Books

In November, I received copies of two books by writer and walker Craig Mod. I've been a fan of his for many years, but these are the first of his books I've purchased. Shipping from Japan to Canada, on top of the cost of the books, was what had always stopped me in the past, but I do my best to support artists directly when I can so decided now was the time.

If you're not familiar with Mod, he's mostly known for his work in the book world. He also has a wonderful podcast on bookmaking called On Margins, though he might have killed that as it's been a long time since he's put out an episode. It's well worth listening to if you're into creating things.

Since Craig is a walker and a writer, these books are about walking.

Craig describes Kissa by Kissa as "a book about walking 1,000+km of the countryside of Japan along the ancient Nakasendō highway, the culture of pizza toast (pizza toast!), and mid-twentieth century Japanese cafés called kissaten."

Craig's books are gorgeous. Cloth-bound with debossed covers. The paper is lovely to touch and the photos and essays are wonderful:

Things Become Other Things is Craig's latest book. He describes it as "a 30 day walk in Japan. A memoir. Fishermen, foul-mouthed kids, and terrible miserable wonderful coffee."

You can purchase the fifth edition of Kissa by Kissa here. The first edition of TBOT is here. Both titles are cheaper for members of Craig's Special Projects. Those memberships are how Craig makes his living.

If you'd like a better overview of Craig's work, you can find it here.

Anecdote Alert

These books are the kinds of things I used to bring in for customers of my shop, Volver — beautiful items that I personally own and can recommend — before I stopped carrying non-records. This was an effort to spread awareness and get better prices for my customers by eliminating the cost of shipping.

I did this most successfully, book-wise, with Wendy Erskine's Dance Move, a brilliant collection of short stories which still hasn't been published in Canada. I can't recall how many copies I brought in (20 or so), but they all sold out and still no other shop in the city took it upon themselves to import copies.

I have no idea if Craig would be into this (offering me bulk, wholesale pricing), but I'd consider approaching him if enough Bell Ringers wanted me to try.

Literary Hub re-ups their annual Ultimate Best Books List, where they read all the other annual lists and compile them.

As a bonus, here's Moss & Fog's Very Best Books About Architecture.

The Ultimate Best Books of 2024 List

The end of the year is approaching, the universe is expanding, and the internet is updating—right now, it is mostly updating its Best Of lists. Therefore, per Literary Hub tradition, I now present …

Literary HubEmily Temple

NPR's Books We Love offers up 12 years and counting of their favorite books. Some great filters as well. For example:

• Eye-opening reads from 2022
• Seriously Great Writing from 2013
• Tales From Around the World from 2017.
• Etc.

Terrific resource, very well presented.

Volume is crowdfunding a book about Type Archive: Type Archived: "The definitive account of the legendary Type Archive provides a stunning visual tour of traditional typefounding, tracing the origins of typography and the printed word."

Looks grand.

Rebind claims to be a "mindfulness app for deep reading, guided by the world's most interesting people. Rebind challenges you to engage with a book in a whole new way."

Huh?

Yeah, so it appears to be a site that at the moment has a limited library of titles, each "hosted" by experts on that title. While you read the ebook, their notes and commentary are available. In addition to just annotation, there's an AI interface that connects you with the notes of that expert, so you can, at any time, ask specific questions and have them answered by the AI which uses the well of information that the expert provided.

Current titles on offer are

• A Tale of Two Cities with Margaret Atwood
• Huckleberry Finn with Marlon James
• The Age of Innocence with Roxanne Gay
• Dubliners with John Banville
• And more

It's certainly an interesting idea, and if I had an extra $120 lying around I'd try the annual membership. I'll check back in the future to see how the library expands. It's certainly an interesting approach to AI.

More on the Rebind site.

Aussie Greg Neville shows and discusses his Penguin Books collection, with an emphasis on Series Design. For instance, here are some from the Modern Classics series, and Neville's thoughts on them.

Plenty more on the Penguin Series Design site.

Via Metafilter.

Nothing gets me opening Libby faster than The Millions Previews.

This time, it's their Summer 2024 Preview, obvs, which highlights a new biography of genius filmmaker Agnes Varda, and titles from Rachel Kushner, Joy Williams, Yoko Tawada, Honor Moore, Sarah Manguso, Virginie Despentes, Jo Hamya, László Krasznahorkai, and many more.

There are also two from authors I'm not familiar with that sound right up my alley, both due in August:

The Italy Letters by Vi Khi Nao

"This epistolary novel by Nao, an emerging queer Vietnamese American writer who Garielle Lutz once called “an unstoppable genius,” sounds like an incredible read: an unnamed narrator in Las Vegas writes sensual stream-of-consciousness letters to their lover in Italy. Perfect leisure reading on a sultry summer’s afternoon while sipping a glass of prosecco."

Having written my own share of love letters, I'll grab this one right away.

Planes Flying Over a Monster by Daniel Saldaña París, tr. Christina MacSweeney and Philip K. Zimmerman

"Over 10 essays, the Mexican writer Daniel Saldaña Paris explores the cities he has lived in over the course of his life, using each as a springboard to ponder questions of authenticity, art, and narrative. Chloé Cooper Jones calls Saldaña Paris “simply one of our best living writers” and this collection “destined for canonical status.”"

And this one obviously appeals to the traveller in me. Perhaps I'll better learn how to crystallize my own adventures into more engaging fare.

I used to own a great many books. More books than is reasonable for a person to own. You can see some of them in the photo above. Just under 1900 titles. In 2022 and 2023, I sold the vast majority of them, keeping just a small shelf worth.

I thought it would be interesting to occasionally do a post about one of the keepers and write a bit about how it came to be mine and why I've kept it.

The first title is Kenneth Rexroth's One Hundred Poems from the Japanese. I believe I purchased this copy from Iliad Books in North Hollywood, though it might have been The Last Bookstore in DTLA. Either way it was definitely in 2010, during my first trip to California.

I'd gone because a film director had read Chimera, a screenplay I wrote in 2008. He called and said he wanted to meet and talk about me writing a sequel to a hit film he'd made in 1990. (A film I'd seen in the theatre when it came out and that most people of my generation will have seen. Yes, I'm purposely being vague.) He told me he lived in Venice Beach and that I should head down.

I took the month of May off and flew down, staying in an AirBnB a few blocks from the director's house. To quickly answer the questions you're probably asking: nothing came of Chimera, my script that he'd read, and I never worked with him on a sequel to his film — or any other film for that matter. In short: he stiffed me. I spoke with him the day before I left Toronto — "Oh, yes, great, great. Looking forward to meeting you, Lincoln." — and then he avoided my calls for the entire month I was there.

I've been asked a number of times if I'm bitter about the experience, but the truth is that I'm thankful for him having called, as he motivated me to head to Los Angeles, something I probably should have done as a teenager or in my early 20s, instead of going to film school. I fell in love with the place and lived there for three and a half years spread out over the next ten. In all that time, I never did come face to face with that director, but I did make some great and lasting friendships.

As to the book of Japanese poetry:

For as long as I can remember, I've lived an unrequited life. This means I'm often thinking about someone from my past. I chanced upon the Rexroth book and opened to a random page:

In the empty mountains
The leaves of the bamboo grass
Rustle in the wind.
I think of a girl
Who is not there.

Nice. I flip again:

I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.

Very nice. Once more:

Others may forget you, but not I.
I am haunted by your beautiful ghost.

Sold!

If memory serves, it costs me $8.

Though I have most of my favorites from the book memorized, the thin trade paperback often accompanies me when I travel. I had it with me in Spain in 2017 when I was sending my own poems out to my Burning the Days mailing list. All those miles means it's pretty beat. It was dog-eared when I got it. It's water-stained now. I'll replace it with a hardcover first edition if I ever find one in person. (They pop up all the time online but I hate paying for $30 shipping on a $20 item.)

There is a sequel with the inventive title One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese, but I can't recommend it. Rexroth also did two volumes of poems translated from Chinese. Again, they don't strike the same chord as this original Japanese collection.

One Hundred Poems From the Japanese is still in print. It's published by the stellar New Directions and you can purchase it from Bookshop.org, Abe Books, or Amazon (Canada, US, UK), or maybe get your local book store to special order you a copy.

The NYTimes asked 500+ authors what their favorite books of the 21st century were. The page is interactive so you can track what you've read or hope to read. My fave is on there at #52: Denis Johnson's Train Dreams.

I've posted the full list in the above link, but you can also browse by the polled authors, which may be of more interest.

If you're someone who's always looking for a good book recommendation, you may also appreciate this Ask Metafilter thread: Nonfiction Authors Who Know What They're Writing About.

Some wild genius has used Genius — the site generally used to explain Hip Hop lyrics — to completely break down Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.