Beach Read: The Truth, by Michael Palin

It's August - time to read something light. At my favorite Venice, California bookstore, Small World Books, I picked up Michael Palin's 2012 novel The Truth.

In brief, it's the story of Keith Mabbut, middle-aged British pen-for-hire and frustrated novelist. He is offered a shocking amount of money to write a biography of Hamish Melville, an elusive environmental crusader who pops up in the world's hot spots to mobilize indigenous peoples to resist the destruction of their homelands by resource-greedy corporations. Mabbut has to find Melville, gain his trust, and glean his story on a short deadline.

But why is Urgent Books offering him so much money, and why is its CEO such a creep? Meanwhile, Mabbut's wife, separated from him for a year or two, wants to marry her new lover, his twenty-something daughter is in love with an Iranian refugee, and his slightly-younger son won't speak to him. And his historical-recreation "not science fiction" novel languishes while he tracks Melville to India. In the process of pursuing this story, he's surprised by his own environmental activism reawakening after decades of slumber.

The book is more serious than I'd expected of a Python, but it's a decently written page-turner. And it's aptly named: variants of Truth shimmer in every chapter: what people live and die for, what they will corrupt those around them for, the mundane truths of how to treat people, and that humans are not really trustworthy. Mabbut ultimately has to decide what his truth is, and to speak it - just as everyone he encounters must voice their own version.

One can do worse for beach reading - go find a copy!

The Swimsuit Issue

Everybody does one, right? It's a way to increase sales & attention as the season turns.
Today's featured model is a 1/5 page ad in the New York Times Book Review, putting publishers on notice that they're in danger of missing out on the next Faulkner, Joyce, Angelou or Tolstoy, if they don't publish his books.
If I read the advertising charts for NYT correctly, he spent upwards of $10,000 to beg for publication. Perhaps it will pay off. One wonders why he didn't just self-publish.
But whichever side he approaches from - client or DIY-er - it's the same uphill struggle, climbing Mt. Recognition.

This goes a long way toward explaining the preponderance of reviewed books by or about famous people. Today's NYT Book Review features books about Bob Dylan, Metallica, Queen, Robert Redford, Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Eden, Cary Grant, Derek Jeter, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial... You get the picture. And fiction captures a diminishing share - out of dozens of books in the Summer Reading issue, only 6 are full-length reviews of novels. Really, don't people read fiction to escape the grind?

The competition for readers' eyes is fierce - while more books are being published every year, people are spending less time with them. But diving into a full-length novel, whether your pleasure is a P.D. James mystery, a John Le Carre spy tale, a re-read of Lord of the Rings or a comic novel by P.G. Wodehouse, is the best celebration of summer.

If you're headed for the beach, a pool or a mountain cabin, don't forget the books!