Kate Merkel-Hess

Kate Merkel-Hess is a Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese history at University of California, Irvine, editor of the blog The China Beat, and has contributed to the Times Literary Supplement, Current History, History Compass, The Nation (online edition), Far Eastern Economic Review (online edition), The Huffington Post, and History News Network.

Her new book is China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance (edited with Kenneth L. Pomeranz and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom).

Last week I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

I tend to read multiple books at once, and I try to mix purposeful reading that I’m doing for research or teaching with reading that I run across browsing the new books at the library or based on recommendations from friends.

At the moment, I’m re-reading Jonathan Spence’s The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds, which is an easy book to dip in and out of as each chapter addresses a different set “Western observers” of China. I’ve assigned the book for a course this summer, and so have been reading with an eye to what questions the book will raise for my students. Another China-related book that I’ve just begun is Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China by Kang Zhengguo. Kang laoshi was my second-year Chinese teacher and, as students often do, my classmates and I mused about his personal story (which seemed drama-filled). In this case, he’s written a 400-page memoir, and so now I can actually know some of the details.

I recently finished reading Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. With the H1N1 virus in the news, a friend urged me to pick up this story about a small group of San Francisco-based survivors of a massive pandemic. I am always fascinated by post-apocalypse stories for the questions their authors must engage about what social customs and practices will survive, what will be cast out as useless (religion is one thing that Stewart’s band of survivors decides doesn’t serve them well), and how survivors piece together stories of what has happened based on their limited, local knowledge (a few other good examples of this are Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank and the recent television series Jericho). I also enjoy the domestic details of such stories—how authors decide their protagonists manage to survive, what remnants of civilization serve useful and which skills they need to develop further—that goes back to my childhood love of pioneer stories like The Little House in the Big Woods.

I once read a declaration by a writer (perhaps it was Stephen King, but I’m not certain) that we should make a point of regularly reading books that we pluck off the library shelves without recommendation. However, the one of this sort that I’m reading at the moment was not a completely blind choice. I read a New York Times review of Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky a few years ago and so when I saw it at the library decided to nab it. Némirovsky wrote the first sections of this unfinished novel while living in France in the early 1940s; in 1942, Némirovsky died at Auschwitz. Her family rediscovered the manuscript in the late 1990s and it was published in France in 2004. As the Times points out, reading the novel raises a tension because the events are in part autobiographical, and were written almost at the precise time they were occurring—the novel opens with scenes of panicked Parisians fleeing the city ahead of the invading Germans. I’m looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.

Learn more about Kate Merkel-Hess at The China Beat.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mark McGurl

Mark McGurl is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.

His new book is The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing (Harvard University Press).

A few days ago I asked him what he was reading. His response:

I’m grateful for the invitation to talk about what I’m reading, which got me thinking anew about how I read.

The first thing I need to say is that I am a professor of 20th and 21st century American literature, and that reading is a large part of my job. This is partly why it is such a great job—but it also means that I read in a particular way, with an eye toward appropriating whatever I am reading for the larger arguments I want to make in my own critical writing. However, I often encourage my undergraduate students to do the something similar once they graduate: follow a line, whether that means reading several books by one author, or on a single theme or in a single genre. This gives one’s reading a cumulative significance beyond the single work.

The line one follows always ends up being jagged. At any given time I find myself pursuing a handful of interests, each of them of greater or lesser immediate relevance to what I am writing about. For one project I am currently re-reading a lot of early-20th century American fiction—classics like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio and Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, but also some lesser-known works from the period, including John O’Hara’s Appointment at Samarra and Gene Stratton-Porter’s A Girl of the Limberlost. For another, different project I am reading as much as I can about natural history and evolution, for example Daniel Lord Smail’s excellent Deep History and the Brain.

At the outer edges of my research—in the sense that I don’t know exactly why I am reading it, or whether I will have anything to say about it when I am done—I have developed a fascination with contemporary secular apocalyptic fiction. The relevance of this body of work to our time is perhaps too obvious to go on about. What strikes me instead is how strong much of it is. “The Golden Age of Apocalyptic Fiction” would be an ironic label for our times, but it might be accurate.

A literary scholar like me is required to be suspicious of the patriarchal pathos of a work like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, in which a father and son experience the end of the world as we know it, but I was moved by the novel anyway, and impressed with the grim authority of its vision. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake is more political in its sensibilities, and equally impressive. While McCarthy needs no other reason for the apocalypse than human damnation, Atwood traces the path to the collapse from current cultural tendencies. Lee Konstantinou’s Pop Apocalypse is distinct from these two in being very funny and satirical in tone, but it like the Atwood novel performs a convincing analysis of how all our current silliness could go very wrong. I also loved Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin, which deserved a more memorable title, and should not be allowed to languish in the genre fiction ghetto where it currently resides. Next up for me in this vein are Jared Diamond’s nonfictional Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jim Crace’s novel The Pesthouse and, on the lighter side, Victor Gischler’s Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse.

Read an excerpt from McGurl's The Program Era and learn more about the book at the Harvard University Press website.

Visit Mark McGurl's UCLA webpage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elsa Marston

Elsa Marston writes for young people, focusing largely on the Middle East--ancient and modern, fiction and nonfiction. Her latest book is Santa Claus in Baghdad and Other Stories About Teens in the Arab World (Indiana University Press 2008); a film has been made from the title story, available from www.santaclausinbaghdad.com. Some other recent books are Women in the Middle East: Tradition and Change, The Ugly Goddess (YA novel, ancient Egypt), Muhammad of Mecca, Prophet of Islam (historical biography), and Songs of Ancient Journeys: Animals in Rock Art (poetry). Personal encounters between different cultures are one of her basic interests and, having married into a Lebanese family, with many opportunities to live in different parts of the Arab world, the story of her own life. A New Englander by origin, and longtime resident of Indiana, she welcomes visits to her website at www.elsamarston.com.

Last week I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

I recently noticed Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky in an airport bookstore. Recalling comments by my late husband (Iliya Harik) about Bowles as an important--though challenging--writer, and piqued by the book cover's hints about cultural encounter, I decided to buy a copy. It is indeed challenging. The basic story line is about three young Americans who travel around Algeria in the late 1940s, deeper and deeper into the Sahara, until the husband dies, his wife wanders off by herself, and their male friend tries to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, the wife has been rescued by a dashing young caravan merchant, who eventually imprisons her in his remote desert house, makes her his fourth wife, and feeds her on lamb fat. I am not fond of being challenged quite this much, and I cannot say whether this book is more adventure, fantasy, surrealism, orientalism, anthropology, Hollywood nonsense, metaphysics, or poetry. When it was first published, in 1949, it apparently launched Bowles' reputation as one of the century's most significant literary writers. For that reason I would recommend it for those who, as I did, feel that they should read something by Paul Bowles. At least it reminded me of my own various encounters with the deserts of North Africa, although they were hardly so bizarre.

Sherman Alexie's YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about cultural encounter that anyone can recognize, even if not actually experience. (And it would do us all good! See the current PBS series on American Indians, "We Shall Remain.") Young Arnold, an eccentric but bright and likable Indian teenager in Washington state, leaves his dismal school on the Rez and goes to an all-white school in another town. Although encouraged by his parents, he struggles with inevitable identity problems and adjustments. Is he a traitor to his own people? Will he ever fit, at any level, into white society? Would he even want to? Written with Alexie's customary dash and dark humor, the book deserves the attention it has received and provides a brilliant form of insight into the clash of cultures that has been going on in these parts since 1492.

I read Laurie Halse Anderson's YA novel Chains because I so much admire her work (for example, Fever 1793) and her thoughtful, engaging self not only as a writer but a pursuer of justice in both today's America and its historic past. Chains is about a young African-American girl, sold to a new master at the outbreak of the American Revolution, who witnesses the turning fortunes of Loyalists and Patriots in New York City. It's a story of blindness and bigotry, courage and determination. Read it! Another, reason for my interest: when researching my own YA novel-in-progress about the Revolution on the coast of Maine, I came across references to the "Negro" employed by one of the historic figures, an ardently Patriotic clergyman. "Servant," I assumed--and was shocked to learn later that the man was a slave! My belated awareness of slavery in the North has shifted the main concern in my novel from resistance to King George's tyranny to the young hero's gradual questioning about those "rights" that the Patriots were so keen on.

Finally, in line with my interest in children's and YA literature about the Arab world, I read Anne Laurel Carter's 2008 novel The Shepherd's Granddaughter. Despite the bucolic title, this is an amazingly hard-hitting story about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The past 10 years or so have seen a striking increase in fair-minded, high-quality fiction on the subject--all the more remarkable for the negative attitudes toward the Palestinians that have long persisted in this country. No other book, however, demonstrates with quite such candor and courage the brutal truths of the Israeli military occupation. In this story a Palestinian family has lived on its land for many generations, raising sheep and cultivating their olive orchard. Then a Jewish settlement is built on a nearby hilltop (illegally, of course), and the settlers do everything possible, just short of murder, to drive the Palestinians away from their home. In the inevitable cultural encounters, one side is backed up by one of the world's strongest armies, plus U.S. support; the other resists nonviolently, with the help of individual Israeli peace workers. Anyone who truly wants a better understanding of the conflict should read Carter's horrifying--yet in some respects beautiful--story.

Visit Elsa Marston's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eytan Kollin

Eytan Kollin is co-author of The Unincorporated Man and a teacher of history, government and economics currently living in Pasadena, California. His hobbies include historical reenactments, chess, and battle recreation with historical melee weapons.

Recently, I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

Because I don’t just read for entertainment I’ll often find myself with a book that I normally wouldn’t be inclined to read. On the plus side as science fiction author I get the pleasure of reading a vast amount of S.F. and get to call it 'research.’

That being said, I’m currently reading three books and just finished the last of Kage Baker's 'Company' novels. I like a series that takes time to develop well and Baker’s was certainly one of them. Of particular interest in the Company novels was its unique take on both time travel and causality and what happens when these seemingly opposing forces bounce off each other. The great thing about any series is continuity of characters and situations because if you’re invested in both you don’t want either to end! Of course I don't feel the need for them to go on forever either (e.g. how many Remo Williams books does a man need to read? – Because I’m thinking the first eighty-seven pretty much gets you the gist). Back to Kage, though; her ten Company novels were each long enough to regret them going away but not so long that I wondered why I soldiered on.

The first book I’m reading is called, Law in America. It's a review of how our current laws developed in conjunction with, yet in opposition to, English Common Law. This is definitely not one I’d normally pick up as it is a bit dry. But some of the stories my brother and I write contain legalese and books like this help me glean extra knowledge and allow me to percolate more ideas for more complex scenes.

The second book I’m reading is, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. I’ve read around this book all my life. By that I mean I’ve read passages from, critiques for, defenses of and citations over again from different parts of this work (similar to the relationship many people have with the Bible). If I’d like to consider myself an economist and capitalist I’d better understand the foundations. This is my current 'carry' book in that I carry it around with me pretty much all the time—in my car or luggage or satchel, (which my brother insists on calling a man-bag, but let's get real, guys it's a purse). If I accidentally leave my current read somewhere, (which happens allot), I always have the ‘carry book.’ Generally I’ll highlight the heck out of it and then I’ll go back and reread what I’ve marked. Naturally a carry book takes awhile to finish, but that’s what’s good about it—it leaves me plenty of time to absorb it properly.

The third book I’m reading is John Scalzi's Agent to the Stars. Scalzi is a successful SF author and as such is on my shortlist of authors that should be read just see what they’re doing right. And reading this one it’s easy to see why he’s doing so well. Scalzi writes in a wonderfully conducive manner that allows you to get sucked into the story.

Visit The Unincorporated Man website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anne Nelson

Anne Nelson teaches international media studies at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). In April, Random House published her newest book, Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler.

Last week I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

What am I reading?

The shrinks must have a name for it: you work on a book for years, buried in research. Then you finish it, it comes out – and you’re still compulsively reading on the subject. My new book, Red Orchestra, is about a circle of anti-Nazi resisters who infiltrated the regime in order to oppose it.

That inquiry led to all kinds of questions: about the Holocaust and concentration camps; on the nature of censorship and propaganda; and on the psychology of resistance. My guess is that I’ll be reading about this period and these themes for the rest of my life.

One book that stunned me recently was Giles MacDonogh’s After the Reich (just out in paperback). Given the endless tomes on World War II itself, there is surprisingly little published on life immediately after the war. MacDonough’s research is formidable, walking us through the immediate post-war period in Germany and the surrounding regions. It is a grim and disturbing world, in which Nazi murderers are sometimes brought to justice but often walk away scot-free, often into government positions. (The strategists for Iraq policy could have learned a lot from this research.)

Another striking book is somewhat harder to find; there's a new edition out this year in the U.K., but I found my 1949 copy in the New York Public Library. This is Margarete Buber-Neumann’s Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler. The author was a young German Communist (married to Martin Buber’s son) who fled Hitler to Moscow, only to be sent to one of Stalin’s concentration camps under suspicion of disloyalty. With the Non-Aggression Pact, the Soviets returned her to the waiting arms of the Gestapo, who sent her to Ravensbrück. (She miraculously survived both concentration camp systems, and lived out a long and fruitful life as a Christian Democrat in West Germany.)

Buber-Neumann, an unpretentious and often graceful writer, sheds light on many facets of concentration camp life. She explains the recruitment process for the guards (fresh in our minds with Kate Winslet’s performance in The Reader), and draws out the intricate camp hierarchies among political prisoners, Roma, and Jews. One of the most fascinating passages takes place in the Jehovah’s Witness barracks, among simple farm wives who could walk free by simply forswearing their religion – and refuse.

After Buber-Neumann, I was inspired to go back and read Doctor Zhivago (for the first time -- which flowed beautifully from my recent reading of Nabokov’s Speak, Memory.) How could the world survive such tsunamis of romanticism, revolution and resistance – all within the last century?

In my other life, I teach a course called “New Media and Development Communication” at Columbia, so I read books about the Internet (which is somewhat counter-intuitive). One that I like is Andrew Keen’s critique, The Cult of the Amateur. It‘s valuable to have a proponent of very old media (Keen is a classical music enthusiast) writing about the downsides of new media. We all benefit from the access to information provided by the Internet, but the social structure of the medium may favor the production of less sophisticated forms of expression. (The problem of cultural kudzu...) Many of us in the content creation business wake up to a daily crisis, and Keen grasps the nature of these problems better than most.

Among the untrammeled enthusiasts, I’ve been reading Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet – and How to Stop It. His subject matter will have a huge impact on our lives, and it’s worthwhile material (if not always easy reading).

Visit Anne Nelson's blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nancy Bachrach

Nancy Bachrach worked in advertising in New York and Paris, spinning hot air like cotton candy, glorifying her clients’ beloved denture adhesives and powdered orange-juice substitutes. Before that, she was, sequentially, a clumsy waitress at Howard Johnson’s, an overzealous customer service rep fired for making genuine apologies, a stenographer for an insomniac poet, and a teaching assistant in the philosophy department at Brandeis University, where she was one chapter ahead of her class. Her new book is The Center of the Universe.

Recently, I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

I’ve been re-reading books about crazy mothers, since Knopf has just published one on mine — the self-proclaimed “Center of the Universe.” Christina Crawford struck the mother lode with Mommie Dearest. She didn’t invent literary matricide, although she certainly brought it into modern times. Her pen is a blunt instrument. And although that book could have killed her mother, Christina waited until Joan was dead — embalmed, not just acting — before mauling her on the page. My own book has no wire-hanger scene, and it’s not a revenge-memoir, but I couldn’t resist dragging a few old things out of the metaphorical closet....

Visit Nancy Bachrach's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nicholas Rombes

Nicholas Rombes's new book is Cinema in the Digital Age (Wallflower Press / Columbia University Press). His forthcoming book, A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982, will be published by Continuum in June 2009. He is professor and Chair of English at the University of Detroit Mercy.

Earlier this week I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

I used to make distinctions between academic and non-academic reading, but not any more. Over the past few years, I've found that most all good writing, on some level, is a form of theory, whether it be Nathaniel Hawthorne's Pierre, or Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. Both of those books, in particular, are novels, but also theories about the forging together of arbitrary signs in order to create the illusion of reality. But right now, I'm still working my way—in fits and starts—through William T. Vollmann's mammoth, seven-volume study of violence Rising Up and Rising Down, published in 2003 by McSweeney's books. Right now I'm on "The Moral Calculus" Vollmann's recklessly, brutally, not-so-funny attempt to logically, empirically, almost mathematically answer the question, "When is Violence Justified?" Sections include "When is Violent Defense of Honor Justified?" and "When is Violent Defense of Race and Culture Justified?" Vollmann is one of those writers tagged as "postmodern" in the sense that his excessiveness seems to be a strategy for coping with and encompassing the sheer size of reality.

This may seem like a silly thing to say, I know, for isn't reality always the same size? Maybe it's just that there are so many representations of reality today, on so many mediums, so many screens, that writers like the late David Foster Wallace and Roberto Bolaño, and William Vollmann and Dave Eggers write big books to try to make order out of the noise and chaos of our times. I know that this runs counter to the critique of "postmodern" writers who are often criticized for hiding the fact that they have little to say by their digressions, footnotes, and sprawling, unfocused narratives. But this misses the mark entirely. Writers like Vollmann craft narratives whose sprawling structures are really maps that attempt to cover the ever-expanding information territory of our time.

I've also just finished a book of strange and savage and tender poems by Brigit Pegeen Kelly called The Orchard, published by BOA Editions in 2004. For a reason that's hard to explain, her poems helped me during stretches of writing A Cultural Dictionary of Punk, maybe because at the heart of the poems is a sort of terrifying blankness and withholding of judgment or perspective. "The Wolf" opens with these lines:

The diseased dog lowered her head as I came close, as if to make

Of her head a shadow, something the next few hours

Would erase, swiftly, something of no account.

Kelly's poems are long of line, and read like highly compressed short stories. Their menace is not only in their content, but in their radical shifts between concrete and abstract. In an age when "nature" is ever-increasingly cordoned off as recreation areas, parks, places to go to relax and get away from it all, Kelly's poems remind us of the blank cruelty in places like the meadow, the field, the forest, the orchard.

Finally, I just finished a new novel by Aaron Gwyn, The World Beneath. I'd not heard of him before, and I'm not sure how I came to order this, but I'm glad I did. It's difficult to talk about the book without giving away the plot, but its elements involve a half-Mexican, half-Chickasaw boy who disappears in rural Oklahoma, a small-town detective who grows obsessed with the case, and a hole that appears on someone's property that appears to have no bottom. The tone of the novel is unique, reminiscent at times of Edgar Allan Poe, Cormac McCarthy, and even Haruki Murakami. It's the sort of book you read in small doses, because you don't want it to end.

Visit Nicholas Rombes's websites for Cinema in the Digital Age and A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982.

--Marshal Zeringue

Christopher Conlon

Christopher Conlon is the author of three books of poems, two collections of stories, and a novel, Midnight on Mourn Street, which has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a First Novel. He has also edited several books, including Poe's Lighthouse and He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson. Visit him online at http://christopherconlon.com.

A few days ago I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

There are four books currently on my coffee table. (Though since I don't drink coffee, it's really a tea table.)

The volume on top, New Selected Essays: Where I Live by Tennessee Williams, is an old favorite of mine, recently expanded in a new edition which I'm enjoying greatly. I first encountered the original version of this collection when I was about twenty-two: the perfect age, really, as Williams wrote so much and so eloquently in this book about his struggles as an artist, and I felt my own early struggles reflected in much of what he had to say. I still think many of the essays are absolute gems.

The next two in the stack, Endpoint and Collected Poems, are both by John Updike, a writer whose work has never, until recently, done much for me. I used to read his short stories when they appeared in The New Yorker, but rarely found myself affected by them; a couple of stabs at his novels left me cold. But in the past couple of years Updike published in various magazines some poems which, I was surprised to discover, moved me; so when I saw his latest (and last) verse collection in a bookstore, Endpoint, I picked it up--and promptly fell in love with the urbane tone, the gentle melancholy, the witty language. It inspired me to also get his Collected Poems, and reading through it has confirmed to me that Updike was, and is, woefully undervalued as a poet.

The last title is Dear Husband, by Joyce Carol Oates--her latest collection of short stories. I've loved Oates's work in shorter forms (short stories and novellas) for many years. (Generally speaking I'm less enamored of her novels, though I must admit that I loved both You Must Remember This and We Were the Mulvaneys). Dear Husband, continues in the traditions of Oates's later work, often with extreme, even bizarre situations and characters. Though I'm finding these stories a bit less distinctive than what I consider to be her very best work (try The Collector of Hearts or Wild Nights!), that's an extremely mild criticism. There isn't a short-story writer in the United States better than Joyce Carol Oates.

Visit Christopher Conlon's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jill Kargman

Jill Kargman's publications include Momzillas and the newly released The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund.

Last week I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

You know Kathy Bates' character in Misery, the #1 fan? I am that for Woody Allen, but without the kidnapping and hobbling part. I adore his work. No one makes me laugh harder on earth. It sounds super cheese but even though he's a comic genius, his poignant observations have also truly gotten me through rough patches just as much as the guffaw-inducing funny scenes. I have read every words he has ever written and am now immersed in Eric Lax's Conversations With Woody Allen. It is a fascinating look behind the scenes of his films and follows him through 30 years of interviews and adds a whole new dimension of layered insights into his work. It is absolutely incredible. I actually just read Woody Allen's latest New Yorker piece for the humor column Shout & Murmurs, a spoof on two Bernie Madoff investors who die of cardiac arrest and rooftop plummet respectively, who are reincarnated as lobsters in a restaurant tank where the Ponzi prince is dining and wreak Inigo Montoya-style revenge on him. It's classic Woody Allen. It's fascinating to juggle reading his written word with his recorded spoken ones-- he is just as brilliant off the cuff as he is at the type pad. Which makes me worship him all the more.

Visit Jill Kargman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ari Y. Kelman

Ari Y. Kelman is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

His new book is Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States.

A couple of days ago I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

What am I reading?

Thanks for asking. I guess, for someone like me, who reads a lot, as part of my job (whether I’m preparing for class or doing new research), it’s a funny question. Often, I approach reading like eating: I have to do it, and it’s more enjoyable when the quality is high. But I’d do it anyway. That said, I’ve had a chance to read some pretty extraordinary stuff lately, and, in addition, there are a bunch of books I’m always reading, and I’ll throw some of them in here too.

The most extraordinary book I’ve picked up lately is a graphic novel by an Italian artist named Gipi. The book (his second) is called Garage Band, and it follows a teenage band as they settle in to and then lose their practice space. The book is quiet but the story is beautifully told in spare sentences and fluid ink-and-water color drawings that capture a bit of the band’s rambunctiousness.

I’m doing an independent study with a student about re-urbanization in the 1970s, and I’ve recently read Miriam Greenberg’s meticulous and really engagingly written account of New York City’s response to the crises of the 1970s (crime, the fiscal crisis, etc.) The book, Branding New York, chronicles the city’s responses to a spate of urban problems and lays out the hows and whys of the “I *heart* NY” campaign, among others. It’s a great story and Greenberg tells it brilliantly.

The liner notes to the Twenty Years of Dischord box set have also provided all kinds of great information and other fun stuff. With Pictures! oh, and music, too.

I’ve developed a mild obsession with Continuum Books’ 33 1/3 series -- it’s a really clever line of books, and each one focuses on a single album and tells a story about that album. Some are more historical, some fictional, some provide a close reading of the record, and some spin a more abstract idea about the “meaning” of the record. The best one I’ve read to date (and I’ve read a number of them) is the Ramones book by Nicholas Rombes. It’s quite a great account of the album, and made me go back and listen again to that record with new ears.

The books I’m always reading include Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy. It’s a little book of 50 hymns, written with the candor and passion that has made Cohen who he is. They’re intimate and scary, profound, honest and uplifting. And at some point nearly every day, I pick that book up and read a page or two, just to keep my head on straight. I had the great fortune to see Leonard perform in Oakland last week, and it was magnificent. His deep, rough voice was in full form, and it’s a pleasure to return to his Book of Mercy again, with his voice fresh in my ears.

I’m also always reading Nathaniel Mackey’s Bedouin Hornbook. It’s an elusive book about an avant garde Jazz band, told through the fictional letters of the book’s narrator to the Angel of Dust. It’s moving, frustrating, book that captures not only the sounds of Jazz, but that somehow manages to capture the phenomena of listening, as well. I don’t know half the references to records that Mackey makes in the book, but it doesn’t make it any less entertaining, engaging, and moving.

And then, there are the blogs. A few faves: Mashable, Moistworks, How we know us, Waxy, Tomorrow Museum, and The Jewish Daily Forward, just to keep me up to date on my roots.

Learn more about Station Identification at the University of California Press website, and visit Ari Y. Kelman's faculty webpage.

--Marshal Zeringue