Category: publishing

Should we take graphic novels (comics) seriously as literature? “Studies have shown a link between comics and increased literacy skills. Often, comics readers are just plain readers, and many fans of prose literature attribute their love of reading to comics. We also can’t forget that we describe the act of reading comics as just that: reading. There’s no other word that can adequately describe how we interact with stories told in that medium.”

Jonathan Littell, the first American winner of France’s Prix Goncourt, did not attend Monday’s announcement of the prize in Paris. “‘He hopes his absence will not be misunderstood or, even less, be interpreted as disdain for the jury,’ his French publisher, Antoine Gallimard, told reporters here. ‘He has no need for publicity, both out of modesty and because he believes that literature is not part of show business, that what’s important is the book.'” Littell’s novel, “Les Bienveillantes,” is a huge best seller in France.

It’s literary prize season. But “last week saw a revolution in France’s traditionally somewhat stuffy literary world in the form of a barrage of vicious open attacks on the critics and judges themselves. The 60-odd life members of the juries of the major prizes find themselves accused of back-scratching, favouritism, self-seeking commercialism and downright corruption.”

Toronto is a compelling big city. Yet it doesn’t show up in great fiction. “Is there something about the Toronto landscape, or the Toronto soul, or lack of soul, that discourages writers from fully engaging this city in their fiction?”

A longtime critic of Wikipedia says he has “found 142 instances of Wikipedia copy lifted from other sources after studying the site with a software program that picks up matches with other material anywhere on the Google search engine.”

Big advances and extravagant payouts for celebrity authors are common practice in the publishing world these days, but some of the highest-profile deals struck this year have ended with publishers taking a financial bath. “After shelling out for deals worth up to £1m to buy into the celebrity memoir market, many have seen little more than a trickle of sales.”

“Next week will see the announcement of the winner of [France’s] most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, closely followed by around 3,000 others throughout November. But last week saw a revolution in France’s traditionally somewhat stuffy literary world in the form of a barrage of vicious open attacks on the critics and judges themselves. The 60-odd life members of the juries of the major prizes find themselves accused of back-scratching, favouritism, self-seeking commercialism and downright corruption.”

It’s not every novelist who gets a crack at real national or international fame. But for some authors, all the attention that comes with success has a price. For Janet Fitch, author of a novel that caught the fancy of starmaker Oprah Winfrey, the price was her privacy, her peace of mind, and very nearly her creative spark.

Kiran Desai is the youngest ever winner of the Booker prize. She “inadvertently lifted the town of Kalimpong out of the shadows of the Himalayas and into the glare of the media spotlight.” But “what has incensed locals in Kalimpong is the portrayal of people of Nepalese descent, who form the bulk of the town’s 60,000 people.”

Radio megastar Garrison Keillor’s new independent bookstore in St. Paul quietly opened its doors this week, and Keillor has laid out some lofty goals for it to live up to. “In a move to distinguish his shop from the national behemoths, he and his staff are placing special focus on local and regional authors and poetry endorsed by Keillor… Works by St. Paul native son F. Scott Fitzgerald fill an entire shelf.” Still, indies have had a rough run in St. Paul recently, and Keillor’s star power may be all that stands between the new store and a similar fate.