Amazon's 100 Books to Read Before You Die

Perhaps we don't need Amazon telling us what to read, and their new list of "100 Books to Read Before You Die" is based on nothing but the arbitrary selections of marketing executives. On the other hand, it's difficult to argue with many of the choices on this new list, including several (22 to be exact, more than 1 in 5 overall) by past guests of the Institute.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward (no) and Carl Bernstein (yes)
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (more than a visitor, a long-time friend)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (more than a visitor, a colleague)
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (before she was famous)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (an early pal of Bill Kennedy)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (before and after he was famous)
The Color of Water by James McBride
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Complete list here:  http://money.aol.co.uk/2014/02/06/the-100-books-to-read-before-you-die/#!slide=aol_1260760

Visit the Writers Institute Visiting Writers Archive here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/vwindex.html#I

Amazon has also announced that it will compile a new reader-driven list based on a Goodreads readers' poll.

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New Poetry Bestseller!

We are pleased that Poetry of Witness (2014) edited by Carolyn Forche (who visited us yesterday), has flown to the to the top of poetry bestseller lists nationwide. Among other things, it is the #1 best selling poetry anthology on Amazon.com and the #4 best selling poetry volume overall (trailing slightly behind Poe, Shakespeare and Homer).

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Poetry-Anthologies/zgbs/books/10250

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Poetry/zgbs/books/10248

Her appearance Wednesday on the PBS NewsHour may have helped in this regard:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/poet-carolyn-forche-gathers-500-years-of-suffering-in-new-anthology/

Forche reads poems from the collection here:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/poetry/carolyn-forche-explores-writing-as-an-outcry-of-the-soul-in-poetry-of-witness/

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Looking back, and ahead, at journalism

Paul Grondahl talks about Bill Kennedy's appearance at the 40th anniversary celebration of UAlbany Journalism Program founder Bill Rowley last week:

Bill Kennedy was talking last week about his late, great friend Bill Rowley founding the University at Albany journalism program in 1973 — he was Rowley's first hire — and as the newspaperman-turned-novelist assessed the current state of journalism, his mood turned dark.

"Newsweek is gone. Time magazine is just a tattered print unit of Time Warner Cable," he said. "All the TV networks seem to have slid into the swamp of celebrity. The Times seems to be surviving, but I don't know how small papers can survive."

His talk was the centerpiece of what was billed as a 40th anniversary celebration, but as a truth-teller addressing an auditorium of professional skeptics and aspiring cynics, his forecast was stormy with a chance of extinction.

Kennedy quoted the prophecy of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, new owner of the Washington Post, who once said that newspapers as we know them will be gone in 20 years. "That does not seem unreasonable to me," Kennedy added.

More in the Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Looking-back-and-ahead-at-journalism-4898618.php

Picture: UAlbany undergraduate intern Michelle Checchi, a junior journalism major at UAlbany.

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Christa Parravani in the Schenectady Gazette

"Her. That’s what Christa Parravani’s identical twin sister, Cara, used to call her. The two shared almost everything: looks, fears, interests, hopes. And when Cara died of a heroin overdose in 2006, at the age of 28, Christa’s world was ripped apart. Grief-stricken, she spiraled into a self-destructive depression. Like Cara, she abused drugs and attempted suicide. Unlike Cara, she survived. Parravani tells her harrowing story in her new memoir, “Her,” which goes on sale Tuesday and was named Amazon’s 'Featured Debut' for March."

"In Her, Parravani credits Guilderland High School and the guidance of caring teachers with helping her and Cara succeed and cultivating their interest in the arts."
For more highlights of Sara Foss's profile of Christa Parravani (who visits UAlbany on Thursday), visit http://www.dailygazette.net/standard/ShowStoryTemplate.asp?Path=SCH/2013/03/03&ID=Ar00901&Section=Local_News

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On loving and losing a twin...

Christa Parravani's new memoir of her deceased twin Cara was just named Amazon's "Featured Debut" for March 2013, as well as a "Best Book of the Month."

Also a noted photographer, the Guilderland High School graduate posed in a series of photos with Cara shortly before her death. One of them (featured here) graces the cover of the book.

Parravani visits the Institute this coming Thursday:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#christa

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