The Olive Reader

In celebration of their 80th year in business, The Strand is holding a contest: What are your 5 favorite books?

Some time ago we helped announce The Agony and The Ecstasy: Essay Contest, which coincided with the release of I Love You, Beth Cooper! by Larry Doyle, and asked entrants to share “your best of days, your worst of nights, your most mind-blasting, soul-crushing, thrilling, terrorizing, delightful and humiliating memories of high school.” Well, the respondents were generous with their shame. Jonathan Selwood, author of The Pinball Theory of the Apocalypse (pictured on your right), took the Grand Prize for Eat or Die.

Ron at GalleyCat covers the results: Literati Relive Painful Adolescence

Since the first video we posted received such a warm response (it was only two comments, but we’ll take anything!), here’s another video from Scott Heim, author of the forthcoming We Disappear. Herein he discusses his best and worst writing habits, sources of inspiration, women’s softball, and more!

Episode 15 of the Harper Perennial Podcast is out and about. Click here to listen to interviews with the authors of these new paperback releases:

Under a Flaming Sky is Daniel James Brown’s gripping account of a little-known American story: the Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894. Daniel’s own great-grandmother and grandfather narrowly escaped this raging forest fire. Having grown up hearing their stories, he was finally compelled to write about them.

Truck: A Love Story is Michael Perry’s warm and funny memoir about a busy year in his life: attempting to get his old International truck running, and trying to grow a garden. Unexpectedly, after 39 years of bachelorhood, he also met the woman who changed everything.

My friend, Simon, recommends the following…

Joybubbles, 58, Peter Pan of Phone Hackers, Dies

“Joybubbles (the legal name of the former Joe Engressia since 1991), a blind genius with perfect pitch who accidentally found he could make free phone calls by whistling tones and went on to play a pivotal role in the 1970s subculture of ‘phone phreaks,’ died on Aug. 8 in Minneapolis.”

He decided that he would remain five-years old after his mother pressured him to capitalize on his high IQ.

“His second life as a youngster included becoming a minister in his own Church of Eternal Childhood and collecting tapes of every ‘Mr. Rogers’ episode. When asked why Mr. Rogers mattered, he said: ‘When you’re playing and you’re just you, powerful things happen.’”

A recent YouGov poll shows more people in the UK would rather be a writer than anything else (according to the 2,461 Britains polled). John Grace, writing for the Guardian, steps in to give some harsh yet (potentially) useful advice: “by all means, write, if you enjoy it. But, if you value your sanity – and that of any readers – keep it to yourself. Keep the dream; just don’t give up the day job.” Thanks, John!

Do you like Netflix? Do you like books? (I’m guessing you do.) Do you hate venturing farther than your mailbox? (Me too!) Than check out BookSwim, an “online book rental library.” Get new releases and classics with free shipping! It’s so beta.

Good article in today’s Times about the amazing Ray Bradbury: “ Vintage Bradbury, Packaged Anew “

***

The reclusive Pulitzer Prize-winning author was in attendance Monday night for the induction of baseball legend Hank Aaron into the Alabama Academy of Honor. According to the AP (via the Los Angeles Times, “At the end of the ceremony, Academy of Honor chairman Tom Carruthers joked with Lee, saying he knew she had something she wanted to say to the crowd.”

“Well, it’s better to be silent than to be a fool,” Lee replied. The audience laughed and gave her a standing ovation.

This explains why the cat has no idea who I am sometimes when I come home: “ Feline Memories Found to be Fleeting “.

It was yesterday, but belated was his thing anyway.

“LA was the end of a dead culture crawled west to get away from itself. LA knew it was rotten and laughed at it.”

Bukowski has been hailed as the poet laureate of LA – and to his legion of fans, Bukowski was––and remains––a counterculture icon. A hard–drinking wild man of literature, a stubborn outsider to the poetry world, he struck a chord with generations of readers, writing raw, tough poetry about booze, work, and women, that spoke to his fans as “real” and, like the work of the Beats, even dangerous.

If you haven’t ever, you have to. Even if its just a line. Because if his writing moves you it will move you right away. And if it moves you, well, its a great experience. And you’ll have miles of pages to savor. Those who know what I’m talking about, well, we share a similar experience then, don’t we.

Here’s a favorite. Try it.

“about the PEN conference”

take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning.

From You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense . And here’s a few pages from the most recent book of previously unpublished poetry that went on-sale back in March.

I just saw Christophe Honoré‘s film Dans Paris at the IFC Film Center last night. I rarely head to the movies—I think the last film I saw in theaters was Troy (or am I exaggerating?) Anyway, I mention this for two reasons: 1) the film was great; 2) Kim Wilde’s 1981 hit “Cambodia” has been riveted to my brain. The song plays when the main character has a special moment back in his old room with his old records. Here’s the video, so you too can have Kim’s catchy, melancholy magic running through your head all day.

Scott Heim has published two novels, Mysterious Skin and In Awe, as well as a book of poems, Saved from Drowning. In 2005, the film adaptation of Mysterious Skin was released to critical acclaim. Last week he stopped by the office, and we worked him over in a hard-hitting interview. Well, not really, we just threw some questions in a bucket—literally. Harper Perennial will release his novel, We Disappear, in February 2008. Here’s a snippet from the editor’s description: “It’s a novel about lost innocence, family responsibility, and the dangers of obsession. It examines our fascination with mystery and crime, and ultimately shows the resilience of the bond between mother and son.” You can read an excerpt from We Disappear here at Scott’s kick-ass website.

The website Monsters & Critics features A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith as their Book Club Pick of the Month for August. Click over for discussion and reviews.

And, in case you’re interested, Bill Morrison, Creative Director of Bongo Entertainment, blogs about The Simpsons Handbook in his MySpace books feature.

Welcome to the newly improved Olive Reader—weblog of Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (in case you didn’t know that already). As you can see, it looks better. There are blog feeds, neatly-organized side bars, random quotes, circulating book jackets, two little book gnomes watching benevolently over things, etc. There will be more event coverage, book news, author essays and features, videos, photos, coherence, etc. I’ve also wrangled some devastatingly attractive colleagues to contribute regularly. Well, that’s it for now. I really hope you like the new look.