What else? Heavy metal at summer’s end!

The Book: "Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga" by Ian Christe (Wiley: 320 pp., $25.95)

Overview: If David Lee Roth’s 1997 memoir, "Crazy From the Heat," just wasn’t enough for you, Christe supplies the story of how an obscure band from Pasadena became a mega-act suffering from mega-dysfunction.

Overwritten?: "Like the stories of other great Americans from Henry Ford to Walt Disney to Fievel the Mouse, the saga of Van Halen began in an ancient land, far from the United States and its constant supply of hot water and electricity. As a narrator would say in the old movies: Among the windmills, tulips, and wooden shoes of lovely Amsterdam, Holland, there once lived a kindly musician named Jan van Halen." (By the way, Henry Ford and Walt Disney were born in the U.S.)

Most irritating: The chapter titles. Why do we need headings referencing Pink, R.E.M., the Beastie Boys and others? Then again, the timeline divisions--Rothozoic, Hagarlithic--are funny, but, hey, is Christe suggesting that the boys are musical dinosaurs?

Shocking revelation: Michael Anthony’s real name is Michael Sobolewski (Anthony is his middle name). Or maybe you already knew that.

Bottom line: Christe has sat through countless YouTube viewings of guitarists playing "Eruption" to learn how to play Eddie’s show-stopping, finger-hammering epic. He’s not fooling around. And his prose is always playful.

****

The Book: "Rat Salad: Black Sabbath: The Classic Years, 1969-1975" by Paul Wilkinson (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s: 240 pp., $24.95)

Overview: A biography-discography that looks at the band’s rise (first as Polka Tulk, then Earth and finally Black Sabbath), interactions and problems (one word: Ozzy) and includes Wilkinson’s analysis of their first six albums.

Overwritten?: Discussing the cover of the 1975 release "Sabotage," Wilkinson writes that bassist Geezer Butler is "kitted out in some prescient incarnation of Sonny Crockett from the eighties’ TV series ‘Miami Vice.’ His lapis lazuli jacket, boasting slightly padded shoulders, foreshortened sleeves and a tailored waist, sits over a skin-tight camisole-type top, horizontally striped, with a plunging ‘V’ motif drawing the eye to what, under normal circumstances, would be the cleavage."

Most irritating: Sometimes the author tries too hard to push Sabbath into the realms of high art. Is the song "Children of the Grave" really the metal equivalent of World War I poet Wilfred Owen’s "Anthem for Doomed Youth"? Oh, c’mon!

Shocking revelation: Ozzy sat through the movie "The Exorcist" six times (well, maybe that’s not so shocking).

Bottom line: Wilkinson’s a fan beaming with pride; some of the book’s best parts are about being young and rebellious in 1970s England and hunting in record shops for music that inspired him. Worth the price.

Nick Owchar

Random links: An unexpected book-to-movie, the CIA’s upset and the Man Booker longlist

Anything can become a movie: Often, critics of authors such as John Grisham complain that they cater to Hollywood by writing thin novels that amount to nothing more than screenplays in disguise. Now, however, it seems that an author doesn’t even need to worry about having a plot to interest filmmakers.

Disney has bought the rights to Conn and Hal Igulden’s "The Dangerous Book for Boys," a surprise bestseller, that collects a miscellany of hobbies and pursuits for boys short on imagination and bored with videogames. The book offers a nostalgic, golden picture of boyhood the way I imagine Tom Sawyer might have experienced it. Various entries include tips on building paper airplanes, facts about pirates, the rules of stickball and the best methods for skipping stones.

What’s interesting is the way this plotless book has succeeded in landing a film deal--to the understandable frustration of all those writers out there trying to develop original stories to pitch to the studios.

An unexpected critique: New York Times reporter Tim Weiner’s history of the CIA, "Legacy of Ashes," is getting attacked by its subject: the CIA.

The agency has issued a statement complaining that the book unfairly emphasizes failures rather than offering a balanced history. Weiner’s book, the statement says, "paints far too dark a picture of the agency’s past. Backed by selective citations, sweeping assertions, and a fascination with the negative, Weiner overlooks, minimizes, or distorts agency achievements." Hmm, wonder whether the publisher can get a blurb out of that for the paperback edition.

Isn’t it better this way? The Tuesday announcement of the Man Booker longlist arrived with the reaction that few major authors are on it because few have published this year. And those who did, such as Doris Lessing and J.M. Coetzee, were passed over. Is that really a shame? Shouldn’t we be excited that there’s more room for a newcomer to come along and shake things up?

Nick Owchar

Beloved first books...

It goes without saying, we’re passionate about books--and about encouraging reading. So is First Book,
a nonprofit organization founded 15 years ago with the sole mission of getting new books into the hands of needy children.

As part of its latest literacy campaign, the First Book folks polled authors, celebrities and plain old kids to answer this question: What book got you hooked?

Ray Bradbury’s short story "The Rocket Man" was the inspiration for bestselling novelist Michael Chabon ("The Yiddish Policemen’s Union," "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay"). "I read it for the first time when I was 10 and the pleasure I took in reading was altered irrevocably," Chabon tells First Book. "Before then I had never noticed, somehow, that stories were made not of ideas or exciting twists of plot, but of language."

Wendelin Van Draanen, author of the "Sammy Keyes" and "Shredderman" series, says Bradbury’s "Dandelion Wine" hooked her on writing for children because "it perfectly captures the magic of being a kid."

Lois Lowry, who has captivated many a reader with "The Giver" and "Number the Stars," said she was 8 when "The Yearling" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings "changed my literate life." She credits her mother with "the insight and wisdom" to read the book aloud. "I still remember the sound of her voice, the shape of her shoulders as she held the thick hardcover book, and the hall light illuminating her as she sat in the hallway and read to me and my sister, each in our bedrooms." Actor John Krasinski of NBC's "The Office" is still smitten by memories of Roald Dahl’s books. "Every book from ‘James and the Giant Peach’ to ‘The BFG’ to ‘The Witches,’ nobody wrote more imaginative stories for kids. These worlds he created had the nonsensical appeal of Dr. Seuss, while at the same time, the characters were all written with wonderful complexities and enormous heart. It was a feast for any imagination!"

More than 100,000 people responded to First Book’s poll. The vox pop’s top five are:
1. Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
2. “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss
3. “Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
5. “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss.
“Many of us remember the one book that we wanted to read over and over again — the book that really stirred our imaginations and left us wanting just one more chapter before bedtime,” First Book President Kyle Zimmer told Publishers Weekly. “The fact that there are millions of children in our own country that will grow up without these kinds of memories because they have no access to books is devastating. We are delighted that so many people shared their stories in order to help us shine the spotlight on this critical issue.”

Want to know what rapper Bow Wow, violinist Joshua Bell, author Joyce Carol Oates and actor Edward Norton chose? Just click here. Do you remember the first book that grabbed you? Tell us about it.

Kristina Lindgren

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn

Publishers Weekly called it "very possibly the greatest American novel." The Washington Post declared that it was the "best novel to have ever come out of the South...it is unsurpassed in the whole of American writing." It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was turned into an iconic, Academy Award-winning movie. Are we talking about "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Something by Mark Twain? Carson McCullers? William Faulkner? No, this is a different Southern novel--Margaret Mitchell’s "Gone With the Wind."

I’ve never gotten the whole "Gone With the Wind" thing. The book is, frankly, turgid, and I can’t sit through the film. But as a lead-in, of sorts, to the November publication of Donald McCaig’s novel "Rhett Butler’s People," Scribner has reissued "Gone With the Wind" (960 pp., $17 paper) with a preface in which novelist Pat Conroy ("The Prince of Tides," "The Great Santini") suggests it "shaped the South I grew up in more than any other book."

I’m willing to give Conroy the benefit of the doubt on this one; who can say what makes a book a social force? What I don’t understand, however, is why we need another novel about Rhett and Scarlett when the original still has such a resonance. St. Martin’s Press, which will publish "Rhett Butler’s People," paid the Mitchell estate $4.5 million just for the right to do a sequel--and it’s not even the first sequel at that. (Alexandra Ripley’s "Scarlett" was a bestseller in 1991.)

But then, the "Gone With the Wind" saga has long since ceased to be about storytelling and become a tale of commerce instead. With "Rhett Butler’s People," and a "Gone With the Wind" musical set to open next year in London’s West End, perhaps Scarlett was right when she declares at the end of Mitchell’s novel: "[T]omorrow is another day."

David L. Ulin

Random links: Romance sales, reviewer jabs and Mr. Potter

The power of love: Harlequin, the publisher synonymous with romance, has reported modest gains in this year’s second quarter, which ended June 30. It’s not entirely because of an increase in readership--even though authors like Debbie Macomber are cited as boosting sales--but also because of a traditional corporate strategy: cutting jobs. The folks at Galley Cat also offer a bigger picture of the industry, supplying the latest numbers on book sales (they were up in June) from the Association of American Publishers.

Reviews that make you go "ouch": Across the Atlantic, in a recent issue of the Times Literary Supplement (July 27), Edward N. Luttwak ends a long piece on "The Reagan Diaries" with a sharp swipe at its editor, Douglas Brinkley. In part, Luttwak writes: "Regrettably, there is still a place for shoddy, thoroughly unworthy editors. Douglas Brinkley, to whom this precious historical document was unaccountably consigned, has not done any of the things that should have been required of the editor of such material." Brinkley, to disclose here, contributes to our section. Luttwak once wrote for the section, but that was a long time ago.

With the previous item in mind: I stopped at writer Jason Pinter’s blog, The Man in Black, and noticed a July 31 posting, "What’s a Review Worth?" He describes what it feels like when a reviewer is snarky about one’s book--veteran or debut author, it hurts all the same, he says.

What a surprise: What new book is breaking publishing sales records? If you needed more than 10 seconds to say it’s the final Harry Potter novel, then you must be from another planet. Scholastic is now reporting that U.S. sales in the last 10 days are at 11.5 million copies. Previously the publishing house said that the book sold 8.3 million of those copies within 24 hours. Scholastic also plans to print another 2 million copies to keep up with demand. Whew.

Nick Owchar

An exercise in poetic license

One of the things I love most about poetry is that it’s adaptable. You can find poetry almost anywhere, if you look for it--a bus billboard, a T-shirt, the lyrics of a song. I have one friend who used to publish poems on matchbooks, and another who put poetry on postcards, or in storefront window displays. If the poem is sharp enough, it almost works better in an unexpected setting because it takes us by surprise.

Charles Harper Webb’s chapbook "How to Live" is an illustration of this idea in action. Containing a single poem (taken from his 2006 full-length collection "Amplified Dog"), it’s an instantly digestible poetic experience, a crash course on the good life.

Published by Blue Q, a novelty store in Pittsfield, Mass., "How to Live" is a lovely little volume--maybe 2 x 2 ½ inches, with different-colored pages and block letter text--that packs a punch because Webb’s work is so cogent, humorous and wise. "Try not to lie; it sours the soul," he writes at one point. "But being a patsy sours it too." Later, he declares, simply: "Enjoy success."

Webb, of course, is a local stalwart--a professor of English at Cal State Long Beach and one of the pioneers of Southern California’s Stand Up poetry scene. With "How to Live," he reminds us that there is more than one way to get a poem across.

David L. Ulin

America's new poet laureate racks up the awards...

  Charles Simic, whose darkly humorous and surreal poetry has captivated a generation of readers and won him numerous awards, will become the nation’s 15th poet laureate, the Library of Congress announced today.

" I’m overwhelmed," the 69-year-old Simic told the Boston Globe, adding that he hasn’t decided how he will put his mark on the job of promoting poetry across the nation.

"I am especially touched and honored to be selected because I am an immigrant boy who didn’t speak English until I was 15," he said in the statement from the Library of Congress.

If that isn't honor enough, Simic just won the 14th annual Wallace Stevens Award for "mastery in the art of poetry" by the Academy of American Poets. It comes with a $100,000 prize.

Why Simic, why now? Because he's "a poet of immense, humane consideration," academy chancellor James Tate told the literary blog GalleyCat. "He carries our souls around in his back pocket like a map of the lost world."

The Yugoslavian-born poet — an essayist, translator and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire — has written 22 books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1989 collection of prose poems, "The World Doesn't End."

Simic, who lives with his wife in Stratfford, N.H., follows in the footsteps of such distinguished poets as Robert Penn Warren, Joseph Brodsky, Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins and Louise Glück. He succeeds another New Hampshire poet, Donald Hall.

"The range of Charles Simic’s imagination is evident in his stunning and unusual imagery," said James H. Billington, librarian of Congress. "He handles language with the skill of a master craftsman, yet his poems are easily accessible, often meditative and surprising. He has given us a rich body of highly organized poetry with shades of darkness and flashes of ironic humor."

Simic, who was 16 when he came to the United States in 1954, told the Boston Globe that he started writing poetry at his suburban Chicago high school (Ernest Hemingway's alma mater, it turns out) to attract girls. "They were always surprised. 'You wrote this for me?' " he said.

Of his most recent book, "My Noiseless Entourage" (2005), poet Carol Muske-Dukes wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "It takes just one glimpse of Charles Simic's work to establish that he is a master, ruler of his own eccentric kingdom of jittery syntax and signature insight."

Simic, who won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1984, will publish a new volume of poetry, "That Little Something," next February. He assumes his duties this fall with a reading of his work during the Library of Congress' annual literary series on Oct. 17. He also will be a featured speaker at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival Sept. 29 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. poet laureate title was first given in 1986 to Robert Penn Warren. Poets generally serve one- or two-year terms. Laureates receive a $35,000 award plus a $5,000 travel allowance. Warren has the distinction of being the only poet to serve twice as the Library of Congress' official poetry emissary, having been chosen its "Consultant in Poetry" in 1944. The honorary position, renamed by an act of Congress in 1985, was endowed in 1937 by railroad scion and scholar Archer M. Huntington.

Kristina Lindgren

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

She’s not gonna take it: Talese and Winfrey

  The footage that some of you may be waiting for -- Nan Talese (left) criticizing Oprah Winfrey -- is up on C-SPAN2’s BookTV.

The four-minute video clip shows Doubleday’s Talese, who was taken to task by Winfrey last year for not checking the facts in James Frey’s memoir "A Million Little Pieces," speaking at a Texas writers conference last weekend.

Talese responded to a conference participant's question during a keynote speech and a Q&A with Joyce Carol Oates (in the video, Oates can be seen patiently standing at the podium in the background while Talese is speaking). Talese, the editor of Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and many other preeminent writers, can be heard saying, among other things, that Winfrey "verbally flayed [Frey] in public.... It was a public scourging." The clip ends with the audience’s applause.

Nick Owchar

Is a book still a book if it’s online?

Books are beautiful artifacts. When a writer friend and his family remodeled their apartment recently, he didn’t give a thought to their living space. Instead, he spent hours dreaming of--then designing--bookcases to wrap around a new staircase. If you’ve ever read Nick Basbanes on book collecting, you know that bibliomania has inspired and illuminated people’s lives throughout history. But if the cost for even a small print-run gets expensive for some publishers, shouldn’t even stalwart book lovers give online publishing a chance?

That’s what university presses may need to consider, according to a new study reported at the site Inside Higher Ed this week.

For professors, "publish or perish" is the oft-heard mantra; for the presses attached to the nation’s universities, "publish and perish" may become theirs. New technology, higher production costs (the added expense of color plates in art history books is one example) and smaller annual budgets are making it more difficult for these presses to widely serve academic communities in the ways they always have. That’s the argument of "University Publishing in a Digital Age," a study conducted by Ithaka, a not-for-profit group looking at technology and higher education, and available on its Web page.

"I wouldn’t want to see online publishing replace scholarly books entirely," says Michael S. Roth, Wesleyan University’s new president, who stopped by our offices Tuesday. Roth’s own books include "Knowing and History" and "Freud: Conflict and Culture." I asked him how he would have felt if his books had gone directly online.

"It’s tough when you’ve grown up with books to see the end result of your work as something that’s not exactly a physical book," he said. "Maybe this matters less to younger generations who don’t have the same experience."

Like Roth, I struggle with the idea of reading a text online rather than on the printed page. And I’d certainly have difficulty seeing all my intellectual labors floating in cyberspace rather than between the covers of an elegantly designed book. But if the aim of writing is to share ideas and reach readers, shouldn’t we all just let technology take us in new directions?

If your scholarship is published on the Web, search engines will find it. Your study of Proust’s use of wine in "In Search of Lost Time" will draw many Proust lovers (and probably a few winos). If it were located only on the shelves of certain libraries, it might take a long time for an interested reader to see a copy.

The study doesn’t say that books should be eliminated entirely at university presses (one could also download and print them); instead, it emphasizes that university presses must adapt to new technology to ensure their survival. On the other hand, despite the study’s forecast, some are thriving--I think of Harvard University Press and the Belknap Press, which have found brilliant ways to straddle academia and the mainstream.

Then again, says Roy Tennant at Library Journal.Com, all this is old news: Collaborative scholarly websites are already running; he cites eScholarship Repository as an example. Judge for yourself.

Nick Owchar