While newspapers gut their book coverage, NPR is expanding its coverage online. And it has good Jessa Crispin of bookslut fame as one of the reviewers. Smart move.

I don't think it's a coincidence that nonprofit news media like NPR see the potential for growing book coverage while most for-profit papers are gnashing their teeth and bemoaning falling advertising rates. It's simple — we need more nonprofit journalism and less focus on shareholders and profit margins. Some things — like investigative journalism, health care and education— just don't work very well under our capitalist system, me thinks.

Here's a summer reading list from World Changing. Glad to see a Chin Music title sneak into the pack!

Here's a great story on Book Expo America and the constant hand-wringing of large book publishers by Paul Constant. His argument pretty much boils down to this: Large publishers are cowardly crowd-followers; readers are as hungry as ever for good literature and tired of being talked down to by the cowardly large publishers; and this has created a huge opportunity for small presses and indie bookstores.

It's funny, but in this ecosystem, the "small" publishers he refers to are the very ones we look up to: Akashic, Small Beer, McSweeney's, Soft Skull. We're saving up to someday be able to afford a booth at BEA, so I guess that puts us in the teeny-weeny press category, a garage band of sorts. But all the same, I think his argument holds true. The old venues for reviews and publicity are becoming less and less relevant, and today's small press has to be nimble enough to get its books talked about in other venues. Readers will respond, as we've found in our tiny slice of the publishing world. And the good thing is we're still being discovered.

Constant made me laugh out loud several times in this piece, like when he contemplates facing the apocalypse at Larry King's house:

I grab a beer and slip back inside the house. Unsurprisingly, there are some books by Larry King on the bookshelves—I resist the urge to see if they are lovingly inscribed from Larry to Larry. Though the shelves probably cost more than my father made in six months at his job in a paper mill, the collection of books is roughly identical to my parents'. There are some mysteries, a couple of inspirational-type books, a dictionary. There's a People Magazine Almanac from 2006. I imagine what would happen if, like in the TV show 24, an atomic bomb went off in Los Angeles and all these people and I wound up duct-taped into Larry King's house, waiting out the fallout. We wouldn't suffer for food, of course. There's enough bison and cheese for everyone, so the class struggle wouldn't turn to violent cannibalism or anything like that. There's enough booze to keep us insensate through the apocalypse, too. But the books. The few times in my life when I've been deprived of books, I've become monstrous and depressed, as though going through physical withdrawal. What would I read if I wound up trapped in here for a few weeks? I look at Larry King's shelves. There is nothing that interests me. It is a barren wasteland, and if I had to subsist on it, I'd die.

Thanks to Akira at Design Kompany for bringing the article to my attention.

The Daily Yomiuri ran an upbeat review of our latest addition to the Chin Music family, Art Space Tokyo. The reviewer sums up our book this way:

Art Space Tokyo is a snapshot of the Tokyo art world as it is now. But with forward-looking organizations such as the new contemporary art fair 101 Tokyo and Art Initiative Tokyo hoping to break new ground, Art Space Tokyo may also help to better understand the city's future.

Damn straight. Thanks DY.

Ever since journalism school, I've tried to weave that word "newshole" into my prose whenever possible. So I was happy to find a piece by David Milofsky of the Denver Post that, while not actually using the word itself, dealt with the painful process of soliciting reviews for your books.

The picture Milofsky paints for newspaper reviews is bleak: a shrinking newshole + thousands and thousands of books = NY firms with muscle get reviewed; small presses usually don't. But then the situation online is far more promising. Online reviews are getting better, and there are plenty of sites devoted to the lit world. A relatively new one is the Barnes & Noble Review, which runs a new 1,000-word review every weekday. Another new entry is the online version of the Kenyon Review, which dedicates a section of its site to book reviews.

Expect more online activity around books. The quickly shrinking newshole (last usage, promise) for literary matters and the skyrocketing supply of books point to plenty of room for growth in litblogs, online reviews et cetera.

For all you Japanese speakers reading this blog, finally a review of Goodbye Madame Butterfly for you. It comes from Jungle City, an excellent Internet site on all things Seattle.

And for those of you in the Seattle and San Francisco areas, please come check out Sumie Kawakami on her Quickie West Coast book tour next week. We'll be in San Francisco (Get Lost Travel) on Thursday evening at 7 and in Seattle (Elliott Bay Books) on Saturday evening at 7:30 That's March 20 and 22. Hope you can make it.

Taking a break from late-night editing of Art Space Tokyo, I found a new review of Last of the Red Hot Poppas by the Midwest Book Review. The writer called our Baton Rouge murder mystery "utterly compelling from cover to cover." Nice. I will sleep well tonight. But first, a little more editing to go.

The whole (short) review is on the Poppas Amazon page.

Last of the Red Hot Poppas and our favorite fictional governor, Rex LaSalle, got a nice writeup in the American Spectator about 10 days ago. It was woven into a piece favorably comparing Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to Barack Obama (!). Well, all I'll say on that topic is the conservatives over at the Spectator have impeccable literary taste. Here's a blurb:

... a rambunctious (and at times uproarious) fictional ride through Louisiana's infamous political circus.

Check out the whole article here.

The Danish newspaper Information featured a big write-up of Goodbye Madame Butterfly on Friday, complete with a large picture of Sumie Kawakami. This follows up articles in Australia and Japan in recent weeks. The international buzz for this book is alive and well.

For our Danish friends, here's a snippet from 'Butterfly' as translated by the paper:

Hideo Sasaski, sexfrivillig, 44:

På sine fridage forvandler han sig til Hide-san, et tilfældigt kælenavn, hans kunder benytter, og tilbyder sine tjenester til ensomme kvinder på udkig efter sex. Hide-san er ikke prostitueret - han får ingen penge for det, og hans tjenester udføres helt frivilligt.

En typisk morgen for Hide-san møder han en kvinde til morgenmad, efterfulgt af et par saftige timer på et kærlighedshotel. Når han har sagt farvel, fortsætter han til en tidlig frokost med en anden kvinde efterfulgt af endnu en fysisk præstation på et hotel. Han møder endnu en kvinde klokken tre om eftermiddagen, endnu én klokken seks, og tager derpå hjem efter en lang dags frivilligt arbejde.

"Problemet er, at når et par bliver gift og får et barn eller to, mister manden sin seksuelle interesse for sin kone. Han begynder at behandle hende som sin mor," siger hr. Kim leder af en sexklinik. Han tilskriver dette, hvad han kalder "den umodne mandlige psykologi", fremherskende blandt japanske mænd. "Modne mænd er svære at finde i Japan. De kan ikke slippe billedet af deres mor som den ideelle kvinde. For dem er kvinder enten mødre eller elskerinder, og mange fortæller, at det at elske med deres koner føles som incest," siger mr. Kim.

A friend of ours is working on a translation of the piece. We'll offer that here as soon as he's done. And just so it's clear, we are not condoning liberal use of the word "sexfrivillig" on your next trip to Copenhagen.

In case you missed it, Jeff Kingston wrote a wonderful review of Goodbye Madame Butterfly, which ran in this Sunday's Japan Times. Here's a taste:

Why do women put up with jerks? After reading about the abusive and philandering men in these women's lives it is amazing what they tolerate. They literally roll with the punches and just ask their men to be more discreet in their affairs.

Misa confesses she wishes her husband's mistress was much younger or at least a sex worker, saying, "This is a pride thing, I know, but I couldn't get over the fact that she was not a pro and was almost the same age as me." And so in her prime she resigns herself to a sexless marriage, a bleak trudge through life shared with someone she can no longer love.

And for good measure:

Sumie Kawakami is an experienced and intelligent reporter who manages to get her subjects to bare their souls and share their anxieties in a book I found hard to put down.

Novelist Suzanne Kamata (Losing Kei, Leapfrog Press) finds within the pages of Goodbye Madame Butterfly a truth about Japanese society:

Japanese pundits wonder why the birth rate is falling. Perhaps, quite simply, Japanese husbands and wives need to learn how to relate to each other better, and to have more sex.

She reviewed our latest book on Her Circle Ezine, a site for and about the women of the world. We'd be remiss if we didn't also leave you with this quote:

Kawakami presents a frank portrait of Japanese women today, via these compulsively readable, expertly crafted essays. Further kudos should go to Yuko Enomoto for her seamless translation.

Amid all the whining and hand-wringing among newspaper executives these days, it's nice to find a newspaper that is willing to take risks to connect with its readership. Ever since the levees broke in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune has shown what it takes to be a relevant, important voice in a community these days. (I can imagine my New Orleans friends rolling their eyes right now, but seriously, point to a paper in a midsize city that has done better.)

Well, now the Times-Picayune has scored even more points by bucking a disturbing trend and actually expanding its coverage of books. This is such a smart move for several reasons: 1) New Orleans has a vibrant literary scene that is alive right now, not stuck on the memory of Tennessee Williams or some other literary icon; 2) Susan Larson, the paper's book editor, is one of the country's best book reviewers; 3) People who read newspapers generally enjoy reading book reviews and book news, despite what the number crunchers may think. It's just that we're tired of lame book reviews. Larson and her team are bound to produce a superior product that will be read throughout the publishing industry, focus more attention on writers in New Orleans and raise the status of the city and the paper. Just give them time.

I just returned from the Consortium sales conference in New York — where I saw Craig for the first time in 2007 — to find this excellent review of Goodbye Madame Butterfly on Bookslut today. Positive reviews are like a half hour of long, deep pranayama — they invigorate the soul of this impoverished publisher. Here are couple of my favorite bits:

In a lot of ways it is this sameness of attitude and circumstance that transforms the title from an exploration of the exotic to a refreshingly intense look at the mundane. These are the stories of Japanese women struggling to find themselves in the 21st century; by reading them westerners will likely see themselves reflected through a prism of shared hopes and disappointments.

(and)

Somewhere in America a woman is going to read about Misa and then leave to pick her own child up from school and she will know she is not alone in all her frustrations, dissatisfactions and questions about the future.

For those of you who own the book, Misa is the heroine of "Red Circles."

Our second book, and so far, our best-seller, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? just got a very positive review in the Midwest Book Review, an online review service that publishes its reviews on Amazon and in other forums. Here's a snippet:

(A) collection of heartfelt true stories told by survivors, evacuees, and natives of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the lethal city flooding. A handful of black-and-white illustrations grace this collection of brief reminiscences of New Orleans as it once was, the hardship of survival, attempts to return to the city, the hope of rebuilding despite the overwhelming challenges, and much more. A dollop of humor here and there intersperse the at times harsh true stories, in this highly recommended tribute.

I don't have the exact count on me right now, but our first run of DYK will probably be sold out in a few months. If you'd like to get a copy of the first edition, or send it to a friend, consider ordering it over our site. From now until Fat Tuesday, Chin Music Press is contributing $5 for every copy of DYK and Last of the Red Hot Poppas bought over our site to help displaced writers in southern Louisiana. We'll be donating the proceeds to KARES, a group that has been helping writers in various ways since soon after the levees broke in New Orleans.

First novelist Todd Shimoda's thoughtful review of Goodbye Madame Butterfly appears on The Asian Review of Books, then the Daily Yomiuri runs Christina Kuntz's interview of Sumie. Wish this sort of thing could happen every day ... or at least every week.

Anne Lovett writes good things about Last of the Red Hot Poppas on the Georgia Writers' website:

[I]t’s a delicious gumbo. Take the spirit of A Confederacy of Dunces, blend with a murdered Louisiana governor and a steel magnolia First Lady, then throw in a few corrupt politicians, the Mafia, zydeco music, a canny African-American undertaker, an Assistant Attorney General who’s trying to do what’s right, and a young woman trying to come to terms with her growing-up in the bayou with a stepfather who’s built a 60-foot tall statue of Jesus. Then thicken with a serious message about vested interests and the environment. You might come away feeling you understand a little more about what went wrong during the Katrina crisis.

Daniel Handler's email was like a little birthday present — albeit a day late — for Chin Music. Mr. Handler may be better known to some readers as Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events (check out the video on the Amazon site; now that's what I call a reading!) He's been following our work for some time now and has been quick with encouragement. Here's what he had to say about Goodbye Madame Butterfly:

Last night I finished reading the swell book you sent me. I thought it was just terrific: smart and lively and thoughtful and moving, like a good Studs Terkel without encyclopedic pretensions.

Thanks, DH!

Any Poppy Z. Brite fans out there? We recently posted another excellent review by Colleen Mondor of Ms. Brite's latest work, Antediluvian Tales over on our Voices of New Orleans blog. Check it out.

There's a nice little review of Goodbye Madame Butterfly on the Lost in Translation blog. Check it out.

Here is a thoughtful, well-written piece from the Columbia Journalism Review on the history of book reviews in the US, the digital shift, anti-intellectualism in American newsrooms and much more. Too bad the people who most need to read this will find it too long. Here's a teaser:

And the book itself—compact, portable, sensuous—has yet to be bested as our most important information-retrieval system. Even Bill Gates, that Yoda of the virtual world, has been unable to resist its seductions. When, in 1996, he wanted to tell us about “The Road Ahead,” to commit the vision thing, what did he do? He had the Viking Press publish his book. He did not post his Delphic pronunciamentos on his Microsoft site. For Gates knew then—as he knows now, despite his recent insistence that the digital future will carry the day—that the book still retains the patina of authority that only time and tradition can bestow.

Here's some promising news:

Truthdig, winner of the 2007 Webby Award for Best Political Blog, is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Wasserman as book editor. A former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Wasserman will inaugurate Truthdig's weekly book review, starting in October 2007.

Books, despite predictions of their demise, are alive and flourishing. Ten years ago, some 50,000 books were published annually in America. Today, more than three times that number are published, yet review coverage in the mainstream media shrinks. Truthdig seeks to reverse that trend.

Book coverage on Truthdig will complement its political emphasis by deepening public debate on a range of compelling issues. Such coverage will embrace the enduring need for serious and lively analysis so necessary in an increasingly dizzy culture. The fundamental idea at stake is the self-image of society: how America reasons with itself, describes itself, imagines itself. Nothing in the acceleration made possible by the digital revolution banishes the need for the rigor such self-reckoning requires. In its reviews, Truthdig will focus on what matters.

As newspapers continue to drop the ball because of obsession with the bottom line, Truthdig and others are filling the void. The digital shift is not about amateurs on the Net, as some would have us believe, but about writers/artists/musicians looking for new avenues when the corporate world provides so few. The exciting and daunting thing is that this is all still in the nascent stages and nobody knows exactly what will emerge to replace traditional print criticism.

Here's a thoughtful piece on the role of literary blogs in the larger world of literature. It pretty much concludes where you would expect a book reviewer writing for a major newspaper to conclude: He says we still need the gatekeepers. But he's given the subject some deep thought, obviously, which makes this piece better than the typically dismissive news coverage of lit blogs.

Still, I'm afraid Mr. Birkerts is fighting an uphill battle in calling for more intelligent reviewing in print publications. I love good reviews and good criticism — they enlighten readers and make books more enjoyable. But the future of both reviewing and criticism is clearly online, not in print. And that's not because of the lit blogs or the Internet, necessarily; it's because of media consolidation. Today's newspaper stewards don't have time for anything as high-minded as book reviews. But the lit blogs do. Maybe Mr. Birkerts can just help us make those lit blogs even better.

We're on a roll this week. The National Cathloc Reporter is running an excellent review of Last of the Red Hot Poppas in its June 8 edition. Since the online version charges people who don't subscribe to the paper, here's a passage from the review that gives you a sense of the insightful approach of reviewer Tom Roberts:

One of the unintended benefits of Last of the Red Hot Poppas is the deep immersion one gets into pre-Katrina Louisiana, an experience of a kind of “Louisiana whole,” before everything began coming apart.

In a broad sense — more in the manner of art than slapstick — this is a political/religious comedy about a powerful politician and the people around him. In the end everyone, in some way or other, winds up talking to God and wondering why and how they’ve wound up in an ever more complicated cover-up of a murder.

When you don't have the muscle to get your authors on Oprah! and Fresh Air or reviews in the NYT, you can sometimes forget that all your work to get the word out about your books takes time to bubble up. This Sunday we got a little write-up in The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, LA, which reminded me that no matter how many calls you've made about a book and how many galley sets you have sent out, when you are small, you still have the potential to be discovered well after your release.

OK, so the paragraph from Lafayette won't set us over the top, but it does show that our marketing efforts need to focus on the long-run with each book.

And by the way, it takes just one sentence — even a sentence fragment — to make a publisher smile. This is the sentence that made my Sunday:

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans ($18.50) is another ingeniously packaged title from Chin Music Press

Nice.

Novelist Michael Connelly asks the plaintive question in our headline in a piece in the Los Angeles Times about the downsizing or elimination of book reviews in newspapers across the country.

We've run into this trend a lot lately. Newspapers are relying on wire services for reviews more and more, eliminating book editor positions and shrinking the newshole dedicated to literature. It's a pure business decision motivated by media consolidation and a desire to squeeze the last penny of profit out of each paper. We all know this depressing truth, yet what Connelly points out in his piece is how short-sighted this strategy is, and how, if anything, it is likely to hasten the downfall of newspapers, not make them more robust.

To answer the question in the headline, we'll see more fragmentation, more regional or niche stars and fewer Updikes, Hemingways and Murakamis. The best bet for small presses is to light a fire in a region or a niche and try to fan the flames so that others will hear about your book. Playing on the national scale is becoming more of an insider's game. We'll still try to get on Oprah, get reviewed in the NYT and have our book talked about on "All Things Considered," but unfortunately, it's not worth the time contacting the book editors at major dailies when they are constantly under fire, having their jobs eliminated or their responsibilities truncated. Frankly, newspapers are becoming less relevant to publishers like Chin Music Press and that's a shame.

The esteemed quarterly Lousiana Cultural Vistas has a thoughtful review of Last of the Red Hot Poppas in its latest issue. Check it out.

One other reason to check it out: Vistas is the first publication I've seen in a long time to use the Nxt Book technology to replicate a paper publication online. I remember how this was billed as the next breakout application for online publishing years ago, and it's kind of fun to zoom in and out and turn the pages of the magazine. But for whatever reason — perhaps it is too stuck in the traditional paradigm of flipping pages and paper-based layout? — we rarely see this application used.

The one thing Nxt Book does that I like is allow the reader to make random connections, like when you read the newspaper and jump from one topic to the next. Online news reading tends to focus you — the more you drill down into a subject, the less likely you are to find something interesting of a completely different nature — and it is difficult to jump from a piece on Keith Richards talking about what he did with his late father's ashes to the influence of the Mormon church on American politics, as I did this morning while reading The Seattle Times. Of course, this may not be an experience readers need to have, and it may go the way of album cover art — fondly remembered but not essential.

The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, LA, (that's smack in the middle of Cajun country, in case you're wondering) ran a strong review of Last of the Red Hot Poppas this Sunday. Here's an excerpt:

Poppas is a cliffhanger that’s a little too close for comfort, although I have to believe Louisiana politics cannot be quite this bad, naïve though I may be. Exaggeration and extreme conflict do make for great reading. Still, you can’t miss the similarities of popular leadership who make us laugh while selling our souls down the river.

How do you select the next book you'll read? Joe Queenan reveals his special formula in today's New York Times, reminding us why he's our favorite literary bully.

Although, as with all bullies, we like it best when the bullied fight back.

Roland Kelts' Japanamerica got a strong review in The Japan Times this Sunday. Here's a snippet:

[T]he book's main achievement is Kelts' interaction with those who work at the heart of the anime world, and those for whom manga is a lifelong passion. It is the personal stories that precede the acute observations that make this work precious: the American author who grew up on manga, the Japanese company manager who worked alongside Tezuka, the fan-writer who is ready to be more commercial than individual for his work to be sold.

A syndicated columnist in Mississippi has written a neat synopsis of Jason Berry's Last of the Red Hot Poppas. But before you read it, let me offer a spoiler alert: The columnist makes it clear who kills Rex and why — if you plan to read the book or are in the middle of it, maybe skip this one. But if you've already read Poppas, check it out in the Clarion Ledger.

Lou Major Sr. of the Daily News in Bogalusa, LA, picked up the latest issue of Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine and was mesmerized by the Poppas excerpt juxtaposed with Philip Gould's captionless photos of Louisiana politicians. He wrote a column about it today.

And for those with too much time on their hands this Martin Luther King Jr. Monday, here's a post I wrote a few weeks ago on the same topic.

Postscript: Jason Berry will be reading from Last of the Red Hot Poppas at Jefferson Parish Library at 7:30 tomorrow (the 16th). The event is free and open to the public, so go check it out. And next week, we'll be hosting a Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans reading at the same place. More on that later.

Check out the latest review of Poppas in the Press-Register of Mobile, Alabama.

Here's a taste:

Rather than attempt to summarize a complicated story line that features Gulf Coast mobsters, strippers, toxic-waste injection wells, double-dealing, murder and so on, suffice it to say that the book is funny and engaging. To use a well-worn regional analogy, if it were a bowl of gumbo it would be one-quarter John Kennedy Toole and three-quarters Elmore Leonard, seasoned by Berry's journalistic-style reportage and insights.

Jason Berry is the Mobile Writers Guild guest tomorrow at 7 pm at the Mobile Public Library. The reading is free and open to the public, so drop by and hear Jason bring the characters of Last of the Red Hot Poppas to life.

I first came across Philip Gould's photography in Jason Berry's living room down in New Orleans this February. Jason had just presented me with the mesmerizing Louisiana Faces. Gould is a masterful photographer on many levels, but it is his portraits of the people of Louisiana that grab me the most.

So it was a special Christmas treat to get the latest version of Louisiana Cultural Vistas. I knew it would feature an excerpt of Last of the Red Hot Poppas but had not realized the excerpt would be coupled with Gould's work. Gould's photos and Berry's words hit just the right notes together. And the fact that the magazine editors decided to print Gould's photos without explanatory captions allows us to imagine that the characters in the pictures have jumped right out of the novel. It's a great touch.

Some other good Poppas news: Curtis Wilkie wrote a glowing review of the novel in The Southern Register, the newsletter for the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Wilkie writes that "Berry gets it just right in this jambalaya of a novel concerning high corruption and lowly scoundrels," adding later:

"Money, of course, has flowed for years from Big Oil, which plunders the Gulf Coast, pollutes its people and puts money in the pockets of politicians. The skies over Baton Rouge are a testament to Big Oil's power; refineries burn there with the impunity of hell itself. Thus, an aide to the governor is pleased when the sky turns blue for LaSalle's funeral. 'He had persuaded Exxon to cut the smokestacks to clear air for the services.'

"Laconic lines like this drive the narrative; lines such as the one where an FBI agent is told, 'Your problem is deciding who not to indict.' This is, after all, a state where a recent roster of convicts included a governor, an attorney general, an elections commissioner, an agriculture commissioner, three insurance commissioners, a congressman, a Federal judge, a state president and sundry local officials."

Neither of the publications cited above are available online, which serves as another reminder that not all the good reading can be had on the Internet just yet.

Nothing like a good review of one of our titles to put us in the holiday spirit. This comes from an entertainment magazine down in New Orleans called Where Y'at. Reviewer Ira Brooker had this to say about Jason Berry's novel:

Virtually every page is imbued with a behind-the-scenes quality that makes the reader think, “Gee, I bet that’s what it’s really like when they close the doors at a mortuary/FBI meeting/Governor’s Mansion!” ...

Equal parts dark satire, page-turning thriller and compelling character study, Last of the Red Hot Poppas is a sharp, provocative debut that should appeal to any reader who’s ever shaken his head and wondered just what this state (or country) is coming to.

Thank you, Where Y'at!

I arrived back in Seattle after a whirlwind trip to Tokyo — man, I still love that city — to find this very positive review of Last of the Red Hot Poppas in the Chicago Tribune.

My favorite line is the reviewer's description of First Lady Amelia LaSalle as "a woman who could give Lady Macbeth a fair fight in an evening-gown-and-iron will competition."

This is the biggest publication yet to cover a Chin Music Press release. We're breaking through, little by little.

Colleen Mondor has just reviewed Last of the Red Hot Poppas on Bookslut. Here's a taste:

From their trademark shortened book size that fits perfectly in the hand, to the elegant title page and sewn-in bookmark, everything about this book is a collector’s dream. It’s a beautiful art object that also includes a well-written and smartly-told story.

And it's a good one. From yesterday's Times-Picayune.

Also, thanks to everyone who came out to the Ogden yesterday. Some of you asked whether the little film we created about the late Governor Rex LaSalle will be up on the website. The answer is yes, hopefully in a couple of days.

Just wanted to point you to some excellent reviews of New Orleans books on our Voices blog by Colleen Mondor. She's reviewed seven books so far, including the whole Neighborhood Story Project series from Soft Skull Press, and we'll be running more over the coming months. If you're on the fence about a certain book, Colleen will swiftly and persuasively push you off the fence and toward the nearest bookstore.

The latest issue of the The Simon magazine, an online publication that takes on everything from Altoids ads to California culture in inspired style, includes a piece called "Invisible City: New Orleans Rebuilds by Writing." It's a great piece — and not just because Do You Know is featured prominently. It's the first piece I've seen that looks at post-Katrina literature as a weapon or a tool in the rebuilding process. The subhead sums it up nicely:

In a slew of books responding to Katrina, writers show that the Big Easy is not going to let 125 mph winds, FEMA, or Bush rain on its parade.

It's easy to dismiss this sort of effort, but it is also wrong to do so. Tom Lowenburg of Octavia Books in the Garden District told me in February that the city's residents were buying books about New Orleans in record numbers. People are searching for answers, context, meaning in this mess, and when the government at every level looks indifferent or incompetent or a combination of the two, people search beyond it to find something worthwhile. In this case, this new body of post-Katrina lit is attempting to fill the gap.

On a side note, the piece raves about the latest copy of The New Orleans Review, which I would like to get my hands on. It also quotes good friend Anne Gisleson, who writes about her child seeing X's in the sky. Powerful stuff.

The latest review of Do You Know... appears in the just-released spring edition of Internationalist magazine. It's short but good. Here's a snippet:

[The book] is a literary tempest that assaults the reader with detailed, unpredictable, and unique happenings that a superficial spring-breaker might otherwise miss.

We'll link to the review once it's online because you won't find this magazine at your local newstand. It is a student-run publication that has recently teamed up with the Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank begun at Stanford. The magazine is run by a nonprofit group, distributed to more than 150 colleges and universities and is published quarterly (the website updates weekly). It has offices right near the Puget Sound in downtown Seattle, which is why I knew about it. The editorial is a wide-ranging mix of international stories from students all over the globe. It's an ambitious, interesting magazine, dedicated to bringing new, progressive ideas to the fore. The design is inspired too. All in all, it's a much better read than most of the stuff on the newstand today.

The advertising is international too. The inside back cover features a geisha in an ad for Nova. Yes, that Nova, the one that warped our friend over at this site so badly that he has obviously never recovered. But I digress. Check out the Internationalist's website (and doesn't that opening graphic remind you of buzztracker?).

Check out Colleen Mondor's review of My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters, and Lovers on our Voices of New Orleans blog.

We're planning to add more features and reviews to the Voices site in coming weeks. If you have something to say about the Gulf Coast region, let us know.