Archive for February, 2009

Tuesday Morning LitLinks

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Will Google and Amazon team up in a duopoly to dominate the e-book market?

Salon’s Laura Miller profiles literary scholar Elaine Showalter, who continues to fight a decades-long battle to ensure that female writers get the credit they deserve.

More than 40 years after its disappearance and its recent recovery by the FBI, Pearl Buck’s original manuscript of The Good Earth to go on display.

David Kelly, writing for the New York Times, muses on Daphne Merkin’s essay “Penises I Have Known” from the newly released Best Sex Writing 2009, specifically material related to D.H. Lawrence’s “John Thomas”.

Vikas Swarup set to reap the rewards of the Oscar-sweeping success of the film adaptation of his novel Q&A.

R.I.P. Scott Symons

Monday Evening Book Reviews

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Ellen Hopkins impresses again with her newest, and typically unflinching, Young Adult novel, IDENTICAL.

I guess it’s cool to title your autobiography, MIRACLE MAN, when you can follow it up with the subtitle, NOLAN RYAN, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

SAG HARBOR, by Colson Whitehead, gets starred by Kirkus.

Jem Poster’s most recent historical fiction, RIFLING PARADISE, is hailed as near-perfect in January Magazine.

Afternoon Viewing: Andrew Gross

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

From the YouTube description:

New York Times bestselling author Andrew Gross talks about his latest novel, Don’t Look Twice, on sale 3/3/09.

Monday Morning LitLinks

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Entertainment Weekly interviews Seth Grahame-Smith about his mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, annoyingly referring to it as PaPaZ (you know, for kids…)

Condoleezza Rice scores a $2.5 million three-book deal with Crown.

Salman Rushdie criticizes Oscar adaptations, including darling “Slumdog Millionaire” because it “piles impossibility on impossibility.”

How the Kindle’s dominance might be short-lived unless it learns to play well with others.

Margaret Atwood to appear at Dubai literary festival debate on censorship via videolink.

Sunday Quote of the Night

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”

-Kurt Vonnegut

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Sunday Evening Book Reviews

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Who knew you could write a mystery where the solution would read Professer Plum did it on the cruise ship with some fish eggs?  Joseph Heywood answers all in DEATH ROE.

Publishing throws its February lifeline to flagging New Year’s resolutions and one such offering is science writer, Gary Taubes’, GOOD CALORIES, BAD CALORIES: CHALLENGING THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ON DIET, WEIGHT CONTROL, AND DISEASE.

The Christian Science Monitor felt compelled to dig out its review of A.S. Byatt’s, POSESSION, which compelled me to read it.  You should too.

Another praise-worthy memoir rises to the top. Azar Nafisi tells an intricate cultural tale in THINGS I’VE BEEN SILENT ABOUT.

Afternoon Viewing: Family Guy

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

The three-clip running gag wherein Stewie mocks Brian for procrastination on his novel:

Sunday Morning LitLinks

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

The Guardian’s Tim Adams talks to novelist David Peace about the “motivating forces behind his fiction and why he’s thinking of returning to Britain.”

Geoff Nicholson, author of The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism, challenges the tag of “prolific”.

IndyStar interviews Obama’s inaugural poet, Elizabeth Alexander.

Kate Waters examines 12 new writers to watch this year and includes extracts from their works.

The BBC looks at the passion for poetry in Nicaragua.

Margaret Atwood writes about her decision not to go to Dubai…

…meanwhile festival organizers to host a debate on censorship.

Is American poetry about to “run out” of greatness?

What will the book industry look like in 10 years?

Quote of the Night

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.”

-Steve Martin

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Saturday Evening Book Reviews

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

Christopher Moore tackles KING LEAR from another perspective in FOOL.

Here’s a sneak peak at The New York Times book reviews.

PowerLine recommends Robert Norrell’s UP FROM HISTORY: THE LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

Here’s a new way to teach your budding athlete the alphabet - A IS FOR AMAZING MOMENTS: A SPORTS ALPHABET.

Jamie Loves to Hear Herself Type

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

Novelist and AuthorScoop contributing editor Jamie Mason has launched her new blog, Because I Love to Hear Myself Type and, not surprisingly, it’s already filling up with the engaging, crisp writing to which those of us who know her have become so accustomed.

Her newest essay, “Make Yourself Useful: Why They’ll Eat The Writers First” matches her razor wit with the often sobering reality of the writing life for a compelling look at our quirky craft in an age of uncertainty.

Stop by and check it out, and note that her site has now been given a permanent home in the “Friends” links to your right for easy access any time.

Congratulations, Jamie, and nice work.

Afternoon Viewing: Pablo Neruda

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

Selected interview clips from the documentary-in-progress Pablo Neruda: The Poet’s Calling:

Saturday Morning LitLinks

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

The Telegraph recaps The Bookseller Magazine’s shortlist for the strangest book titles published this year.

Robert Frost: literary farmer.

Litkicks’ Levi Asher presents chapter five of his ongoing memoir on his life in the Internet industry.

Pankaj Mishra, writing for The Guardian, speculates on the status of American literature.

Borders cutting its corporate workforce by 12%.

R.I.P. Christopher Nolan

Midnight Poetry: “sunflower elegy”

Friday, February 20th, 2009

sunflower elegy
(Kim Michele Richardson)


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i told him i care naught for roses
it is sunflowers i love.

so he labors under summer suns
knees set on earth’s naked field
carving out row after row

where his heart plants ovals
of hope, faith and love
to honor our love

hundreds of seeds grab root
in dirt pocket homes
soon rich black soil
will bare its face and
birth tender green shoots

and i will laugh, chastise him
and say you fatten the wildlife
but he will not listen
he is determined

he envisions rows of sunflowers
that will lift brown pancake heads
to the sky in homage
to his love

but the deer will come feast
under cloak of darkness
and on the ‘morrow
he will curse the beasts

i will take his hand in mine
and lead him to
two unscathed plants

he will smile because he knows
seeds of hope, faith and love
will flourish

and he will say to me
i know it is sunflowers
not roses you love

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Read more of Kim Michelle Richardson’s poetry here. Her memoir, The Unbreakable Child, will be released in April.

Editor’s note: ‘Midnight Poetry’ is a showcase for work by poets across the spectrum—from the pantheon of literary giants to contemporary, underground and new voices.

If you would like to submit your work for consideration, please see our Submission Guidelines.

Friday Quote of the Night

Friday, February 20th, 2009

“Writing fiction is a solitary occupation but not really a lonely one. The writer’s head is mobbed with characters, images and language.”

-Hilma Wolitzer

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Friday Evening Book Reviews

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Incarcerated poet and critic, St. James Harris Wood, might well take a shank to David Lozell Martin if they ever ended up cellmates.  Until then, he’ll just bust his chops (and how!) via Esquire magazine over his memoir, LOSING EVERYTHING.

Smart, smart, smart.  This handy guide should do well if people want to put their food choices into perspective - EAT THIS NOT THAT! SUPERMARKET SURVIVAL GUIDE, by David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding.

Elizabeth Crane’s new collection of shorts, YOU MUST BE THIS HAPPY TO ENTER, meets with approval over at The Examiner.

The state of literature in China makes heady work for reviewing Yu Hua’s novel, BROTHERS.

Afternoon Viewing: Graeme Base

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Author magazine interviews famed children’s author Graeme Base, author of Animalia:

Friday Morning LitLinks

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Authors condemn Dubai literary festival over censorship; Margaret Atwood pulls out.

Dean Koontz launches Frankenstein graphic novel and website.

Norway kicks off a year of celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Knut Hamsun.

Danielle Stee goes digital.

Birmingham’s Black and White previews the first Trailfest, a celebration of Southern authors.

HarperCollins to publish Adam Begley’s Updike biography in 2011.

The Examiner goes gaga over gnooks’ Literature Map.

Quote of the Night

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

“There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends.”

-Arthur C. Clarke

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Thursday Evening Book Reviews

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Sarah Dressen gets praised for her newest Young Adult novel, LOCK AND KEY.  In Kansas City, they say she’s writing to make teens want to read.  I’m hoping that’s a compliment to Ms. Dressen and not an indictment of the next generation.

Adventures in synaesthesia make for a really wonderful-sounding kids’ book.  Picture book meets scratch n’ sniff in, MO SMELLS RED - A SCENTSATIONAL JOURNEY, by Margaret Hyde.  I want this.

The New Republic wants to talk about sex - four pages worth.  Conveniently, Giulia Sissa (with a bit of help on this side of the Atlantic from translator, George Staunton) wrote a history of just such a thing recently - SEX AND SENSUALITY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD.  Serendipitous, one could say.

A CRIME SO MONSTROUS: FACE-TO-FACE WITH MODERN-DAY SLAVERY by E. Benjamin Skinner waxes eloquent, but honest, on a topic that probably shouldn’t be handled any other way.