The shortlist for the Whitbread Book of the Year Award (which, unlike the more revered Booker, proudly honors what’s popular, not just literary) was announced yesterday, and J K Rowling was noticeably absent. “The judges have thought the almost unthinkable by overlooking J K Rowling, author of the Harry Potter children’s books, while including the former drug addict and ‘gonzo’ journalist Will Self, who has declared: ‘My books are crap.’” – The Telegraph (UK)
Category: words
GET TO KNOW OUR AUTHORS
In an attempt to increase traffic to its site, Barnesandnoble.com introduces a new series of video author interviews available by streaming media. Publishers benefit with lots of free promotion. – Inside.com
OPPRESSION OF EXPRESSION
A group of Chinese poets was arrested and charged with “illegal assembly” at a literary symposium on the future of Chinese poetry – the first such event in the country since exiled writer Gao Xingjian (whose work is banned in China) won the Nobel Prize for literature last month. – China Times (Taiwan)
JOYCE FOR SALE
“The manuscript of a key chapter of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, expected to fetch up to £1 million ($2.7 million) at auction next month, reveals how the author agonised over the epic work.” – Sydney Morning Herald (Telegraph)
HONORING OURSELVES
What’s the point of literary awards? They’re such an exercise in self-pleasuring. “Good evening. We are here to honour writers who have already been honoured yet must be honoured and will need honouring again, shortly. We do so because they are our ghastly, yet glorious, companions from the legion of Toronto Lit-Elite.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
THE ERRANT E-MAIL
Canada’s Governor General prize for literature was set to be announced this week. But late last week an e-mail with the names of the winners mistakenly went out to media outlets, and reporters being who reporters are… Anyway, here are the winners. – CBC
UPDIKE AT 68
John Updike is 68 and contemplating his life’s profession. “There is a dumbing down of fiction, don’t you think? In so many other areas there is dumbing down. People are impatient with any attempt of the novel to pry apart their expectations or surprise them, challenge them. Make them look up a word, think over a prejudice. I think, yes, by and large people read less and maybe they read less intelligently, because they read less and there are more alternatives.” – Baltimore Sun
PUBLISHER’S CLEARING HOUSE
Publisher Random House says it will now share all revenue from e-books 50-50 with authors. Some predict this may become the industry standard. Other e-publishers are not so sure: ”They’ve laid tracks that are very unwise. I think it’s a huge mistake on their part.” – Inside.com
A CRY ABOUT BELLOW
James Atlas’ new biography of Saul Bellow has been winning critical praise everywhere. Well, almost everywhere: “Errors and confusions abound, as do misreadings of passages from Bellow’s correspondence, even while passages from his novels never receive the benefit of close interpretation or stylistic commentary. Atlas’s characterisations of Bellow are peculiarly static. From beginning to end he is framed in an unchanging posture, and defined by a very limited and limiting repertory of psychological labels and clichés.” – London Review of Books
WRITING ABOUT WRITING AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
The modern literary biography is wrapped in a paradox. “Only famous writers attract biographies, writers who are famous because their writings are. But the more space a literary biographer devotes to discussing an author’s writing, the less commercial the biography will seem to be, to those who decide which books to publish and push. It looks as though the word is out that readers will happily read about famous writers as long as they don’t have to be troubled much about what they wrote.” – London Review of Books