Category: words

It is an understatement to say that the past months have been dramatic; they have in fact been outrageous, chaotic, and even, some would claim, disastrous — meaning that the Academy scandal has forever ruined Sweden’s reputation as a cultural lodestar. The drama has all the necessary ingredients: sex, abuse, power, money — and, of course, culture’s position in society.

“A fixture in England and on the Western world’s literary landscape, the TLS is a weekly book review journal with a reputation for being a bit dowdy — less progressive than The London Review of Books, a biweekly, and less agile than the books section of The Guardian, to name two of its competitors.” So where did they go to find an editor to shake things up? To The Sun, the British tabloid best known for its topless “Page 3 girls.” And in his two years there, Stig Abell really has changed the TLS, mostly for the better.

Professor Matthew Jockers at the University of Nebraska, and later researchers at the University of Vermont’s Computational Story Lab, analysed data from thousands of novels to reveal six basic story types – you could call them archetypes – that form the building blocks for more complex stories. The Vermont researchers describe the six story shapes behind more than 1700 English novels as:

In the wake of the scandals and chaos at the Swedish Academy that led to the postponement of this year’s prize, “Lars Heikensten, director of the Nobel Foundation, … told the national broadcaster Sveriges Radio that the prize ‘will be awarded when the Swedish Academy has won back the public’s trust — and that means there is no deadline for 2019.’ Without naming names, he also urged the 10 remaining active members in the academy to consider leaving their seats.”

Even though international bestsellers like Elena Ferranti’s Neapolitan quartet and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge star middle-aged (or older) women, you’ll never see them on the covers of the books. Ugh: “As Hilary Mantel says, women over 50 are the invisible generation.”

Penny’s Instructor Gamache “has become to Canada what Hercule Poirot is to Belgium, and garnered Ms. Penny legions of messianic fans. At last count, she has sold 6.3 million books worldwide. Seldom has murder induced such hunger pangs, with characters who crack cases while indulging in maple-cured rashers of back bacon and wild blueberry jam.”

The position of poetry editor was created in 2014, and each poet who gets it has a one-year tenure in the position. But why pair poetry with journalism? Dove: “I always thought this was essentially the way in which poets worked. We were the modern-day griots. You tell the story, but you tell the story that’s under the story. You bring to light human reactions to grander events, in the hope that people will recognize themselves in it.”

If a child gets only the audio of a book, as when parents as one of their AIs to read the child a story, the kid might not get engaged – the info is “too cold”. But if the child is looking at a graphic novel, the information may be “too hot.” The best info is an illustrated book, and even better if a caring adult is reading that book to the kid.

The Golden Booker is an award for one of the Booker winners from the past 50 years, and the shortlist has now been revealed. It includes both popular books – The English Patient and Wolf Hall – and a few surprises as well. Critic and writer Robert McCrum says, “It’s a vindication of 50 years’ debate about the nature of so-called literary fiction. Prizes offer an odd kind of lit crit, but I’d say that almost all the novels the judges had to read, reread and consider have stood the test of time.”

Adding reviews of Radiohead albums, essays, and political commentary to book reviews has actually worked, it looks like: “The paper is the fastest-growing weekly publication in the United Kingdom, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Paid sales from subscriptions and newsstand have been up 30 percent each of the past two years, from some 26,000 in 2016 to nearly 45,000 today.”