09/16/05:

Serious crossover appeal
Northumberland County Council is proposing merging the public library system with local pubs. This way they better serve the glut of bartender/librarians in the municipality. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Gross
Reviewer Terri Schlichenmeyer and her book addiction.

Because of a lack of time, Schlichenmeyer said it's been two years since she's read a book for pleasure.

She said her favorite book of all time is "Salvation on Sand Mountain" by Dennis Covington, a book about the holiness of snake handling.

Her favorite books this year are "The Color of Love" by Gene Cheek and "Hero Mamma" by Karen Zacharias.

She said she forgets the plot of most books she reads within two weeks of reading them because she reads so many books and it's hard to retain everything.

(disgust) (Posted by Kathryn)

More glut
Mobile phone novels are the new karaoke in China.

"About two months ago, I happened to learn from the newspaper that a mobile phone mini novel contest would be held in Shanghai," she says. "Before that, I never thought of writing a story on a mobile phone. Out of curiosity and my love of literature, I decided to have a try."

Organized by the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, China National Publications Import and Export Corp's Shanghai branch and Shanghai Oriental TV Entertainment Channel, the first mobile phone mini story contest was launched in early July and ends today.

In the two months the contest has been running, it has received nearly 2,000 works from all over the country through SMS (short message service). People of all ages — from young students to retired workers — have showed an unexpected enthusiasm for the event.

Nice. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

She does what no other person could ever do
No, not oscillate wildly in weight and personal health, we can all do that. Oprah makes Faulkner fun!

It looked like one of the oddest pairings around, and yet Oprah-meets-Faulkner turned out, in a curious way, to be an inspired match. It's easy to forget just how radical a writer Faulkner still is, because he's been so thoroughly absorbed into the canon: a process by which, as one critic once put it, "the idiosyncratic is distorted into the normative." Faulkner is anything but normative. Figuring out what is going on in a book like The Sound and the Fury is so hard—and demands such a leap of faith—that every reader struggles in similar ways. Its demanding textual challenges have a strangely democratizing effect. No matter how many lit-crit terms you can throw around, Faulkner's jagged, wildly original style is hard—and can jar confident readers as well as less confident ones. And I confess: At this point in my life, harried by e-mails, exhausted by obligations, tempted by TiVo, I needed some kind of nudging to get me to sit down and engage as deeply as the book was asking me to.

This from the new poetry editor at the Paris Review. (Second link from Brenda) (discuss) (Posted by George)

And in related news...
The dumbing down of literature continues apace.

Some books achieve the status of cultural landmarks: Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past and, more recently, acclaimed blockbusting novels such as Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy and Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. The guilty truth is, though, that imposing volumes of this size and significance tend to sit pristine on the bookshelf and are never read.

The publishing industry now has an answer. It is bringing out new editions of some of the great, often unread, works with a fresh emphasis on 'accessibility'. Some may call it dumbing down. The books will be, well, simpler.

Somebody ought to take a serious look at One Duck Stuck in the Muck. That damn book of tongue twisters is very difficult to read. I think it's a disservice to our children to continue to allow its difficulty to undermine their self-confidence and futures in button pushing and lever pulling. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Curious George vs the Nazis
That monkey is always getting into trouble. Like in Curious George and the Threshing Machine. But it seems his authors lived an even more "adventurous" life. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Let the necrophilia begin!
Once again the publishing industry shows its zombie side by pouncing on the corpse of New Orleans. If it bleeds, it leads. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Come on everybody, do the Bloomsbury wiggle
Harry's publisher is trying to [link updated!] wiggle into the US market with a purse of £50M, but finding themselves priced out of the game. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Poetry reviews
That is to say, reviews of poetry in Poetry.

The rules for our omnibus reviewers are simple. (We bend the rules occasionally for other pieces, when there is a pairing of reviewer and book we especially want—Phyllis Rose and Richard Wilbur, for instance.) They can have no personal connection to any of the authors they are writing about. They do not get to select the books to be reviewed, though we do discuss the list with them and try to make the assignment interesting for them. They are given a strict total word count, which they are free to distribute among the various books as they see fit (e.g., eight hundred words for one book, four hundred for another, etc.). And finally—most importantly—they must express a clear opinion about each book reviewed.

Just the mention of Richard Wilbur makes me weak in the knees. (From Bookslut) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Playboy's going down
So to speak. (From Goodreports) (discuss) (Posted by George)


Some possibly good news
The more sexist you are, the shorter your life will be. Somehow that feels like it should be good news, but practically, sadly, I don't think it makes a difference. (discuss) (Posted by George)

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Weekend Edition:

The Google library
Google and publishers are at odds again.

To prevent the wholesale file-sharing that is plaguing the entertainment industry, Google has set some limits in its library project: Users won't be able to easily print materials or read more than small portions of copyright works online.
Google also says it will send readers hungry for more directly to booksellers and libraries.
But many publishers remain wary. To endorse Google's library initiative is to say "it's OK to break into my house because you're going to clean my kitchen," said Sally Morris, chief executive of the U.K.-based Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. "Just because you do something that's not harmful or (is) beneficial doesn't make it legal."

When I worked at Harlequin, I once proofread a book in which a woman fell in love with a man who broke into her house and did the dishes. It worked out well for them. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Who's the most important person in publishing?
The writer? The reader? The editor? The buyer. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

In defence of fiction
Jay McInerney on the relevance of the novel. But who will defend McInerney?

We've been hearing about the death of the novel ever since the day after Don Quixote was published. Twenty years ago, it was common knowledge in American publishing circles that the novel was over. Even as he complimented me on my first novel, which he had just purchased for publication, Jason Epstein, then vice-president of Random House, told me over a lavish lunch that the novel had probably outlived its audience and that people my own age didn't seem to be interested in literary fiction. He was trying to prepare me for the obscurity that was my probable fate.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Why doesn't CanLit sell better?
Globe editor Martin Levin offers some thoughts on the publicity game.

In their scramble for the little selling edge that a prize short-listing can bring, publishers tend to bring out their big fiction titles in clusters; indeed, sometimes titles from the same house compete against one another in the same week. That makes getting significant attention from us, never mind the country's other book-talk venues, the number of which appears to be shrinking by the day, a chancy business. I've often suggested to publishers seeking the section front for an author that their best chance is to publish in February, or June, when competition is less ferocious, and good new books scarce.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Read this!
The Litblog Co-op has chosen Steve Stern's The Angel of Forgetfulness as its Autumn 2005 Read This selection. The Rake voted for Lance Olsen's 10:01 instead, which can be read online here. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Neil Gaiman on the future of film
Ah yes, that pesky money-making problem.

I think we're heading soon to the point where a lot of things are going to be up for grabs. We're moving into a world in which the actual recording process is cheap and free. I would love to see a deep democratization of film, and I think that is actually on the border of happening. I think the Web will level the playing field, is already leveling the playing field, as broadband starts to become more of an international reality. If I wanted to make a film now and I wanted people to see it, I'd just put it up on the Web. There's not really a way to make money off that, which is one of the places where things sort of break down. I'm fascinated by people, like (filmmaker) Steven Soderbergh, who are saying they'll release (movies simultaneously) on the Web and on DVD. I don't know that the time for that has quite come yet, but it makes absolute sense that people will do it like that one day or that delivery methods will change.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

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09/19/05:

CBC lockout event
CBC workers are trying to publicize an ACTRA organized event for Wednesday night at Massey Hall in Toronto. I took the liberty of converting their press release to pdf. Feel free to distribute it widely. (discuss) (Posted by George)

$1.8 million royalty advance on sales
A 25 year old British army private has secured a major book deal for his autobiography. His short life reads like a Monty Python skit. You were lucky to have a ditch, that sort of thing. Wish I'd been heroic, wish I'd been raised dirt poor in Grenada, wish I'd experienced a coma; some folks has all the luck... (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Singapore Muslims get all hot and bothered
A new book marked X-rated will be the part of the Islamic religious education curriculum. Roman Catholics convert in droves.

The book will be introduced in November, Singapore's largest Muslim body confirmed on Monday. The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore is putting out the book focusing on sexuality and emotions for Muslim teenagers as part of a bid to jazz up religious instruction.

(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Indira Gandhi and the KGB
Great name for a rock band.

Russia's feared KGB spy service penetrated all levels of the Indian government under Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and became a major cash backer of her Congress (R) party, according to a book published on Monday.

The KGB operation in India during that period was its largest in the world outside the Soviet bloc and it even had to create a new department to handle it, according to The Mitrokhin Archive II based on the KGB's own secret files.

This seems less surprising the more I read about it. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Partying through the ages
Back when people used to dress up and carry their own spoon and life was simpler. The British Library rocks.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and directed by Professor Ronnie Mulryne, former director of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick, The Festival Books Digitisation Project features 253 books from the late 15th to 18th centuries, photographed and presented in full, with preliminary material, title pages, illustrations and dedications.

This list made me drool and then I linked to a few; this is the internet at its absolute best. No dust mites, no authorisation, no inclination to nick. Is not cyberia democratic? (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

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09/20/05:

I, zombie
A woman in the U.S. has bought the right to name a character in the new Stephen King book for $25,100. (From Maud) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Free Sci-fi
Metafilter has a nice roundup of free SF shorts online, from the classics to contemporary stuff. Some excellent stories here. (Also another Metafilter Calvino roundup here.) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

New York Times Funny Pages
For those of you those still ticked over TimesSelect, maybe the new Funny Pages will mollify you. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Audiobooks on the move
Coming soon to a commute near you.

Simply Audiobooks, a two-year-old audio book company that rents through the Internet, modeled after Netflix, is taking to the streets of Toronto, where it is based, to introduce its Cure for the Common Commute promotion.

According to a company spokeswoman, Alyson Fernandes, during the morning commute of Oct. 6, motorists taking a busy Gardiner Expressway exit will encounter a succession of actors outfitted with scrubs and stethoscopes and holding signs. (First: "How is your commute today?" Second: "Honk if you hate traffic." Third: "Cure your commute up ahead.")
At the next intersection, the actors will move among idling cars and hand drivers a sample CD.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Quentin Blake does the right thing
A new book of collected Roald Dahl work will be illustrated not just by Blake but by a slew of other notable kidlit illustrators. Sorry, I just wanted to say slew. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

I'd transgress with this man
Ian McEwan. Oh god, I'm weak in the knees just saying his name. Ian McEwan (I'll try again) handed (with his own immacualte hands) free books (free!) (books!) in his local park. On the green green grass. His hand brushed...; oh my! Is it any surprise that it was mostly women who took his gifts?

As in the 18th century, so in the 21st. Cognitive psychologists with their innatist views tell us that women work with a finer mesh of emotional understanding than men. The novel - by that view the most feminine of forms - answers to their biologically ordained skills. From other rooms in the teeming mansion of the social sciences, there are others who insist that it is all down to conditioning. But perhaps the causes are less interesting than the facts themselves. Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.

He's forgotten all the other complex sociology at work in his gifting, though, hasn't he? How adorably guileless. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Tony Blair denies everything
Apparently Lance Price, former spin-doctor, uh, media advisor, to the Prime Minister, is a liar. Well, at least he's written a few things that have rather upset poor Mr Blair. Apparently, for instance, Blair did not "relish" sending troops into Iraq. Oh and in other biographical news, Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, do not practise voodoo with their toenail clippings. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Bookcrossing gets Euro-press
The biggest bookclub in the world. Too bad writers don't get royalties for each time their books are read.

A book critic claimed to have found an advance copy of the hugely anticipated new novel by best selling writer Michel Houellebecq on a park bench.

In his review, Angelo Rinaldi, literary editor of Le Figaro newspaper, attributed his find to "le bookcrossing." But in a telephone interview he conceded the story was a humorous way to disguise a leak of the book, "La possibilite d'une ile" ("Island"), which he panned.

"But I think it's a wonderful idea to share books," said Rinaldi, a member of the prestigious Academie Francaise, the watchdog of the French language. "When I take a train, I often leave a book behind. But I've been doing that for ages. I didn't know I was a pioneer.".

Ahh, that charming French arrogance! You almost want to bottle it. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

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09/21/05:

Google being sued
The great democratizer is up against copyright infringement. Wait, what was that I said about democracy? Hey, where's the Writers Union of Canada in all this? Get in there, kids.

The Authors Guild, a New York-based non-profit organisation, said its primary aim was to advocate for and support the copyright and contractual interests of published writers.

The group launched legal proceedings along with three authors - Herbert Mitgang, a former New York Times writer and the author of fiction and non-fiction books; Betty Miles, an award-winning writer of children's and young adults' books; and Daniel Hoffman, an author and editor of poetry, translation, and literary criticism, who was the US poet laureate in 1973-74.

"By reproducing for itself a copy of those works that are not in the public domain, Google is engaging in massive copyright infringement. It has infringed, and continues to infringe, the electronic rights of the copyright holders of those works," the guild said.

It's gonna be ugly. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Tom Wolfe is Charlotte Simmons
I bet he looks great in a cheerleader costume; well, it'd be an improvement on that creepy colonial safari white linen thing he ususally wears. Dapper? I think not. So anywayz, Tom Wolfe is a brand, now.

"We are using Tom Wolfe's name as a brand, rather than the title of the book. He is an icon himself," said Tanya Farrell, publicity director for Picador USA, which is printing more than 2 million copies of the 738-page novel in which the 74-year-old writer tries to infiltrate the minds of American college students.

'Tries' seems to be the operative, there. Folks, if a person is iconic, does that make them an icon? And how do we get from icon to brand, exactly? Yikes. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Honourables
Mailer and Ferlinghetti to receive honourable National Book awards.

The National Book Awards will celebrate two senior literary rebels this fall, giving honorary awards to "Naked and the Dead" author Norman Mailer and to San Francisco-based Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Sounds about right. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Ploy
I think this speaks for itself. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

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09/22/05:

The Original Alice
The British Library strikes again. Turning The Pages is an amazing initiative; They've just posted The Original Alice; it takes a while to load but it is absolutely worth the wait. Audio by Miriam Margolyes.

The British Library’s award-winning Turning the Pages technology allows users to browse the handwritten pages of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and magnify full lines of text as well as Carroll’s original illustrations. Three-dimensional animation mimics the action of turning each page which, can be done by using a mouse or scrolling through each page individually. An accompanying text transcription and voiceover by Miriam Margolyes is also included. A series of features unique to this manuscript include a rotate function that allows you to turn Carroll’s illustrations so that they appear in landscape format and on the final page of the text users will be able to lift the photograph of Alice Liddell to reveal Carroll’s sketch underneath.

Now, that's awesome. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Is that a bad thing?
A reviewer once said my book lacked a moral centre. I guess it would fit in perfectly in this course.

Schools that abandoned traditional English programs in favour of "critical literacy" were trying to make students agents of social change, Cardinal George Pell warned yesterday.

In a speech in Canberra yesterday, the Catholic archbishop said some schools were placing too much focus on texts that normalised "moral and social disorder".

Right. Because there's no disorder in the bibles.

(From the Saloon) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

The Bookcast
Powells introduces a new mp3 talk/reading show and kicks it off with Aimee Bender. (From Moorish Girl) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Swearing through the ages
The US is about to up the ante for swearing on air, but the NYT tells us swearing is as natural taking a fucking shit. (For me, this article marks the demise of a favoured trump card in the etymological dance fights guys like me are wont to get into with guys like those I hang around with. In fact, it was just two days ago that I used "zounds" to stump someone. You know who you are, pussy. Bow to me.) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Scotia Bank to fund Giller Prize
Lady Ninja has a baby doll Tshirt from Painted Bride Quarterly that reads "@#$% Me!", with a funding pitch for PBQ on the back. God bless her, I love it when she wears it. Oh, and something about an award. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Paperback writer hides from own book behind own name
In a clever marketing move, Picador has opted to disassociate the paperback release of Tom Wolfe's widely-panned I Am Charlotte Simmons from the negative reviews themselves by decling to print the offending (and ridiculous) title on the cover of the mass market edition. Hell, remove Wolfe's name as well and I bet your sales would be even better. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Sharon Olds has nads
Not only can she write a mean poem, she's got the cajones to back it up. (From Bookslut) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Newspapers as they were meant to be
Full of bustles. (From Maud) (discuss) (Posted by George)

Publicists
You know, I've met some publicists I really, really like. People I can really talk to on a human level. Then there are other times when you bump into some publishing folk and you suddenly feel like you need to take a bath. This morning, for instance... Oop! Time's up! (discuss) (Posted by George)

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09/23/05:

Oprah-di Oprah-da, life goes on
Did 300 people read Faulkner or did they just buy the set and display it on their hastily-made book shelf, right under the velvet Elvis? (Velvis?) Anyway, Oprah's promoting graphic novels, now, ' cuz they have pictures and so can be 'read' by 60% more Americans. Is that kind, Kathryn? Go to your room. Right now. Here's Oprah on her decision:

"I wanted to open the door and broaden the field," Ms. Winfrey said in an interview. "That allows me the opportunity to do what I like to do most, which is sit and talk to authors about their work. It's kind of hard to do that when they're dead."

Gosh, she's so pragmatic. Buy James Frey's A Million Little Pieces here. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Diet for God
Now you can read The DaVinci Code and lose weight at the same time; just don't be eating loaves and fishes.

Warner announced this week that the book, "The Diet Code: Revolutionary Weight-Loss Secrets from Da Vinci and The Golden Ratio," will be the first in its new line of books called Warner Wellness, which will focus on health, fitness, relationships and similar topics. The book is scheduled for release in April 2006, with an announced first printing of 150,000 copies.

The diet is based on the Golden Ratio or Phi, a mathematical value that was used to built the pyramids and has since been found to exist most everywhere in nature. Da Vinci is said to have used the Golden Ratio to proportion the human figures in his paintings -- which is how it found its way into Dan Brown's best-selling book.

A diet based on the fibonnacci sequence, hmm. It'll work like this: you eat dimishing amounts of food, gradually losing wieght. Now, how'd he spin a book outa that?(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Asterix and Obelix
Albert Uderzo, the 78 year old creator of Asterix will publish the 33rd book mid-October to the delight of kids everywhere .

The new Asterix book, The Sky Falls On His Head, is out on 14 October but Uderzo has steadfastly refused to reveal any plot details.

But it is believed nothing too drastic has changed. The year is still 50BC, and the small village is still holding out against the Roman conqueror.

My guys die for Asterix; we once marched them for two hours up an old Roman route in the French Alps by telling them Asterix and Obelix had trod there. Two hours uphill; the littlest one was only four at the time. That's dedication.(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Taslima Nasreen wins court case
The Calcutta High Court has lifted a ban on Nasreen's novel Shame. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Yvonne Johnson given faint hope
Co-author of Stolen Life (with Rudy Wiebe) gets a chance out of life sentence for her part in a brutal rape and murder. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

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09/26/05:

Tolkien vs. Lewis
Cage match!

CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were the closest of friends, one struggling to make his fantasy world of Middle Earth a literary reality, the other trying to convince friends his first book about Narnia deserved to be published.

But new research has revealed that their friendship was riven by the most bitter and personal of rows on everything from literature to religion and even their choice of spouse.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Tales from the Vault
An awesome collection of Canadian pulp fiction. (From Metafilter) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

More than words
Do good deeds, and you may wind up the heroine of a Harlequin.

The "More Than Words" award, which the romance publisher Harlequin presents to five women annually, is in many ways typical corporate largess. The honorees, founders of inspiring community organizations, each receive a $10,000 check for their programs, and the publisher occasionally sponsors fund-raising and other events for the causes.

But recipients also get something that they will never get from the United Way: an actual Harlequin bodice-ripper - or less steamy female-fiction variant - based on their organization.

I so badly want to be in a bodice-ripper. Maybe I'll get in this line instead. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Why aren't we going green?
Where are the books on climate change? I'd add a bunch of other topics to that "where are" question, but this is a good start. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Politics affect publishing?
Heaven forefend!

Two years ago, when I agreed to write an afterword to William Kaplan's sequel on the Airbus affair (a book in which I have no financial interest), little did I imagine the pre-emptive pressures that high-priced and well-connected lawyers could put on publishers.

(discuss) (Posted by George)

Fighting censorship with art
How radical! This might finally be what does it, folks! I'm just so jazzed! Yeah! (discuss) (Posted by George)

The Corrections
Having the mistakes in your book corrected. Suuuuure... "mistaaaaaakes".

Corrections in books are rare. But the conclusion this implies - that books rarely contain errors - is itself incorrect. Books are not usually corrected because they can't be, not because they shouldn't be.

I wish we could also correct our royalty statements. I've had a sneaking suspicion for quite some time that those things are just plain wrong. (discuss) (Posted by George)

200,000 petitions
Challenging the Patriot Act, one signature at a time. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Evolutionary biology as linguistic tool
Articles like this make me all hot in my pants. But I just can't get off on anything less than 10,000 words. I need more time! I'm not a machine, you know! (discuss) (Posted by George)

Russia's pulp fiction crisis
Like the oil crisis, but for quality literature. (discuss) (Posted by George)

Write what you know...
I'm a sucker for The Family Guy, so a lit reference within must get serious linkage attention. Video clip. (I'm told this doesn't play on a MAC. So, to MAC users I say in advance: suckers!) (discuss) (Posted by George)

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09/27/05:

Left behind
What kind of books get abandoned on the subway?

While Moore loaded boxes, Blum opened several. The first had two “Harry Potter”s, “one of them the new one,” Blum said, and a lot of academic books. Peering into a box that had “Asst. softcover books” written on it, she said, “Here’s ‘Ulysses.’ And ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘West Side Story’ in the same book.”

OK, the same kind of books that get abandoned everywhere else. (From Maud) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Library fragments
Beautiful. Just read them. (From Wood) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Boing Boing vs. the Authors Guild
Xeni Jardin says it's OK to trust Google, while Cory Doctorow says the Authors Guild doesn't speak for him.

But the Authors' Guild has brought a class action suit on behalf of all writers who will be scanned by Google Print. That includes me, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Larry Lessig, and innumerable other authors who think that the AG is full of crap. In other words, the AG believes that Google shouldn't be allowed to opt writers in to its Google Print program (which will make money for writers and sell more books), but they believe that they should be able to opt writers into their costly, suicidal lawsuit against Google, which, if they are victorious, will reduce sales and take money out of writers' pockets.

The Authors' Guild represents a few thousand writers, an insignificant fraction of the writers whose works Google proposes to scan. They don't speak for me.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Hawking interviewed
This must be the most painful interview I've ever read.

Behind his shoulder, his assistant nods. There will now be some time for live questions. Stupidly, given that I have read all about it, I fail to realise just how arduous and time-consuming the process of live communication is. If I did, I wouldn't squander the time on asking a joke, warm-up question. I tell him I have heard he has six different voices on his synthesizer and that one is a woman's. Hawking lowers his eyes and starts responding. After five minutes of silence the nurse sitting beside me closes her eyes and appears to go to sleep. I look around. On the windowsill are framed photos stretching back through Hawking's life. There are photos of one of his daughters with her baby. I notice Hawking's hands are thin and tapering. He is wearing black suede Kickers.

Another five minutes pass. There are pictures of Marilyn Monroe on the wall, one of which has been digitally manipulated to feature Hawking in the foreground. I see a card printed with the slogan: "Yes, I am the centre of the universe." I write it down and turn the page in my notebook. It makes a tearing sound and the nurse's eyes snap open. She goes over to Hawking and, putting her hand on his head, says, "Now then, Stephen," and gently wipes saliva from the side of his mouth. Another five minutes pass. Then another.

This is Hawking on his new book, A Briefer History of Time. (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Drug users getting younger all the time
Here's a classy idea from Australia. They don't even look like very interesting books.(discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

Kirkus reviews of censored and challenged books
The Book Standard has compiled reviews before the fact of the books America loves to hate. Books they'd hate if they could read well enough to have read them. Books they've heard might influence young minds and make them consider things like equality, normal sexual behaviour and joy. I see no cookbooks on this list. Where are all the banned cookbooks? Where are the banned exercise books? Where are the banned pop psychology books? (discuss) (Posted by Kathryn)

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09/28/05:

To galley or not to galley
The Literary Saloon discusses the pros and cons of publishers sending galleys for review -- especially now that some of them are showing up for sale on Amazon.

At the Words Without Borders blog Dalkey Archive Press' Chad Post takes on a (not freely accessible online) Publishers Weekly article by Lynne W. Scanlon in All Books (and Jeans) Are Not Created Equal. Scanlon was apparently particularly upset to find galleys of new publications on sale at Amazon.com -- cheap substitutes book-buyers might opt for, thus denying publishers revenue they'd otherwise get (if the book buyer had no choice but to pay the higher retail price (though the buyer always has the option of simply not buying)).

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Immortalize your doom here
Damn, I should have bid on David Brin's offering. I would have paid at least $5,000 for the rights to Moon Base Darbyshire. Or maybe Ebola: The Darbyshire mutation.

The most unusual offering was probably from science-fiction author David Brin: "How about something original? Let the bidder choose between: The name of a rogue moon on a collision course with a doomed planet, an exotic and gruesome disease of unknown origin, or an entire species of wise, ancient extraterrestrials." The winning bid: $2,250.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

More money on the way for the Walrus
Feed the beast. Feed it!

Help for ailing The Walrus magazine appears to be on the way from Ottawa.
Yesterday, an official in National Revenue Minister John McCallum's office said "the minister is in the midst of considering" a policy change that would permit a non-profit magazine such as The Walrus to have foundation status. "A decision will be made in the next couple of weeks," an indication that the federal government is about to overturn the status quo.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Giller shortlist
The usual suspects and some others.

• Joan Barfoot for her novel Luck, published by Knopf Canada
• David Bergen for his novel The Time In Between, published by McClelland & Stewart
• Camilla Gibb for her novel Sweetness in the Belly, published by Doubleday Canada
• Lisa Moore for her novel Alligator, published by House of Anansi Press
• Edeet Ravel for her novel A Wall of Light, published by Random House Canada

Brand? Boyden? Heti? Urquhart? Crummey? Who wants to start the argument? (please discuss) (Posted by George)

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09/29/05:

The geek kings
Time interviews Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon. What fun. Especially the part about Hollywood.

JW: I find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that's been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it's been in development.

NG: Yes. It really is this thing of executives loving the smell of their own urine and urinating on things. And then more execs come in, and they urinate. And then the next round. By the end, they have this thing which just smells like pee, and nobody likes it.

(From Metafilter) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

If you like these books...
The politics of racial profiling in bookstores.

The dismantling of the Colored Section may help a writer like me. Front and center at Borders, The Untelling could catch the eye of "mainstream" readers who have heard my name before or seen the book reviewed in the major dailies. But where would this leave the other authors who rely so heavily on the browsers of The Colored Section?

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Don't buy new books
They depreciate as soon as you take them out of the store.

a landmark study released Wednesday confirms what publishers, authors and booksellers have believed -- and feared -- since the rise of the Internet: Used books have become a modern powerhouse, driven by high prices for new works and by the convenience of finding any title, new or old, without leaving your home.

(From Literary Saloon) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

 

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Weekend Edition:

Sony Librie unchained
Someone has produced a non-DRM version of Sony's nice but crippled e-book reader. (From Boing Boing) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

I do it for the groupies
Are writers the new rock stars? Minus the money and relevance, of course.

NO LONGER IS IT JUST ROCK stars who go on tour, attract groupies and perform live. Britain has gone crazy over writers and readings at literary festivals. There are now 207 UK festivals, from 20-seater village affairs to big-tent international events.
The key literary pit-stops are Hay-on-Wye, Cheltenham and Edinburgh. But there are scores more, as well as many abroad. The newest hotspot is Marrakesh, where Arts in Morocco (AiM) has invited some of the best British writers to provide a weekend of highbrow entertainment this month. Esther Freud, Hari Kunzru, Meera Syal and publishers and literary agents are descending on North Africa to talk up Eng lit.

(discuss) (Posted by Peter)

2005 Sunburst Awards
Sure, everyone's excited about all the wild and crazy Giller shortlist. But the 2005 Sunburst Award shortlist is pretty damn fine too. The winner will be announced this Wednesday. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

The Booker that shoulda
The Guardian has a fun contest in which contestants can win a library of the Booker greats by picking a past book that was "robbed" of the prize. (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

Random-sentence reviews
Aren't they all?

MOBY-DICK OR THE WHALE
by Herman Melville
“‘Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab, ‘that thou wouldst wad me in that fashion?’”
People who enjoy witty banter will love this tale of two unlikely friends, Ahab and Stubb. One of them is very neat and the other is something of a slob. They are constantly making funny remarks to one another on account of their humorously contrasting approaches to life.
One word of caution: you’ll want to invest in a dictionary. Our comical heroes just happen to live in the time of Jesus, and Melville’s deft ear faithfully renders their old-timey lingo—though never at the expense of the comedy.

(From Jeff, who also points us to the seven habits of highly successful people) (discuss) (Posted by Peter)

 

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