Paperback Nobodies No More

Every time I have to pack my books in boxes, I resent them a little bit more. Not the beautiful books I display prominently or my favourite stories that I keep near my bed for easy rereads: I’m talking about the embarrassing paperbacks I stash in the back layer of my bookshelf and never admit to owning. And yet, I’ve moved five times in the last four years and these books have survived each trip because I can’t bring myself to abandon them on the side of the road.

If, like me, you have a V.C. Andrews incest saga that you’d like to donate to a nobler cause, now’s your chance!

The Freedom CC Gallery is asking for artists from all walks of life to take any old paperback and transform it into a work of art. The project is called Paperback Nobodies No More and the point is to change a book’s status from a “paperback nobody” into a “work of art.” If you can’t quite bring yourself to part with your old Harlequins, you can pick up a paperback from the Freedom CC Gallery (939 Bloor West). If you’d like to participate, you have until DECEMBER 5 to submit your masterpiece. More info on all of this here and here.

This sounds like an awesome project aaaaand is a great way to support a local non-profit cooperative. Mostly I just can’t wait to see what people do with their old books!

Julia is well read.

Julia Pohl-Miranda has more jobs than you. When she’s not writing about food for Nightlife or doing “mysterious, vague internet consulting and marketing work,” she can be found behind the counter at Montreal’s most charming bookstore where she makes great book recommendations and expertly encourages irresponsible impulse buys. I’m going to let the photos of Julia-as-Snufkin speak for themselves.

What kind of a reader are you?
I read in fits and starts. I used to be a voracious reader, and then I got busy. Nowadays there will be a day where I’ll read two graphic novels and 100 pages of a novel, and then a week of only-reading-before-bed-for-two-pages and then a week where I read three novels and then I’ll bog down on the fourth for a month. Generally speaking though, usually modern fiction (stories, plays, graphic novels), with some nonfiction (usually creative nonfiction) thrown in.

How has working at Drawn & Quarterly affected your reading habits?
It’s unclear if this is entirely because of D+Q (or because of my Lit degree), but I am awful at finishing a book I don’t like. Since we’re encouraged to read books as they come in to the shop, if a book doesn’t grab me and something else catches my eye…. well…

Also, I can definitively say that thanks to D+Q, I read a lot more graphic novels than I would otherwise read, and I have read the first twenty pages of countless books.

You were my go-to girl for book recommendations when I lived in Montreal. How do you go about suggesting books to customers?
There are a few things people always want recommendations of: comics set in Montreal (The Hipless Boy and Michel Rabagliati’s Paul series), comics by Montreal authors (those two again, but also Matt Forsythe and Julie Doucet and I like to include Marc Bell and Amy Lockhart for having lived in Montreal), and must-have comics (which my go-to, as for you, is Fun Home or Asterios Polyp and of course Maus and I love the Moomin books, and I love but accept that no one except me and one or two other lit-comics fans wants to read Masterpiece Comics).

I guess I listen for keywords in what people tell me they’re looking for, and I try to provide a diverse selection both in content (fiction, autobio, more alternative [i.e. more punk-rock/sexy/Japanese], more popular, harder to find) and drawing styles.

Usually though, the tough cases are where they already have an idea of the book they want, and either it doesn’t exist, or we don’t have it (I once had someone come in looking for a French-language comic set in Quebec whose subject was food, and I was able to find a Quebecois comic about food using Google, but we didn’t have it in stock).

Johanna Skibsrud wins Giller

I love a good underdog story. I don’t always pay much attention to the Giller Prize, but this year it was refreshing to see a short list that favoured lesser-known authors publishing with smaller presses. It’s awesome that a 30-year-old debut novelist walked away with our country’s biggest literary prize for a book that was hand-printed by a small Nova Scotian publisher.

For many, the most interesting part of this story is how Gaspereau Press will handle the new demand for this book. In the past, Giller Prize winning books have sold 75,000 copies in hardcover. To put that in perspective, 3,000 copies sold can land a book on the Canadian bestseller list and Gaspereau can only churn out about 1,000 copies of its handcrafted books a week.

Undoubtedly the most obscure book ever to win a major literary award in Canada, The Sentimentalists was hand-printed more than a year ago by the tiny publisher in Kentville, N.S., in an edition of 800 copies, most of which had disappeared by the time the three Giller judges announced their short lists. Gaspereau publisher Andrew Steeves subsequently raised eyebrows by refusing a commercial publisher’s offer to produce a second edition for wide distribution. “If you are going to buy a copy of that book in Canada, it’s damn well coming out of my shop,” he told The Globe and Mail.

I didn’t understand Steeves’ decision at first, but Jack Illingworth of the Literary Press Group had an interesting explanation in The National Post:

This may seem like willful eccentricity on the part of Andrew Steeves and Gary Dunfield, Gaspereau’s co-publishers. It’s actually something much more interesting: a commitment to a thoughtful, rigorous, refined mode of publishing. While publishing is usually discussed as a business, or an industry, all of the finest small press publishers practice it as an art form. The books that they choose to publish aren’t chosen to fill out a season with a handful of products that stand a reasonable chance of selling. Their lists are cultural projects, embodying a few individuals’ ideas of what literature can be.

So where does that leave those of us who want to read Skibsrud’s book, but might not be able to find it in our local bookstore? Well, eBook retailer Kobo‘s Michael Bowles didn’t seem too concerned:

I am curious to see how this will play out…

Genia is well read.

Genia Soukhodolskaia is a multitalented Montrealer who has worked countless jobs while dabbling in an English Lit degree at Concordia University, which she expects to complete some time before the next millennium. I’ve heard she’s amazing in the kitchen, but can’t attest to this firsthand because she never did get around to cooking that meal she promised months ago (ahem). Genia would like to be a librarian but also wouldn’t mind baking wedding cakes or doing peoples’ taxes for the rest of her life. Her last name is impossible to pronounce.

What kind of a reader are you?
Obsessive. If I find an author that I like, I will try to read every work by that author until I reach my breaking point or I run out of works to read. I am putty around anything having to do with the Mitford sisters. I am also the type of reader who will read anything that is in front of them. And I really do mean ANYTHING. I guess some would call that “non-judgmental” or “indiscriminating” but I call it desperate. I’ve read issues of Catholic Digest when there was nothing else to read at the dentist’s office. I do have some hard and fast rules about what I will not read. Any book that anthropomorphizes animals is out.

How do you get your books — buy, borrow, trade?
I used to borrow books from friends but would never give them back. They no longer lend books to me. So instead, I spend an exorbitant amount on books every year. I prefer new editions but will settle for used. I just love beautiful covers on books. I do use the library though I am often tardy with books and have monstrous library fines. I have nightmares about them.

What’s the worst book you’ve ever read?
The Romantics by Galt Niederhoffer and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers are both awful. Dave Eggers’ book is neither heartbreaking nor of staggering genius. I’m sorry he lost his parents but there is really no need for the rest that follows. It is mindless self-involved drivel whose sole purpose is to trick otherwise intelligent people into spending hours reading it when they could be reading something much, much better. I hate Dave Eggers the way Laura Drake hates Yann Martel (hate him too actually). Fuck you Dave Eggers. Or rather, I hope no one ever fucks you again.

I had high expectations for The Romantics. It could have been so good but no, no it wasn’t. The book is a pathetic account of a weekend in Maine where college friends meet for a wedding and the insipid madness that ensues. The characters all seem to loathe one another as well as themselves and are one-dimensional elitist jerks that inspire nothing but animosity from the reader. Ooh la la you went to Yale but now you are too depressed by your profound lack of any kind of achievement in your post-college years because it turns out you are a hollow shell of a person and your spouse who you hate, hates you back. Lila, the WASP princess in the book, never speaks but rather shrills, barks, yelps, commands and orders. You almost feel bad for the characters because the author felt so little respect for them that she, THEIR CREATOR, could not develop them any further than the pieces of cardboard that they are. One of them has distinction of being Jewish which I’m pretty is the only interesting thing in the whole book. Also, nothing happens in the book.

As an aside (and for the sake of controversy), I would just like to mention that the worst movie I have ever seen is Little Miss Sunshine. Yeah, I hated it more than I hated anything by Todd Solondz and Michael Haneke combined. Just so everyone knows.

Tej is well read.

Tej Swatch works as a banker applying, in some small measure, his (major) economics and financial training. He applies his (minor) training in literature by reading as many books as he can and writing a lot of prose that he should really get around to showing people. You can (and probably should) follow his “vague, passive aggressive kvetching, incessant linking, and pithy remarks” @tejswatch.

What kind of a reader are you?
The only time I see the word “voracious” is when people answer a question like this or when someone well-read is described as a “voracious” reader. I would venture that I have never seen the word used to modify anything else. That’s odd, no?

Anyways, I am not a voracious reader, in that I don’t read nearly as much I probably should or could, and certainly not as much as people I know, or people I admire. My loose goal for a year is around 100 books. In the years I’ve been keeping tab, I’ve exceeded this number twice, have gotten close once, and fell well, well short the rest. But, compared to the average reader, I would say I am well-read and, thus, qualified for an entry on this blog. That’s the answer to the “ how many” implication of the question.

The “what,” I would like to think, is “anything,” but it’s not true. I think I read fairly widely, but I know that I have gigantic blindspots, and I recognize this simply has to be the case. There is a lot to read out there, the time to read it is very limited, and I commit to every book I start reading, so I have to cut out a lot, based on genre, author, subject, excerpt, and cover. One has to save time and be efficient.

Choosing a book, then, is more a function of getting the best bang for the buck. I choose books from several sources. Suggestions from friends are always a good measure, though fraught with peril. Taste is a fickle thing, and I have good friends who like really bad books. I like it when they recommend writers, so I can do some digging on my own, read about their writings and what others have said about them. I choose the writer’s best/most representative/well-known work, and go from there.

Another major source is book reviews. Not specific reviewers, publications or anything like that. Just whatever I come across, whatever gets put in front of me. I read reviews critically, and if I think it’s a good review, and it is positive, I usually think the book’s worth looking at.

The last is new and used bookstores. I wander the stacks, pick a volume here and there, and if I get a feeling – seriously, a feeling – I’ll buy it. Buying books isn’t so dangerous for me because, for some reason, I know if I own or don’t own a book. I’ll never buy a second copy. How I managed to develop this database is a mystery to me, but it’s there. I’ve never purchased a duplicate, and I have some 1,500 books.

Tell me about the last book you couldn’t put down.
Applying a strict measure, in that a book that I chose to read at the expense of essential tasks I should have been performing, I would have to say Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. It was the second time I read the book, and I got so much more out of it than the first. It’s an incredible book, for the hard, brutal efficiency of its writing, for its tragic and cynical take on the essential nature of man, and for the sheer persuasiveness of its worldview. I felt something about me was revealed and laid bare to me, and that I had no choice but to acknowledge its Truth, and that Truth is horrific.

For fear that I have sounded corny, be advised, this is not a slight, ho-hum volume with some vague revelation about how we’re all a family, or anything similarly insipid and annoying. It is violent, depraved and sickening. The first time I tried to read it, I came across something so disturbing that I threw the book across the room (resulting in a break to its binding that flops the cover to this day). I gave up. The second time I started it, I felt compelled to pour a larger and larger glass of alcohol every time I settled in to read it.

Blood Meridian is all this and, for me, completely impossible to put down.

Happy First Day of Book Season

Autumn is by far my favourite season: the leaves change colours, we can layer clothes, and publishers release their shiniest new titles. To celebrate, I’m going to start blogging again. I’m sorry posts were lacking over the summer, but I have some fun new interviews lined up to make up for it!

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The Giller longlist was announced this week and I am very happy to see two of my favourite books from last year made the cut: Lemon by Cordelia Strube (Coach House Books) & Annabel by Kathleen Winter (House of Anansi Press). This is an awful thing to admit, but I usually don’t read books once they’ve been selected for the biggest awards. Somehow “Big Important Award” makes me think “boring, probably too long and very Canadian (and not Canadian in the awesome way, ifyouknowwhatImean).” It’s a terrible bias and I’m going to have to rethink it, because I have serious love for Annabel and Lemon.
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In other fun fall news, this Sunday is The Word On The Street festival in cities across Canada. Can’t wait to stock up on new books and magazines! Maybe I’ll see you there?
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As always, if you want to talk about books on the internet, please get in touch! If books aren’t your thing, we could talk about your favourite poem, or why you like to read certain magazines, newspapers, blogs, or cereal boxes…

Conor is well read.

Conor Cronin is a third year law student who will soon be articling at a fancy Ottawa law firm. As someone who used to play on the same pub quiz team as Conor, take it from me, he knows stuff. Where’d he learn that stuff? Why, from books of course. Well, he also got some of it from TV, newspapers and avid Jeopardy watching, but a lot of it came from books. He comes from good literary stock: his grandfather, “one of the most distinguished figures in twentieth century Irish literature,” has a whole day weekend named for him in Omagh, Ireland.

What kind of a reader are you?
I used read like a poli sci student.  Mostly topical non-fiction; if it seemed interesting and the author was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart then I would read it. I began to question my habits when one professor told me that he hadn’t read fiction in 30 years.  I also became pretty disappointed with what I was reading. The worst was Benazir Bhutto. I thought her Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West would have been the perfect chance to explain to the West and the Arab world what each didn’t understand about the other, what each expected of the other, but it fell flat.

Now I read like a boy.  I’ll pick up anything about a dog or a war.  The best is the Flashman series. It’s historical fiction (with endnotes included) based on the grown up life of another author’s fictional creation: Harry Flashman is the villain in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s School Days.  The series is written as if the memoirs of Flashman which were discovered after his death by his sister and edited by the author, George MacDonald Fraser. Flashman is an English army officer in the 19th Century and the worst human being in the world. He stumbles into great historical events, such as the Charge of the Light Brigade or the Battle at Little Big Horn, and, because of his cowardice, he survives while the real heroes are killed. I also love Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey-Maturin series.  It’s basically Tom Clancy of the Napoleonic Wars.  The naval talk is dense, but I think I could tack three points into the wind on a ship of the line on my first try.

Law school sucks all the fun out of reading.  Judges are not writers and when they think they are it’s annoying because it’s obvious they’re showing off. Plus it makes it harder to find the whole point of the decision.  There is little time to read for pleasure.  On nights when I have hundred pages to read by the morning, there’s little motivation to pick up another book.  I’m looking forward to taking more time in third year to read.  My articling position is all set-up so the school year should be a bit more relaxed.

Tell me about the first book that made you love reading.
Gordon Korman and Eric Wilson were my favorite authors growing up.  I wasn’t allowed to watch TV on weekdays and could get through a book almost every evening. Some of Wilson’s mysteries were pretty scary, but they were all set in different parts of Canada. Korman’s MacDonald Hall Series was much lighter and hilarious. Korman’s best book, however, was I Want to Go Home.

Ted is well read.

Photo by Deua Medeiros

Ted Kulczycky, better known as Karaoke Ted in some circles, is a Toronto-based musician, bartender and professional cat wrangler who claps enthusiastically in the bottom left corner of this DEVO video. Ted mulled over these questions for months and it was truly worth the effort. Read through to the end to find out why he lists a Chilton auto repair manual as one of his must reads.

What kind of a reader are you?
My reading habits are:
I read on public transit.
I read in the lavatory.
If I’m really engaged in a book or article, I usually spend every moment reading it until it’s finished.
I read fairly fast, although I’ve never timed myself.
I read a great deal of non-fiction of most varieties, but very little fiction.

Have you read any good books about karaoke?
I haven’t really encountered too many books in English (my only language) about karaoke. There are a couple of books with “karaoke” in the title that are actually about other subjects.  Usually, “karaoke” is used pejoratively. I’m not crazy about them.

There’s a karaoke guide (Hit Me With Your Best Shot: A Field Guide to Karaoke by Raina Lee and Michael Perry) that seemed okay. I just finished Don’t Stop Believin’: How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life by Brian Raftery. I appreciated the spirit of what he was trying to do which is kind of be a history/philosophy/personal narrative, but I don’t think he quite nailed it.

What’s the best music biography that you’ve read?
I’ve read a LOT of musician bios, and most aren’t very good. My top 5 favourite music-related books of all time are:
1.    Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions
2.    Rob Bowman, Soulsville USA
3.    The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll
4.    Jim DeRogatis & Carmel Carrillo, Kill Your Idols
5.   Jann Wenner, Lennon Remembers

I feel guilty because I’ve left out stuff like chord books, songbooks, instrument catalogues, etc. People always tell kids that they should read books because “Reading is good.” But I feel like too much emphasis is placed on reading for it’s own sake.  I emphasize to my little cousins and nephews that books are good because they can teach you about anything you’re interested in:  sports, music, sex, drugs, whatever…

Based on the quality of their lyrics, are there any musicians you think should write books?
Some of my favourite musicians and lyricists have written books and generally they’re not the go-to books on my music shelf.  David Byrne’s books have seemed “merely interesting.”  Lennon’s stuff is kind of funny but “kind of funny” is small praise taken in the context of the greatness of his music.  Generally, I think people tend to be geniuses of one art or another.

Joe Jackson (the New Wave musician, not the Jackson family bully) wrote an autobiography called A Cure for Gravity that’s notable for a couple of reasons.  Primarily, he actually wrote it.  Most musician autobiographies are based on interviews that are pasted together by a hack ghost-writer (watch Season 2 of Californication), and read as such.  Jackson’s book has a clear authorial voice that employs such literary forms as arguments, themes and motifs.  I love James Brown, but you won’t find these devices in The Godfather of Soul: The Autobiography. Brian Eno’s diary A Year With Swollen Appendicies is interesting enough, but I’ve always thought that he should write a straightforward book just pontificating about art and music.

Tell me about your collection of books about NYC. How did it get started?
I’ve got about 200 titles or so, everything from biographies of prominent historical figures to restaurant guides.  It got started (like most collections) because I was interested in the subject.  What really enabled that collection to grow, however, was the fact that I was working in the remainder book business in the period of 1999-2004.  Ric Burns’ New York: A Documentary Film aired on PBS and was released on DVD, and generated a whole new interest in NYC history and lore.  And of course, September 11th stimulated the publishing and re-publishing of hundreds of books about the city.  Most of the titles eventually came through our bookstores, and my staff discount meant that I was getting books for half of 20% of the list price.

There are so many classic New York books of all genres and I think most of them deserve their reputation.  Michael Wallace’s Gotham is the definitive history (to 1898) and I hope that he eventually releases the long-promised second and third volumes.  But my favourite New York book is probably American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center by William Langewiesche.  While telling the story of the clean-up at Ground Zero, Langewiesche argues that New Yorkers ability to improvise, ignore rules, and reinvent themselves is the source of their greatest achievements.

Has a book ever influenced the way you think about your life or the world?
I studied philosophy for 5 years, and I can go on for weeks about the “transcendental unity of apperception.”  So I would have to say, that books in particular, but art and culture in general influence my life and the way I think about the world. 
Actually, I’d probably take it even farther than that. Books, music and film ARE my world to a great extent. For better or worse.

Darran is well read.

I’m glad Darran Fernandez took the time to share what he’s reading, even though he felt the process was “like preparing for someone to read your journal.” Darran epitomizes motivation and ambition. He holds a Masters of Education from UBC and gets excited about  student engagement theory like I get excited about biting my lip next to movie stars. Darran hosts great dinner parties and only watches the classiest television shows.

What kind of a reader are you?
I’m a born-again reader.  After years of being buried in academic journals I’m ready to return to my days of trashy romance novels and re-learn what attracted me to them in the first place at the tender age of seven. Kidding.

Well, kinda. Seven years of school has me defaulting to Aristotle, Taras, Shannahan and Kuh as my go-to authors, though the last few months have reminded me of other story tellers – Eggars, Sedaris, Haddon and Gladwell – and I’m happier as a result.

Tell me about the last book you couldn’t put down.
The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin was the last book that for four days was, truly, an extension of my fingertips.  I cracked the spine two days into my trip to India this past December just after starting a new job and entering the tail end of my graduate work.  It couldn’t have come at a better time, especially with the loads of questioning about life’s next steps and friends suggesting this, that and the other self-help, leadership or aptitude test inspired book – Martin’s short read, thankfully, fell into my lap.

The Opposable Mind challenges the work of your typical advice books – best practices are a great way to learn how other people have been successful, but replicating the end result without knowing the thinking, context or full practice will probably not yield the same results.  Martin outlines that it’s much more important to emulate and understand how great people think – not necessarily what they do.  His simplistic model on integrative thinking is applicable in many situations – and helped me to realize my practice in my day-to-day life is independent of the practice of other great leaders, but in alignment with the great thinking of other practitioners.  The chapters of this book were easy to read, concise and had the flow of a great mystery novel.  Not to mention, it came at a good time when life’s biggest questions were hitting me in the face.

Some might say you have lofty political goals. What books would you recommend to someone who wants to take over the world?
Three books –
The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli – despite it being first published in the mid-1500s, the controversial concepts Machiavelli presents on acquiring, sustaining and the use of political power – by force, rather than rule of law – remain applicable and viable for present day.  It’s not to say that The Prince should be the rule of law for proper political management, but is a perspective necessary for proper world domination.
Straight from the Heart, Jean Chretien – everyone’s favourite love/hate Canadian Prime Minister published his first memoirs in the mid-1980s reflecting his experiences in a couple ministries in Pearson, Trudeau and Turner governments.  He shares the successes and failures of the governments he was a part of and lead, and showed what true modern day political management can do for a nation – what it means to be a strong leader and develop a followership equally as strong and how to remain true to ones character and convictions.  Attributes that are very important for world domination.
Yes Lives in the Land of No, BJ Gallagher – the book is a parable on navigating the world of ‘no’ and the successes and failures associated with being open to saying ‘yes’.  The second half of the book puts the actions of the characters in the parable into practice by outlining tips, tools and strategies to persist in the face of rejection and move beyond and find the yeses in ones everyday practice.  In politics – and world domination – you’re bound to get a few people disagreeing with you – navigating the practice and appealing to the masses so the yeses come easily is necessary.  It’ll also help you be a good people manager – another necessity when you’re taking care of over six billion people.

You’re also a nerd for education. Has any book influenced your philosophy on this?
I cannot say that there is one person or book that has influenced my philosophy, though a number have shaped and guided my practice in student affairs – G. Kuh, R. Keeling, A. Astin, G.A. Jones and J. Coleman to name a few.  At the most overarching level, St. Augustine is a philosopher whose thoughts on education align very closely with my own beliefs. He firmly believes ignorance is easy and learning requires a great deal of effort – students need to be critical thinkers and to question everything with a serious purpose, leading to the students gaining enough knowledge and independence to become their own teacher – a strong level of peer-to-peer learning.  His works focus on the power of the human mind and the education of the heart (as the heart works in tandem with the mind), education occurring in the community and knowing by loving.  He speaks of a society without barriers – financial, racial, cultural, etc. – to education; truly a right, not a privilege.

Serious Literature News

I hold a special place in my heart and on my bookshelf for the Sweet Valley series. From the ages of 8 to 14 I genuinely loved these books. I can honestly say that I spent more time with the Wakefield twins than I did my actual friends. So when Macmillan announced last week that the first chapter of the upcoming Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later was available to download, I was pretty damn excited.

I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece — it wouldn’t be Sweet Valley if it wasn’t at least mildly offensive (be it to women; to people who aren’t white; to deaf people; or to people who aren’t 5’6, size 6, with long blond hair and eyes the colour of the pacific ocean) — but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this bad either.

I was going to make a list of what is wrong with this 15 page chapter, but frankly I’d need 20 pages to cover it. Instead, I present to you a conversation I had with my friend Alanna, who is also a huge fan and a serious connoisseur of the books. Wherever necessary for clarification or for a laugh, I’ve also included an excerpt from the chapter.

Francine Pascal what are you thinking?!

Me: Have you read the SV chapter yet? I want to hear your feelings on the crazy Bruce Patman development…

“It was still early enough to call her best friend, the only friend she still had from Sweet Valley, Bruce Patman.”

Alanna: I did! Wtf! He like almost date raped both of them! I don’t like this new, hip, prada knockoff Liz. Team Jessica! Its a lot worse than I thought it might be, so that sucks. And really, you ran away *again* Liz? Weak. Unless the “Elizabeth” series is anathema, but there’s a mention of an English accent? I thought she was only a maid for a year? They’re going to butcher it!

“Right from the start Elizabeth could tell he was attracted to her. It had probably helped in the hiring, though she had decent credentials.”