Sound Bites

Did you know that Franz Ferdinand lead singer and guitarist Alex Kapranos is also an accomplished food critic? Oh, you did, did you?


Well, did you know that he wrote a food column for the Guardian called Soundbites where he reported on his adventures in food while on the road with FF? Yeah, you knew that too. In 2006 he also wrote a book called Sound Bites (get it?) where he...yeah I guess I'm a bit late on this one. Still noteworthy though, right? Ugh.

Booklist

I read the book If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino about six or seven years ago but there's this one passage in the first chapter that has always stuck with me and I was recently reminded of it by this quote in Crissy's tumblog.



The passage describes a jaunt through a bookstore and lists different categories of books that somehow ring very true (at least to me). I've been meaning to revisit this for a while and, well, here we are:

• Books You Haven't Read
• Books You Needn't Read
• Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading
• Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written
• Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
• Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
• Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered
• Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback
• Books You Can Borrow From Somebody
• Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too
• Books You've Been Planning Top Read For Ages
• Books You've Been Hunting For Years Without Success
• Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment
• Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case
• Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer
• Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves
• Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
• Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread
• Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them
• New Books Whose Author Or Subject Appeals To You
• New Books by Authors Or On Subjects Not New (for you or in general)
• New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you)

Amazing Information About Kavalier & Clay

If you know me in real life then you've probably heard me go on ad nauseum about the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Sorry but I like talking about things that I, um, like (see Nintendo DS Lite). That's why I have a blog! Anyway I just recently finished reading it and I wanted to share the sheer pleasure of this book with you. If you've already read it then you know what I'm talking about. If not, then maybe this will inspire you to pick it up - I like to think that I can make things happen with this blog, but probably not. If you're not interested feel free to tune out or skip to the next post about iPod something or other. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the plot other than to say that it's about the lives of two cousins (Kavalier & Clay) living in New York City who create comic books in and around World War II. And a whole bunch of other stuff happens too. Check out the Wikipedia entry for details.


Now anyone who has already read the book will know probably recognize that feeling of sadness and regret at not being able to read about those characters anymore. But never fear, I'm here to tell you there's hope! Author Michael Chabon's official site Organ has lots of great stuff about the book. Also, The Amazing Website of Kavalier & Clay is a great resource for all things, um, Kavalier & Clay.

Also of interest is the comic book spin off series The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. Apparently Chabon felt compelled to further explore the Escapist's storyline and he penned eight volumes of the comic book now available through Dark Horse Comics.


And finally we'll all be able to relive the story of Kavalier & Clay (without having to reread the book) in the film adaptation of the novel. Wahoo! This I'm really excited for. The movie, expected to be released sometime in 2007, will be directed by Stephen Daldry and will show some scenes not featured in the novel. A cast has not yet been established but apparently Natalie Portman is a very likely candidate for the role of Rosa Sacks.

OK so that was a lot of information about something you may not be interested in. But you should be. And that's all that matters.

Thanks to Jenn Cutts for suggesting the book and to Ben for "lending" it to me (I'm not giving it back).