27-June-08
1. Vertigo blog: A natural history of squiggles & other literary theories, thanks to MES
2. Guardian blogs: Why writers can't go it alone
26-June-08
1. NPR Music: James Joyce's poems get a musical facelift
2. New Yorker: 'Deep-Holes' by Alice Munro (and the cartoon)
3. Times Online: Burning is too good for them... this is scathing
4. Guardian blog: A rock'n'roll book club
25-June-08
1. 'Every generation thinks it's special...' – from Shakespeare's birthday, April 23, 1972: 'An 18-Year-Old Looks Back on Life' by Joyce Maynard
2. Chloe Hooper in conversation with Sally Warhaft: Readings, 3 July
3. Wyatt Mason: The Baby is Beautiful, where F Scott Fitzgerald explains how he'd like the reviewer to respond to The Beautiful and the Damned
4. The Virginia Quarterly Review, thanks to PH
5. Geoff Dyer on blurbs
23-June-08
1. New Yorker: Vlad Nabokov's 'Natasha'
2. Guardian blog: The great American pause
3. And reminding me why I enjoyed A Month in the Country: Guardian blog
4. Given how quickly I devoured anything I could find by Adam Thirlwell after loving Politics so much, I am surprised I haven't read his hefty new book yet.
20-June-08
1. Steven Carroll wins the Miles Franklin
2. Five Dials: new lit mag from Hamish Hamilton
3. Guardian: The Incredible Hulk review, thanks to JK
19-June-08
1. Tonight, Ramona Koval at the Sleepers Salon. Melbourne bookish fun.
2. Inside a dog
3. Emily Perkins: Novel About My Wife
5. Dash Shaw: comic book author with terrific name
18-June-08
1. Guardian blog: The government should do more to encourage reading for pleasure - 'schools are places that talk about the world in the kinds of ways that you find in books' - I think I went to a different kind of school.
2. The University of Florida's literary magazine Subtropics, edited by David Leavitt
3. The New Haven Review
4. Jacinta Halloran's Dissection
5. The latest Paris Review has a piece by Tim Winton, & on the site you can read a 1996 story, 'The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick' by Elizabeth Gilbert, whose Stern Men (way before Eat Pray Love) was terrific.
6. Ian McEwan and Steven Pinker (whose The Language Instinct is a useful writing tool), thanks to BB
7. The San Francisco Chronicle: Nam Le's long, literary journey
8. Read Alert: arguments over YA classifications, thanks to JNW
17-June-08
1. Tin House: Helen Shulman's 'Parents Night' – 'We were at a cocktail party for incoming parents at our daughter's school when I spied my ex-husband amid a sea of ophthalmologic surgeons and hedge fund guys. He was wearing handmade Italian loafers. How could this be? My ex was a bum.
Mike and I, we'd met in a bar in rural Oregon but spent most of our time together fighting, having sex, and doing drugs. None of that has anything to do with who I am now – it's ancient history! I work in a Chelsea art gallery. I wear good boots and short skirts. I am married to an arbitrageur of French descent. Armand. His name sounds like what he is, jewelry you can wear.'
2. Writer Anna Krien
4. Wet Ink: Pierz Newton-John's 'Comrade Vasilii Goes to War' (PDF)
5. Zoetrope All-Story: 'Notes on Design' by Mike Mills (not of REM fame)
6. Toni Jordan's Addition: also picked for the Richard and Judy list
16-June-08
1. Guardian blog: Should we care about book reviews?
2. Susan Johnson, whose new book sounds interesting, on literary fashion
3. Take a look at Lookybook! How easy it is to turn the pages.
4. The Guardian: Booker-nominated writer begins hunger strike
5. James Hamilton-Paterson's Rancid Pansies
6. You need to buy The Believer for the whole of this interview with Julie Hecht, and it's well worth it.
7. Smack-bang into the first month of writing school, one of the first things that occurred to me was that I was in a non-Tom-Waits-listening minority group. It's not that I don't like some of his songs, but I am no diehard. But this song makes a lot of sense to me.
8. The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner: De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage
9. Paper Cuts: Screen Writers
10. McCain Blogette: A children's book about her father's life... ah, sheesh.
11. Time Out: Critiquing the critics
13-June-08
1. Last week I was helping a friend edit & one of the little things we did was change his font to Times and spacing to 1.5. I just found out that he's been writing so much quicker! Here's to on-screen readability.
2. James Bradley's The Resurrectionist has been chosen as one of Richard & Judy's Summer Reads
3. Tara June Winch: Rolex protégé
12-June-08
1. Tonight, I'm chuffed to be speaking to the excellent Sophie Cunningham, who has recently taken over the reins at Meanjin, and - as if that wasn't already enough - also just released her second novel, Bird. Sophie's at tonight's Sleepers Salon. She's been an editor and a writer and an observer for long enough to know what's going on. Melburnians: it'll be a treat.
2. Ah Steve, I still love you
11-June-08
1. This weekend: the Nebraska Summer Writers' Conference
2. New York Times: David Sedaris
3. Last night I spent warm hours in good company, reading Almanac submissions by lamplight in the comfy chair, attempting to ward off the small lions I keep. And what's happened? The quality is through the roof! Like people are sending their grade-a quality. It's such a treat, such an honour. Maybe it's because I am a writer or maybe that has nothing to do with it, but I know how hard it is to let your work be seen by others' eyes, and I never forget how lucky we are that we can. Eyes drooping, I eventually had to go to bed, but I was reeling happy.
10-June-08
1. Time Out: Shelf esteem
2. Time Out: review of Winton's Breath
3. Youtube: Book Launch, thanks to CK
6-June-08
should i be numbering these things for readability? i'll give it a burl...
1. The new Quarterly Conversation is online now, including Why I joined the POD people
2. A seventeen-year-old's call to arms
3. Jincy Willett's David Sedaris story
5-June-08
Tonight, I'm lucky enough to be talking to three-time Miles Franklin shortlister Steve Carroll at the Sleepers Salon
Rose Tremain won the Orange Prize
Toltz and de Kretser make it on to the Hay Festival's 21 list
Lee Child: '... while watching the Britney Spears Pepsi commercial during the Super Bowl a few years ago, he saw instantly how "Pepsi Cola" is an anagram for "Episcopal" and "Britney Spears" an anagram for "Presbyterians".'
Donna Tartt: 'Literature today seems to be divided into two camps: extremely literary work, with lots of emphasis on technique and style and so forth and then these sort of popular blockbusters and I know at heart I'm a manic stylist. I love a beautiful sentence, a well-constructed paragraph, some gorgeous turn of phrase that'll just make you sit back in your chair and say oh-oh. But unfortunately I think a lot of books that are well-constructed are really very self-involved and don't take the reader very much into consideration.'
4-June-08
Guardian blog: Don't put age ranges on children's books
Simple, old-fashioned covers: Faber Finds - restoring to print a wealth of lost classics
If you've been wondering what Wil Wheaton's been up to since Stand By Me (and Star Trek, of course): he's started a publishing company
Tonight: the launch of Sophie Cunningham's Bird at Brunswick Street Books
3-June-08
After the initial frustrations of each writing class, a few weeks in, maybe after we all go for a drink or after someone brings a piece in for its second workshopping when it was caned the first time, and it's much, much better, comes that moment of realisation that I love all of them in their own way. This is one of the many delights that Jincy Willett's The Writing Class is reminding me of. And, egads, it's funny.
Guardian blog: John Irving at the Hay Festival
I'm enjoying these Five Chapters, even though the site colours make me feel slightly seasick!
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