Sherry Chandler

The Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen Spring Fair runs today and tomorrow in Berea.

We aren’t going to be exhibiting – there’s still the north side of the roof to do – but a great bunch of craftsmen will be, so if you get a chance stop by.

By way of Ron Silliman, Book of the Day is compiling an alternative to the New York Times list of top novels of the last 25 years.

I have read none of the books on the recently released New York Times list of the ‘best works of American literature published in the last 25 years’. This makes me feel inadequate, so naturally I seek for alternative explanations that will place the blame squarely on the list, as opposed to on myself.

…

I nominate myself as the conductor of a similar survey among authorities of the blogosphere. I will be emailing prominent literary weblog owners and asking them to nominate “the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.” Criteria for inclusion: you must have a blog that writes about books.

Or, since this is an inclusive era, you can add a comment or email me at mapletree spam @geocities.com. Identify yourself by your online screenname and ’site’ of residence and I will include your vote.

I’ll have to admit that I freeze up on this kind of stuff. I can’t even tell you my favorite flavor of ice cream (I love ‘em all), let alone the best book I’ve read in the last 25 years. Well, okay, the best book I’ve read that was written in the last 25 years. I do think The Things They Carried is an amazing book. And Lee Smith’s Fancy Strut. But the two works are as different as chocolate and tutti-frutti. John Gardner’s Grendel is a little too old (1971 on my paperback copy). Then there’s Mary Ann Taylor-Hall’s Come and Go, Molly Snow. For that matter, I was impressed by James Baker Hall’s Praeder’s Letters. Does a novel in verse count? And then there’s Richard Taylor’s Girty.

Still, I stand in awe of anybody who can review a different book every day. And I’m all in favor of an alternative list. So I think all of you in my readership who blog about books should support this interprise. I guess us poets qualify.

Silliman also points us to Playboy’s list of the 25 sexiest novels ever written, which I agree contains quite a bit of trash, though that isn’t the term he used. Or perhaps it takes a trash look at literature. I can’t say I think of Lolita as a sexy book. And the violence of Henry Miller’s sex tends to make me a little ill. So does William Burroughs for that matter, though I can see the literary value of that one. When I was in my twenties, I thought Lady Chatterly’s Lover was sexy – because I was supposed to, because it was dangerous and forbidden – but as I get older, it starts to look silly and selfish. (Read Shamash on women over 40.) Here is Silliman’s take:

We note that a list of the 25 sexiest novels ever written that includes not one by Kathy Acker does indeed deserve “shrieks of contempt and hoots of derision.” No Dodie Bellamy? No Dennis Cooper? No John Rechy or Hubert Selby, Jr.? No William Burroughs? No Samuel R. Delany? But to get instead Harold Robbins, Erica Jong, Grace Metalious, and Norman Mailer at his very worst? Heff must have worked on this list personally – it certainly has that octogenarian touch. How Weatherford & Matthews managed to make it onto this list is an utter mystery.

[I can't get the permalink to this post to work. Will try to remember to add it later.]

Lynnell Edwards sent out an e-mail announcing her new web page, which you’ll find at the link, and that reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Over on the left I have a list of links to useful resources. That list includes a blog roll. On that blog roll, I have included writers who blog or journal. Most of them are Kentuckians or have Kentucky connections.

A sidebar with dozens of links seems somewhat meaningless to me. So when I first started this blogging interprise, I decided that I would limit my list. I include useful resources for Kentucky writers, writers who blog, and a few artsy-crafty sites that I think are worth your attention. I don’t list all writers who have web pages because there are just too many. These sites I list are ones I visit myself every day to see what’s going on.

But I’ve been thinking that I’d like to find a way to provide links to those Kentucky writers who have a web page but not necessarily a journal or a blog. So I’ve created a new page, Links to Kentucky Writers, on which I hope to provide a more comprehensive list of web presences among Kentuckians who do creative writing.

Somehow this post doesn’t seem to have come out as clear as my concept. Couldn’t possibly have been that third glass of wine, could it?

The page that’s up is the work of a few minutes and it is bound to have left people out — I will probably be embarrassed at some of my omissions. When you get to be my age, the memory isnt what it was. And there is that third glass of wine.*

So don’t hesitate to let me know of pages that should be added. And I hope you’ll find the links useful.

*University Health Care, which tries to get me to be proactive (what a word) about my health, used to give negative points for any drinking whatsoever. Now they’ve caught up with the times and give positive points for two drinks a day if you’re a man, and one if you’re a woman. Isn’t that discriminatory??