Category: publishing

Best British Novel Of The Century? Shortlist For ‘Best Of The Best’ Of UK’s Oldest Literary Prize

The James Tait Black Prize was established in Edinburgh almost a century ago, in 1919. “Now, … students at the university have chosen their six favourite winners of the prize to compete for the one-off accolade of best of the best.” The contenders: Angela Carter, Graham Greene, James Kelman, Cormac McCarthy, Caryl Phillips and Muriel Spark. (Missing: Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.)

Man Asian Literary Prize Loses Man’s Sponsorship

“Man has sponsored the $30,000 award – won in the past by Chinese author Su Tong, Filipino writer Miguel Syjuco and South Korean Kyung-sook Shin – since it was set up in 2007. But in a struggling [stock] market,” the hedge fund “has decided to ‘concentrate our arts sponsorship on the world-leading Man Booker prize, where our support is about to go into its 12th year’.”

The Obsessive Man Who’s Read 6000 Books

“My reading habits sometimes get a bit loopy. I often read dozens of books simultaneously. I start a book in 1978 and finish it 34 years later, without enjoying a single minute of the enterprise. I absolutely refuse to read books that critics describe as “luminous” or “incandescent.” I never read books in which the hero went to private school or roots for the New York Yankees. I once spent a year reading nothing but short books. I spent another year vowing to read nothing but books I picked off the library shelves with my eyes closed. The results were not pretty.”