Gish Jen's Blog

Delighted to see TIGER WRITING on the Boston Indie Bookseller summer reading list! Lot of other great ideas as well.

http://artery.wbur.org/2013/06/28/bos...

I did the WGBH/PBS summer reading rec program this year. The recs are on their website:

http://www.wgbhnews.org/post/21-great...

For fiction, I recommended Karen Fowler's wonderfully gripping and original WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES. Some other wonderful novels published this year, though, are Elizabeth Graver's AT THE END OF THE POINT, Ruth Ozeki's FOR THE TIME BEING, Julie Wu's THIRD SON, Christina Garcia's KING OF CUBA, and Indira Ganesan's AS SWEET AS HONEY. I myself haven't read Claire Messud's THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS yet, but am absolutely going to; another book I wil be picking up for sure is Meg Wolitzer's THE INTERESTINGS.

And if you like short stories, I was, umm, a fool for Joan Silber's FOOLS.

For Nonfiction, I recommended George Packer's very important THE UNWINDING. Less obviously timely, but terrifically well written and wholly absorbing is Megan Marshall's biography of Margaret Fuller, A NEW AMERICAN LIFE. And I have heard absolutely fabulous things about Victoria Sweet's GOD'S HOTEL.

My Young Adult title was the only one not published this year. And that is Allegra Goodman's THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND. My 14-year-old daughter just cleaned out her bookshelves in the ruthless way that only a 14-year-old can, and it was very revealing what she left. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies... and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND. Now there's a recommendation!

Made up this list of favorites for the Daily Beast. As for "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Writer" - no, that's not my title! But I should have known someone was going to come up with it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles...

Someday I am going to know how to post events properly. In the meanwhile, I'm just going to post my West Coast tour schedule for TIGER WRITING here. I'm really excited about it, especially as I am bringing my daughter with me. I remember early book tours up and down the coast with a nursing baby, a teething baby, a crying baby... stressful! This is going to be completely different -- a real pleasure both in the bookstores and out. Can't wait.

Sunday 04.14.13
Oakland, CA | Diesel, A Bookstore , 3:00 pm

Monday 04.15.13
Corte Madera, CA | Book Passage , 7:00 pm

Tuesday 04.16.13
San Francisco, CA | Mechanics' Institute Library. with Maxine Hong Kingston , 6:00 pm

Wednesday 04.17.13
Pasadena, CA | Vroman's Bookstore , 7:00 pm
04.18.13

Thursday Los Angeles, CA | UCLA , 4:00 pm
04.19.13

Friday Seattle, WA | Elliot Bay Bookstore , 7:00 pm

Hope to see some of you there!

Forgive me, readers! I've only just started to figure out how to use Goodreads, and now I am already bowing out, at least on certain fronts. I think you'll understand why. Having agreed to judge the National Book Award for fiction this year, I can't be sharing my opinions of books here.

I may still post other stuff from time to time, though. I do have a story in the Best American Short Stories of 2013, for example, related to which there may be things to share in the fall.

And my new book, TIGER WRITING, is out now, too, so perhaps I will post things related to that. Starting with my new website -- www.gishjen.com -- just live as of today! Lots of news there, as well as my events schedule.

The wonderful PRI radio show, The World, not only did a wonderful interview for my new book, TIGER WRITING, but a web page with a video! If you click on this link, it will come up:

http://www.theworld.org/2013/03/gish-...

I see all the reviews people write here and am touched. It is heartening and wonderful to see people involved with their books, talking back to them, sharing them. It's the magical, transformative culture I fell in love with as a girl -- a culture of utter candor, and one that I love, very much, still.

Yet so many of my friends are writers, now. And while most of them are way too busy to be checking on whether I read his or her book or how many stars I gave it, I know that there's always a chance that one or two of them will see it. And should even one of them see that I didn't like this last book as well as, say, the first book he or she wrote, I would die. I would die because I know how hard it is to write books, and because my job as a friend is to tell them what I really think if they ask, and when it's helpful. It's not to be supportive in person then pull the rug out from under them on a social media site.

So please forgive me, Goodreads readers. I won't post any books that are not finally worthy in some way, and that I wouldn't want to share, imperfect or not. As for those of you reading this who are both Goodreads readers and Goodreads authors, I'm with you and for you (and notice that some of you are wont to give everything 5 stars, too). Good luck!

I have never blogged, and until just this moment could not imagine what I would ever blog about. But, then, lo and behold: right on my own profile page, I saw a quote from my own first book, Typical American. This read:

“He was not what he made up his mind to be. A man was the sum of his limits: freedom only made him see how much so. America was no America.”
― Gish Jen

And, yes, those are my words; no, I have not been misquoted. And yet those are words my protagonist, Ralph Chang, utters at the nadir of his fortunes -- words which are undercut by the image that follows right after them, an image of possibility and light.

So is that quote a quote? Hmm.

Typical American