{"id":21931,"date":"2011-10-07T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=21931"},"modified":"2011-10-07T10:37:15","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T14:37:15","slug":"staff-picks-ghost-stories-black-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/07\/staff-picks-ghost-stories-black-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Ghost Stories, Black Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/ghoststories.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-21996\" title=\"Collected Ghost Stories\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/ghoststories.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"475\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/ghoststories.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/ghoststories-189x300.jpg 189w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a>I absolutely love ghost stories. What luck that\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Collected-Ghost-Stories-M-James\/dp\/0199568847\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1317914286&amp;sr=1-1\">Collected Ghost Stories<\/a><\/em> by M. R. James\u00a0showed up in the office! I snatched it up greedily and I\u2019ve been reading one every night.\u00a0\u2014<strong>Sadie Stein<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a truism that art and politics rarely come together without shortchanging at least one, but every once in a while there\u2019s a sublime exception to the rule.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.livestream.com\/globalrevolution\/video?clipId=pla_e9e304dc-6a40-4072-ad6d-24a7ef4afb13\" target=\"_blank\">Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum\u2019s performance at Occupy Wall Street<\/a> was one. \u201cSing if you know the words.\u201d I did. <strong><strong>\u2014<strong>Peter Conroy<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mice couriers, man-tree love, sushi-chef assassins, hydro-powered-car chases, propagandist skywriting, a sinister banjo contest, Internet 5.0, and a mystery drug made from dead trees. Matthew Thurber\u2019s weird and wonderful <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pictureboxinc.com\/products\/973-1-800-mice\">1-800-Mice<\/a><\/em> is the <em>Gravity\u2019s Rainbow<\/em>\u2013Sherlock Holmes\u2013Professor Sutwell\u2013Inspector Clouseau\u2013<em>Silent Spring<\/em> of comics. If you don\u2019t believe me, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hKKrhGr5m6M\">behold the rap<\/a>. <strong>\u2014Nicole Rudick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you have never seen nor heard of the British television series <em>Black Books<\/em>, I highly recommend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hulu.com\/black-books\">checking it out<\/a>. It ran from 2000\u20132004 and depicts a mostly inebriated foul-tempered Irishman, Bernard Black, who runs a small bookshop in London with his goofy assistant Manny and their loopy friend Fran.\u00a0<strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>\u2014<strong>Lauren Goldenberg<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thewirecutter.com\/2011\/10\/steve-jobs-was-always-kind-to-me-or-regrets-of-an-asshole\/\" target=\"_blank\">This<\/a> is  one of the more complex and beautiful tributes to Steve Jobs I have read. <strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>\u2014Artie <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>Niederhoffer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? I\u2019m intrigued by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2011\/10\/10\/111010fa_fact_davis\">this investigation on the origins of the Bitcoin<\/a>.\u00a0<strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>\u2014<strong>Natalie Jacoby<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>I have a certain fascination with <em>The Financial Times<\/em>\u2019s advice column, which I read with anthropological zeal. Agony Uncle Sir David Tang, \u201cfounder of ICorrect, globetrotter and the man about too many towns to mention,\u201d\u00a0pulls no punches on subjects of etiquette. Take\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/2\/f65d980e-e4f7-11e0-9aa8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1a1LXWBpv\" target=\"_blank\">last weekend\u2019s question<\/a>, from a reader who writes that, \u201cI find that the classiest thing to do with shades is to push them up over your forehead. But it does get complicated if you\u2019re using hair product.\u201d Tang\u2019s response is swift and unsparing: \u201cTo push your sunglasses over your forehead is pretentiously apr\u00e8s ski and distinctly Eurotrash. It is also effeminate for men to do so. Only Sophia Loren could get away with it. So I don\u2019t know what you are talking about when you call the habit \u2018the classiest,\u2019 which you seem not to be. And forget about hair product. There is a greater danger for those wearing a toupee or wig, as sunglasses could push it back to expose a large shiny forehead, reminiscent of that shudderingly shocking Telly Savalas.\u201d<strong> \u2014<strong>S. S.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reading Frank Bill\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Crimes-Southern-Indiana-Frank-Bill\/dp\/0374532885\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1317921290&amp;sr=8-1\">Crimes in Southern Indiana<\/a><\/em> is not entirely unlike being hit by an 18-wheeler. \u00a0Two sentences in, there\u2019s already a drug deal gone bad and a gun pointed at a dealer\u2019s unibrow.\u00a0<em>Crimes<\/em> never lets up (though bodies start piling up), but the real strength of the book is how Bill insists on giving three dimensions to life at the desperate ass-end of the American Dream\u2014without once veering into romanticization or voyeurism. You sure as hell wouldn\u2019t want to live anywhere near the towns in these stories, but you can\u2019t help admiring the guy who\u2019s been there and come back to tell the tale.\u00a0\u2014<strong><strong><strong>P. C.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><strong><strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><!--more-->Nicole passed a handsome red book my way:\u00a0<em>The Penguin<\/em> <em>Anthology of 20<span style=\"font-size: 11px;\">th<\/span> Century American Poetry<\/em>. Edited by Rita Dove, it\u2019s a definitive collection, featuring poems by more than 150 poets, from Robert Frost to Gwendolyn Brooks, Wallace Stevens, Anne Sexton, Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Charles Simic, Brenda Shaughnessy, and many, many more.\u00a0<strong><strong><strong>\u2014<\/strong><\/strong>Jessica Calderon<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am mesmerized by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yourememberthat.com\/media\/945\/TINY_TIM____Do_You_Think_Im_Sexy\/\">this video clip of Tiny Tim\u2019s 1979 appearance<\/a> on <em>The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson<\/em>.<strong><strong> <strong>\u2014<strong>N. J.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Guardian<\/em> published\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2011\/oct\/02\/maurice-sendak-interview\">a great interview with Maurice Sendak<\/a> this week. It caught my eye because of this quote on his opinion of e-books: \u201cI hate them. It\u2019s like making believe there&#8217;s another kind of sex. There isn\u2019t\u00a0<em>another kind of sex<\/em>. There isn\u2019t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.\u201d\u00a0<strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>\u2014<strong>L. G.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I absolutely love ghost stories. What luck that\u00a0Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James\u00a0showed up in the office! I snatched it up greedily and I\u2019ve been reading one every night.\u00a0\u2014Sadie Stein It\u2019s a truism that art and politics rarely come together without shortchanging at least one, but every once in a while there\u2019s a sublime [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[4266,4263,4265,4257,4270,4269,4258,4262,4256,2981,1324,4259,4273,4264,4268,4274,4267,4271,4272,4261,4260],"class_list":["post-21931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-bernard-black","tag-bitcoin","tag-black-books","tag-collected-ghost-stories","tag-crimes-in-southern-indiana","tag-frank-bill","tag-jeff-mangum","tag-johnny-carson","tag-m-r-james","tag-maurice-sendak","tag-neutral-milk-hotel","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-rita-dove","tag-satoshi-nakamoto","tag-sir-david-tang","tag-steve-jobs","tag-the-financial-times","tag-the-guardian","tag-the-penguin-anthology-of-20th-century-american-literature","tag-the-tonight-show","tag-tiny-tim"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Staff Picks: Ghost Stories, Black Books by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 7, 2011 \u2013 I absolutely love ghost stories. 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