Notes in the Margin Weblog

Books | “State by State” takes readers on an offbeat road trip across the country | Seattle Times Newspaper:

‘State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America’ is an intriguing collection of essays and snapshots on the 50 states as seen through the eyes of 50 writers.

In a modern update of the series referred to in the previous post, Jeffrey Burke reviews the book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey.

Weiland’s preface helpfully defines the intent: “a road trip in book form,” written by “our finest novelists and reporters.” Wilsey then goes on for 13 pages about a road trip he made in 2002 and makes no attempt to connect explicitly to the book’s mission. It’s a perfect warmup for the motley assemblage that follows.

Burke passes out several awards in the process of highlighting the eccentricities in this book–all of which make the book look like one well worth reading.

Books | A list of 40 upcoming fiction and nonfiction books | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Just in time to distract you from all the election mud-slinging comes this list, from the Seattle Times, of books being published this fall.

Book Recommendations: The Books That Changed Your Lives

Here’s an interesting post for readers. Late last week the folks at Lifehacker asked readers to post about the books that have changed their lives. In this post they compile the top vote-getters. (Warning: One commenter said that the summaries give away too many plot points about the books, so read at your own peril.)

For the number of hits the site has, the highest total number of votes (25) seems quite small. Why do you suppose that is? Are most people reluctant to post an answer for some good reason that escapes me? Or have most people simply not had the experience of reading a book that changed their life?

Post answers to this question or your own vote for a life-changing work of literature in the comments below.

(I have a couple of favorite, life-changing books, which you can read about on Notes in the Margin’s FAQ page.)

50 States of Literature: Heading On Down to Colorado | Columbia Spectator
The Columbia Spectator cruises into Colorado with Kent Haruf’s novel Plainsong:

Here, patches of snow sit among blue mounds of sandhill and dead sunflowers drop their loaded heads onto the black-top roads. In this atmosphere we find a land at once modernized and rural, brisk and dusty, where ice clings to the edge of sand-colored mountains.

50 States of Literature: Georgia On Our Minds | Columbia Spectator

Tayari Jones’ debut, Leaving Atlanta, is set during the 1979 Atlanta Child Murders, at which time a total of 29 black children were killed. Three kids tell their stories: Tasha, struggling daily to stay in favor with her friends, Rodney, branded as too soft and different to be accepted, and Octavia, whose dark skin earns her the nickname “Watusi” and makes her a pariah. The three struggle to comprehend their classmates’ disappearances while dealing with the everyday, from divorce and first crushes to unraveling what grown-ups mean by “the truth.”

Four quite different memoirists help to prove the vitality of the literary form

John Marshall, book critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, briefly discusses four memoirs that “demonstrate the genre’s vitality and variety.” The four cover very different subjects:

1. childhood in Africa
2. divorce
3. alternative lifestyle–”living green”
4. mental illness

50 States of Literature: Exploring in Maryland | Columbia Spectator

Columbia Spectator’s 50 States of Literature series continues with Anne Tyler’s novel A Patchwork Planet, where the main character, Barnaby Gaitlin, lives just outside of Baltimore:

The quiet neighborhood outside of Baltimore serves to nestle Barnaby with its “big, tall spruce trees” and “damp, chilly feel” that leaves a permanent mist on car windows. More so than the land itself, however, the northeast crispness of Baltimore attitude, which leaves characters like Barnaby’s clients more satisfyingly prickly than cuddly, serves as the perfect setting for the struggles of a promising loser.

Like all of Tyler’s novels, this one is character driven and delightful in a quirky way.

50 States of Literature: Meandering Through West Virginia | Columbia Spectator

From the hills of West Virginia comes Ann Pancake’s debut Strange as This Weather Has Been, based on real events and interviews from an Appalachian mining town. Lace See and Jimmy Make fall in love in the era of the Buffalo Creek Disaster. Twenty years later, their family is cut up in a flurry of strip-mining and clear-cutting, with black floods a constant menace and the economy collapsing in on itself. As the parents argue over leaving, their daughter Bant explores her sexuality and allegiances while her three brothers struggle to understand what is happening around them. Weather weaves a stream-of-conscious narrative that never feels one-dimensional—the characters, from passionate Lace to gentle, sensitive Dane, are genuine and endearingly flawed. With her book, Pancake pens a love poem to West Virginia, and also a lament for its ravaged hills. . . .

I think I’ve missed a couple of installments in this ongoing series. I’ll try to find the missing ones soon.

50 States of Literature: Heads in Hawaii | Columbia Spectator

The Columbia Spectator heads to Hawaii with the novel Heads by Harry:

Lois-ann Yamanaka is exceptionally gifted at making the unusual and unsavory seem exotic and entrancing—taxidermy is “true art, not a painting or poem, inaccurate and prone to interpretation, but breathing life into flesh drawing breath.” She also renders the Hawaiian landscape as something beyond simply lush. Instead, it is a land full of diverse elements and peoples.

50 States of Literatue: A Trip to Wild Alaska | Columbia Spectator

The Columbia Spectator is back, with its entry for Alaska,  The Man Who Swam With Beavers, a collection of short stories by Nancy Lord. “At the heart of the conservation debate, and with a population divided between Native Americans, recent locals, and businessmen, Alaska is a state at war with its elements—and this unique quality is what Lord’s stories capture best.”