What I’m Reading … ‘The Adventures of Cancer Bitch,’ a Memoir

“What I’m Reading” is a series about books I’m reading that I may or may not review later

What I’m reading: The Adventures of Cancer Bitch (University of Iowa Press, 160 pp., $25), by S.L. Wisenberg

What it is: A feminist breast-cancer diary that grew out of Wisenberg’s blog, Cancer Bitch.

Why I’m reading it: Sandi Wisenberg deals briefly with the Susan G. Komen breast-cancer research foundation, which recently outraged feminists and others by revoking its funding for Planned Parenthood, a decision it reversed.

Quote from the book: “My accountant asked if cancer changed me. I suppose, slightly. I know more about cancer.”

Publication date: March 2009

Read an excerpt from The Adventures of Cancer Bitch: Some material in the memoir appeared in different form on the Cancer Bitch blog, including part of this post about Wisenberg’s bone pain after a Taxol infusion.

Furthermore: Wisenberg co-directs the M.A./M.F.A in Creative Writing program at Northwestern University .

You can follow Jan on Twitter by clicking on the “Follow” button in the right sidebar.

© 2012 Janice Harayda
www.janiceharayda.com

Conflict of Interest Questions at the 2011 National Book Awards

Several conflicts of interest or the appearance of them may affect the results of the 2011 National Book Awards that will be handed out tonight in Manhattan. Here are some ties between judges and finalists and how they may affect the outcome of the awards:

Fiction
The conflict
Fiction judge Yiyun Li provided a blurb for Edith Pearlman’s finalist Binocular Vision that appears on the back cover of the book. Li has said on Twitter that for that reason, she is abstaining from discussions of the book.

How it may affect the outcome
Li has won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant and other honors that make her the most acclaimed fiction-jury member. Assuming that she would have supported a book she blurbed, her abstention will deprive Pearlman of an advocate and may make victory more likely for one of the two best-known finalists, Téa Obreht and Julie Otsuka.

Nonfiction
The conflict
Nonfiction judge Jill Lepore and finalist Stephen Greenblatt are both professors in humanities disciplines at Harvard University (history and English, respectively).

How it may affect the outcome
Greenblatt was a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award for nonfiction and may be the most honored candidate on the 2011 nonfiction shortlist. Lepore did not respond to an email message asking whether she is taking part in discussions about her colleague’s The Swerve. But if she would have supported Greenblatt, an abstention could hurt one of strongest nonfiction candidates. And it would further strain a jury reduced to four members instead of five after the unexplained disappearance of Rebecca Solnit, named a judge in April. An abstention by Lepore would leave the panel with just three members participating in some deliberations. And it would mean that Greenblatt could win with two votes in the case of a 2-1 split.

Poetry
The conflict
Poetry panel chair and Yale professor Elizabeth Alexander serves on the faculty of the Cave Canem writers’ program, according to its website, which also lists as faculty two 2011 poetry finalists, Nikky Finney and Yussef Komunyakaa. Komunyakaa further shares with Alexander the title of honorary directory of the program. A third poetry finalist  listed as a faculty member, Carl Phillips, says his term did not overlap with Alexander’s and he has not taught with her at Cave Canem.

How it may affect the outcome
Alexander should abstain from discussing Finney and Komunyakaa if the Cave Canem website reflects accurately her status as a colleague of both. If she does, four judges will decide the fate of those finalists, which could increase the chances of a hung jury. If she doesn’t abstain, that fact would create the unusual situation of a judge remaining involved despite an apparent conflict with not one but two finalists.

You can read more about conflicts of interest at the National Book Awards in the fourth section of this post.  A complete list of National Book Awards judges and finalists appears on the website for the sponsor, the National Book Foundation.

You can follow Janice Harayda (@janiceharayda) on Twitter by clicking on the “Follow” button in the right sidebar. She will be live-tweeting the National Book Awards ceremony beginning at 8 p.m. tonight. Jan is a novelist and award-winning journalist who has been book editor of the Plain Dealer and vice-president for awards of the National Book Critics Circle.

© 2011 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on ‘Designer Tribalism’ / Quote of the Day From ‘Nomad’

Ayaan Hirsi Ali condemns honor killings and other crimes against women in her new Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (Free Press, 304 pp., $27), a sequel to her bestselling Infidel. She also argues that a blinkered multiculturalism can help to legitimize to misogyny.

In this quote from Nomad, the Somali-born activist responds to idea that immigrants benefit from maintaining the cohesion of their old culture:

“The idea that immigrants need to maintain group cohesion promotes the perception of them as victim groups requiring special accommodation, an industry of special facilities and assistance. If people should conform to their ancestral culture, it therefore follows that they should also be helped to maintain it, with their own schools, their own government-subsidized community groups, and even their own system of legal arbitration. This is the kind of romantic primitivism that the Australian anthropologist Roger Sandall calls ‘designer tribalism.’ NonWestern cultures are automatically assumed to live in harmony with animals and plants according to the deeper dictates of humanity and to practice an elemental spirituality.

“Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and flogs or stones them for falling in love. … It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better.”

Complete List of 2010 Delete Key Awards Finalists

The finalists for the 2010 Delete Key Awards for bad writing in books are:

THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES (Doubleday) by Ben Mezrich.

BIG MAN (Grand Central) by Clarence Clemons and Don Reo.

FINGER LICKIN’ FIFTEEN (St. Martin’s) by Janet Evanovich.

GOING ROGUE (Harper) by Sarah Palin.

IT SUCKED AND THEN I CRIED (Simon Spotlight) by Heather Armstrong.

THE LOST SYMBOL (Doubleday) by Dan Brown. 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (Quirk) by Seth Grahame-Smith.

PYGMY (Doubleday) by Chuck Palahniuk.

STORIES FROM CANDYLAND (St. Martin’s) by Candy Spelling, and MOMMYWOOD (Simon Spotlight) by Tori Spelling (tie).

THE WHOLE TRUTH (Vision/Hachette) by David Baldacci.

Honorable Mention: MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS (Holt) by Rhoda Janzen.

You can read the shortlisted passage from  a book by clicking on the title on the list above. The Delete Key Awards winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15. If you would like to try to lobby for or against a title, please leave a comment on this post or any of the posts linked to on the shortlist.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #6 — ‘The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook’ by Ben Mezrich

Update, Feb. 6, 2011: The screenplay for movie The Social Network was adapted from The Accidental Billionaires.

From Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal (Doubleday)

“His hands roamed under her open white shirt, tracing the soft material of her red bra, his fingers lingering over her perky, round breasts, touching the silky texture of her perfect caramel skin. She gasped, her lips closing against the side of his neck, her tongue leaping out, tasting him. His entire body started to quiver, and he rocked forward, pushing her harder against the stall, feeling her writhe into him. His lips found her ear and she gasped again –”
Has any other author written such purple prose about the Harvard students who put Facebook in the black?

Also from The Accidental Billionaires:

“the end was really a foregone conclusion.”

“Eduardo had spent many evenings in the stacks of Widener – poring through the works of economic theorists such as Adam Smith, John Mills [sic], even Galbraith.”

“Maybe feeding the chicken chicken was a mistake; how was he supposed to know what chickens ate? The thing hadn’t come with a manual. Eduardo had gone to a Jewish prep school in Miami. What the hell did Jews know about chickens, other than the fact that they made good soup?”

Read the full review of The Accidental Billionaires.

The 10 Delete Key Awards finalists are being named in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 6. Janice Harayda also writes about the awards on her Twitter page (@janiceharayda) at www.twitter.com/janiceharayda. The Delete Key Awards winner and runners up will be announced on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Twitter on March 15.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

Fourth Annual Delete Key Awards Shortlist in 15 Minutes

One-Minute Book Reviews will begin to announce the finalists for the Fourth Annual Delete Key Awards for bad writing in books in about 15 minutes.

These literary booby prizes do not recognize the year’s “worst books” but give examples of many kinds of bad writing found in books published in hardcover or paperback in 2009: clichés, bad grammar, pomposity, dumbing-down, purple prose and more.

The 10 Delete Key Awards finalists will be announced in random order today, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience.  The winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15 because Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, and the winners assassinate the English language.

Finalists for the Delete Key Awards for Bad Writing in Books — Tomorrow Starting at 10 a.m. ET

How badly can you write and still get a book published in America? Find out tomorrow when the shortlist for the Fourth Annual Delete Key Awards for bad writing in books is announced on One-Minute Book Reviews starting at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. These literary booby prizes do not honor the year’s worst books but badly written sentences, paragraphs or passages, which will be posted with the shortlist. The awards recognize defects such as clichés, bad grammar, psychobabble, redundancy, pomposity, dumbing-down or overall inanity.

The Delete Key Awards grand-prize winner and runners up will be announced on March 15, and until then, you may vote for or against candidates leaving comments on their nomination on this site. You can also read about the awards at @janiceharayda on Twitter.

Candy Spelling Sets the Record Straight in ‘Stories From Candyland’ – She Doesn’t Have a Gift-Wrapping Room: She Has Three of Them

Inside the mansion of a Hollywood widow and pack rat

Stories From Candyland. By Candy Spelling. St. Martin’s, 247 pp., $25.95.

By Janice Harayda

“Things might have been a lot different if my parents had encouraged me to write rather than fold napkins,” Candy Spelling says in this memoir of her 38-year marriage to Aaron Spelling, producer of Dynasty and Beverly Hills 90210. You can say that again. If her parents had valued writing, we might not have had a book padded with prosaic recipes, friends’ mawkish praise  for  Spelling’s “beauty and kindness,” and an alphabetized, three-page list of 69 things she collects, including “Dresden butter pats, Erotic figurines, Etiquette books, Fine arts books on master jewelry designers, First-edition books (including Mark Twain), Flower picture books, Gold presentation boxes” and Herend hand-painted characters and figurines.”

'Celebrities get way too much attention and credit,' Hollywood widow Candy Spelling says.

Stories From Candyland leaks such Styrofoam peanuts until it brings to mind the critic A.O. Scott’s description of Leap Year as “a movie only in a strictly technical sense.” Spelling casts herself as a victim of misrepresentations spread by her actress daughter, Tori, and professes not to understand them: “I’m not sure what Tori means when she says our relationship is complicated. I wish she would call me …” But the telephone works both ways. And Spelling doesn’t make up for all her omissions and special pleading with glimpses of her famous Los Angeles mansion. Perhaps the biggest revelation in this book is that contrary to reports that the Manor has a dedicated gift-wrapping room, it actually has three of them.

Best line: “I live in a place where the tabloid newspapers and TV shows run ads aimed a medical office receptionists, waiters, grocery baggers, and parking valets, offering them money for ‘confidential celebrity information’ they might have overheard.”

Worst line: No. 1: “And then, suddenly, there he was. Rock Hudson! He was tall, dark, and handsome, just like the magazines said he was.” No. 2: “Celebrities get way too much attention and credit, but they certainly sell movies, music, products, and entertainment.” No. 3: “There’s a big celebrity culture that you’d have to be here in L.A. to truly understand.” No. 4: “Being a celebrity, knowing celebrities, working with celebrities, writing about celebrities, feeding celebrities, repairing celebrity cars, and photographing celebrities – these are just some of the elements of our local economy. There is no end to the public’s fascinating with all things (and people) celebrity.”

Published: March 2009 (hardcover). Paperback due out in March 2010.

Furthermore: News reports that have appeared since the publication of this book suggest that Candy and Tori spelling have mended their fences.

Janice Harayda satirizes American literary culture, such as it is, on her FakeBookNews page on Twitter www.twitter.com/FakeBookNews.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

At Last, Someone Is Naming the WORST Books of the Decade

Which Mitch Albom novel are YOU going to nominate?: The Guardian is asking for suggestions for the worst books of decade. If you need ideas, you might want to look at the lists of the winners of the Delete Key Awards given out annually on One-Minute Book Reviews.

The Red Lace Bra on the Cover Is Pretty, But Would You Want to Sleep With the Writing in ‘The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook’?

Can there be any redeeming traits to a book full of lines like “the end was really a foregone conclusion”? Or is that pretty red lace bra on the cover the most appealing thing about The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal? A review of Ben Mezrich’s book will appear soon on One-Minute Book Reviews.