SF Chronicle Book Review Thumbnail

Quite frankly, TEV's LATBR thumbnail was a great idea. Why didn't it occur to anyone earlier to rate your home paper's Sunday book review? Suffice to say, I'm jumping on the bandwagon. My local book review of record is the San Francisco Chronicle's Book Review, so here's my take. Hopefully, I'll be able to do this every Sunday.

Contents
Fiction--5 full, 2 capsule. Full: Nice Big American Baby (Judy Budnitz, reviewed by Sarah Coleman); K. (Robert Calasso, reviewed by Troy Jollimore); The Ha-Ha (Dave King, reviewed by Malena Watrous); Collected Stories (Carol Shields, reviewed by Christine Thomas);  Jass (David Fulmer, reviewed by David Abrams). Capsule:  Give Me (Songs for Lovers) (Irina Denezhkina, reviewed by Jami Attenberg); Johnny Too Bad (John Dufrense, reviewed by Francesca Wodtke).
Non-Fiction--5 full.  History on Trial (Deborah E. Lipstadt, reviewed by Yonatan Lupu); Strange Angel (George Pendle, reviewed by Christina Eng);  Wedding of the Waters (Peter L. Bernstein, reviewed by Chuck Leddy); The Confident  Hope of a Miracle (Neil Hanson, reviewed by Richard Zimler); Gods and Monsters (Peter Biskind, reviewed by James Sullivan).

The Good
It's nice to see the Chron giving more space to fiction than non-fiction. In addition to that, their picks were pretty good. I happened to read  Judy Budnitz's short story "Miracle" in The New Yorker, and it was a striking experience that I still remember well. The review of Budnitz's collection is thoughtful and indicates that the book contains many more short stories in the same magical, twisted realm.

It was also nice to see The Ha-Ha getting it's name in another major review, meaning that it will stick on the front shelf at bookstores for at least another week.  It was a good review that conveyed the gist of the book's narrative and showed why the book is a noteworthy spin on a tried and true plot.

The review of Shields's collected stories struck the right notes--since most of these stories were previously published, the review focused on contextualizing them w.r.t. Shields's entire oeuvre and providing some general information about Shields's career. Lastly, on the non-fiction side, Leddy's review of Wedding the Waters was just what I wanted: it told me why I needed to read a book about the Erie Canal, provided some startling facts, and gave me a bit of a narrative.

The Bad
The non-fiction was a weak point this week. With several books already documenting the trial of Deborah Lipstadt versus Holocaust-denier David Irving, I don't see why Lipstadt's needed to be reviewed. The only reason I can think of is that Lipstadt, writing about her own trial, would bring a unique perspective, but the reviewer barely mentions this point.

Likewise, Strange Angel seems like a missed opportunity. It's about George Parsons, a man who, at the age of 25, became the first government-sanctioned  builder of rockets in America. On top of this, he was heavily interested in the occult. So why does the review  ramble on with dull facts from the man's childhood? Only a review like this one could parenthetically state that Parsons died at 37 in an explosion at his home instead of devoting an entire paragraph to relating this intriguing, atypical death that is even more interesting in light of the fact that the man pioneered rocketry.

The review of K. starts off well with a summary of Calasso's interesting career, but peters out toward the end with bland criticism instead of illumination,  as does the review of  The Confident Hope of a Miracle.

Etc
The worst thing about the Chronicle's Sunday Book Review is the last page. Why? It has no last page--the back page is a freaking weather forecast! With only 6 pages in the entire review (one of which is devoted to a voluminous "events listing" and letters) you can't be sticking the weather up on the back page. Throw that shit in Style or Classifieds, or some crap like that.

On the plus side, the review is advertisement-free, and includes a couple of nifty features--"Editors Recommend" (which seems to add and lose a couple of books each week, blog-style) and the Bay Area's non-fiction, fiction, and paperback bestsellers (as well as reprinting the Times' national lists).

Rating
Overall, this isn't too bad. There's certainly room for improvement, but, on the other hand, there was nothing that seriously pissed me off. It was a nice mix of books with at least a few thoughtful reviews. It would be nice to see a couple extra pages, a better selection of non-fiction, and a little better editing. B-

Comments

[Jeff]

This is a great idea, but doing it for my local rag would be futile. The San Diego U-T's Sunday book section is utterly useless, IMO. They do have good grocery store coupons.

[Ron]

Oh, geez. Either that review of Strange Angel seriously misses the point or the book itself screwed the story up. Nobody who's read Sex and Rockets would find "chapters on the scientist's interest in the occult, on incantations and seances...harder to comprehend." I mean, for crying out loud, I don't know that I want to know the type of reader for whom Jack Parsons' occult experiments--aided and abetted by L. Ron Hubbard--are "intangible and alienating," unless the biographer fell down on the job.

[bookdwarf]

I like the idea of reviewing local papers Book sections. Is anyone interested in reading about the Boston Globe's Ideas section?
Great review and I like the redesign. Very snazzy looking.

[Dan Wickett]

BD,

I'd certainly visit your site specifically for that each week. Not that I don't already of course.

Agree with you on Scott's new stylings, very nice look.

Enjoy,

[Ed]

Between you and Mark, you've convinced me to revive the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch.

[Scott]

Thanks for the props, folks.

Ed, good to see the brownie-watch back in effect.