Too Many Books In The Kitchen

I'm Michael Hingston, books columnist for the Edmonton Journal (new columns appear every Friday). See below for other stuff I've written.

My first novel, The Dilettantes, will be released in fall 2013 from Freehand Books. Here's everything you might want to know about it.

Other topics under discussion: podcasts, strange sodas, the Wu-Tang Clan, and Moby-Dick.

Email me, if you like, at hingston [at] gmail [dot] com. I'm available for hire and I like free books.

WRITING

Favourites: 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012
What I Read: 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012

All Reviews /
All Interviews /
All Columns

Mark Abley (1)
Henry Adams (1)
Chris Adrian (1)
Charlie Ahearn (1)
César Aira (1) (2) (3)
Jonathan Ames (1)
Kingsley Amis (1)
Martin Amis (1) (2) (3)
Karen Armstrong (1)
Margaret Atwood (1)
Jane Austen (1)
Paul Auster (1)
Todd Babiak (1)
Chris Bachelder (1; Q&A)
Nicholson Baker (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Rosecrans Baldwin (1)
Jesse Ball (1)
J.G. Ballard (1)
Julian Barnes (1)
Kevin Barry (1)
John Barth (1)
Elif Batuman (1)
Samuel Beckett (1)
Robert E. Belknap (1)
Katrina Best (1)
Otto Binder (1)
Laurent Binet (1)
Mike Birbiglia (1)
Heather Birrell (1)
Caroline Blackwood (1)
Andrej Blatnik (1)
Roy Blount Jr. (1)
Boethius (1)
Roberto Bolaño (1) (2)
Jacques Bonnet (1)
Jorge Luis Borges (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Grégoire Bouillier (1)
Tim Bowling (1)
Stephen R. Bown (1; interview)
C.P. Boyko (1; interview)
Bertram Brooker (1)
Grant Buday (1)
Nellie Carlson (1)
Raymond Carver (1)
Adolfo Bioy Casares (1)
Michael Chabon (1)
Dan Charnas (1; interview) (2)
Corinna Chong (1)
Chris Cleave (1)
Lynn Coady (1; interview) (2)
Douglas Coupland (1; interview)
Buffy Cram (1)
Lynn Crosbie (1)
Amanda Cross (1)
John D'Agata (1)
Mark Z. Danielewski (1)
Don DeLillo (1) (2)
Charles Demers (1; interview)
Kristen den Hartog (1)
David Denby (1)
Helen DeWitt (1) (2)
Patrick deWitt (1; Q&A) (2; Q&A)
Marcello Di Cintio (1; interview)
Nicolas Dickner (1) (2)
Dave Eggers (1)
Alison Espach (1) (2; Q&A)
Percival Everett (1) (2)
Jim Fingal (1)
Anne Finger (1)
Jonathan Safran Foer (1; interview)
Kaitlin Fontana (1; Q&A)
Cheryl Foggo (1)
Jim Fricke (1)
Marie-Louise Gay (1)
David Gilmour (1)
Malcolm Gladwell (1)
Misha Glouberman (1)
Adam Leith Gollner (1)
Manuel Gonzales (1)
Adam Gopnik (1)
Emily Gould (1)
John Gould (1)
Lee Gowan (1)
Linda Goyette (1)
Gwethalyn Graham (1)
Amelia Gray (1)
Adam Haslett (1)
David Hayward (1)
Alan Heathcock (1)
Steve Hely (1)
Aleksandar Hemon (1)
Lee Henderson (1; interview)
Kira Henehan (1)
Sheila Heti (1) (2; Q&A) (3) (4)
Miranda Hill (1)
Nick Hornby (1)
Robert Hough (1)
Sean Howe (1)
Mary-Beth Hughes (1)
Maude Hutchins (1)
Isol (1)
Harry Karlinsky (1)
Esmé Claire Keith (1)
A.L. Kennedy (1)
Etgar Keret (1)
Chuck Klosterman (1) (2; interview)
Ryan Knighton (1)
Jane F. Kotapish (1)
Louise Ladouceur (1; interview)
Annette Lapointe (1)
Nam Le (1)
Fran Lebowitz (1; interview)
Shelley A. Leedahl (1)
Alex Leslie (1)
Lawrence Lessig (1)
Jonathan Lethem (1) (2) (3) (4)
Adam Levin (1)
Michael Lewis (1) (2)
Naomi K. Lewis (1; interview)
Tao Lin (1) (2; Q&A) (3)
Ewa Lipska (1)
David Lipsky (1) (2)
Sam Lipsyte (1)
Lisa Lutz (1)
Pasha Malla (1; interview)
Ben Marcus (1)
Clancy Martin (1)
Zachary Mason (1; Q&A) (2)
Colin McAdam (1; interview)
Tom McCarthy (1)
Herman Melville (1)
David Mitchell (1)
Lorrie Moore (1) (2) (3) (4)
Horacio Castellanos Moya (1)
Haruki Murakami (1) (2) (3) (4)
Michael Murphy (1)
Billeh Nickerson (1; interview)
Jason Lee Norman (1; interview) (2; interview)
Benjamin Nugent (1)
Andrew O'Hagan (1)
Michael Ondaatje (1; interview)
Daniel Orozco (1)
John Ortved (1)
Patton Oswalt (1)
Boris Pahor (1)
Chuck Palahniuk (1; interview)
Orhan Pamuk (1)
DC Pierson (1) (2; Q&A)
Hannah Pittard (1)
Padgett Powell (1)
Thomas Pynchon (1)
François Rabelais (1)
Nathan Rabin (1)
Ross Raisin (1) (2)
Simon Rich (1; interview) (2) (3)
Edward Riche (1)
Santiago Roncagliolo (1)
Adam Ross (1)
Nicholas Ruddock (1)
Salman Rushdie (1)
Karen Russell (1)
Richard Russo (1)
Mike Sacks (1; interview)
Daniel Sada (1)
Laura Salverson (1)
José Saramago (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
George Saunders (1)
Elissa Schappell (1)
Anakana Schofield (1)
Salvatore Scibona (1)
Will Self (1; interview)
Carol Shaben (1)
Leanne Shapton (1)
Mikhail Shishkin (1)
Gary Shteyngart (1; interview)
Katherine Silver (1; Q&A) (2; interview)
Zadie Smith (1) (2)
Carrie Snyder (1)
Muriel Spark (1)
Dana Spiotta (1)
Kathleen Steinhauer (1)
Cassie Stocks (1; interview)
Cordelia Strube (1)
J. Courtney Sullivan (1) (2)
John Jeremiah Sullivan (1)
Miguel Syjuco (1)
Justin Taylor (1) (2; Q&A) (3)
Rob Taylor (1; Q&A)
Lysley Tenorio (1)
Lynne Tillman (1)
Miriam Toews (1; interview)
Wells Tower (1)
Matthew J. Trafford (1)
Neil Turok (1)
Ellen Ullman (1)
Deb Olin Unferth (1)
Jean-Christophe Valtat (1)
Richard Van Camp (1)
Jorge Volpi (1)
Sarah Vowell (1)
David Foster Wallace (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Russell Wangersky (1)
Mélanie Watt (1)
Teddy Wayne (1; interview)
Colson Whitehead (1)
David Whitton (1)
Ian Williams (1)
John Williams (1)
D.W. Wilson (1; interview)
Kevin Wilson (1)
James Wood (1)
Molly Young (1) (2; Q&A)
Vlado Žabot (1)

OTHER PIECES

"Comic Sans" (The Incongruous Quarterly)
"'No Fear' T-Shirts Based on Board Games" (McSweeney's)

"The Men in the Mirror"
"Moby-Dick; or, My Favourite Book"
"The Pop-Culture Annotated 'Lord's Prayer'"
"Tumblr Recommends"

The Lonely Island - “Semicolon (feat. Solange)” (from 2013’s The Wack Album)

Relevant to alllllll of my interests.

May 22, 2013
Comments

millionsmillions:

“The first time I read it, I was in school, and I remember being confounded by two facts: 1) That it was originally published in 1941 and 2) That it first appeared in Irish as An Béal Bocht. And if there was one thing that was less funny than anything written before, say, 1975, it was anything that was written in Irish.”

Nothing Funnier Than Unhappiness: A Necessarily Ill-Informed Argument for Flann O’Brien’s The Poor Mouth as the Funniest Book Ever Written by Mark O’Connell

It’s true: this book is unbelievably funny. It’s also a flaming, barbed, poison-dipped arrow through the heart of Irish hard-scrabble sentimentality. Every country on the planet should hope for such a skewering.

May 22, 2013
Comments

Ranking Aira

Phew—finally all caught up on my César Aira. (Just ignore, for a minute, that he’s got two more novels due out in English this year.) If you’ve never read any of his books, and aren’t sure where or how to start, here’s how I’d rank what’s already out there:

  1. How I Became a Nun (1993, trans. Chris Andrews)
  2. The Literary Conference (2006, trans. Katherine Silver)
  3. Ghosts (1990, trans. Chris Andrews)
  4. The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira (1998, trans. Katherine Silver)
  5. Varamo (2002, trans. Chris Andrews)
  6. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (2000, trans. Chris Andrews)
  7. The Seamstress and the Wind (1994, trans. Rosalie Knecht)

Note that 3-5 are pretty well interchangeable. And even Seamstress has its moments. Really, you can’t go too far wrong. The guy is good.

May 21, 2013
Comments

Hingston: Publishing tour boosts Edmonton writer’s optimism

Sure, big guns like Random House and HarperCollins have the kind of elegant downtown tower offices you’d expect—but did you know that Coach House Books, also in Toronto, operates out of a real coach house? (It took Sevigny a minute to realize the entrance was through the alleyway.) And houses like Frontenac House and our own University of Alberta Press run out of, well, houses. The U of A’s abode has untold numbers of hidden crawl spaces and a set of narrow servants’ stairs, while Frontenac’s, in Calgary, doubles as the actual residence of its husband-wife founders. Both look cosy.

This week’s column is about Erinne Sevigny, an Edmontonian who spent a month travelling across Canada, visiting 20+ publishers and seeing what she could glean about the publishing industry at large.

Read the whole thing here.

May 17, 2013
Comments

Boom.

May 16, 2013
Comments

The Goodreads page for my novel is cover-less, shivering, and new. Will you show it some internet heat?

New Yorkerin’: April 2013

Only 16 days late this time! Great work. As usual, here are some of my favourite stories in the magazine of magazines from the month before this one. Some are behind a paywall. Sorry about that.

Culture! Check back in a month for May’s report. Or maybe six weeks. I’m doing my best over here.

May 16, 2013
Comments

When I contacted the designer, Elizabeth Alice Crum, to get a closer look at her creations, she explained that they were inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: more specifically, the theme of chance, how the narrative is woven and broken, how tension is created, and where fate takes you. 

Fashion is weird.

May 16, 2013
Comments
Why do they even try? my 7-year-old self would wonder as I watched Alan Alda flounder helplessly through yet another failed rerun of M*A*S*H. Why is every single Korean-lady extra so much funnier than he is?
Ellie Kemper: Can Men Be Funny?: Humor: GQ May 15, 2013
Comments

Dan Brown’s “Inferno"€ Translated in an Underground Italian Bunker

hmhlit:

The “translators 11,” two months, NO CELL PHONES. Also, this:

And although the translators were “allowed to take their meals at the Mondadori staff canteen, they were each given an alibi and a cover story, just in case someone showed the slightest hint of curiosity about what they were doing all day (and a large part of the night) in a locked-down bunker. ”

Intense. 

These co-workers sound awfully nonchalant about the fact that their office has a lockdown-able bunker in it.

May 13, 2013
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