Witness me in pregnancy: overinformed modern mother-to-be, sleepless with her laptop, several browser tabs deep into exhaustive comparison shopping for the perfect baby sling. I careened toward my due date nearly deafened by the voices of expert advice-givers; I weighed myself down daily with a fresh catch of anecdotes skimmed from baby-related listservs. For someone who didn’t know what the word “onesie” referred to until just before her daughter was born, I was determined to be a fast study.

One thing I knew for sure: it’s never too early to begin reading to a baby. A lifelong book lover, I figured I’d be naturally proficient at this task of parenting, if nothing else. Not only proficient, in fact, but blissed out. In pregnancy, I dreamed of cuddling in a comfy chair avec l’infant, paging through exquisitely illustrated books as sunbeams fell upon our heads.

I began to prepare, thinking about the books I’d loved as a kid—Leo Lionni’s A Color of His Own, the requisite Pat the Bunny and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Onto the registry they went. I dipped deeper and deeper into lists and blogs, hit the kids’ section of the local bookstores, and slowly, I became heavy, not just with child, but with a realization: there are an awful lot of children’s books out there.

More than we could ever own. More than we could ever even check out from the library. Could I happily breeze through the children’s section and pluck a few of the abundant, perfectly decent titles off the shelves? I could not.

This wasn’t going to be the gentle, soft-focus pastime I’d envisioned. No, I was going to have to curate this kid’s reading life.….And so begins an essay I wrote a while back and published at Chapter 16, a literary culture site for the great state of Tennessee, where things like BasilMarceaux.com come from.

I don’t know why I haven’t linked it up here before now. But here it is–at least the first part of it. Please click through above to continue reading, will you?

OK, we’re all adults here, right?

I just discovered that folks in the Twitterverse (ugh. I hate that word.) are spouting off their #badkiddybooks inventions. Apparently there is some contest.

Some entries:

D-I-V-O-R-C-E: An Early Guide to Spelling (@SareyH)

What’s In Tommy’s Trousers? A Pop-Up Book (@GeneDoucette)

Hitchhiking, a Guide for Girls Daddy Never Loved (@weirdlucy)

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Lindsay Lohan. (@aard)

The Velveteen-Corsetted Rabbit and Her Leather Whip (@midos_mom)

….and lots, lots, LOTS more romper-room raunch.

Now you may return to whatever meaningful thing you were doing. Thanks.

Last Tuesday, Literago.org co-founder Gretchen Kalwinski was a panelist on Chicago Tonight, chatting with Phil Ponce, author Brigid Pasulka, and Loyola Professor Al Gini about books to give and read this holiday season. They also chatted about books not to read, and PW’s male-centric 2009 best-of list. The footage is here and their lists of recommended books are archived here — congrats, lady! P.S. Al Gini: so, so right about Asterios Polyp.

David Lida will make a presentation based on his book First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1 at the STOP SMILING Storefront.

Lida was born in New York City but decided to leave when he saw much of what he loved about his hometown — energy, spontaneity, cultural richness — dwindling and homogenizing in the face of development. He found all those things and more in Mexico City, where he’s lived and worked as a writer for the past 15 years. His book, newly in paperback, not only documents his personal experiences there, but also argues that Mexico City is a model city of the 21st century — sprawling, unplanned, vibrant — and our continent’s closest example of what the urban future will look like.

The event at Stop Smiling will be book-ended by lectures by Lida at Loyola University and the University of Chicago. The Stop Smiling event will be a more informal, intimate affair, which will give audience members and the author an opportunity for deeper discourse and exchange. Mexico City native Gabriel Feijoo will moderate the discussion. A reception will follow.

Click here to watch a video trailer for the book.

David Lida presents:
First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century
Thursday, Oct. 1, 7 p.m.
The STOP SMILING Storefront
1371 N Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622

David Lida is a journalist has been published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Interview, Gourmet and The Village Voice, among others; in Mexico, he wrote and edited (in Spanish) for D.F., which was Mexico City’s equivalent to the New Yorker. He is also the author of an acclaimed book of short stories that take place in Mexico, Travel Advisory, as well as Las llaves de la ciudad, a collection of journalism he wrote in Spanish. For more about David Lida, visit his website at www.davidlida.com.

As someone who, maybe like you, cut her teeth on letters and zines and freelancing, I can be embarrassingly snooty towards e-lit, embarrassingly precious about/drooly over french flaps and staple wounds and library cards. (Plus, um, “anytime, anywhere,” my eye! Where does Kindle leave folks on the flipside of the digital divide? Especially if they live in Philly?)

But then I read Michael Miner’s Reader profile of CellStories, Dan Sinker’s new project. Sinker’s idea is simple: every morning, people who have iPhones or iTouches or Google Android phones or whatever else can wander on over to CellStories.net, gratis, and read a short story. (What kind? “Some are true,” says the site, “some are not, and many fall in that wonderful grey area between.”) Sinker partners with a variety of reading series, publishers, and straight-up rad writers, many of whom are longtime collaborators from his days at Punk Planet.

What defrosted my cynical heart: “[A cell phone is] tactile in a way a laptop isn’t,” Sinker told Miner. “A laptop is something you’re sitting away from. A mobile phone you cradle. There’s something wonderful about that.” I read that on the train, and embarrassingly-immediately started brainstorming things I could sip or munch while “cradling” my phone and reading “wonderful” stories: toast! whiskey! fudge! E-lit isn’t a coldhearted wasteland! Who knew?

CellStories went live this September 1st, with a Twitter account, PW fanfare, and a one-two punch of stories by Megan Stielstra and Paul M. Davis, both old hats at The Awesome. I’m stoked to read more – from you, maybe? (Of course people in Philly are still S.O.L. – to learn more, to get phone numbers, or to donate some money, visit Friends of the Free Library Philadelphia.)

*title taken from one Iranian’s Twitter feed

The current unrest in Iran due to its June 13th election has produced Iran’s largest antigovernment demonstration in the last thirty years. The photographs show angry Iranians, thousands of them, bloodied and shouting, who have come to the streets so that their vote will be counted accurately. The Iranian Islamic Republic’s constitution, written in 1979, calls for universal suffrage. The people of Iran haven’t forgotten this quite yet. The emboldened population now feels the support of the world; though President “Elect” Ahmadinejad has prohibited foreign journalists’ presence, Twitter has become a powerful voice. To see the words of the Iranian people and universal support from the Twitter community, search #IranElection on Twitter or click here.

Listed below is some literature we’ve found on the subject of Iran. If our beloved readers have any other suggestions, please comment!

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran by Hooman Majd

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

Things I’ve Been Silent About: Memories by Azar Nafisi

Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran by Azadeh Moaveni

A front-page article from today’s Boston Globe reports that independent bookstores are thriving in an otherwise dismal retail market. The piece focuses on the Brookline Booksmith, an independent that put the Barnes and Noble down the street out of business. (For those of you who don’t know, this is where I direct events since my relocation to Boston last fall.)

This is such an encouraging piece! See for yourself:

“I do think there’s a swing back to valuing local and independent,” said Booksmith manager Dana Brigham. “Small and local can be good places to do business and very healthy for your community.”

I’m happily shocked that in the midst of countless newspaper/magazine foldings and massive publishing layoffs, independent bookstores are whupping some ass. May this trend continue. (P.S. Fuck Kindle)

“Late one night,” says the featherproof blog, “we were struck with an idea for a new project that would allow us to do all the things we always talk about doing, but can’t always pull off.” Sounds familiar, right? Only featherproof’s actually pulling off the project about the things they can’t pull off: it’s called “featherproof remixes:” a series of rearranged stories, published as ebooks simultaneously to a new featherproof book.

Each collection contains different versions of the original work, re-tweaked, Queneau/Four Tet stylee, into a semi-different story, a totally different story, or even “a goddamned sestina.” Remixers win publication, free books, and a subscription to Paper Egg.

The series debuts with Blake Butler’s “Tour of the Drowned Neighborhood” – details here.

Half are fiction, and half are not. Read the full list here. Admirable scope, but couldn’t we stop drooling over Bolaño and Knopf and stick an indy press or two in there? Or some poetry? I like Bolaño, I like Knopf, but today’s print market begs at least a token diversity from the press.

Ten points for leading with Millhauser, though. He is, as the editors say, a fine mix of Poe and Nabokov, but even more immediately, he’s an excerpt at unschlocky empathy and finely-tuned intrigue. When I read him, I forget about the book and the room. Plus Rose Dorn, the adorée in his Edwin Mullhouse is sweetly, sharply written and a fashion icon to boot: one-way silver eyeglasses, yellow hair with paper roses in it, plastic rings and charm bracelets. At seven years old! No wonder Edwin sent liquorice and temporary tattoos. (Admittedly, Rose Dorn has nothing to do with Dangerous Laughter. But when it’s this cold outside, thinking about paper roses is very helpful.)

It occurs to me that there should absolutely be some Web site out there collecting remembrances of this great man, much the way McSweeney’s did for David Foster Wallace. (Maybe there is; if so, let us know.) Tragic, yes, to be saying goodbye again so soon, and at this particularly charged point in time, to another great writer, and this time to one so emblematic of Chicago. But Terkel’s was the gold standard for a full life, lived well. He’ll leave a stunning legacy, and if there’s a sting in the fact that we lost him on the eve of a historic election, there’s also the hope that, going forward, we really will be entering a new American era —one in which Studs Terkel’s massive contribution to this country’s literature and history will be read and respected in a new context.

It’s interesting to note that he published his first best-selling book, Division Street: America, at age 55, which brings to mind this recent article about different kinds of creativity.

He gave genuine voice to working Americans long before plumbers became useful politicking devices. He loved his wife enormously. He faced death, it seems, with no illusions, with little fear. The epitaph he suggested for himself? “‘Curiosity did not kill this cat.” Gotta love all that.

A bit of the coverage:

Trib

Sun-Times

NYT

Times Online