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SOME CORRECTIONS
Jonathan Franzen, manic depressive and author of "The Corrections," won this year's National Book Award for fiction. Franzen has been the focus of much media attention of late, because of his jaded reaction to having his book chosen by Oprah Winfrey as a selection for her book club.
While most writers would gladly volunteer a limb to be recognized by Oprah's organization — because of the muscular book sales her recognition ensures — Franzen expressed a certain amount of reluctance in accepting the, to him, dubious honor. He opined that Winfrey had picked "enough schmaltzy, one-dimensional books," to make him cringe. Winfrey, with her housewife demographic and literary reviews sandwiched between makeovers and relationship advice, evidently provided too lowbrow a testimonial for the novelist.
It seems that one of the main things to which he specifically objected was the reprinting of his tome with the Oprah Book Club logo on the dust jacket — what he referred to as the "logo of corporate ownership." But how bad can a logo really look on a book cover? Surely Oprah's endorsement is just as tasteful as the Farrar, Straus & Giroux imprint. (Or was Franzen just worried it would get in the way of his name, which takes up two fifths of the jacket's surface space.)
You be the judge. Here are some of the books selected for the Oprah Book Club during the past year. These authors don't seem to have had a problem with the additional sales and exposure Oprah brings to the table. How much can a little packaging redesign change the perception of content anyway?
Hey Jonathan, don't judge a book by it's cover. And, by the way, now that she's canceled your appearance on her show you should know, she didn't want a snob like you in her club anyway!
LAZY SUZANNE ARCHIVE -CURRENT- 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 | |
 I was standing on line at the post office the other day, thinking the evil thoughts I always think when having to stand in line too long anywhere. But, like many citizens of this U.S., there is a particular ire I reserve for civil servants who make my life difficult. When I got up to the window, the postal worker asked if I wanted insurance for my parcel. I replied that I would trust the government to get my package across the state.
"The government has nothing to do with it," he said. The Post Office has been a private business since Nixon was in office." "What about the Postmaster General," I asked.
He then explained that the postal service was a hybrid of private business with government oversight.
"Angry people always say to us, 'we pay your check,' he continued, "but the only way you pay it is by purchasing postage, not with your taxes." Between that information and the anthrax, I find I have become somewhat kinder when buying stamps.
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