Western Book Roundup

Idaho Senator Larry Craig to Write Book

By Jenny Shank, 6-04-08

The Idaho Statesman reports that Senator Larry Craig is going to write a book “describing his experience over the past year,” which has been an eventful one.  If only Craig’s book would go on sale the same week as the memoir of Thomas Beatie, the pregnant Bend man, setting up a regional scandal book smackdown! Perhaps Craig could vow never to write a book again if Beatie beats him in first-week sales, ala 50 Cent and Kayne West.  And if only Craig’s book would include a fold-out chart through which the reader could compare the width of his stance to that of the legendarily wide-stanced senator.  A girl can dream…

Just about everybody in the book business converged on the L.A. Convention Center last week for the annual Book Expo America. Michael Merschel of the Dallas Morning News did a great job blogging all about the book buzz, author appearances, and parties—even if he didn’t manage to get into Prince’s book bash.

As usual, Burst Marketing, a Denver-based company, is offering podcasts from the convention, which wrapped up June 1.  You can download podcasts on such topics as “Emerging Latino Voices” and “ The Future of Reading with Beyond the Book” along with dozens of others from the website.

Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop will kick off its annual LitFest on June 6.  The LitFest, which continues through June 21, features dozens of workshops, readings, and opportunities to meet agents and editors.  Some writers even manage to broker book deals, too: short story writer Gary Schanbacher, whose collection Migration Patterns was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award this year, sold his book at a previous LitFest.

Charles McGrath of The New York Times reported on the making of the movie version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which director John Hillcoat recently finished filming in Pennsylvania.  I guess we shouldn’t feel too bad that the director didn’t think our region looked apocalyptic enough.  There’s too much sun here for McCarthy’s book—as McGrath writes, “ The sky is gray, the rivers are black, and color is just a memory. The landscape is covered in ash, with soot falling perpetually from the air.”

Have some regional literary news or events to share?  If so,

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Bad joke politicians seem to never go away. Worse, some never seem to lose an election. And when they seem to be going away, as ungracefully as possible, they leave with a book deal. Craig is going to write a book. What possibly could he say that would be of importance or needed? He got caught being obnoxious in public, tried to pull the "U.S. Senate" card, and failed. Then he did the lawyer thing, and tried to negate his guilty plea.

No personal responsibility. He has no sense of personal responsibility to others, most of all his family and the woman who stood behind him. How could he explain all that in a book that anyone would want to read except for others in public life and the talking heads who must report on all that icky stuff? And he has no personal identity with his own wrong doing. Puffery and posturing, a radio voice, and a severe look about him is all that he has had to offer. Now he offers that as a defense to stupidity, a false life, lies, and his disgracing his office and his own private Idaho.

If you really want to have some fun, attend your State Fair this summer or fall, and be sure to see the Poultry exhibits. While you are in the Poultry exhibits, start looking at the strutting, preening birds as Senators and Congressmen or Congresswomen. With sufficient imagination, you can have a really fun time. Roosters, pigeons, ducks, turkeys, all have an air of dignity and stupidity that lights up the room. I have seen pigeons that are Byrd of WVA, and those ones with the funny hair pieces that look like Biden's plugs on steroids. Chickens in vests, and pomaded pompadours, clucking and crowing. Ducks waddling to the lectern. I see a big old white leghorn rooster and there is former Senator Fritz Hollings of S. Carolina, Phoghorn hisself.

Which then brings me to where the Library of Congress will place the Craig book. Will it be under "poultry" or "poetry" or "potty?"

Could make some great bathroom reading.