Category: words

“The puzzlement could have to do with the fact that despite Modiano’s prolific output — with more than 30 books and screenplays to his name — less than a dozen of his works have been translated into English, and even several of those are now out of print.”

“Complicating matters is that fewer and fewer children’s e-books can strictly be described as books, say researchers. As technology evolves, publishers are adding bells and whistles that encourage detours.”

“Mary Rasenberger is a partner in the law firm Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard and has an extensive background in intellectual property and technology. The Guild has been involved in numerous copyright battles, including a lawsuit against Google over the search engine’s program of scanning snippets of published material.”

“You might have experienced Modiano’s work without realizing it: He co-wrote the scripts for Louis Malle’s Lacombe, Lucien (1974) and Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s Bon Voyage (2003). But Modiano’s novels are worth reading as well: subtle, rhythmic, and hypnotic investigations into the self and its memory – the perfect thing for the mournful indoor months.”

Philip Gourevitch: “It has been more than a half century since any such recognition – a half century that has seen an explosion of great documentary writing in all forms and lengths and styles, and yet there is a kind of lingering snobbery in the literary world that wants to exclude nonfiction from the classification of literature – to suggest that somehow it lacks artistry, or imagination, or invention by comparison to fiction.”

“In an ideal world, we’d all learn to use one language for science, technology and business, and learn, respect and use others for cultural identity and a sense of community — especially in our polyglot nation. That requires some flexibility in how languages themselves are developed. We need to be more adaptable and sensitive to other cultures as we use language.”

“Prominent nonfiction writers like Ms. Hillenbrand, Jon Meacham and Rick Atkinson are now grappling with how to handle unsettling or controversial material in their books as they try to win over this impressionable new audience. And these slimmed-down, simplified and sometimes sanitized editions of popular nonfiction titles are fast becoming a vibrant, growing and lucrative niche.”

The Swedish committee praised the 69-year-old French writer for “the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.”

“A Swiss publisher was searching for chapters of Truman Capote’s unfinished final novel last summer when he stumbled upon a different find … a collection of previously unpublished short stories and poems from Capote’s youth.” Four of the stories (in translation) are being published this week in a German magazine.

“Certainly, digitization and searchability have had an effect similar to that produced by earlier reproductions of the image, that of encouraging the fetishization of the original, and I confess now that my feelings toward manuscripts are beginning to approach something like fetishism. I have begun to feel this even more strongly because comprehensive searchability has introduced a rupture into my relationship with the book.”