It's All About...

Music of Coal, Reel World String Band and more KY reads.

I imagine you're all tired out since last night's fabulous PostSecret event at University of Kentucky, but if you can possibly stand any more stimulation and discussion, swing by Joseph-Beth at 7 p.m. tonight for our Herald Readers event.

We're featuring a CD-book, Music of Coal, produced by Jack Wright. Nick Stump and the Reel World String Band will perform.

Here's an NPR story about the CD, a collection of audio clips and Kentuckian's own memories of growing up in coal country.

If you're in the mood for more Kentucky books, check out the Kentucky Book Fair from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Frankfort Convention CEnter, 405 Mero St. Some of our state’s biggest names, like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason, will be there. Look for Drew Curtis, creator of Fark.com and author of It’s Not News, It’s Fark; state poet laureate Jane Gentry Vance, who wrote A Year in Kentucky and Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig; artist and Centre College professor Stephen Rolfe Powell, the subject of Stephen Rolfe Powell: Glassmaker.

And of course, swing by the Herald-Leader table and say hello.

Women Writers and Oktoberfest tunes.

On Sunday, the H-L published a one-two punch of stories that made me shriek, "Really? Really!"

First was Cheryl Truman's story about the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, which features a stellar lineup of artists including poet Naomi Shihab Nye, sportswriter Sally Jenkins and authors like Lee Byrd, Helen Oyeyemi and Ann Pancake.

In the past, the conference has been nothing less than a spiritual experience; I expect the events this Friday and Saturday will live up to it. (Even if you're not attending the conference, remember, some events are free and open to the public.)

The other story that made me gape was Walter Tunis' story about Christ the King's Oktoberfest. It's lineup of musicians is one of the most exciting I've seen since moving here: Scott McCaughey of R.E.M. and The Minus 5; Alejandro Escovedo; J.D. Crowe and the New South; my personal favorite on the list, the witty and talented Erin McKeown. (If you haven't heard it yet, do your mood a favor and pick up Sing You Sinners.)

And then I remembered: I'll be in Wisconsin. (Really? Really.) I'm heading to a conference with a fantastic group of women writers, reporters and thinkers.

::sigh::

When did the last weekend in September become so popular?

Interview: Katherine Paterson, author of Bridge to Terabithia

I remember reading Bridge to Terabithia the first time. Third, maybe fourth grade, sitting in the library at Roosevelt Elementary School, home of the Teddy Bears. I wasn't expecting the tragedy. Didn't see it coming, not even for a second. Maybe I missed the foreshadowing, but more likely, it's just a fine first example of how grief can swallow everything before you even look up.

Today's story about how kids and parents might deal with the possible tragedies Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was informed largely by Katherine Paterson, the author of Bridge to Terabithia. She intimately understands her readers and more importantly, what it means to tell a sad story to them.

Terabithia didn't include a tragedy to teach kids a lesson or jolt them into the revelation that sometimes great people, young people, go away. She did it because it was real, and as much as we'd like to hide painful truths from those we love, it's foolish to believe they don't see them already.

Behind the link, you'll find the interview with Katherine, when she spoke about the idea for the story, writing the book and her thoughts on the new movie, which was just released on DVD.

Comics covergirls: Lois Lane in go-go boots?

DC Comics Covergirls, a weighty, oversized volume released this week, examines the shift from the photographed pulp fiction covers to the drawn-and-colored comic covers, all featuring women.

The text, by comic book writer Louise Simonson, is a friendlier version of what you'd expect to find in a museum exhibit about superheroines. The real gems are the pages and pages of color reproductions of comic book covers. Some are modern, published within the past few years, but most are pulled deep out of the DC Comics library.

There's Superman, holding Lois Lane high in the air so she can get a scoop in 1949, and then Lois packing her bags and ditching her superman in her mod mini dress and black go-go boots in 1968.  My how things change!

Wonder Woman gets perhaps the most grandiose chapter, although SuperGirl and the Gotham Girls get their fair share of credit. Who doesn't like a cute villain?

On that note, consider checking out Storytelling Through Graphic Novels, a seminar at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning to be held from 10 a.m.-noon on June 2. Sara Turner and Jerzy Drozd, the minds and talents behind Make Like A Tree comics, will be teaching storytelling and technique. It'll cost you 25 so-worth-it dollars.

-----

Go: Meet Drew Curtis and drink Joseph Beth out of beer.
The Fark creator will be signing his book, It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News starting at 7 p.m. tonight at Joseph Beth at The Mall at Lexington Green.

Mourn: Joey Broughman died on Monday.
The local legend, beloved guitarist and friendly face at Lynagh's music club is being remembered throughout Lexington's music community.

Top 10 desert island, all-time favorite books.

Since reading Cheryl Truman's story last week about her Top 10 favorite books, I've been stewing about my list, and even the qualifications for such a list.

Would it include books that meant a lot to me at some point, but not anymore? (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.) Should it be the books I've read most often? (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez.) The ones I use most often? (501 Spanish Verbs. Or maybe the AP Stylebook. Both are lifesavers, if a little dry.) The volumes that inspire me? (Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, and oh, The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell.) And what if we're just talking about writings, not necessarily books? Because there are plenty of essays and magazine articles and graphic novels that move me to tears and belly laughs, but aren't necessarily in the book category...ugh...

It's like making a mix of all-time favorite songs, but then you  start swapping songs out  to hit the 70 minute mark,  and then you think, well, maybe I'll make two, for pre- and post-college. And then you think, no, no, I'll make several, one for each city I've lived in. And before you know it, 876 songs have made it onto your all-time favorite list. 60 hours of music. Really.

I just don't know.

If you're better at decision-making than I am, and you must be, send your list in and we might put it in the paper. E-mail it to ctruman@ herald-leader.com or mail it to Cheryl Truman, Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Avenue, Lexington, Ky. 40508. Please include your name, age, where you live, a daytime phone number and a short explanation of why these books are your favorites.

----

Ponder: Did you watch Wife Swap last night?
The Pitney family of Nicholasville swapped with a very interesting family from Florida. You can see ABC's interviews with the families and more info about the show at the network's Web site.

Vote: It's the final two weeks of our comics poll.
For the next few weeks,you'll be seeing Get Fuzzy and Over the Hedge in the paper. Vote for two (only two!) among those, Mutts, Agnes, Lio and Pooch Cafe.

Farking Journalism

Fark founder Drew Curtis works out an easy chair in his Versailles home. Photo by Angela Baldridge.

Fark.com creator Drew Curtis has no journalism experience, but his book reads as if he does, like he's one of us  newspaper crazies who spends time tending his copy and his ulcer. He laughs about it and complains about it, but deep down, he sounds like he loves it. He'd fit right in at any newsroom in the United States. (Read about him here, and here.)

Some journalists will have a hard time reading his book, It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News. Like band geeks and computer nerds, we love to joke about ourselves, but our hackles rise when someone else does it, especially someone with a new-fangled career on this World Wide Web we keep hearing about. Curtis is openly sympathetic to what journalists are going through, but he still sees right through us.

Take Page 67: "Another common form of Unpaid Placement Masquerading as Actual Article is Oh My God They're Charging How Much for What? You probably can't think of any specific examples off the top of your head, but no doubt you remember seeing them before: $1,000 for a mint julep at the Kentucky Derby; $5,000 a night for a hotel room in NYC; $500 for the world's largest ice cream sundae."

In fact, you can access my story about the $1,000 mint julep from last year's Kentucky Derby right here, but you'd probably be better off to wait until the first Saturday in May of next year, when we'll likely write the story again, when it's a $1,500 julep.

Of course we didn't pick the story because we were bolstering some company's bourbon. Truly, we're not organized enough to have that kind of agenda. But it is wacky, and we thought people would want to read about it, and I'm sure they did. (Because seriously, it's one drink. How can it be worth my car payment times four?) And wacky was enough, even if it is crap news.

So, rather than pretending Curtis is an outsider whose ideas can be tossed away with all the others, what if we started paying attention to those ideas, the kind a guy with no journalism experience can generate just by being a hyper-reader?

Here's a comparison of some of Curtis' points to those you'll get from an actual journalism text book, Writing and Reporting News: A Coaching Method by Carole Rich. This is the book University of Kentucky students use in their basic reporting classes; it's a good text with a lot of ideas about how to gather and present information. Still, maybe we shouldn't be thinking of it as the only book out there for us.

Read on to see how they compare on a few points.

101 Things Not to Do Before You Die

Author Robert W. Harris's new book says we ought to stop making lofty, unrealistic lists of what will make us happy and instead focus on happiness in everyday life.

He elegantly rips off the best-selling 101 Things to Do Before You Die with 101 Thing Not to Do Before You Die. These are things you'll regret, things that will actually subtract from your regular-guy, day-to-day, smell-of-new-shoes, salty-potato-chips-with-dip happiness.

   Among Harris' list of things not to do:

• Don't worry about the inconsistencies on Gilligan's Island.
• Don't be impressed when a real estate agent says "crown molding."
• Don't mistake commercial printing for original art.
• Don't wait idly.
• Don't say "It could be worse."
• Don't equate "lite" with "healthy."
• Don't expect good grammar from the citizenry.
• Don't let others tell you what's in the Constitution.
• Don't use a paper clip to do a binder clip's job. (Amen, Mr. Harris.)
• Don't use boring postage stamps.
• Don't confuse Randy Quaid with Dennis Quaid. ("Don't just lump the Quaids together," he implores. "They deserve better than that.")

These aren't in the book, but I have to add a few of my own.

• Don't listen only to music found or purchased online, especially if you're using laptop speakers.
• Don't make VH-1 your favorite part of the weekend.
• Don't leave the lights on when you leave the room.
• Don't adopt only one cat. You need at least two.
• Don't skip your dental appointments.
• Don't believe that blogs are better than newspapers.
• Don't assume you'll hate opera.
• Don't assume you'll hate American Idol.

What else would you include? Say it loud 'n' proud, down in the comments section.

---

Watch: Louisville's Own Ali
This documentary by Steve Crump was produced for Muhammad Ali's birthday this month and features interviews with everyone from radio host Bob Edwards to biographer Dave Kindred, whose latest Ali book was a Herald Readers pick. You can watch it at 9 p.m. Jan. 24 on KET2, 10 p.m. Jan. 25 on KET1 or 4 a.m. Jan. 28 on KET1.

books: 2 out of 50, plus a new author-choosing tool

We're three weeks into the new year, and I'm just barely behind on my 50 books.

1. Stiff by Mary Roach

I want to be Mary Roach's neighbor. I could go over to her house and we could sip tea or ice water with lemon and talk about how bodies decompose or how much the spirit weighs. We could talk about her new book (I hear it's about sex.) and our other weird neighbors and how fun it is to hang out with scientists without actually being one. And eventually, she'd probably have to call the police, because she'd soon figure out that I can be a bit of a stalker when funny, smart books are involved, but it would be totally worth it.

2. The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke by Suze Orman

This isn't anything like literature, but it's helpful. Fabulous, I'm not. And broke I'm not, despite the student loan collector's best efforts. Being somewhere in the young category means I've only just realized that I might not want to work into my 90s. I was skeptical about this book, as I am about anything that involves middle-aged people trying to be hip with the kids. So far the advice seems to make sense. I'll let you know if it's any good when I come looking for 401(k) in 50 years or so.

This brings me to my new new favorite literary tool: Literature Map

It's not particularly thorough , but when you type in an author's name, it delivers a map of others that might interest you. So, Kim Edwards of Memory Keeper's Daughter fame is mapped near Barbara Kingsolver and Sue Monk Kidd, two women writers with Kentucky ties. And Ms. Mary Roach, writer of cadaver-based books? Distantly related to Edgar Allen Poe.
----
Watch: You can watch the announcement of a few major literary awards today.
The Webcast of the Newbery, Caldecott, Carnegie, Batchelder, Geisel, Sibert and Wilder medals will start at 8 a.m. It's not quite the Oscar nominations, but it's pretty exciting for the kiddie crowd, and the grown-up-but-not-really crowd. (Thanks for pointing this out, Shannon!) By the way, past Caldecott winner Kevin Henkes will be in Lexington in March for the Arbuthnot Lecture, while an exhibition of work by David Macauley, another Caldecott winner, will open at the Speed in February.

Watch: Studio 60 and Heroes.
They're back tonight! Now, when Lost returns Feb. 7, order will be restored.

50 books in 2007, and how you track them

Still on this new year kick, and I'm sticking with the resolution of reading 50 books this year.

Gimmicky? Absolutely. I love on the printed word, as anyone who works at a newspaper must. Fifty is arbitrary; just a nice, even number that seems manageable.

Helpful? Absolutely. This is an extra nudge to build in time for reading every day.

Cheating? Kind of, yeah. You can't really go wrong with this. Nobody every says "Oh no! I only gained knowledge, inspiration, amusement, insight and vocabulary from 47 written works this year!" 

If you're with me on this, some tools will help. I'm relying on 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (a Christmas gift I was lucky to receive), Herald Readers, Amazon.com and book clubs for recommendations. (And you, natch. You can see what I'm reading on the right side of the blog. Feel free to recommend or argue the selections)

My favorite tools, though, are online book databases. I use an Amazon wishlist to keep an eye on books I might want to read, but here are a few ways to track the ones you've already picked up.

Bibliophil
w00t!: Reliable and highly functional, it gives you space to say whether you own it, when you read it and whether you finished it. You can quickly search your own library, or the greater shelves of the wide open Web. It offers quick access to reviews, but hides plot-heavy reviews if spoilers make you want to give up and watch the movie instead. It keeps stats, for heaven's sake!
Aww...: It's a good thing this site has a great personality, because it doesn't have much of a look. It takes some time to find the features you'll use the most, and with a penchant for wordiness and small fonts, it's tough for those with already strained eyes.

Shelfari
w00t!: It's so pretty! Shelfari gloms on to Web 2.0 and makes bespectacled bookworms look like sexy, hipster librarians. It focuses heavily on interaction between users with quick access to recommendations, book buying, discussions threads and reader reviews. It's also refreshingly clean, with fewer words than you expect to see on a site about books.
Aww...: I like tracking when I read a book, where it ranks on my list and whether I actually finished it. You can arrange them by date on this site, but it's not the same as having the date you read it in front of you. Because the library is a series of images, it's snazzy-looking, but not particularly helpful -- could they give us just a few of those words?

Internet Book List
w00t!: Think of this site as the IMDB of books. It's a gem for just finding books. For instance, I typed in the name Jeff Eugenides, whose books make my heart beat faster. The IBlist page for Middlesex offers a genre, blurbs, awards, a synopsis and its rating (9.1 out of 10, by the way.) Plus, it links to searches at  Powell's, Abebooks and Amazon, if you're in a money-spending mood.
Aww...: This is not for you to build. It's for you to use. It won't help you track your reading necessarily, but it will help you find good things to read.

See also: 50 Book Challenge and another 50 Book Challenge.

------
Ponder: Did you notice the Postal Service song in the UPS commercial?
Sounds like Such Great Heights. That's just funny.

a weighty holiday reading list

If you have any holiday time off coming your way, for the love of shiny winter days and hot chocolate, please read something.

Every newspaper, magazine and blog will offer you recommendations. (Look for the Herald-Leader's in next Sunday's books section inside Arts & Life.)

• The New York Times published its giant annual list of the year's 100 Notable Books.
• The National Book Award winners -- Octavian Nothing, Splay Anthem, The Worst Hard Time,The Echo Maker -- were announced this month.
• I'm still hearing about Nobel Prize winner Orham Pamuk's work, although I make no attempt to keep up with Turkish literary figures.
• Michelle Singletary of The Washington Post touts these financial books to give as gifts. (Not the sexiest gift, perhaps, but probably more useful than the cucumber-melon shower gel you give every year.)
• Hipster Book Club, a powerhouse among bookish LiveJournal groups, recently purchased its own domain that will surely become a worthy stop for recommendations when it's up and running.
• Bookslut makes me happy.

The closest thing I made to a resolution this year was a decision to complete at least 50 books by Jan. 1. I feel like my eyes are always stuck to a page -- I work at a newspaper, for heaven's sake -- but according to my bibliophil page, I've got nine to go, plus a few that I haven't cataloged yet.

Whoa, slacker.

Recommendations? Join the holiday fun. Send 'em this way.

-----

Answer: Does Lexington need a community radio station?
This column in Thursday's Lexington Herald-Leader says WEKU, WUKY and WRFL provide some much-needed radio programming in Central Kentucky, but what are we missing? It uses WMMT out of Whitesburg as an example. Give it a listen and tell me what you think.

Read: Don't like Christmas? Get a life
By Garrison Keillor. Can you believe it? Is that not the most confrontational headline that's ever been associated with Mr. Prairie Home Companion?

Ponder: The United States is cutting the supply of iPods to North Korea.
The idea is that it will mess with Kim Jong Il's posh, gadget-infused lifestyle. Will Microsoft will take this opportunity to jump on a market not overtaken by dancing silhouettes and white earbuds, or is it offended that the Zune wasn't deemed popular enough to cut off?