforme” »

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1) Jon Ginoli reads and signs Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse.

2) Deluxe Vaudeville Orchestra performs at Academy Theatre.

3) New York Times reporter Warren St. John discusses and signs Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town at Jimmy Carter Library & Museum.

Continue reading “5 things to do: Wednesday”

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