Monday, June 15, 2009 - Posts
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Every film that receives theatrical release can expect some kind of mainstream media attention—at the very least a capsule review. But the situation is different for books. Publishers in the United States release on the order of 170,000 new titles annually—including about 23,000 just from large general trade houses—making it simply impossible for critics to review everything. To narrow the field, assignment editors rely on four trade magazines: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist, and Library Journal, each of which offers short reviews of many thousands of titles. Of particular interest to editors are books that receive a “star” for unusual merit.
It stands to reason that titles receiving stars from multiple trades have a better shot at success than those that don’t. Certainly it’s of great interest to publicists, who—on such occasions—send out e-mail blitzes proclaiming a “trifecta.” To give Slate readers a behind-the-scenes look at what’s going on in the world of books, we’re launching a regular blog feature that will highlight new titles with at least three stars. The books you see listed here are likely to do well in sales or receive major review attention, or both.
Our inaugural list includes two mysteries, a debut novel, and a nonfiction account of the 1969 moon landing.
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First among victors is Craig Johnson’s The Dark Horse—the only new title we came across to receive stars from all four trades. When Wade Barsad locked his wife’s horses in a barn and burned them alive, she retaliated by shooting him in the head six times. Or did she? Sheriff Walt Longmire investigates. Booklist warns that Longmire’s friend Henry Standing Bear “feels like a tag-along” but assures readers that “Longmire’s shoulders are more than broad enough to carry a book.”
Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly
Peter Murphy’s John the Revelator. John Devine’s stuck in small-town Southeast Ireland with his single, chain-smoking, bible-quoting mom. Everything changes when a “Rimbaudian” boy comes to town. Kirkus promises “lascivious anecdotes” from said boy.
Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly
Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant. A fancy lawyer who asks New Delhi detective Vish Puri to find his missing servant is subsequently arrested for her murder. Library Journal notes that there’s an “expletives-included” glossary.
Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal
Craig Nelson’s Rocket Men. Story of Apollo 11. Nelson, says Publishers Weekly, “moves seamlessly between Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, their nervous families and the equally nervous NASA ground crew.”
Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
"4 Calvin Klein billboard"—Depending on their tastes, New Yorkers have been either titillated or disgusted by a new Calvin Klein billboard depicting three men and a woman in a configuration that suggests nothing more or less than group sex. With its effective censor-baiting, the CK "orgy" ad could be this week's unauthorized Woody Allen billboard.
"16 Perito Moreno Glacier"—Opponents of Obama's controversial carbon cap-and-trade plan are jumping all over news that Argentina's massive Perito Moreno glacier continues to grow in the face of global warming. (They're less thrilled by this report of glaciers disappearing from Ugandan mountaintops.) Scientists are unsure why Perito Moreno continues to thrive when most of the world's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.
"34 Antonio Castro"—The missteps of world leaders' progeny are always a hit with the Internet; now Fidel Castro's 42-year-old son, Antonio, is getting the Jenna Bush treatment. For eight months, Castro carried out an online affaire d'amour via instant message with a beautiful Colombian woman named "Claudia." But? Turned out Claudia was Luis Dominquez, a Miami-based prankster who wanted to "shatter the myth of [Castro's] impenetrable security system," according to the Miami Herald.
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In the late '70s and early '80s, a Scottish filmmaker named Bill Forsyth made a handful of whimsical comedies. After shooting a number in and around Glasgow, Forsyth moved on to Hollywood, where he adapted Marylyn Robinson’s acclaimed novel Housekeeping; cut a deft little gem with Burt Reynolds (and a script by John Sayles) called Breaking In; and, finally, wrote and directed Being Human, an ambitious think-comedy—a Charlie Kaufman film before there was a Charlie Kaufman—starring Robin Williams.
Nothing I have ever loved so much has ever disappeared so completely as the films of Bill Forsyth. Why? Forsyth’s L.A. sojourn had come courtesy of David Puttnam, the legendary British producer and then-head of Columbia Pictures. Puttnam shepherded Forsyth’s Local Hero, as well as the triumphs Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields. But Oscars and swooning critics never made up for a perceived sniffiness toward American showbiz; and when Puttnam went down, so, too, did Forsyth. Under the new management, Being Human was butchered from a three hour director’s cut down to 85 minutes. A grating voiceover was added. The magnum now fully separated from the opus, Being Human was left to die a critical and popular death.
Forsyth is regarded as the man who returned contemporary filmmaking to Scotland. And yet, as far as I can tell, he has all but vanished. When the cast and crew of Local Hero—his masterpiece, and the last movie I’d like to watch before wheeling off to eternity—reunited at the Glasgow Film Festival for its silver anniversary, Forsyth did not attend. A washed-out cut of it can be rented on Netflix, along with similarly insulting editions of Housekeeping and Breaking In. Forsyth’s Comfort and Joy, a lovely film about a Glaswegian DJ caught up in an ice cream war, must be watched on …YouTube?
I encourage you to discover Local Hero. If anyone knows what has recently become of Forsyth, an answer unavailable even to the tentacles of Google, drop me a line; if you know how to move the bigwigs at Criterion to create a box set for a wondrous but misplaced director, e-mail me at sdmetca@yahoo.com.
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