Category: publishing

Novelist James Runcie: “You can’t beat it as a subject: submerged emotions, intense rivalries, unrealistic expectations, differing levels of secrecy, betrayals both major and minor, and the genetic identity we can never escape. And if you then factor in the male ego, and tell a story of brotherly love and resentment then surely you can’t go too far wrong?” (Yes, The Brothers K is no. 1.)

Do Strunk and White’s guidelines still apply, a half-century on? Mostly yes, but not entirely. Dorothy Parker’s opinion of the book stands, however: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

“Blockbuster book deals have been around for a long time; well-known politicians and big players in the business world regularly pull in millions of dollars for their books, and recently, comedians Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman and Kathy Griffin scored seven-figure book deals, with Fey topping the list at close to $6 million. But given the current economic climate, some have been questioning whether such big advances make sense.”

“The more I study Milton … the more appealing he becomes. Although filled with classical allusions, his poems don’t seem nearly as icy as I initially found them. His quirks are amusing; his many contradictions, more so. If you don’t have the extra hours to submerge yourself in Milton’s oeuvre, following are a few tips I’ve gleaned from recent study.”

“Kurt Vonnegut’s longtime publisher, Delacorte Press, has announced it will issue 14 never-before published short stories by the author, who died in 2007, in a new collection, Look at the Birdie, slated for publication in November 2009.”

“English PEN has said it is ‘startled by the extent’ to which the UK’s libel laws are now preventing publishers and journalists from releasing contentious material. Working alongside Index on Censorship, English PEN is building a dossier of cases from publishers, editors, bloggers, NGOs and lawyers to support its case for reform of the libel laws. The work is in response to a report last year by the UN Human Rights Committee.”

“I’ve been experimenting this year with a new book-sharing network called BookCrossing. … The idea, conceived by Ron and Kaori Hornbaker in 2001, is seductive: You sign up for free on their (annoyingly busy) Web site and register as many books as you’d like. Each book is assigned a unique 10-digit ID. Then you leave your books around … and track their travels from reader to reader across the globe.” Unless, of course, no one reports their whereabouts.

“Fanny Howe has just won the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which brings with it an award of $100,000. Howe, now 68, has published many works of poetry; poet Mark Doty calls her book ‘The Lyrics’ ‘a richly meditative collection.'”

“In a recent interview, Heaney said he was often asked what the value of poetry was during times of economic recession. The answer, he explained, is that it is at just such moments of crisis that people realize that they do not live by economics alone. ‘If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness,’ Heaney said.” And if we did fortify our inner lives? “What a turn that would be,” Tim Rutten writes, “a process that would involve periods of silence and moments when we turn things off.”

“Book Cover Archive [bookcoverarchive.com] is an elegant and simple site whose stated goal is ‘for the appreciation and categoriazation of excellence in book cover design’.”