Book Club Connection by Susan LoTempio

Teens are reading, too

Kids have a lot of money to spend, we all know that. And adults assume they're spending their bucks on video games, iPods, computer software, cell phones and fast food.

  Some are, some aren't.

According to an interesting piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, we are in "one of the most fertile periods in the history of young adult literature." Teen book sales are booming, the article says, "up by a quarter between 1999 and 2005."

As someone in the word business, that's welcome news because getting people to read - including young people - is one of the missions of this newspaper. Why else would we have two Buffalo News book clubs - one for adults and one for younger readers (through our Wednesday NeXt section).

The Seattle article points to the quality of writing as one of the reasons teens are reading more, and the quality of the books chosen by the NeXt Book Club is impressive. If your kids haven't read some of the NeXt selections, put them on the list for your next visit to a local book store or library. Here are some that have been chosen over the years:

   "The Giver" by Lois Lowry; "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminister Boy" by Gary Schmidt; "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White; "The Witches," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" both by Roald Dahl; "The Star of Kazan" by Eva Ibbotson; "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen; "The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963" by Christopher Paul Curtis and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis.

Literature doesn't get any better than that.

Weekend reading

What was The News Book Club reading a year ago?

  Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was the April 2006 selection, timed for the release of the movie.

  It's not my favorite book - not by a long shot.

   Is it yours? Can someone please explain to me why people love this novel so much?  Yeah, the story is interesting. But does anyone really think Brown is a good writer?

"Pastoral" by disc

UB graduate and hard-working stage, screen and TV actor Ron Silver "reads" the audio version of "American Pastoral" (Phoenix Audio, $44.95) and is he ever good.

It takes 14 discs and 16 hours to tell the story of Swede Levov and his family, life and times. But Silver puts an intensity into Philip Roth's writing that makes it time well spent.

Silver's reading of the dialogue is amazing. The way he handles the long, long passages of literary naval-gazing is admirable. I never would have guessed that Roth's words could come so alive.

The awards pile up

    Philip Roth is in the news this week, not just because we're featuring his "American Pastoral" in April, but because he has won the first PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction.

The award comes with a prize of $40,000 and will be given every two years.

Saul Bellow, of course, is the author of "Henderson the Rain King," "Herzog" and "The Adventures of Augie March." Bellow died in 2005.

According to an item in the New York Times this week, Roth's novel "Everyman" was inspired in part by the death of Bellow.

"How could I be anything but thrilled to receive an award bearing Saul Bellow's name," Roth was quoted as saying.

How pastoral is it?

  What critics have said about Philip Roth's "American Pastoral," the April pick of The News Book Club:

  " 'American Pastoral' invites comparison with John Updike's 'In the Beauty of the Lilies.' The chief difference is that Mr. Updike's novel ends in a secular apocalypse, the last act in the story of the death of a Christian God, while Mr. Roth's ends in the imagination of ruin, the death of a Jew's dream of ordinariness. The difference is not extreme, although both both stories are." - Michael Wood, the New York Times, April 20, 1997

"A big-picture book, it aspires to naturalist traditions that pit irrestible social forces against hapless souls. Clearly, this time around Roth wants to dodge the much-leveled charge of navel-gazing." - Albert Mobilio, Salon, April 25, 1997

"Sometimes he pounds his message home with a sledgehammer, but Roth writes so well he can make even a sledge sound lyrical. This is his third novel in four years; the others were awarded major literary prizes. 'American Pastoral' is again a triumph, the work of our best American novelist at the peak of his powers." - Bob Hoover, Pitttsburgh Post-Gazette, April 27, 1997.

  Actually, "American Pastoral" won Roth the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. Did it deserve it?

April's new book ...

   ... is Philip Roth's "American Pastoral." And if you're going to read it and join the discussion on this blog, get ready for one heckuva literary ride.

The novel is long, dense, fascinating. It takes dedication to get to the last page, but you'll be glad you did.

Roth is considered one of America's best novelists, but there is one thing true about his writing style readers either love or hate: No detail, however tiny, is left unexamined.

The pages of description - ranging from how to make fine leather gloves to a street in Newark, New Jersey - can leave readers exhausted.

Roth's characters are prone to endless internal dialogue. But they are also real - people you are likely to know, who suffer in ways you can relate to.

That's all I'm going to say about "American Pastoral" for now. But if you are reading it, or have already read it, please join in the discussion: What did it do for you?

Don't miss Andrew Z. Galarneau's story on "American Pastoral" in today's Life & Arts section.

Generating buzz

  Wow. Did anyone else notice that Jodi Picoult's new novel, which I mentioned in Friday's blog, is No. 1 on the New York Times (Hardcover fiction) Bestseller list? "Nineteen Minutes" deals with the aftermath of a shooting rampage at a high school, and is getting good reviews and a lot of buzz.

Here's what the Times critic, Janet Maslin, said about the novel (and I think her comments are dead on):

  "There are reasons why Ms. Picoult's books are so widely read. However doggedly she belabors the obvious, she writes articulately and clearly, making her all too much of a rarity among popular authors. Her stories are more reassuring than disturbing, and their surprise twists pose no threats. These novels have soap-opera momentum, and they guarantee comforting closure. Even the cover of 'Nineteen Minutes' depicts hands being held."

I can't imagine that "Nineteen Minutes" is more compelling read than her previous novel and Book Club selection, "My Sister's Keeper." But if you read her newest, let me know how you liked it.

Weekend reading

Jodi Picoult is out with a new novel, "Nineteen Minutes," described as a thriller that explores "what it means to be different in our society." I read her last book "The Tenth Circle," and have to admit I wasn't impressed.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact she's published 14 books since 1992 - which doesn't give her much time for thoughtful and creative writing. And get this, according to her Web site, she's written five issues of the "Wonder Woman" comic strip.

The one Jodi Picoult novel I loved is "My Sister's Keeper," which our Book Club featured in October, 2006. It's the amazing story of a family with one sick child, and a second child brought into the world to "save" her sister.

The plot is fascinating and takes you on a ride with all sorts of twists and turns. Thankfully, Picoult's writing is straighforward, sparing us the cloying approach another author might have taken.

I'll reserve any opinion on her newest novel until I read it (IF I read it), but I can't imagine it can in any way surpass the level of great storytelling that's found in "My Sister's Keeper."

Short stories online

  The nine locally written short stories that made it to the final judging in the 2007 Buffalo News fiction contest are now online at Buffalonews.com for all to read.

Here's how to find them: From the home page, click on the Entertainment section, then click on Books & Literature.

They're listed all in a row and will be online for at least the next 30 days.

Enjoy!

Seems like a million ...

  ... years ago, but our 2007 short story contest was held just three months ago (in January) and the two winners were published in the print edition of The News and online in early February.

This week -- finally - we will post on Buffalonews.com all the stories that made the final round of judging.

There are nine for you to read, all written by local authors with day jobs. The setting for the stories was the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, the day President McKinley was shot.

I'll let you know when these pieces of historical fiction are posted. They are fascinating to read and offer real insight into Buffalo's past.