Books

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An enjoyable reading list

By DEIRDRE FULTON | September 16, 2009

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WEST ENDER Andrew McNabb, who lives in Portland, will appear on Wednesday.

Need a break from all that required reading this fall? You're in luck. In addition to autumn's amazing offerings on bookshelves everywhere (the coming months will see new releases from Lorrie Moore; Jonathans Franzen, Lethem, and Safran Foer; Margaret Atwood; Philip Roth; and A.S. Byatt), greater Portland will host events to reinvigorate our appreciation of the written word. Here's a round-up of some of the season's most-promising literary happenings (they'll tide us over until LeVar Burton starts his Reading-Rainbow-for-adults Webisodes!).

Andrew McNabb | The Body of This | September 16

From the Phoenix review of the Portlander's book: "McNabb's brief stories (there are 28 total in this slim volume) are full of detailed physical descriptions of both interior and exterior terrains. The characters struggle to find their places, in the world at-large and in relation to other people. They are immigrants, elderly people, city mice gone country, and lovers. In many cases, they interact rather clinically, both with each other and with their surroundings. This is a collection that strives to dissect and distill, to remind us that disparate parts and individual sensations are the bricks that comprise the buildings of our lives. It's not a comforting read, but it still has something of a celebratory feel; it revels in, as one character puts it, 'The beauty and surprise of pure human potential!'"

Sherrie Flick | Reconsidering Happiness | September 23

The start of this debut novel feels pensive, moody, and restless — which makes sense, given its subjects: young women looking for roots, looking for answers, looking for lives. The book has garnered praise from early reviewers; the author will read and sign copies of her book in Portsmouth as part of a brief New England tour.

Nicholson Baker | The Anthologist | October 1

A modern master of literary fiction (and a Mainer, at that!) will travel from his home in South Berwick to read from his latest, The Anthologist (Simon and Schuster), in Portland on October 1. After his recent non-fiction outings — Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (Simon & Schuster, 2008) — Nicholson Baker has returned to his novelish roots with a story about a struggling poetry enthusiast who's recently lost a lover. With the trademark brilliance he showed in The Mezzanine and Vox, Baker picks apart bizarro minutiae to expose larger thought-themes, to examine neuroses and personal histories. Here's a teaser; The Anthologist's opening salvo:

"Hello, this is Paul Chowder, and I'm going to try to tell you everything I know. Well, not everything I know, because a lot of what I know, you know. But everything I know about poetry. All my tips and tricks and woes and worries are going to come tumbling out before you. I'm going to divulge them. What a juicy word that is, 'divulge.' Truth opening its petals. Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat."

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Fall Books Preview: Reading list
Even if you’re not back in the classroom, autumn inspires a desire to learn, to restore the intellectualism that was fried by too many beers and barbecues and sunburns. Fortunately, Portland is full this fall with opportunities to spark your smarts.
Reaching a new frontier
Shetterly's new memoir, Made for You and Me: Going West, Going Broke, Finding Home is the story of hardships — financial, familial, emotional — not usually the stuff that inspires switching places.
So you thought you were special
Reading Hannah Holmes's work is enlightening and entertaining — even when it's at its most depressing.
Which was fine
There are probably 10 or 15 reviews I could write of Jessica Anthony's The Convalescent . Leitmotifs populate the book's 240 pages like thick, black hairs on the back of an old man's wrinkled ass.
Learning curve
Maine novelist teases our brains
‘Junk Food’ Improvement
Portland native and healthful-cookie entrepreneur Laura Trice has based her career on building a better sweet tooth.
Sarah Braunstein's uncomfortable, beautiful hyperreality
There's an unsettling honesty that spills from Portland author Sarah Braunstein's first novel, The Sweet Relief of Missing Children .
Back to the land
There is an idyllic pull to the homesteading lifestyle, especially when such a back-to-the-land experiment is undertaken on the coast of Maine, where rocky shores abut dense woods and merely breathing the air imparts rural spirit and pluck.
The second installment of a thriving Maine literary journal
Volume Two of The New Guard literary review is 140 pages longer than its predecessor, as though its creators decided to demonstrate its growing relevance by gleefully stuffing it with more material.
Back-to-school supplies
After a summer that started with a monsoon and coasted into its final lap with a heat wave, when we talked about Wilco, celebrity deaths, and Shakespeare in the park, when we feared tasers and crime sprees, and we consumed Mexican food and ice cream, we're ready to make the transition into fall.
Dead like me
"Perception vs. reality. In high school, they are pretty much the same thing." So writes Tonya Hurley, author of ghostgirl and ghostgirl: Homecoming (Little Brown), two books ostensibly written for young adults but with elements that are just as appealing to grown-ups.
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[ 05/28 ] Bela Fleck + Marcus Roberts Trio @ Stone Mountain Arts Center

[ 05/28 ] Downeast Singers: "Peace Music" @ Camden Opera House

ARTICLES BY DEIRDRE FULTON

A NEW DOCUMENTARY EXPLORES IMMIGRANT YOUTH AND THEIR PLACE IN MAINE AND AMERICA | May 23, 2012
"Back in the Congo, we heard rumors that America is paradise — where everything is perfect, money flows like water, you can eat as much as you want, whenever you want, you can get anything," says Emmanuel Muya, one of 15 immigrant high school students featured in a new documentary, The Whole World Waiting , which will premiere at SPACE Gallery on Thursday.

THE POTENTIAL OF TEDXDIRIGO | May 23, 2012
There were several impressive, stick-in-your-mind talks at the TEDxDirigo: Engage conference, held last Saturday at the University of Southern Maine.

THE SECRET WORLD OF USM’S BLADE SOCIETY | May 16, 2012
It's a Tuesday night at the University of Southern Maine gym and Rob Tupper is leading a small group of fencing students through an exercise that looks like a cross between a line dance and an army drill.

REVIVING THE ELECTRIC CAR | May 16, 2012
Electric cars — ones that are completely rechargeable and use no gasoline — are now available in Maine, in addition to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and traditional hybrids, both of which boast higher fuel-efficiency than conventional cars.

SHIPPING NEWS | May 09, 2012
The loss of the nascent container-ship line in Portland's harbor last week was not just a blow to the city's desired reputation as a shipping hub — but also to the environment.