Archive for May, 2010

Featured Book Friday: Sister Carrie

Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser
1900

With the world’s most famous Carrie (Bradshaw) coming to theaters in “Sex and the City 2″ today, let’s revisit another Carrie: Caroline “Sister Carrie” Meeber.

This book tells a story that is, in some ways, very familiar: country girl Carrie moves to the big city, becomes disillusioned with the hard work and low wages she earns at a shoe factory, and falls in with a wealthy man who is taken with her beauty. That’s how Carrie ends up living (in sin!) in Chicago with Charles Drouet. But although Carrie has the fine things and clothing she has always dreamed of, it’s not enough. She soon begins an affair with an even wealthier man, setting off a chain of events that propel the novel toward a tragic end.

Carrie is curiously silent on her own motivations–she seems to want to socially and economically climb simply because that is what people do. And certainly the lifestyle of glamorous, wealthy Chicagoans, especially in contrast to the egregious poverty of factory workers, must have been a powerful motivator. Still, there is a sense Carrie’s desires are somewhat beyond her control: that when confronted with such consumption she can’t help but want to get more and more–whatever the cost (hint: it’s her respectability!). A professor of mine suggested that Carrie herself isn’t the heroine of this novel; the protagonist is capitalistic desire itself, “carried” along by Ms. Meeber.

“Sex and the City” has been attacked by critics for its wildly conspicuous consumption, and I’ve always wondered if the name of the main character is with a wink and a nod to this book. With changes in morality over the last 100 years I don’t think it’d be meant to condemn the SATC characters’ actions; instead, it’d serve as a subtle reminder to keep the values we carry in check. Carrie Bradshaw has said that the most important relationship you have is with yourself. Carrie Meeber’s story cautions us to make sure that self is based on who we are, not what we have.

DailyLit News: May 2010

Note from the CEO
My ten year old daughter told me this morning that she thinks life is passing by too quickly. I don’t think I had such mature thoughts at that age, but with the school year quickly winding down and summer fast approaching, I know what she means. In fact, this month marks DailyLit’s official 3rd birthday (in start-up years, I’d say that makes us 21). Although it has flown by all too quickly, we have lots to celebrate: we’ve been named the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, we’ve sent over 25 million book installments, and, most importantly, I hope we’ve been able to bring you great authors, stories, and inspiration you can continue to enjoy each day.

Cheers—to a very happy birthday, DailyLit!

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
sdanziger [at] dailylit [dot] com

Bestselling Heroes For My Son by Brad Meltzer
When his first son was born bestselling author Brad Meltzer set out to create a list of people whose courage and achievements would inspire his son: Abraham Lincoln, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Jim Henson, Mohammed Ali (52 heroes in all). You can discover and share the lives of those who have changed our world in this bestselling collection of stories. Thanks to our sponsor, HarperStudio, you can read them all here.

Reader Challenge: Your Own Hero
Inspired by the bestselling book, Heroes For My Son, this month’s Reader Challenge encourages you to share your own hero. In 50 words or fewer, tell us why this person means so much to you. We’ll select our three favorites, each of whom will receive a signed copy of Heroes For My Son. Be sure to post your hero in our Reader Challenge Forum by Sunday, June 6th at 11:59pm EST to be considered.

Big Read: Robin Hood
With a reimagined version of “Robin Hood” hitting theaters this month—and judging from the previews this Robin Hood will not be wearing tights—we decided to revisit Sherwood Forest for our Big Read. Check out Chapter One—”How Robin Hood Became an Outlaw”—here.

Crazy Busy Beautiful by Carmindy
On the hit show “What Not To Wear” makeup artist Carmindy gives makeover subjects the finishing touches that, as anyone who’s seen the show can attest, make all the difference. Her new book, Crazy Busy Beautiful, shares the beauty tips that make her clients look so good—and we’ve got a taste, courtesy of our sponsor HarperStudio. Find it here.

Finally, to get us all in the mood for summer, here’s a poem by Emily Dickinson:

A something in a summer’s Day

A something in a summer’s Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer’s noon—
A depth—an Azure—a perfume—
Transcending ecstasy.

And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see—

Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle—shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me—

The wizard fingers never rest—
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed—

Still rears the East her amber Flag—
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red—

So looking on—the night—the morn
Conclude the wonder gay—
And I meet, coming thro’ the dews
Another summer’s Day!

New Reader Challenge: Heroes

Inspired by Heroes For My Son, a collection of heroes put together by bestselling author Brad Meltzer, this month’s Reader Challenge encourages you to share your own heroes. In 50 words or fewer, tell us why this person means so much to you. We’ll select our three favorites, each of whom will receive a signed copy of Heroes For My Son. Be sure to post your hero in our Reader Challenge Forum by June 1st at 11:59pm EST to be considered.

The Publishing Point Hits 1000 Members

Susan and I are thrilled to announce that The Publishing Point, DailyLit’s industry education group, has just reached a major milestone: we now have over 1000 members. It’s been amazing to watch this community grow over the past year, bringing together folks who are excited about publishing’s future. We’ve loved bringing you a diverse lineup of great speakers this year–from HarperCollins Editor-at-Large Debbie Stier and bestselling author Seth Godin to Macmillan CEO John Sargent and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey–and the conversations their talks have sparked have been inspiring.

Special thanks are due to all of our speakers; our friends at Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins for providing space for our events; our spring 2010 sponsor, Bowker’s Identifier Services Group; and, most of all, to you, our members, for attending our events, asking interesting questions, and constantly challenging what it means to be in publishing.

Here’s to the next year and the next 1000 members in The Publishing Point!

-Susan Danziger and Maggie Hilliard

The Publishing Point is a community of publishing professionals excited by industry transformations and committed to sharing ideas about the future. All publishing professionals are encouraged to join The Publishing Point (membership is free), and The Publishing Point can be followed on Twitter @publishingpoint and uses hashtag #pubpt. For more information about The Publishing Point, please contact Susan Danziger at sdanziger [at] dailylit [dot] com or Maggie Hilliard at mhilliard [at] dailylit [dot] com.

Bestselling Author Brad Meltzer on DailyLit

Bestselling author Brad Meltzer is coming to DailyLit with his new book Heroes For My Son. Brad’s best known for his suspense and mystery novels. You may think this doesn’t sound like one–and you’d be right. Heroes For My Son is actually collection of inspiring people Meltzer started putting together after the birth of his first son, and I love how it brings together great images and short descriptions of luminaries ranging from Muhammed Ali to Abraham Lincoln to Jim Henson and more. I’m normally not a huge fan of books you’d find under the “inspirational” category at Barnes & Noble, but I really like this little book–the pictures and short (yes!) blurbs about the heroes are irresistible. Hope really does spring eternal.

Heroes For My Son is being published today and the full book is available for free on DailyLit thanks to our sponsor, HarperStudio. Enjoy!

Question of the Week #72: Influential Books

This week’s question was influenced by the “Influential Books Game” in the New York Times. What are the books that have most influenced your life? As the challenge states, not your 10 favorite books, nor the 10 best books you’ve ever read, but the books that quickly came to mind–that your gut says have most powerfully influenced your life.

Share yours in our Question of the Week forum.

Happy Birthday, DailyLit!

We’re celebrating DailyLit’s 3rd birthday today. It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since our official launch of serving up books via email. And what a time we’ve had: being selected the number one book website by the Sunday Times; featuring great authors from Jane Austen to Jhumpa Lahiri; and most importantly, giving a way for readers to make time to enjoy stories, learn languages and be inspired in just a few minutes a day.

To all our readers: it’s thanks to you that we’ve been able to have so much fun. Wish we could all send you a piece of cake.

Here’s to another year of great reading–cheers!

Winners of “Your Words That Matter” Reader Challenge

Thank you to everyone who participated in our April Reader Challenge Your Words That Matter–we loved reading all of your inspirational quotes and we hope all of you got some good feelings from them too. Congrats to our three winners, each of whom will receive a hard copy of Words That Matter: A Little Book of Life Lessons from the editors of O, the Oprah Magazine.

“Nobody looks at the bridesmaids’ feet.” In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff.
-by tin0002

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” –Goethe
-by lisbie

“He’s fine, and the car can be fixed.” My husband’s grandfather (the calmest person I ever met) said this to his daughter, who was about to scream at her son for backing his four-wheeler into her car. Now, whenever I feel myself getting angry over something small, I say to myself, “He’s fine, and the car can be fixed.” It’s a wonderful reminder of what’s really important in life.
-by JLS915

James Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses

We may know James Fenimore Cooper as the esteemed author of classic works like Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans, but to the eyes of Mark Twain, Cooper is a hack.  In his essay “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” Twain writes “In one place in Deerslayer…Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.” Oh, snap.

Twain goes on to detail the rules of fiction and literature that Cooper breaks, and the problem after problem (after problem) apparent in The Deerslayer. Here’s my favorite passage:

In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of a moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn’t step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn’t satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can’t do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.

Whether you agree with Twain’s critiques or not, this is the liveliest piece of literary criticism you’ve seen in a while, no?. You can read the whole essay here–and I’d recommend it. Twain’s tongue has never been sharper.

Question of the Week #71: Reading Together, Reading Alone

Reader dreamdust wonders: Are there certain books that are better for discussion with a group? And certain ones that are best enjoyed alone? What are your favorite group and solitary reads?

Share yours in our Question of the Week forum.