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Juicy bits from the book
Listing
of the 125 Authors
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Interview
with
the Glossbrenners |
December
8, 2000
For
AuthorsOnTheWeb's premiere interview we were thrilled to speak with
Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner, co-authors of About
the Author, a book that delves inside the lives of authors
and gives readers insight on the people behind the pages. Find out
what the inspiration was behind this must-have book, how the authors
went from thousands to only 125 authors, their favorite "juicy bits"
or discoveries about author, what they think of the Oprah book club
phenomenon, and much more.
AOTW:
What inspired you to write this book? Was it your love for any particular
authors or titles?
Glossbrenners:
The short answer: We were sick and tired of doing computer and Internet
books and decided that for once we would write a book about a something
we really loved. We've been writing about computers and the online
world since 1982, and the fascination with both wore off a long
time ago. (Our degrees are in English Literature and Psychology,
after all. We just happen to be good at figuring out how things
work and clearly explaining technical subjects.)
We
had done an Internet glossary and quick reference guide for AMACOM
and were in the midst of a 1,000-page computer sourcebook for Random
House when Emily said, "What about a sourcebook for readers?
What about a book that would tell people who love to read where
to find book reviews and out-of-print books, that would guide them
to the best author-specific Web sites, and that would alert them
to the best sources of audiobooks, reference works, and sources
like A Common Reader and Bas Bleu?"
Okay,
she didn't have all the details nailed down during that first conversation,
but the two of us come up with book ideas all the time. And every
now and then one of those ideas becomes a published reality.
We
were convinced from the start that the book would be a winner. After
all, people who are readers are real readers. In fact, you might
say that there are two types of people --- those who read and those
who don't. Those who don't may crack open the occasional paperback
bestsellers at the beach, but their houses tend to be bereft of
books. Real readers, in contrast, typically have two or three books
going at the same time and are always eager to talk about them and
to loan you something they really loved. Consequently, their houses
are usually stuffed with books.
We
fall into this category. And we eagerly share our "finds" with friends,
who often tease us because we keep track of who has what and make
sure that it is returned.
Thus
was born the idea for a "Passionate Reader's Sourcebook,"
the original and working title for About the Author. We still write
copy for Web sites, scripts for industrial and training videos,
brochures, TV ads, and all the other things one must do to earn
a living as a writer. But About the Author is our favorite
child.
AOTW:
How many of the 125 authors have you both read? Between the two
of you, have you read them all?
Glossbrenners:
There are at least a couple dozen authors in the book that we're
both familiar with. And between the two of us, our best guess is
that we've read close to 100 of the 125 authors that are covered.
But we were fortunate in writing the book to have the help of a
corps of researcher/writers that included college professors, undergrads,
and graduate students, full-time book editors and magazine publishers,
and other freelance writers. Their assignments were based on their
personal passion and love for particular authors.
So,
in the vast majority of instances, the first draft of a given author's
write-up was prepared by someone who was a fan and who had read
the individual's work in depth. We would edit the submission to
conform to the format, but we always preserved the insights that
could come only from someone who had read lots of the author's work.
AOTW: What are some of the forms of research you used? Which
form brought you the most information in the easiest way?
Glossbrenners:
In 1986, Alfred wrote a book for St. Martin's Press called How
to Look It Up Online. For both Alfred and his readers, it served
as an introduction to the real world of information-in all its power,
glory, and fallibility. The delivery mechanism is irrelevant. Whether
online or in print, we learned then that there are inconsistencies,
contradictions, and errors in nearly every source, name-brand or
otherwise.
It
came as something of a shock. If it's published in the newspaper,
it has to be true, right? Well, by now we all know better. But it
is worth noting because when wearing our researcher's hat, we make
a point of watching for bad information, and when something raises
a flag, we do our best to pursue it.
But
back to your question. In many instances, we started with Contemporary
Authors from Gale Group. As writers of reference works ourselves,
we were disappointed but not surprised to note the wide variability
in the coverage of authors. In some cases, the entries were extensive
and thoughtful; in others, they amounted to little more than some
biographical information and excerpts from a few published reviews.
And, of course, we did our best to get a second source for things
like birth dates, marriage dates, children, and so forth.
We
also made good use of other reference books, many of which are given
capsule descriptions starting on page 281 of About the Author.
Again, you almost have to write a reference book yourself to appreciate
this, but whether it is the O.E.D. (as chronicled in The Professor
and the Madman.), a book of Internet and computer terms, or
a book like ours, there is no received list of what you must include.
In many ways, a reference book is as much a product of sheer creativity
as a novel. The main difference being that a Hollywood studio isn't
likely to buy the film rights.
Certainly,
we could not have written About the Author without a deep
knowledge of online information and a profound and ever-evolving
knowledge of the Web. (Our current book project is the third edition
of Search Engines for the World Wide Web for Peachpit Press.)
Yes, it sounds like bragging. But the fact is that we were pretty
much present at the creation of online information, or at least
at its very first offering to the public, and we've been telling
people how to tap in and use it for nearly 20 years. So of course
we brought all of that to bear to produce one of the most Web-informed
popular reference books yet published.
AOTW:
Although you do cover this in your introduction, can you tell us
how you honed down your list of authors from hundreds to 125? Did
you two have any disagreements as to who to include and who to cut?
What author brought about the most controversy?
Glossbrenners:
Selecting the authors was a long process. We decided first off that
we'd limit the book to writers of fiction. Then, with input from
lots of different sources, we developed a preliminary list of some
500 authors. Michael Cader of Cader Books, the book's packager and
designer, made one of many invaluable contributions in creating
a uniform two-page spread for each author. This had not occurred
to us, but it does wonderful things for the book's look and feel
and accessibility. The available page count and other publisher
constraints combined with this approach to give us a target of 125
(and just 125) authors.
To
reach that number, we looked to see how much of a "corona of
interest" --- companion volumes, biographies, fan clubs, Web
sites, etc. --- had developed around each of the authors. We also
made an effort to include all major styles and types of writing,
with a special emphasis on the most enduring, popular, and important
novelists.
Of
course, in addition to the 125 featured authors, the book offers
suggestions for literally hundreds of others. In the Patricia Cornwell
write?up, for example, we alert fans of her work to the fact that
D. J. Donaldson and Susan Dunlap also write novels centering around
medical examiners. Turn to Edith Wharton and you'll find the suggestion
that books by her friend, Henry James, might appeal to you. And
so on.
Also,
the entire second part of the book is devoted to lists of all the
winners of all the major literary and genre fiction prizes and to
resources for reading groups. So you'll always have top?quality
suggestions for what to read next, regardless of what you're looking
for at the moment. Thus, we did manage to point readers to far more
authors than the 125 who got a major treatment.
Disagreements?
Nothing serious. This is publishing, after all. Everyone involved
had favorites, of course. Some expressed doubts about whether J.
K. Rowling or Robert Ludlum should be included, but you can't argue
with their sales figures and popularity. And what about Margaret
Mitchell, who was truly a one-book wonder (but what a book!)? Don
DeLillo? V. S. Naipaul? And is there anything new to be said about
Charles Dickens?
In
the end, while everyone involved in the selection process was aware
of author popularity and literary standing, the goal that united
us all was to alert readers of this book to authors worth
the consideration of any passionate, curious reader.
As
a result of writing this book, we have found ourselves reading
authors we would never have considered in the past. For example,
we'd both read and enjoyed Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove
but had never tried a Louis L'Amour (real name: Louis LaMoore) novel.
Intrigued by what we'd learned in writing about L'Amour, Alfred
bought a copy of his Spur Award-winning Down the Long Hills
and got a sense of why his books are so popular.
Next
up for Emily: Alice McDermott's Charming Billy, another book
we might not have read, despite the fact that it beat out Tom Wolfe's
A Man in Full for the National Book Award in 1998. Speaking
of Irish Americans, McDermott says, "I know their homes, what
they eat, how they turn a phrase." And her description of the
wake for Billy Lynch at an Irish bar in the Bronx, part of which
we included as a sidebar, makes you want to run out and buy the
novel immediately.
We're
going on far too long here, we know. But one delightful surprise
in doing this book was the effect it had on us, its creators. We
began as passionate, enthusiastic readers with an idea for a book
like this, and it ended up vastly expanding our reading horizons.
True
story: We were so intrigued by what we learned about genre fiction
(romance, horror, mystery, etc.) that after we submitted the script,
we turned to the second section of the book to consult the lists
of genre-fiction award winners and ordered one of each from Amazon.
The bill came to about a hundred bucks. But it was well worth it.
Similarly,
writing "ATA" has ignited or re-ignited our interest in
the "literary" authors we were forced to read-long before
we were ready for them-in high school and college. Among other things,
"ATA" helps people see the great authors as human beings
instead of busts of marble.
AOTW:
Although there is an enormous amount of information to be found
on the Web, it's often difficult to document or to prove as fact,
and not as speculation. Did you come across this kind of difficulty
in your own research, particularly on the Web?
Glossbrenners:
Yes, we did. As for how we dealt with it, we could yet again cite
our long experience with online searching way before the Internet
burst on the public scene. But the fact is that no good researcher
or reporter takes any offered information at face value. And it
doesn't matter where the information comes from. "Online"
is merely one more medium for making information (or someone's version
of the facts) available.
You
must always consider the source. So, when a Web page created by
a fan of a given author said something, we gave it less weight than
a Web page created by that author's publisher-or by the author him-
or herself. But when there was a conflict, we got as close to the
truth as we could.
Basically,
we are experienced researchers who care one whole hell of a lot
about getting it right, if only because so many in the business
are so sloppy and so often get it wrong. It may take an hour to
chase down the accurate birth date of an author, but if we had conflicting
sources for facts like these, we spent that hour. Being Alfred and
Emily, we had no choice. In writing each of our 60 or so books over
the last 20 years, we have always been obsessive about giving readers
the most accurate information we could find.
AOTW:
What are some of the most surprising things you've discovered about
authors from researching this book?
Glossbrenners:
Probably that each is a unique and interesting personality. Two
quick examples. The novels Anne Rice wrote under the pseudonyms
"A. N. Roquelaure" and "Anne Rampling" are among
the most literate and erotic ever published.
We
also enjoyed learning that in his youth, William Faulkner, who was
too short to be accepted as a U. S. Army pilot during World War
I, went to Canada, where he adopted a British accent and was accepted
in the Royal Air Force (RAF). But the war ended before he saw combat.
Undeterred, this future Nobel Prize winner picked up a set of pilot's
wings and a cane in New York City and returned home in his RAF uniform
with a fake limp. Faulkner claimed on at least one occasion to have
a silver plate in his head, a result of being shot down in a dogfight
over France.
No
one ever told us about this when we read Faulkner in school. (Probably
our instructors didn't know about it.) But what a humanizing detail!
AOTW:
Can a reader ever know too much about an author? Do you think it's
ever detrimental to a novel if a reader knows too much about an
author's biography? For example, can a reader's opinion of the author
cloud the literature?
Glossbrenners:
That probably depends on the individual reader. Our guess, however,
is that passionate readers are by their nature curious and appreciative.
Their enjoyment of a work encompasses far more than the text alone.
If you're a dedicated movie fan, you love to see how the special
effects and makeup were done, and you are eager to know about how
the stars got along (or failed to get along), what the director
was trying to do, and how the music was selected. Far from detracting
from your enjoyment of the picture, this kind of information adds
greater depth and pleasure.
So,
we like knowing that most of Thomas Wolfe's fiction was highly autobiographical.
We like knowing that Amy Tan, whose mother expected her to be a
concert pianist on the side after a hard day doing brain surgery,
performs with the band the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose other members
include humorist Dave Barry, Roy Blount, Jr., Stephen King, and
Barbara Kingsolver (who is married to guitarist/composer Steven
Hopp.)
We
never really grasped the fact that that Joseph Conrad was Polish
(real surname: Korzeniowski; one of his middle names was Konrad)
and that he never heard a word of English until he was 21. Yet he
became one of the most accomplished writers of English ever. And
as for old Victorian Charles Dickens, it is delightful to know that
he had a hidden door installed in his study made to look like a
fully stocked bookshelf. Among the fake titles: The Virtues of
Our Ancestors, a "book" so thin that the title had
to be printed sideways.
AOTW:
Have you ever discovered something that surprised you about an author?
If so, can you tell us what it was?
Glossbrenners:
Lots of discoveries, of course. For example, Ayn Rand (a pseudonym
that Alice Rosenbaum created for herself from an admired Finnish
writer's first name and the name of her trusty Remington Rand typewriter)
declared she had to have sex at least twice a week to combat writer's
block. In the 1950s, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was
a frequent guest at her Saturday salons and was considered a "disciple."
But
the biggest surprise was the truth about Patrick O'Brian, a truly
literate author Alfred had read in depth after graduating from Hornblower,
Bolitho, Ramage, and similar "golden age of sail" heroes.
Patrick O'Brian's greatest fiction turned out to be his own life.
When he died in January 2000, the world learned that his real name
was Richard Patrick Russ and that he was neither Irish nor Catholic.
He was the grandson of a Dresdener who came to London in the 1860s
and built a prosperous business selling furs to royalty. In his
20s, he abandoned his wife, son, and disabled daughter (who later
died at age three), and literally became someone else.
In
O'Brian's fiction, Stephen Maturin, his alter ego, rescues a fictional
daughter from the near oblivion of autism and twice rescues two
children from certain death in faraway countries. As we said in
the book, it really does make you want to cry.
AOTW:
What is the best "juicy bit" you've ever discovered?
Glossbrenners:
Truly tough to say, but here are a bunch of juicy
bits we found particularly interesting.
AOTW:
Was it difficult to come up with the "If You Like" sections
where you suggest other authors to readers? How did you determine
this?
Glossbrenners:
Yup. This was probably the hardest part, in most cases, of each
write-up. Fortunately we had some reference books to guide us, but
the most important suggestions came from the freelancers who did
the first draft. There really are no guidelines here. The upside
is that someone can try one of the suggested "if you like"
authors for free by borrowing a book from a library. If reader and
author don't "click," no harm done. If they do, then the
reader opens an entirely new universe of pleasure.
AOTW:
You also include some "best of" lists for genre fiction
including, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction and fantasy,
and Western. Do either of you have a passion for any of these genres?
If so, which ones? And if not, whose help did you enlist to come
up with these lists?
Glossbrenners:
A question more significant than you can know. At age 21, Alfred
was convinced that science fiction and fantasy were going to be
big. He'd been reading the really good stuff for years and managed
to persuade his thesis advisor at Princeton to let him make that
his topic. The first episode of Star Wars didn't appear until five
years later in 1977. So, yes, Alfred has had a passion for fantasy
and SF, which is why you will find profiles of Heinlein, Bradbury,
Asimov, and William Gibson in our book.
But
while we are always interested in a good read, neither of us could
be considered fans of genre fiction. We are more than willing to
learn, however. As noted in answering a previous question, once
we had finished About the Author, we ordered a copy of a
genre-fiction award winner for each category just to see what all
the shouting was about.
The
best-of lists for genre fiction are the lists of award winners in
each category. Our thought was: If you want to sample genre fiction,
start with titles that those who know it well say are the best.
Start with the award winners.
AOTW:
There are also many other lists in the "What Else to Read""
section of your book, such as the Modern Library Best Novels list,
the New York Public Library's Books of the Century, and Oprah's.
Did you look at lists to help determine who made yours? Which lists
if any had the greatest impact?
Glossbrenners:
We did, indeed, refer to these lists in assembling our initial list
of authors. And they certainly figured into our assessment of the
"corona of interest" surrounding the authors we chose
for the book. But no one list stands out in our minds as being particularly
influential.
AOTW:
Often, these lists contain few minorities and few women. Your book
has a more diverse selection than most. What will it take for those
other lists to expand across culture and gender?
Glossbrenners:
Thanks for noting the diversity. We strove mightily to offer a diverse
list of writers that would expand our reader's horizons. And that
really is the key.
This
has nothing to do with "political correctness," a concept
we despise. It has everything to do with alerting passionate readers
to great "reads" and authors they would probably have
never learned about in any other way.
We
know how the publishing industry works. It focuses for a very short
time on a few "blockbuster" titles and then moves on to
the next big money maker. So a Terry McMillan, an Alice Hoffman,
and a Toni Morrison, like everyone else who isn't Stephen King or
Danielle Steel, usually gets lost. (Short plug: All of the authors
mentioned here have full entries in the book.) By simply including
such authors and telling our readers which book to try first, we
can alert them to titles that are indeed on the shelves but that
get no special promotion.
AOTW:
What do you think about the Oprah Book Club phenomenon?
Glossbrenners:
Any phenomenon that gets large numbers of people to read should
be saluted. That's why, on page 272 of About the Author,
we list all the books in Oprah's Book Club and suggest that our
readers get the latest information by going to www.oprah.com.
What
an incredible person Oprah is. What an incredible intellect. Most
people with shows like hers are empty robots. But Oprah's into reading
really good stuff, and she brings her audience along. It is truly
wonderful.
AOTW:
You list the 50 Most Frequently Banned Books of the 1990s. Why do
you think schools are so quick to ban books that spark any controversy,
especially when that controversy may actually get more people to
read?
Glossbrenners:
We're not going to take the lid off that pot! We included the "banned
book" list as an item if interest. And we've heard from several
appreciative readers who've told us that they plan to use this list
as their guide for books to check out for the next year!
AOTW:
In the introduction of your book, you provide your home address
and e-mail address to readers asking for their thoughts, suggestions,
and criticism. Have you been inundated with mail? What was the best
piece of mail you received about your book? What was the most helpful
criticism?
Glossbrenners:
We have published our e-mail address in all of our books. And our
land address too. We truly want to hear from readers and welcome
their suggestions.
We've
received a steady stream of mail (mostly e-mail) from About the
Author readers, mostly telling us that they genuinely love the
book. Some have also taken the opportunity to make suggestions for
authors they'd like to see included in the next edition, and offer
recommendations for the book's "if you like" sections.
We love getting those types of messages, because they'll help us
make the next edition of the book even better.
AOTW:
What was your favorite part of this project?
Glossbrenners:
The subject matter, without doubt. Our professional background is
computers, the Internet, and online research. Our educational background
and predilections are toward literature and the liberal arts. This
book gave us the opportunity to bring everything we know to bear
on one wonderful question, namely, "What should I read next?"
AOTW:
Do you plan on updating the book with more authors in the future?
When can we expect to see an update?
Glossbrenners:
That will depend on our readers! We hope the book will be so popular
and sell so many copies that Harcourt will be begging us to do another
edition in a year or so.
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Copyright 2000. AuthorsOnTheWeb.com. All rights reserved.
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