'Missing' British bookseller appears on television

Lee Bo is one of five booksellers known for publishing titles critical of Beijing who have gone missing recently

A “missing” Hong Kong bookseller, Lee Bo, appeared on television on Monday insisting that he had not been abducted by mainland authorities, in a case that has provoked anger over Chinese interference in the city.

Related: Britain accuses China of serious breach of treaty over 'removed' Hong Kong booksellers

Related: Wife of missing Hong Kong publisher says she met him in secret in China

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A Notorious Dream

Image courtesy of Astor & Lenox

As a devoted fallen-away Roman Catholic, my writing a novel about a Catholic archbishop and his deep questioning of his own beliefs was a difficult and, personally, very contentious process. My own long experience of The Church had led me to the conclusion that it is a self-serving bureaucracy intent upon maintaining control of its flock. Its nostrums about peace, faith, doing good and all that remain mere nostrums in light of its destructive polices toward birth control and population growth and the directly related consequences of world starvation, global warming, and more or less continuous war. Also, The Church's attitudes toward any scientific investigation that clashes with Church-imposed beliefs, its miring in disproven medieval visions of the nature of the universe, its obdurate disrespect for women's rights and those ancillary policies relating to women's second-class status in the Church hierarchy, their no-class status at the highest level of that hierarchy...the list does go on. The very term "flock" should cause laughter among those who belong to the Catholic faith since it implies a herd of thoughtless animals doing everything that its shepherd demands. Sheep do not ask whether the shepherd's ideas have worth. The priest bureaucracy well understands this, and has so for two millennia. It does everything it can--especially when it invokes the ultimate fallback, the Word of God--to maintain that control.

In his dealings with the flock, no priest is subject to any democratic ideal.

One of the main characters of The Notorious Dream of Jesús Lázaro is the archbishop of San Francisco Ruben Mullins. He is faced at the beginning of the novel with an offer from Jesús Lázaro, a mystic Mexican muralist with a grand ability for apocalyptic art, to paint giant murals on the entire façade of the Cathedral of Saint Mary in San Francisco, California. (It happens that, although the book is a fiction, the cathedral actually exists, at the corner of Gough and Geary Streets.) An archconservative prelate, Ruben thinks this is a lousy idea, refuses to have anything to do with it, and therein lies the tale. The irony is that although, when I began writing, I conceived of Ruben as the villain of the piece, once I got into it, his emotions changed, also apocalyptically. His handling of Jesús's request becomes something quite different from the stern apostolic refusal that I had thought it would be when I began writing the novel.

Despite protests in the street, the disapproval of the Vatican, a disastrous love triangle that threatens everything, and even possibly the wrath of God, the murals get painted.

To my surprise, Ruben is now the hero of the finished novel. He undergoes a transformation of faith that allows him to see the ascendancy of the spirit and creativity over the deadened dictates of the Church bureaucracy. His change in attitude is extremely painful for him because it flies in the face of everything he has believed since his very early childhood. But he realizes that what he has believed came to him through unquestioning rote acceptance of the tenets of his faith. He also sees that these tenets are used for the furtherance of the careers of the Church bureaucracy, and are irrelevant to artistic endeavor and emotional discovery.

A publisher friend of mine recently told me, "Terry, you didn't write about a parish church. You wrote about a great cathedral. You didn't write about a simple priest. You wrote about an archbishop. And Jesús Lázaro doesn't dabble in the arts. He's one of the greatest painters of the 21st century." She smiled, tapping my chest with an index finger. "Have you no modesty?" That the novel attempts from time to time to address some of the biggest political issues that face us now is for me a by-product. In the end it is about the human creative spirit and how it always finds ways to prevail. The novel is also, I should add, very humorous. That I was able to write it astonishes me.

Terence Clarke's The Notorious Dream of Jesús Lázaro was published in 2015. His collection of stories, New York, will come out later this year.

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Which Authors Get to Be 'Indie'?

When you hear the term "indie author," who comes to mind? Do you think of an author published by a small but traditional independent publishing house, or do you think of a self-published author? Or maybe either/or?

As the world of publishing shifts beneath our feet, so does the language of publishing. The term "indie" was at one point reserved for independent small presses. It was a label that distinguished them from their bigger corporate counterparts. It's been years, however, since the term was co-opted by self-published authors, and more and more it's the norm to think of "indie" and "self-published" as going hand-in-hand.

Meanwhile, I know a lot of publishing insiders who bristle at this, feeling that the term has been appropriated. They're possessive of the term, as if it means anything other than "independent." As if there's not room at the table for all of us.

Plus, the term itself was never really publishing's to begin with. It originated with music and film, two industries that do a much better job of celebrating and embracing their independent artists than the book industry does.

To be indie speaks to a certain spirit, the spirit of independence. This belongs to any author who's either driving their own publishing process, or being invited by their publishing house to collaborate and/or partner in the creative process. I know independent small presses who will put up a fight over the label, but who do not exhibit the indie spirit in their dealings with authors.

Wikipedia defines "indie" in many ways, but under the small press subhead, it says:

a book or magazine publisher whose publications appeal to small, niche audiences, and are typically not distributed widely.

Interestingly, those very indie presses who want to fend off appropriators of their term are in fact widely distributed, and would be quick to align themselves more closely to their corporate counterparts when it comes to discussions about their capacity to get books to marketplace.

As a culture, our indie spirit is wrapped up in our very fiber. America is the land of Independence, and "indie" is a feel-good label that artists of any modality wear with pride.

In my forthcoming book, Green-Light Your Book, I celebrate the spirit of independence by championing indie authors of all stripes, but also the spirit of generosity. Because of the rise of self-publishing, book publishing has adopted an us versus them position that's not good for any author. It's traditional versus self. Paid-to-publish versus paying-to-publish. Offset print runs versus print-on-demand. Everywhere I look I see people trying to distinguish between "good" and "bad" books using arbitrary measures, and the favorite, of course, is author subsidization.

And yet all authors who care about their books put their own money behind it, and all of us have read terrible traditionally published books alongside our best-loved books. And plenty of self-published authors are writing and publishing well-designed, gorgeously written, and award-winning books.

Publishing is treated as a zero-sum game, but it doesn't have to be. There is room at the table for all of us, so let's all revel in our own indie-ness, and not shut other authors out because we deem them not indie enough.

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War, Cheap Alcohol, and Good Old-Fashioned Journalism

By Julianna Haubner | Off the Shelf

Though I spent most of my high school and college years writing for newspapers, I never wanted to be a journalist after graduation. I do, however, like reading journalists' memoirs, which is how I landed on The Taliban Shuffle. This high-octane memoir has been made into a film starring Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, and Billy Bob Thornton called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and will be in theaters March 4.

The Taliban Shuffle covers the nearly five-year period that author Kim Barker worked as a reporter in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Chicago Tribune. The book follows her as she dodges bombs, cultivates sources, and finds her place in a community of expats, government officials, and other journalists clamoring for the next big story.



What sets this apart from other war stories you may have read? Well, it's hilarious. Plenty of war and combat memoirs are somber, tragic, sometimes even terrifying. Though Barker doesn't sugarcoat when she recounts serious events, she isn't afraid to address the absurdity of being an American woman in a different culture, or of living a reporter's life, which is constantly changing and often unexpected.

One of my favorite moments is only a dozen pages in, when Barker approaches the top foreign editor at the Tribune in 2001 after learning that the higher-ups are looking to send more female reporters to the Middle East. She had seldom been abroad, only spoke English, and didn't know much about Islam, but she wanted adventure and an escape from her day-to-day life.

"I have no kids and no husband, so I'm expendable," she says. The editor nods, and hands her an envelope with her name on it; the paper has already checked out who is single and likely to report overseas. "We know who you are," he responds. "Get ready to go to Pakistan."

Less than six months later, she's on a plane, about to embark on the ride of her life. By day, she covers her head with a scarf and reports on bombings, militants, elections, and is even embedded with the United States military as they're on patrol--by night, she and her fellow correspondents blow off steam with cheap alcohol and early 2000s jams. There is a dark comedy in these opposite experiences, and this elevates the book from a story of war to a story of life and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Which brings me to another of Barker's strengths: while some well-known and high-ranking figures make cameos, she is not a name-dropper. This book isn't about the headliners, the network anchors, or the cable TV packages. It's about good old-fashioned reporting, the kind that many fear is disappearing in today's media landscape. There's no Twitter, no photo ops, viral videos, or sudden rises to fame. Barker starts from the bottom, and works hard to show the realities of reporting overseas, and the danger that people put themselves in so that we don't have to.

In my armchair travels, I've read a lot of journalists' tales: this one might just be my favorite. Barker's journey is enough to make you look at things differently, read the news a little more closely, and maybe even push you try something new. Or if you're like me, you can just relish the contact high.

Julianna Haubner works in the Editorial Department at Simon & Schuster. You can follow her on Twitter @jhaubner2.

 

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10 Books Coming to a Movie Theater Near You


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Amazon primed: five areas the company is looking to expand into

After signing deal to sell Morrisons food, US retailer has sights set on fashion, loans, drones, physical shops and more groceries

Amazon is expanding into grocery shopping after agreeing a deal to sell Morrisons food. But that is not the only initiative the ambitious US company is investing in:

Fashion

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Louise Rennison's greatest quotes ever

The author of Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging has died, but her words will live on. Here are our favourite quotes to celebrate her life and the books she gave us

We are devasted to report that the amazing Louise Rennison, known as Lou to her friends, has died at the age of 63. One of the funniest, if not THE funniest, teen writers in the world, she first wowed us with her ground-breaking Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging, which was published back in 1999. It was just the first of 10 stories about Georgia Nicolson, who was surely based on Louise’s wild and wonderful self. The first two books in the series were adapted into a film Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (read this to find out about that revised title).

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Poem of the Week: A House We Can Never Find by Kapka Kassabova

A breathless single-sentence piece by the Bulgarian poet draws on the powerful and complex emotions attached to migration

We couldn’t wait
to leave their house,
to lie with lovers whose names
are forgotten now, to take risks
with our minds and bodies,
to live in countries
that never asked to have us,
or thanked us afterwards,
racing through the years with rage,
towards something that we
finally have one day,
and which is no more, no less
than the certainty of not
hearing their steps
creaking, measuring the floorboards
of a house we can never find.

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Graphic Novel Captures What It's Like to Be Gay in Iran: Part 4

One gesture, one person, one moment. This is how change happens. In this final installment of "Yousef and Farhad," we hope we to reach Iranian families -- and those in other countries -- who are struggling with the sexual orientation of a loved one with an appeal for acceptance and dignity for all.

Also read:

- "Yousef and Farhad" -- Part 1

- "Yousef and Farhad" -- Part 2

- "Yousef and Farhad" -- Part 3

- OutRight Action's blog about the inspiration behind "Yousef and Farhad"

- Reflections on the format and topic from writer Amir Soltani and cartoonist Khalil Bendib

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.