Today, I am celebrating Elizabeth Hardwick, one of the founders of the New York Review of Books. In the Guardian, her writing in the NYRB, and Joan Didion celebrates her life here.
30-May-08
Julian Gough stole Will Self's pig
Wayne Macauley's essay on publishing is one of the many excellent pieces in the upbeat new Meanjin
I just heard that one bookshop in Broome has been filing the Sleepers Almanac under "Australiana", so this piece on whether America is still the home of the short story interested me.
Hanif Kureishi on writing courses – 'new mental hospitals'
Murakami, talking about the influence of some classic American novels on his own fiction, makes a terrific point about the importance of rhythm.
28-May-08
'First, Jon calls himself a strong believer in the gestational process. He points out that most mistakes that cause a book to fail come from deadline pressure. He also says that the few authors he chooses (or "gets") to work with he likes to acquire years in advance, and collaborate with on many slow edits.' - Editorial Ass: Less is more
Executive Director of the ASA Jeremy Fisher's 'Into the Light' is one of many excellent pieces in the new Overland
27-May-08
For anyone willing to brave the cold tonight, I'm talking with the perennially busy Jeff Sparrow about unpublished manuscripts, at the Trades Hall, for Overland
The Digitalist: A Book Publisher's Manifesto
On the weekend, my book group found our second unanimously-loved novel in On Chesil Beach (the first being Motherless Brooklyn) and while, probably thanks to my unruly family, I don't at all mind not sharing book-related opinions with the people I love, it was nice to all agree.
26-May-08
Guardian blog: Literary raconteurs deserve a platform
Guardian blog: How to judge a book by its cover
23-May-08
Jeanette Winterson: SWF opening address
Will Elder, MAD illustrator
Nicholas Negroponte imagines the laptop reader
22-May-08
Judith Lucy's The Lucy Family Alphabet
Anne Enright's Taking Pictures
The Guardian: James Hamilton-Paterson
David Musgrave, publisher at Puncher & Wattman, winner of the Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize
21-May-08
Michelle de Kretser wins the NSW Prems lit prize
Debra Adelaide in the SMH: 'I've heard publishers say that in Australia we cannot produce a book that captures the literary and the commercial reader and as a reader I find that profoundly insulting. Why can't something be beautifully written and a bestseller? It should happen more often.'
From Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends: 'Lunch counters, muffler shops, dinner theaters, they aim to please; but writers? No self-respecting literary genius, even an occasional maker of avowed entertainments like Graham Greene, would ever describe him- or herself as primarily an "entertainer." An entertainer is a man in a sequined dinner jacket, singing "She's a lady" to a hall filled with women rubber-banding their underpants up onto the stage.
Yet entertainment – as I define it, pleasure and all – remains the only sure means we have of bridging, or at least of feeling as if we have bridged, the gulf of consciousness that separates each of us from everybody else. The best response to those who would cheapen and exploit it is not to disparage or repudiate but to reclaim entertainment as a job fit for artists and for audiences, a two-way exchange of attention, experience, and the universal hunger for connection.'
20-May-08
On Amy Hempel's The Dog of the Marriage, in the SMH
Sleepers Almanac author Karen Hitchcock has signed a two-book deal with Picador: a book of short stories, then a novel!
The Pilcrow Lit Fest small press festival
Salon: You are not your bookcase
19-May-08
Bookslam: Podcasts
Jessa Crispin at the Smart Set: Fully Booked
Guardian blog: on prize judging
Better World Books: cheap priceless books, thanks to BM
16-May-08
Guardian blog: The dangers of first-person narrative
If you're in Melbourne in June: Thursdays 5, 12 and 19, quiet Salons with Steve Carroll, Sophie Cunningham & Ramona Koval
15-May-08
Bookslut: 'The book today is Sex Detox. It has a hot pink cover, which I'm naturally drawn to because I'm a woman and my X chromosomes condition me to believe all books with pink covers are meant to enhance my life without putting too much pressure on me to think about stuff, like character development, or language, or plot, or stuff other than shopping and rich men. And high-heeled shoes.'
Book Critics Circle blog: 'Slacking is underrated. I visited the offices of Google not long ago, the New York offices, and the executives that were taking me around explained to me that there's mandated downtime if you're an employee. They want you to take a certain chunk of your week and drift, float around, dream, come up with cool ideas. Maybe you play foosball, flip through magazines, or maybe you just daydream, but you're supposed to take time away from your day-to-day labor.' Jeff Gordinier on How Generation X is Saving the World
14-May-08
Readings mag editor and Big Issue books editor Jo Case: Read All Over
The Independent: Doris Lessing on winning the Nobel - 'a bloody disaster'
Publishers Weekly: on Two Dollar Radio
Sports Night: Dana Loves the Theatre, thanks to LB
Devastations: Take You Home
13-May-08
The real Top Gun, thanks to FE
Strictly for geeks: Booker Prize quiz
Carey, Coetzee: the Best of the Bookers shortlist of 6
Karen Heller: On book covers
12-May-08
David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs: MWF
'I think a lot of the world's problems are to do with not being able to fully imagine another person's reality' - Bibliophile: Andrew O'Hagan audio interview
Former Sleepers intern Adam Tucker now Text Editorial Assistant
The Age: Romance books a hit in Nigeria's Muslim North, thanks to LP
8-May-08
Great cover: Stefan Laszczuk's I Dream of Magda
Nam Le's The Boat: longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor short story prize. The other Australians - John Clancy, Susan Midalia and Kathryn Lomer - are published by UQP, UWA Press, and UQP, respectively
'Women are busy people': Amy Sedaris
Bulletin: back soon?
7-May-08
Sleepers Almanac author Patrick Cullen has signed up with Scribe
Mess+Noise: an Australian music magazineJess Winfield: My Name is Will looks interesting
Nam Le's site
TZU have a new album: Youtube fun
Improv Everywhere, thanks to JW
5-May-08
The new Granta blog
Judith Lucy: Readings this friday
What The Age's Caroline Wilson has to put up with
Paper Cuts: one way to deal with a bad review
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
