Here’s a closer look at this year’s Booker Prize winner, THE WHITE TIGER, by Aravind Adiga.

Could be just what we need; could be a disaster - DUMBOCRACY: ADVENTURES WITH THE LOONEY LEFT, THE RABID RIGHT, AND OTHER AMERICAN IDIOTS, by Marty Beckerman.  The Voyager out of The University of West Florida liked it, at any rate.

The Muncie, Indiana Star Press made its review page into a time machine and dissected Jane Austen’s, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, for their readers.

Some people don’t futz around with cryptic titles.  Sports Illustrated is, collectively, one of those somebodies. THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOOK ought to make its slot on your holiday shopping list fairly obvious.

From the YouTube description:

As a poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky changed the context of Russian and Soviet literature both before and after the revolution. His controversial suicide to this day is a subject of debate. This is an extract from a larger documentary by Copernicus Films and the Director, Michael Craig, about Mayakovsky and part of a series of six films about the Russian avant-garde and futurism. More details can be found on www.copernicusfilms.narod.ru

Literary Halloween costumes catch on.

A blast from the past, courtesy of Saul Bellow.

No longer content to crank out three novels a day, Danielle Steel turns to blogging.

Socialite sisters spar over allegations of chicklit theft.

Love hurts: Huffington Post writer stabs lover 222 times with a screwdriver.

Gawker takes Toni Morrison’s side in her literary feud with John Updike.

“I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody’s head.”

- John Updike

.

.

Dave Wood in Hastings, Minnesota has been reading a lot lately.  Check it out.

Monsters & Critics features a how-to: WRAPPED IN CROCHET: SCARVES, WRAPS & SHAWLS.

Business.  Economics.  Things with numbers, fiddly theoretical constructs, and bank balance implications.  You might be interested - COMPETITION DEMYSTIFIED.

Did you know Prince wrote a book?  Neither did I.  CNN reviews 21 NIGHTS by that guy who was a squiggly in between times he was Prince.

The poet reads “Toads”:

A deletion today may rob the world of a treasure tomorrow.

Students raise cash by dressing up as their favorite literary characters.

The Washington Post presents a Halloween literary “Tour of Terror”.

When Leonard Cohen and Phil Spector crossed paths…

MacWorld catches NaNoWriMo fever.

The Internation Herald Tribune likes Otto Cappellani’s new novel, SICILIAN TRAGEDEE.

Injuryboard.com startled me a bit as a site-title, but then there’s this: CRITICAL CONDITIONS: THE ESSENTIAL HOSPITAL GUIDE TO GET YOUR LOVED ONE OUT ALIVE.

Oh boy, if this book didn’t sound so engaging, I’d really have something to say about this title - ALEX & ME: HOW A SCIENTIST AND A PARROT UNCOVERED A HIDDEN WORLD OF ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND FORMED A DEEP BOND IN THE PROCESS.

Gregory Maguire swivels Oz to a new vantage point and gives us, A LION AMONG MEN.

authormagazine.org interviews Cambodian author and human rights activist Somaly Mam:

Just an update on an article posted back in September here at AuthorScoop - New York District Attorney, Jill Starishevsky’s book has launched after an uphill battle to speak clearly and plainly on child abuse.  You can read more about it and order directly from the book’s launch site, www.mybodybelongstome.com.

Thanks to our friend, Kim Michele Richardson, over at Writer in Waiting for the heads up.

Note: Each day that one was written, The Orwell Prize will be posting an entry from Orwell’s Diaries on the 70th anniversary of its composition. You can read the AuthorScoop preview here.

.

Today’s entry:

October 28, 1938:

One egg. Many black beetles squashed in the road. Inside they are brilliant vermillion. Men ploughing with teams of oxen after the rain. Wretched ploughs, with no wheel, which only stir the soil.

Read all entries.

NYT Book Review presents a post-mortem on the cottage industry of anti-Bush books.

Dylan Thomas’s refurbished childhood Swansea home opened to the public on what would have been his 94th birthday.

The Gawker looks at how fiction has fared in finding solutions to economic crises.

Bloomberg book put on hold indefinitely as he plots his lifetime reign over Gotham.

R.I.P. Es’kia Mphahlele

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.”

- Joseph Heller

.

.

Novelist James Swain takes on pedophiliacs in chat rooms, child abduction, and drug dealers in THE NIGHT STALKER and The Wall Street Journal says he handles it with the grit it calls for.

Can’t we all just get along?  Maybe, but it’s gonna take some reading.  Here’s one for the stack - MODERN JEWS ENGAGE THE NEW TESTAMENT: ENHANCING JEWISH WELL-BEING IN A CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENT.

Molly Farmer novelizes a true account of a family rattled by a husband’s pornography compulsion in TORN APART and The Mormon Times endorses her efforts.

And The Christian Science Monitor mines the archives for a review of John Updike’s THE WITCHES OF EASTIWICK.

Part 1 here.

Note: Each day that one was written, The Orwell Prize will be posting an entry from Orwell’s Diaries on the 70th anniversary of its composition. You can read the AuthorScoop preview here.

.

Excerpts from the past 7 days’ entries:

October 27, 1938:

Large numbers of black beetles, about 1” long, crawling everywhere, evidently brought out by the rain. Have sowed sunflowers, sweet peas & marigolds. The other seeds not up yet, as it has been much cooler (we are having fires every evening.) The ground here is lumpy & unpleasant to work, but at present not many weeds – more when this rain has taken effect, perhaps.

October 25, 1938:

Much cooler. Yesterday overcast & cool all day, with occasional sharp showers. Violent wind & storms of rain in the night. Fire last night & this morning, not absolutely necessary but acceptable.

October 23, 1938:

Soil here is extremely deep, at least 4’ without any change of substance. Rather light & reddish, though it dries into a kind of brick, & said to need a lot of manure.

October 21, 1938:

Still very hot. Last night unbearably so till quite late at night.

October 20, 1938:

The charcoal braziers generally used here are quite satisfactory for cooking. They are generally about 1’ across by 8” deep & either have very many holes in sides or a double bottom with holes in the top one. The charcoal can be started with very little paper & wood & smoulders for hours. A few strokes with the bellows gets it into a fierce heat. A small tin oven is placed on top & bakes fairly satisfactorily.

October 18, 1938:

Saw a lizard this morning, walking up the window pane. About 4” long, rather stumpy, resembling an alligator, prickly tail. The first lizard seen in Morocco.

October 16, 1938:

This morning a disaster. One hen dead, another evidently dying. Forget the name of the disease, which has something to do with the throat. The hen is unable to stand & head droops forward. The dead one had evidently perched for the night & then fallen off the perch. May have something to do with perching in the rain, as they all did so, though I put up another perch for them under cover.

Read all entries.

Tony Hillerman
(1925-2008)

Tony Hillerman, novelist, dies at 83 (International Herald Tribune)
Obituary: Novelist Tony Hillerman (Hartford Courant)
Tony Hillerman, mystery novelist, dies at 83 (KOB.com)
Acclaimed author Tony Hillerman dies at 83 (AP)

Other News:

Osama bin Laden working on his memoirs?

Sex addict seeks female co-writer.

Lifetime Network to adapt four Nora Roberts novels.

Judge rules that Trump biographer doesn’t have to reveal sources.

‘Tis  the season for THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA, and it is, by the account of The Detroit Free Press, spectacular.

And it only makes sense for them (and us) to follow it up with Anne Rice’s CALLED OUT OF DARKNESS: A SPIRITUAL CONFESSION.

Via The Calgary Herald, we can peek at The New York Times bestsellers.

The LA Times isn’t sompletely out of the book reviewing business and here’s a look at Attila Bartis’ TRANQUILITY, translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein, to prove it.