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September 24, 2009
Shorties (Nick Hornby, Richard Buckner, and more)
The Washington Post reviews Nick Hornby's new novel, Juliet, Naked.
As usual, Hornby's dialogue between exasperated women and clueless men hits all the right comic notes. The likable slackers who mope through his stories appeal to that stuck and frustrated adolescent in us all. While wicked novelists like Jonathan Franzen or Claire Messud expose our pettiest thoughts and snicker at them, Hornby's gentle satire of arrested development offers a comforting, shame-free sense of recognition. You may want to knock some sense into his Peter Pans, but you also want to give 'em a hug.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution profiles singer-songwriter Richard Buckner.
The Georgia Strait profiles hot Vancouver bands.
The Poughkeepsie Journal profiles singer-songwriter Anders Parker.
Shaken & Stirred interviews Libba Bray, whose new YA novel Going Bovine is a wild, hysterical romp featuring mad cow disease, string theory, and so much more. Check out the video trailer for the book (featuring Bray in a cow suit).
Austinist interviews singer-songwriter John Vanderslice.
An abridged audiobook version of Iain Banks' new novel, Transition, is being serialized via a free podcast.
Dazed Digital interviews Tao Lin about his new novel, Shoplifting at American Apparel.
Dazed Digital: What's your new book about'?
Tao Lin: One person’s experiences in a temporally unidirectional universe of arbitrary nature, conveyed elliptically via 'the novella genre', with third-person narration, a concrete prose style, and little or no authorial rhetoric.
Amazon
Vue Weekly examines the value of video book trailers to publishers.
The Stranger reviews a Seattle stage adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's classic novel A Confederacy of Dunces.
DC9 at Night lists 8 indie rock duos it loves.
A St. Petersburg Times reporter recaps his summer of 50 concerts at 50 venues.
Joe Pernice talks to the Globe and Mail about his new novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop.
While the book gazes back at earlier adulthood, it might also be the product of a new father adjusting to his responsibilities in tension with the necessary narcissism of art: “I write books and I make music – I would call that a pretty self-centred life,” Pernice says. “When someone lets the frustration of not getting a sound or a performance right get to them, there's something wrong there, because you're not in a prison breaking rocks, you're in a studio making a record. Call it what it is, my friend – it's a blast. And being able to write books too? Oh, the funhouse has a back room! There's a funhouse behind the funhouse. Fantastic."
To celebrate the publication of his new novel, Frostbite, David Wellington is posting online 30 new stories in 30 days.
Sondre Lerche visits The Current studio for an interview and live performance.
Win three Steve Keene paintings in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
tags: music books popculture indie
