Black Garterbelt points to a great piece by Gary Lutz in The Believer about beautiful sentences:

It took me almost another decade after graduate school to figure out what writing really is, or at least what it could be for me; and what prompted this second lesson in language was my discovery of certain remaindered books—mostly of fiction, most notably by Barry Hannah, and all of them, I later learned, edited by Gordon Lish—in which virtually every sentence had the force and feel of a climax, in which almost every sentence was a vivid extremity of language, an abruption, a definitive inquietude. These were books written by writers who recognized the sentence as the one true theater of endeavor, as the place where writing comes to a point and attains its ultimacy. As a reader, I finally knew what I wanted to read, and as someone now yearning to become a writer, I knew exactly what I wanted to try to write: narratives of steep verbal topography, narratives in which the sentence is a complete, portable solitude, a minute immediacy of consummated language—the sort of sentence that, even when liberated from its receiving context, impresses itself upon the eye and the ear as a totality, an omnitude, unto itself. I once later tried to define this kind of sentence as “an outcry combining the acoustical elegance of the aphorism with the force and utility of the load-bearing, tractional sentence of more or less conventional narrative.” The writers of such sentences became the writers I read and reread. I favored books that you could open to any page and find in every paragraph sentences that had been worked and reworked until their forms and contours and their organizations of sound had about them an air of having been foreordained—as if this combination of words could not be improved upon and had finished readying itself for infinity.

I really suggest you go read the whole thing. As a book critic, I can tell you that good sentences are alluring things that can often become traps. You can write a whole book review that has beautiful (or unbeautiful) sentences from a book and never once say anything about the book, or even about the author's writing ability. It's easy to pull sentences out and parade them around as objects of appeal or of derision, but you can easily get lost in the language that way. (B.R. Myer's Reader's Manifesto perfectly explains how many critics get lost in the hunt for good sentences and they never realize that the books they're promoting are crap. The Reader's Manifesto is a must-read for any serious reader, by the way. I can't read Annie Proulx anymore because of its vicious, hilarious and true takedown of her prose.

But sometimes you go so far in one direction that you forget why you're reacting in the first place. Lutz's piece is a brilliant appreciation, and defense, of why beautiful sentences matter.

University Book Store is having a sale on selected New York Review of Books classics.

The New York Review of Books is one of those few publishers who can do no wrong: Like Dalkey Archive, you can pretty much pick one at random and expect to find, if not your favorite new book, at least an intelligent, well-written piece of work that's been underappreciated. NYRB has published books like A High Wind in Jamaica, Pinocchio, Novels in Three Lines,Don't Look Now, and Life and Fate. You should go and pick up anything you're interested in; NYRB books don't often make it to used bookstores.

I don't know if the above-listed books are on sale. UBS's blog suggests that authors like Henry James and Proust's housekeeper, Celeste Albaret, are represented. I also don't know if NYRB's edition of The Dud Avocado, on your left, is for sale at UBS, either. All I know is that I think it's the sexiest book cover in the world.

"Of course," says the Times Online.

Billions of blue blistering barnacles, isn't it staring us in the face? Sometimes a thing's so obvious it's hard to see where the debate could start. What debate can there be when the evidence is so overwhelmingly one-way? A callow, androgynous blonde-quiffed youth in funny trousers and a scarf moving into the country mansion of his best friend, a middle-aged sailor? A sweet-faced lad devoted to a fluffy white toy terrier, whose other closest pals are an inseparable couple of detectives in bowler hats, and whose only serious female friend is an opera diva...

. . . And you're telling me Tintin isn't gay?

Be warned: Parts of the article have that weird, high-spirited British stereotyping of gay men that goes on over there: "His Belgian creator, Hergé, whose only and enigmatic reference to Tintin's origins was to describe him as having recently come out of the Boy Scouts." But it's an important point, since we're on the verge of having a (completely unnecessary, in my opinion) Tintin movie. Hopefully, they won't try to wedge a female love interest in there, just to appeal to some fictional publicist-invented demographic of women who won't go to movies unless there's kissin' and woo-pitchin' wedged in there somewhere. It's probably better to leave Tintin without any kind of romance, but a little bit of sassy innuendo never hurt anyone.

Thanks to our marvelous tech people, I have zippy internet again right here at my desk in the office. It's the early 2000s all over again! Let's celebrate by looking at who's reading tonight, shall we?

Michelle Kleisath reads at University Book Store tonight from Heavy Earth, Golden Sky: Tibetan Women Speak, a collection of life stories written by Tibetan women. It is probably inspiring, as these sorts of books usually are.

Up at Third Place Books, Sondra Kornblatt reads from Better Brain at Any Age, which is about how to improve your brain without resorting to risky scientific efforts like cloning or eating the brains of disinterred corpses down at the local graveyard.

And at Elliott Bay Book Company, Felicia Gonzalez, Susan Meyers, and Ghida Sinno, three authors who have worked with (and presumably stayed at) the female writers colony Hedgebrook, will read from new work.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.

The New York Times is reporting that Neale Donald Walsch, the author of the Conversations With God series of books, plagiarized a story by Candy Chand that appeared in many different places, including a Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

During a dress rehearsal, he wrote, a group of children spelled out the title of a song, “Christmas Love,” with each child holding up a letter. One girl held the “m” upside down, so that it appeared as a “w,” and it looked as if the group was spelling “Christ Was Love.” It was a heartwarming Christmas story from a writer known for his spiritual teachings.

Except it never happened — to him.

Ms. Chand said she originally wrote the piece about her son, Nicholas, and his kindergarten winter pageant and published it in Clarity in 1999. In his Dec. 28 blog posting, Mr. Walsch, who also has a son named Nicholas, said it happened at his son’s pageant 20 years ago.

Walsch said he's considering leaving Christian website Beliefnet. Many of the The New Agey Christians on Walsch's blog are ready to forgive and forget.

Wow! I mean wow!

Neale, you are so awesome and so real.

I don't see the big deal in what happened, and I mean no disrespect to Ms. Chand. Stuff like that happens to me, and all of us, all the time.

I have learned and been able to stretch my spirit so much with this blog.

Well , I for one am aghast....Neale, is this a rouse?...

If you have 9 or 10 children, how do you know it didn't happen?...maybe the 2 of you were at the same children's concert. No, I don't think Chand should be offended at all. Isn't that what the cosmic consciousness is all about? Minds and thoughts merging, even if it is a true story for one person, are we betting the odds that it could not have happened to thousands?.....geesh come on..!

I think there is something more behind this.

Neale, Someone once said,"I'm all in,I'm totally committed here,Even if the going gets rough,Especially then." Aging puts wrinkles on your face,Quitting puts wrinkles on your SOUL. YOU will not have to think but for a second as to why YOU received THIS message today. LOVE Your Friend, SEAN

And my favorite: Frankenstein's monster forgiving its creator:

Neale, I believe this is a beautiful story of creation. You've experienced Candy's story - twice - then and now! I don't think you stole it...it is a beautiful story of oneness! Empathy somehow. Am I going too far?

You two should unite and create something new...maybe a page that contains something like experienced stories. As you for instance being that girl in a story right now. And at the end everyone astonished! It would be a beautiful prove of oneness or love from all the people of the world!

What do you say?

Love,
Teja

This guest blogger on Maud says that regional writers suffer the most of all when books sections in alt-weeklies close down.

Last week the big news coming out of Cooper Square was that the once-venerable Village Voice had let go yet another of its legendary contributors, Nat Hentoff. But the ever-shrinking coffers of its parent company, Village Voice Media Holdings, also claimed a victim far away from downtown Manhattan: the book section at the Nashville Scene.

The Scene’s books section was one of the best in the South, willing to take risks on new reviewers and little-known books — in 2002, Margaret Renkl, the Scene’s literary editor, gave me my first freelance gig. The section lasted a long time, given the rate at which regional outlets for literature and serious criticism are rapidly dying off: Last year the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut its full-time book editor, Teresa Weaver, and it seems every year brings a new, potentially fatal challenge to the Oxford American, now a quarterly run under the stewardship of the University of Central Arkansas.

My first thought, of course, is that I'm really glad I don't work for VVM. But I'm of two minds about regional book reporting. Two or three times a week, I'll get a book-shaped envelope in the mail that is stamped, in giant letters, right above the address: "LOCAL AUTHOR." And almost invariably, that book is utter crap. I think regional criticism is a dangerous thing: I don't think anyone walks into a bookstore, just looks at the Northwest section, and then leaves.

One of my favorite things about having a books section is that you can talk about just about everything, from politics to philosophy to the recipes of rock stars to booklets sold in the aisles of grocery stores. Some weeks, it's the national affairs desk. other weeks, it's about local poetry, or a Seattle readings series. Which is not to say that I think you should be able to read The Stranger's books section and not tell what city it's published in. One of the most important parts of the books section is the calendar with all the dozens of events happening in bookstores and libraries all over this city. And many of our national affairs books features are timed to local readings. But I do think that regional affairs should not get special treatment simply because they're regional. I've read too many lame interviews with authors of badly drawn kid's books about geoducks (or what the fuck ever) to say that local coverage is a purely good thing. So I guess what I'm saying is that good coverage of good local books is a welcome thing. If the Scene really provided that, I'm sad that it's gone, too.

Jacket Copy has a great story about how how government cutbacks might not be the end for the Providence Public Library System:

Rhode Island, which tied Michigan for the nation's highest unemployment rate in November, is facing state and municipal budget cutbacks. The Providence Public Library, a private nonprofit that has run the city library for 100 years, has proposed leaving open its central branch while closing five of its nine local branches.

Not so fast, a group said in a news conference Monday. Give them to us.

It looks like the The Providence Community Library, "a newly formed nonpfrofit of library and community leaders," is going to get the go-ahead to take over the lesser branches. This could turn into something that other communities will need to pay attention to as budgets get cut everywhere.

So the internet is fucked for a few people at the office, and has been all day. At first, this was delightful: I cleaned my desk and rearranged some of my books. But I went out for lunch and come back and it's still fucked and so here I am at the stately Constant home (a.k.a. Casa del Fuck), doing Reading Tonight extremely late for the first time in the year I've had this job. Apologies.

First and foremost, there is the kickoff event of Comixstravaganza at the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library. It's at 6:30 pm. David Lasky, who I love, will give a slide show presentation of comics artists who are here in the Pacific Northwest. Comixstravaganza is a monthlong celebration of comic books by the SPL, and you should take a look at the whole schedule here. There are lots of make-your-own-comic workshops featuring artists like Lasky and Greg Stump, who you may be familiar with. There are events for adults and kids. You should go to at least one.

However, there is also a very interesting-looking poetry reading up in Wallingford: Some of the Subtext folk are presenting something called The Ur Sonata, in which an actress and a visual artist come together to present "Kurt Schwitters' epic Dada sound poem, the Ur Sonata." There is much, much more information about the Ur Sonata here, and it's fascinating, challenging stuff.

Lastly (and, I hate to say, leastly) Thomas Aslin and Laurie Blauner read at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight, reading from their new books. A Moon Over Wings is a collection of poems about family. Wrong is a collection of poems about heartbreak. Together, that just about does it.

For more information and upcoming readings, please consult the readings calendar.

The kind of laughter I got from watching this report a moment ago...
...was identical with a much older laughter I got from reading Landolfi's novella "The Two Old Maids."

The Two Old Maids is a story about two aging sisters who live in shabby seclusion with their ancient housekeeper and a beloved pet—a mettlesome monkey named Tombo, who, "though a eunuch, was, after all, the male of the house." One day the Mother Superior of the neighboring convent brings alarming news: Tombo has been seen stealing into the chapel at night where he ate the consecrated hosts, tried to say Mass, and even urinated on the altar. It is clear to one sister that he must die.

American monkids are descendants of Tombo.

Slog Tipper Tim points out this video:

It's really beautiful. Thank you, Tim.

In yesterday's Book Club of the Damned post, I mocked Christian horror author Travis Thrasher for changing tenses seemingly without explanation in his Shining knock-off Isolation.

Thrasher wrote back in the comments thread:

So hey, Paul. I won't comment on your criticism—everybody has an opinion. But I did deliberately go from past to present tense in the book. I'm honored to be chosen and lambasted.

If Mr. Thrasher is reading this via Google Alert: Firstly, thanks for being a good sport. Secondly, please send me an e-mail. I'd like to find out why you changed tense, because I went back and re-read parts of Isolation last night after I read your comment, and even knowing that you did it on purpose, it still seems like a mistake.

In other Book Club of the Damned news:The lady behind Bookshelves of Doom is going to read 11 V.C. Andrews novels in 2009 as part of this challenge:

Cheers to you, BoD lady. You're a braver blogger than I.

We have a UW creative writing class group reading at the Hugo House and much more tonight.

At Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Jayne Ann Krentz, who has written like a billion cheesy mysteries, reads from Running Hot, in which a man reluctantly finds himself in the position of being a bodyguard to an aura-reading librarian who is key to a murder case. That actually sounds kind of fun.

At University Book Store, Jay Spenser reads from The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings. He has read in many other Seattle bookstores before Christmas, and he will read at other Seattle bookstores next week. Some local authors take this blunderbuss approach, getting booked everywhere. I wonder if it really results in more book sales?

Up in the U Village Barnes & Noble, Scott Sigler reads from and signs Contagious, about average Americans join forces to fight a horrific pathogenic foe. God bless America!

And at Elliott Bay Book Company, Nami Mun reads from her debut novel, Miles from Nowhere. This is a novel about a girl who moves from Korea to New York and falls into a life of heroin addiction and prostitution, as all New York girls do. I have gotten many e-mails from friends and fans of Mun over the last week telling me I should review this book for the reading. Unfortunately, those e-mails came far too late for me to actually read the book in time to review it for the reading. Also, I don't have a copy of the book, which is a bit of a problem with reviewing the book, too. Regardless, this is clearly the reading of the night. The book looks really interesting.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.