Review: MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction ed. Chad Harbach

lovely cover

<< This is a picture of MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction. My good friend, coworker and future publisher-of-books, Ashanti, recommended this book to me with enthusiasm. It is a collection of essays on the two main cultures of contemporary American Fiction: MFA Creative Writing programs and the publishing scene in New York City.

I agreed most with the essays that were skeptical of MFA programs and lamented the decline of traditional humanities and literature programs (like the essay from David Foster Wallace, which was also, not surprisingly, the most entertaining.) Most of the professors in the department where I got my BA were pretty traditional in their approach to literary studies, and because I had a great experience there, most of my opinions about contemporary literature/where it's going etc. stem from that.

However, I can't say I didn't enjoy literally all of the other essays. Every one has a distinct point of view, and except for a few dense academic essays near the end all have a creative and compelling narrative, which was quite fun and also not all that surprising due to the fact that many of the contributors are proud/troubled/regretful holders of MFAs. I especially loved the essay from NYC based literary agent Jim Rutman, which included the backstory about how he sold the recently released, super controversial novel Tampa told from the perspective of a teacher who seduces her teenaged students. (I read that book and didn't like it. [Ashanti liked it.])

While it doesn't actually focus on either MFA or NYC, another standout essay was "Reality Publishing" by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington. This essay compares Amazon's Breakthough Novel contest for unpublished authors to reality TV shows like American Idol and Survivor.  The way the first contest worked is that 5,000 authors submitted manuscripts to Amazon, which were then read, rated, and reviewed by Amazon top reviewers and members National Books Critics Circle. The eventual winner had his book published by Penguin and then sold and promoted on Amazon. The runners-up won vacation packages and home entertainment centers (weird.) Eventually Penguin and NBCC stepped out, but Amazon continues to run the contest every year.

I'm fascinated by reality TV and the way it is produced and edited to convey "reality" to a specific audience, the raw footage broken down and reconstructed to their desires and expectations. Basically, reality TV preys on a specific moldable, fame-seeking personality to create a successful TV show. Wellington argues that, similarly, the Breakthrough contest preyed upon the desire of desperate unpublished authors to "get their work out there", and instead of actually publishing quality books that sell (they didn't, at least not very well), Amazon used the contest to draw interest and customers to their site. "For the time being, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel seems less a promotion for the entrants than for the corporate sponsor, and the winner each year, no matter who wins the contest, is Amazon.com."

All of the essays in this collection was super interesting and fun to read right from the start, which is exactly what Ashanti told me when last week she showed me her copy that had about every one of the first 30 pages dog-eared. Unfortunately she's a slower reader than I am and hasn't finished yet ... hurry up, Ashanti or I'm going to beat you to writing the store rec! Just kidding *scared*.

Not sure yet how or if I'm going to make a rating system for this blog but MFA vs. NYC gets an .... A+/Five Stars/Thumbs Up/Yes. 

Hello, & favorite books from 2013

Here's a picture of a book I found. (via)

Hi. I made this blog mainly to have a place to post about books, since I read quite a few and tend to have thoughts about them that I'd like to put out into the world. I used to write book reviews at The Blue Bookcase, but after awhile the system we had there felt constricting and now I just want to venture out on my own. I suck at coming up with cool/funny blog names, and I refuse to use any sort of alliteration or pun so we're just going to go with a bland one for now.

To start, here's a quick list of my favorite books I read in 2013. I work at an independent bookstore and read a lot of new releases, mostly literary fiction. I read 73 total books in 2013, which honestly was not up to my usual standards and thus a little disappointing. I'd say though that the percentage of books I absolutely adored was much higher in 2013 than in 2012, so that's good I guess.

Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsid Hamin
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Best American Essays 2013 ed. Cheryl Strayed
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish by David Rakoff
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich
Taipei by Tao Lin
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore
Shrapnel by William Wharton
How the French Invented Love by Marilyn Yalom
This is How by Augusten Burroughs
How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore
All That Is by James Salter
Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked by James Lasdun
Elders by Ryan McIlvain
Mad Girl's Love Song by Andrew Wilson
Artful by Ali Smith
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

I'm not going to link to Amazon, sorry. Support your local independent bookstore. Also, I would suggest googling the title if you want to learn more about any of the books I mention here. There are a plethora of bright, thoughtful book bloggers out there who have blogged about all of these books. There's some really crappy book blogs too, obviously, but they are easy to sort through. It's fun and cool when you find a blogger you like whose tastes you share. Book bloggers bring personality and character to the reading community, and there is lots of fun to be had on their sites.

I've been meaning to go back to book blogging for awhile, but honestly what's held me back is the fact that I'm not super confident in my writing. I think that blogging regularly will give me a chance to improve.

I hope you'll keep up with me and comment on my posts. Recommending and talking about books is one of my favorite things to do, and I hope we can have lots of fun discussions together. Here's a link to my goodreads, twitter, and I'm also on edelweiss.

See you soon!