The Olive Reader

Answers from Tyler Knox, author of Kockroach

Best Book Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was just brilliant, but Queenpin by Megan Abbott was also a blast. Abbott simply writes the hottest femme fatales in noir.

Best Movie “I’m Not There” Six actors channeling Dylan. Who was Dylan channeling after he left Woody behind? I also liked “Transformers” also, but don’t tell anyone.

Best Album “Favorite Worst Nightmare” by the Arctic Monkeys. I’m listening to its snarl right now. Yowza.

Favorite Blog PostSecret

Person of the Year Louis Armstrong. Once again. And he’s been dead for 35 years.

New Years Resolutions Work more, work less, hit for power.

Prediction for 2008: Rain.

Answers from bestselling author Elizabeth George, author of the Inspector Lynley mysteries

What was the best book of the year?
Although the best book of any year would have to be The Gulag Archipelago, for this year I was quite taken with Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.

What was the best movie?
I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve spent most of the year watching the entire seven seasons of The West Wing, so I have been to virtually no movies. I laughed myself sick at Death at a Funeral, one of those wonderfully inane British comedies, but otherwise I don’t remember seeing anything good because I’ve been swept up with wishing Jimmy Smits would run for president.

What was the best song/album?
For me, the best song was in a short moment broadcast over the internet from British television. It is in a clip from their show Britain’ s Got Talent aand it features a mobile phone salesman called Paul Potts who sings about one minute of “Nessun Dorma” and brings the crowd cheering to their feet. I’ve watched this about 50 times and counting so far.

Favorite Blog?
As far as Favorite Blogs go, I have managed to make it this far in life without ever having read a blog and I intend to make a noble attempt to go to my death holding on to that position.

Who was the person of the year?
Person of the Year: Greg Mortenson who is single-handedly doing for the Middle East what the American Government is terrified of doing: making peace by building schools, not bombs. You can read about him in Three Cups of Tea.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
My New Year’s Resolution is to attempt to be present in my life, one moment at a time.

More from our lovely cousins in the UK – Paul Baggaley – who runs Harper Perennial across the pond.

What was the best book of the year?
The best books I read this year were two extraordinary memoirs by two wonderful and, it has to be said, rather eccentric British women.
Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers by Antonia Quirke (curiously published with the title Choking on Marlon Brando in the USA) is the story of a film critic who has a disturbing inability to separate her dangerous obsessions with male film stars from her own real and frankly disastrous love life. And on a similar theme, Linda Robertson’s What Rhymes with Bastard? (which will be published in April 2008) is the story of how a Scottish woman meets and marries a commitment-phobic, mentally unstable, drug-taking charmer, moves to the USA, realises she had made a terrible mistake, but finally triumphs, culminating in achieving the ultimate accolade: Ms Accordion San Francisco, 2004. Hilarious and quite often very rude.

What was the best movie?
Having grown up in the industrial north, discovered music in the punk era (and therefore followed Joy Division and New Order with utter devotion), I was very nervous about seeing Anton Corbijn’s Control. Even though the story has been told many times, the performances of Samantha Morton and in particular Sam Riley as Ian Curtis are truly revelatory and for a brief moment you somehow forget what you know will happen. And why not also (re-)watch 24 Hour Party People, a hugely entertaining film about the whole Manchester music scene and now a fitting homage to Tony Wilson who died too young this year and was one of the geniuses behind the movement.

What was the best song/album?
It is impossible to look beyond Radiohead’s magnificent In Rainbows.

Favorite Blog?
I still find postsecret fascinating. A brilliant idea: every postcard is a perfect short story.

Who was the person of the year?
Doris Lessing – age has not diminished her – nor even mellowed her. Earlier in the year I watched her enthrall a packed audience at the Hay-on-Wye festival. My moment of the year was when she is told by reporters packed on her doorstep that she has won the Nobel Prize

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Make at least one visit to New York, the most exciting city in the world.

Bonus question: Any predictions for 2008?
The incomparable beauty of Arsène Wenger’s footballing imagination will be rewarded with a major trophy (I realise this sentence this will be meaningless to 99% of blog reader)

Answers from Jessica Anya Blau, author of the wonderful forthcoming novel The Summer of Naked Swim Parties

What was the best book of the year?
The last book I read that I loved and couldn’t stop reading was Vendela Vida’s Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. It was haunting—a very lonely book. I wanted to call the protagonist, tell her I’d be her friend and buy her a thick, fluffy down coat to warm her up (most of the story takes place in temperatures well below zero).

What was the best movie?
I really liked No Country for Old Men. But I had to turn my head a few times to avoid the tremendous violence. It was easier to hear the violence than to see it. Tommy Lee Jones is OLD in this movie, but he’s still outrageously sexy. He has bags under his eyes that make him look like a hound dog. He has cracks in his face that look the right length and width to swipe a credit card. And, honestly, I don’t mind that one bit.

What was the best song/album?
Lately I’ve been listening to I’m Not There, which is various artists doing Bob Dylan songs. Some are fabulous and I play them over and over again, some I skip every time they come up. I’ve been downloading French pop songs because French pop singers tend to enunciate and I can actually understand what they’re singing. And I’ve been downloading Serge Gainsbourg—stuff from decades ago, because I love how he sort of growls when he sings. And, of course, there’s nothing better than when he doesn’t sing at all and he just talks—as if he KNOWS he’s the sexiest Jewish Frenchman in town.

Favorite Blog?
I tend not to read them. I try to stay away from the computer other than email and writing. I’m afraid I’ll spiral down into some no-exit hours-long computer world where I’ll be shopping for shoes, reading about Britney’s pregnant sister (my very young daughter informed me of the mother-to-be), and googling old boyfriends or people I made out with in college.

Who was the person of the year?
My mother, whom I call Mum. She manages to have a great big laugh every day in spite of a year that should have beat the smile off her face.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
My resolution is to forever give up the idea of having a nose job and to stop taking a black magic marker and fixing my nose in photos to see what I’d look like if I did have a nose job. The idea for the rhinoplasty has been in my head since fifth grade when Paul B. said, “Jessica would be cute if her nose weren’t so big.” That is an EXACT quote by the way. So, instead of dreaming of a perkier schnozz, I will celebrate my nose! I will turn my protruding conk toward my big-nose role models (Sofia Coppola, Sarah Jessica Parker . . . there are so few) and cheer my sisterhood with them!

** Bonus question: Any predictions for 2008?
My prediction for 2008 is that I will not get a nose job.

Answers from Tish Cohen, author of Town House

What was the best book of the year?
Barbara Gowdy’s Giller-nominated novel, HELPLESS. Gowdy gets into the mind of a Torontonian pedophile who is doing everything he can to resist his terrible urges—she makes a human being out of a monster.

What was the best movie?
By a mile, ONCE by John Carney. Sweet, simple, so real you feel dirty for spying.

What was the best song/album?
I’m in love with Glen Hansard’s Fallen From the Sky

Favorite Blog?
Simply Wait by Patry Francis

Who was the person of the year?
For me, little Madeleine McCann, who went missing in Portugal while vacationing with her parents. Whether or not she’s ever found, that innocent face will be with me forever.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
To seriously consider taking up fencing.

Answers from Bryan Charles, author of Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way:

What was the best book of the year?
I didn’t read too many books that came out this year. Sometimes it screws with my head to read too much new fiction. I did read Tree of Smoke, though, and thought it was pretty great. It was a commitment, you know. Total immersion. I lugged that thing around for a month. Denis Johnson’s always been a favorite of mine, plus he’s older than me so the hype and the good reviews were easier to deal with.

What was the best movie?
I can’t remember the movies I saw earlier in the year but I’m sure none of them were as good as No Country for Old Men. That was a great movie. I’m a big fan of the book too. I thought it was underrated. I thought Margot at the Wedding was probably the most overrated movie. I went into the theater with a lot of goodwill—Squid and the Whale is one of my favorite movies of the last few years—but it all drained away in the first five minutes.

What was the best song/album?
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, by Spoon, was my favorite album this year. Boxer, by the National was pretty good too. A couple of my favorite songs were “Black Like Me,” by Spoon and “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. Pretty much in line with Pitchfork, I guess, except I thought that Arcade Fire record was overrated. I loved their first record but I couldn’t get into Neon Bible. On the other hand I thought the new Smashing Pumpkins record was somewhat unfairly maligned, even by me. I wrote a bad review of it for a paper in Cleveland but ended up coming around to it months later.

Favorite blog?
I’m conflicted about the blog scene. Most of them just seem to pull a bunch of shit together from all over the Internet and say: Hey, here’s a little sample of this great/stupid/outrageous thing, you really should go check out the full deal elsewhere. The one blog I read regularly is Fluxblog. It’s my friend Matthew’s music blog. He posts mp3s and writes little blurbs about them. Other than that, I don’t know, blogs are exhausting.

Who was the person of the year?
All the people I can think of are either demented maniacs like the president or people like Barack Obama, who’s pretty inspiring but falling into this rabbit hole of bland, broad-statement politicking. The 2008 election already feels twenty years long. Sometimes I feel like an apathetic stoner teenager somewhere in the heartland, thinking screw it, who cares, nothing’s ever gonna change anyway so why bother, and I’ve never felt like that before. So I’m sort of torn on this whole person of the year thing, but since Barack’s my MySpace friend I’ll go with him.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
To get the old NordicTrack back in action and sweat my way down to my college football-playing weight.

Any predictions for 2008?
Status quo to slightly worse, politically. Up and up and up forever, personally.

Answers from the lovely Ann Patchett, author of Run, Truth & Beauty, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, and Bel Canto:

What was the best book of the year?
Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson

What was the best movie?
Michael Clayton

What was the best song/album?
Homage: Age of the Diva, Renee Flemming

Favorite Blog?
Daily Coyote

Who was the person of the year?
Al Gore

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Write a novel

Any predictions for 2008?
Obama

Here we have our first colleague to join the fun: John Bond of HarperCollins UK

What was the best book of the year?
The books I have most enjoyed reading are both about a slightly demonic British football manager called Brian Clough. David Peace’s THE DAMNED UNITED and Duncan Hamilton’s PROVIDED YOU DON’T KISS ME. One a novel, the other a Boswell and Dr Johnson relationship between a callow journalist and a hugely successful loud-mouthed, whisky soaked genius. As dark and troubled as he was funny and clever, for Clough’s life, think Richard Ford meets Frederick Exley…but it all really happened.

What was the best movie?
The best movie of the last few weeks was ENCHANTED. Because we have to watch so much crap when we take our children to the movies, this was a cut above…

What was the best song/album?
Wasted Little DJs by The View. I know I’m too old but I don’t care.

“I told them if I write this song for them That they would cut my hair for free…”

Oh yes.

Favourite blog?
5th Estate

Who was the person of the year?
Tony Soprano

What is your New Year’s resolution?
To take more risks

Any predictions for 2008?
Obama for President

In his famous essay, “The Painter of Modern Life,” Baudelaire writes, among other things, that “the distinguishing characteristic of the dandy’s beauty consists above all in an air of coldness which comes from an unshakeable determination not to be moved; you might call it a latent fire which hints at itself, and which could, but chooses not to burst into flame.” Luckily, our dear friend, Sebastian, author of Dandy in the Underworld (forthcoming from Harper Perennial in March 2008), has shed some of that 19th-century reticence and shares his resolutions for the New Year: (For full disclosure go here.)

What was the best book of the year?
Dandy in the Underworld. I express in prose of incomparable grandeur thoughts of an unparalleled brilliance. Am I the best author of my time? I’d say I was in the top one.

What was the best movie?
The Libertine. One of the greatest movies ever made. I am now called a libertine in the press all the time which is nice. I like the word “Libertine.” It makes my squalor seem classy.

What was the best song/album?
Dandy in the Underworld by Current 93 with Sebastian Horsley.

Baby Dee : harp and accordion.
Sebastian Horsley : Vocals
Andrew Liles : screams and themes and mix mix mix
David Tibet :vocals, guitar.

It is brilliant. Perfect and poisonous. Like a snake its poison is part of its perfection.

Avant-Garde is French for off-Broadway garbage. But ours is on-Broadway diamonds let me tell you. Marc would have loved it. We took it and wrung the life into it.

David Tibet is one of my oldest friends. I have known him since I was 16. He is touched with genius of that I am absolutely sure. That he has created what he has without any real musical ability makes his achievements even greater. It is always the artists who know the least about an art who come up with the best ideas. They don’t know the restrictions. David Tibet has reached the limit of genius available to people who can’t do anything. Let it here be said : I love him.

Favorite Blog?
Hate em all – including mine. The internet is for those who lack the flair for conversation. Loser Central. Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. The trouble with the internet is that it is replacing masturbation as a leisure activity. What the fuck. I guess the best that can be said it is that it is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink. Fancy a fuck?

Who was the person of the year?
My foul weather friend : David Tibet.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
To prove physically in front of an audience that male sheep cannot get pregnant.

Any predictions for 2008?
All you need to be a successful prophet is to be a profound pessimist. Everything will get worse.

It’s that time again. The time when thousands of written pieces begin with the words, “it’s that time again.” And when we ask everybody we know—colleagues, authors, booksellers, etc.—to answer a few questions about their lives, their favs, and their futures. First up is Peter Robinson, author of Piece of My Heart.

What was the best book of the year?
White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, by Dominick Sandbrook.

What was the best movie?
Pan’s Labyrinth

What was the best song/album?
Raising Sand, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

Favorite Blog?
Living With Music/Paper Cuts/New York Times.

Who was the person of the year?
There wasn’t one this year.

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Same as usual: eat more healthily, drink less wine and get more exercise.

Any predictions for 2008?
I won’t keep my new year’s resolution.

From the NY Times:

Laura Archera Huxley, a writer who was best known for her memoir of her years with her husband, the novelist Aldous Huxley, died on Thursday at her home in Los Angeles…Laura Archera was born in Turin, Italy, on Nov. 2, 1911. A musical prodigy, she made her United States debut in 1937, performing Mozart’s A major violin concerto in Carnegie Hall with the New York Women’s Symphony Orchestra. Miss Archera later studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. At the outbreak of World War II in Europe, she chose to remain in the United States, eventually settling in Los Angeles.

Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading notes New Directions recent decision to publish the experimental boxed novel The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson.

“Bid to support America’s preeminent literary quarterly” at Charity Buzz. That’s right. There are only a few days left to do your part.

The Guardian has the full text of Doris Lessing’s Nobel speech from last night. It’s worth a full and close read. Once you’re finished, I hope you shut your computer off and run into a library.

And be sure to read Nicholas Pearson’s wonderful account of his experience in Sweden! Or perhaps see and hear Nicholas here.

Fine news this week for some of our favorite authors: The American Academy of Arts and Letters named William T. Vollmann one of two winners of the 2008 Strauss Livings. Awarded for literary excellence, the Livings provide for a $50,000 annual distribution to each writer for a period of five years, the intent being to provide them the freedom to devote time exclusively to writing. Madison Smart Bell was this year’s other winner. To find out more about the American Academy of Arts and Letters, please visit here.

Sarah Hall has won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for Daughters of the North (the Faber UK title of the novel is The Carhullan Army). The award, which comes with a £5,000 prize, is presented by the UK’s Booktrust and named for the late writer John Llewellyn Rhys, who was killed in action during World War II. For more information on this award, please visit here.

The author of This Little Britain (Fourth Estate, 2007), Harry Bingham, runs an outstanding “manuscript assessment and editorial service” called The Writer’s Workshop, which offers valuable feedback for serious writers. You can also visit his blog: Toasting Napoleon.

And I’m happy to see that The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery is now out in paperback! I was lucky enough to interview Ellis when the hardcover released. Read the interview here.