NZ - Beatties Bookblog
Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Updated: 14 hours 47 min ago
NZ - Beatties Bookblog
Robert McCrum writing in guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 January 2009
Cheap thrills ... a secondhand bookshop in Hay. Photograph: Martin Godwin
The consensus of the economic pundits seems to be that 2009 is going to be awful - every bit as bad as 2008. And the chances are that 2010 won't be much better.
In the search for silver linings, I conclude that this can only be good news for secondhand book dealers. So my prediction for 2009 is that the devoted book reader will beat a path ever more urgently to those forgotten, out-of-the-way corners of musty tranquility of which the shopping class knows nothing.
This will be good news for my friend Nick Dennys, who runs one of the best (as in organised, friendly, accessible) London secondhand bookshops, the Gloucester Road Bookshop (three minutes from the tube).
Nick, the brother of Canadian publisher Louise Dennys, inherited his bookselling nose from his uncle, Graham Greene, who used to say that, if he had not been a novelist, he would gladly have become a secondhand bookseller. All his life, indeed, Greene liked to fossick around in secondhand bookshops, looking for rare editions.
Why not? In my experience, serious book dealers are an extremely convivial, well-read crowd with strange passions for unlikely subjects.
Anyway, I'll be heading off any moment to the Gloucester Road Bookshop to see what I can find.
Part of the pleasure of the excursion is that you've no idea beforehand what will float into your net - but whatever you emerge with, it's a safe bet that it will have cost less than a tenner (or even a fiver: like many good secondhand shops, Gloucester Road has a shelf of battered paperbacks for 50p each). Away with "Best Novels of 2009", farewell to "the new faces of the new year": I shall be enjoying "the best novels of the 19th century" and the new faces of Edwardian England. Seriously, how many authors today are writing better than Forster, Conrad, JM Barrie, Henry James, Ford Madox Ford or even PG Wodehouse at their best?
The other joy of the old book is that you return to it like an old friend.
I have an OUP edition of War and Peace in the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation, printed on India paper, which accompanied me, aged 17, across Europe on a winding road to the isles of Greece in the late 1960s. Holding that magenta covered edition, with its odd stains, swollen binding and scuffed corners, triggers a wave of teenage memories of late nights and idealism.
No doubt there are newer and technically superior Tolstoy translations, but what do I care?
Every secondhand book reader has his or her favourites; the books they would rescue from a burning building.
One thing, however, is certain: nothing in the new year's literary pages can compete with this library. Who wants a new novel by AS Byatt? Hasn't Martin Amis written his masterpiece three times already? Can someone not persuade Philip Roth to call it a day?
Out with the new book, and in with the old: that's my statement for this week.
Puttin’ Off the Ritz: The New Austerity in Publishing
By MOTOKO RICH, New York Times, January 4, 2009
By MOTOKO RICH, New York Times, January 4, 2009
For decades the New York publishing world promised a romantic life of fancy lunches, sparkling parties, sophisticated banter and trips to spots like the Caribbean to pitch books to sales representatives. If the salaries were not exactly Wall Street caliber, well, they came with a milieu that mixed cultural swagger with pure Manhattan high life.
The London Book Fair in 2008. The London and Frankfurt fairs are ostensibly for deal-making, but also involve rounds of parties and dinners.
But that cushy schmooze fest seems to be winding down.
Just two weeks before announcing staff cuts and a substantial corporate restructuring in December, the publishing giant Macmillan gathered its sales and marketing staff at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego — where Billy Wilder filmed Tony Curtis wooing Marilyn Monroe in “Some Like It Hot” — to talk about titles on the spring lists. Between marathon meetings to discuss plans for new books, the sales reps were invited to take part in wine tastings and spa treatments.
Just two weeks before announcing staff cuts and a substantial corporate restructuring in December, the publishing giant Macmillan gathered its sales and marketing staff at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego — where Billy Wilder filmed Tony Curtis wooing Marilyn Monroe in “Some Like It Hot” — to talk about titles on the spring lists. Between marathon meetings to discuss plans for new books, the sales reps were invited to take part in wine tastings and spa treatments.
This year the meetings will be held via Webcam. In a memo to staff members announcing the layoffs on Dec. 15, John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, said the company would hold only one of its three annual sales conferences in person, and the other two would be conducted on the Web and by telephone.
Amid a relentless string of layoffs and pay-freeze announcements, book publishers are clamping down on some of the business’s most glittery and cozy traditions. Austerity measures are rippling throughout the industry as it confronts the worst retailing landscape in memory.
The full piece at NYT.
Dryden book-based radio series now online
Gordon Dryden’s latest book, Unlimited, on “the seven keys to unlock the future” became the theme last week of 18 hours of radio interviews which the author conducted on the RadioLive network.
Now all the interviews are available (without commercials) for replay anywhere in the world, on http://www.thelearningweb.net/
Simply click “radio interviews” on the home page to select any on the list.
They include interviews with Dryden’s co-author, Dutch-born American doctor of education Jeannette Vos; Mexican educational-psychologist Monica Bleiberg, who is currently working with Dryden to produce both a book and an interactive website on how to create a personalized learning profile for youngsters from the first year of life; New Zealand-Austrian academic Barbara Prashnig, author of several books on learning styles; and New Zealand author Adam Hyde, who specializes in self-published books, both online and hard copy.
But authors and publishers may learn most from an instant, online brainstorming between Dryden and Hamilton ideas man Noel Ferguson (of Remarkable Ideas) in which they outline for Hawkes Bay author Patrick Sherrat, how to create an international multimedia market for his books on how to pass exams, including his upcoming “Dummies” book on that subject, to be published this year.
Other interviews, from ideas featured in Unlimited, include riveting ones with Gavin Lennox (of NextSpace); Nick Billowes, a leader in developing clusters of New Zealand “interactive technology” schools; Vicky Buck, the former Mayor of Christchurch, and co-founder of Discovery 1 and Unlimited, relatively new public schools which use all Christchurch as a classroom; and Warren Patterson, formerly principal of New Zealand’s first public school with digital classrooms.
Most interviews stress the need to develop “21st-century multimedia literacy” from early childhood.
Michael King Writers’ Centre/Creative New Zealand
Writers-in-Residence
Writers-in-Residence
Two writers have been selected for residencies at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in Devonport, Auckland, in early 2009.
They are prominent Wellington poet, fiction writer, editor and biographer, Vincent O’Sullivan, and Dunedin writer and poet, David Eggleton.
Vince
nt O’Sullivan, ( left), who has published an extensive range of poetry, fiction and drama, as well as academic books, is working on a biography of artist Ralph Hotere. He will be at the centre between February and April.
David Eggleton (right) is working on a collection of poems drawing on Polynesian myths and legends. He will be at the centre between April and June.
Both writers plan to use their time in Auckland to carry out research in the area, as well as to write.
The residencies, which have an associated stipend of $8,000 each, are funded by the Michael King Writers’ Centre and Creative New Zealand.
The Michael King Writers’ Centre is New Zealand’s full first writers’ centre. It aims to support New Zealand writers and to promote New Zealand literature by securing funds for residencies, organising literary events and programmes for writers. It is based in the historic Signalman’s House on Mt Victoria in Devonport.
Including the 2009 short residencies, a total of nine writers have had the opportunity to stay at the centre for periods between six weeks and six months since the project was launched in 2005. In addition, a large number of writers have rented rooms at the centre while they work or carry out research in Auckland.
Vince
nt O’Sullivan, ( left), who has published an extensive range of poetry, fiction and drama, as well as academic books, is working on a biography of artist Ralph Hotere. He will be at the centre between February and April.
David Eggleton (right) is working on a collection of poems drawing on Polynesian myths and legends. He will be at the centre between April and June.
Both writers plan to use their time in Auckland to carry out research in the area, as well as to write.
The residencies, which have an associated stipend of $8,000 each, are funded by the Michael King Writers’ Centre and Creative New Zealand.
The Michael King Writers’ Centre is New Zealand’s full first writers’ centre. It aims to support New Zealand writers and to promote New Zealand literature by securing funds for residencies, organising literary events and programmes for writers. It is based in the historic Signalman’s House on Mt Victoria in Devonport.
Including the 2009 short residencies, a total of nine writers have had the opportunity to stay at the centre for periods between six weeks and six months since the project was launched in 2005. In addition, a large number of writers have rented rooms at the centre while they work or carry out research in Auckland.
Novelist Barry triumphs at Costa Book AwardsIrish novelist Sebastian Barry has triumphed in the Novel Award category for The Secret Scripture at the Costa Book Awards.
The book will now compete with four other titles for the 2008 Costa Book of the Year award, which will be announced in London on January 27th.
The other successful authors who will compete for the award are Sadie Jones, whose bestselling debut novel, The Outcast , scooped the Costa First Novel Award, Diana Athill, who won the Costa Biography Award for her memoir, Somewhere Towards the End, Michelle Magorian, who won the Children’s Book Award for Just Henry and Adam Foulds who edged out Irish poet Ciaran Carson to win the Poetry award with The Broken Word .
Bookies William Hill have placed Barry at 2-1 favourite to win the overall award. The winner in each prize category receives £5,000 while the overall winner of the Book of the Year award takes home a further £25,000, making a total prize fund of £50,000. Barry fought off tough competition to triumph in the Novel Award category.
Other books shortlisted for the prize included The Other Hand by Chris Cleave, A Partisan's Daughter by Louis de Bernières and Trauma by Patrick McGrath. The judges in the category, which included Irish actress and author Pauline McLynn, described The Secret Scripture as "a heartbreaking and lyrical tale of loss, betrayal and redemption".
The Costa Book Awards recognise the most enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. Originally established in 1971 by Whitbread , Costa announced its takeover of the sponsorship of the UK’s popular and prestigious book prize in 2006. Since the introduction of the Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won eight times by a novel, four times by a first novel, five times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and once by a children’s book.
The Costa Book of the Year will be selected by a panel of judges chaired by columnist and broadcaster Matthew Parris and including Rosamund Pike, Michael Buerk, Alexander Armstrong and Andrea Catherwood.
© 2009 irishtimes.com
© 2009 irishtimes.com
And link here for The Guardian's coverage of the Awards.
And here for an extract from Sebastian Barry's excellent novel.
And Bookman Beattie's review from 30 July, 2008, reviewed on Radio New Zealand.
Jazz: The Australian Accent, by John Shand (University of New South Wales Press, NZ distributor Addenda, A$34.95, NZ$44.99) is an excellent introduction to current Australian jazz by the Sydney Morning Herald’s jazz critic says guest reviewer Fergus Barrowman.There’s some unnecessary crashing about in the underbrush – claims for Australia as a ‘creative centre for jazz rivalling Scandinavian and Western European countries’ alternate with promises ‘not to bullishly trumpet national cultural triumphs’ – but once Shand gets up close to the game the interview-based profiles of 17 of Australia’s best contemporary jazz musicians are lively and interesting.
The select 17 run from pioneers like Mike Nock, Bernie McGann and John Pochée, through current stars The Necks, to recently emerged musicians like Phil Slater, Matt McMahon and James Muller. Of course, the jazz world is tight knit, and there’s seldom even two degrees of separation between any of these or the dozens of others also mentioned, and the picture built up is of an interwoven community.
An ex New Zealander, Shand notes our huge contribution to Australian jazz through the export of talents like Mike Nock, The Necks’ Chris Abrahams and many more. I hadn’t known that Mark Simmonds spent his first 10 years in Christchurch. Simmonds’ sole CD, Fire, with his Ornette Coleman-inspired Freeboppers quartet (Birdland, 1994) is (sorry) a scorcher. Shand confirms the sad story of the breakdown that stopped Simmonds playing soon after Fire’s release. But he tracked him down for some interviews in late 2007, and these provide some of the most vivid and insightful passages in the book.
Less happy is Shand’s two-page lament for ‘Missing Women’. If he cared, why not add to his 17 men Judy Bailey (another Kiwi, whose gorgeous piano trio CD Pendulum came out in January this year) or Sandy Evans or Andrea Keller or Jess Green or . . . ?
The generous sampler CD includes top cuts by Simmonds, Nock, McGann and The Necks, as well as the newer crew. It also illustrates the community aspect. Lloyd Swanton, slow-motion bass-player of The Necks, also turns up in saxophonist McGann’s propulsive bebop quartet and trumpeter Phil Slater’s abstract modernist quartet. The highlight though is ‘Five Bells’, an 11-minute response to the Kenneth Slessor poem of that title by Allan Browne’s Australian Jazz Band. Browne’s music is a delightfully witty blend of tradition and innovation, and his CDs Five Bells, East St Kilda Toodleoo and The Drunken Boat (after Rimbaud) are all terrific.
Jazz: The Australian Accent is distributed in New Zealand by Addenda sales@addenda.co.nz, and can also be ordered directly from Sydney specialist store Birdland http://www.birdland.com.au/, who are by far the best source for CDs.
Quite a lot of Australian jazz is also now available for legal download on iTunes and emusic.com (they’re miles ahead of us in making their music available to the world).
Fergus Barrowman is the publisher at Victoria University Press , and is a jazz columnist for Radio New Zealand and The New Zealand Listener.
Ian Rankin launches drive for more books in BrailleAlison Flood , guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 January 2009
On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Braille's inventor, bestselling crime writer Ian Rankin has launched a campaign calling on writers, publishers and booksellers to make more books available to the visually impaired.
Rankin is also backing an appeal to raise £2m to rehouse the UK's leading Braille printing press, the Scottish Braille Press, which is struggling to meet demand with its current premises.
Just 4% of books published in the UK currently make it into Braille, large print or audio formats, according to the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and Rankin - whose son attends the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh - hopes the campaign, which he is launching on behalf of charity Royal Blind, will unite the books world in improving access to fiction and non-fiction for the visually impaired.
Rankin, creator of hardboiled Edinburgh detective Rebus, said that Braille was a hugely important "gateway to education and inspiration". He added that "I support anything that can be done to improve access to reading in all formats from Braille to large print."
For the full story link here.
Critics for cricket as their best book of the year is revealed
http://www.booktrust.org.uk/
A study conducted by the independent national charity Booktrust has revealed that a novel about cricket and post 9/11 New York was the most popular choice of newspaper critics in 2008. Joseph O’Neil’s Netherland, published by Fourth Estate, received extraordinary praise from the critics, who described it as ‘a great American novel’ and ‘suspensful, artful, psychologically pitch-perfect, and a wonderful read.’
The list, compiled by website editor James Smith from over 2,000 recommendations of books of the year, as chosen by newspapers’ critics during the festive period.
James Smith commented:
“Compiling this list is an eye-popping exercise, but it provides a fascinating – and often surprising – insight into the books that have caught the critics’ attention. From the obscure (Geoffrey Hill: The Collected Critical Writings) to the popular (Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr Whicher), the list proves that publishers continue to provide us with many, many wonderful books.”
The most popular non-fiction among the critics was Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder (Harper Press), a remarkable study of late-eighteenth-century scientists
Despite Fourth Estate’s successes with Netherland, the excellent Hollywood memoir spoof Me Cheeta and J.G Ballad’s Miracles of Life, the most-chosen publisher was Faber.
This is the third consecutive year that Faber has clinched the accolade of most popular publisher among the critics.
Below the full list of recommendations by newspaper.
http://www.booktrust.org.uk/
A study conducted by the independent national charity Booktrust has revealed that a novel about cricket and post 9/11 New York was the most popular choice of newspaper critics in 2008. Joseph O’Neil’s Netherland, published by Fourth Estate, received extraordinary praise from the critics, who described it as ‘a great American novel’ and ‘suspensful, artful, psychologically pitch-perfect, and a wonderful read.’
The list, compiled by website editor James Smith from over 2,000 recommendations of books of the year, as chosen by newspapers’ critics during the festive period.
James Smith commented:
“Compiling this list is an eye-popping exercise, but it provides a fascinating – and often surprising – insight into the books that have caught the critics’ attention. From the obscure (Geoffrey Hill: The Collected Critical Writings) to the popular (Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr Whicher), the list proves that publishers continue to provide us with many, many wonderful books.”
The most popular non-fiction among the critics was Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder (Harper Press), a remarkable study of late-eighteenth-century scientists
Despite Fourth Estate’s successes with Netherland, the excellent Hollywood memoir spoof Me Cheeta and J.G Ballad’s Miracles of Life, the most-chosen publisher was Faber.
This is the third consecutive year that Faber has clinched the accolade of most popular publisher among the critics.
Below the full list of recommendations by newspaper.
Fiction
Joseph O’Neill Netherland 17
Zoe Heller The Believers 14
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture 12
John le Carre A Most Wanted Man 9 (+1 audio)
Nadeem Aslam The Wasted Vigil 8
Tim Winton Breath 8
Philip Roth Indignation 8
Tom Rob Smith Child 44 7 (+1)
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger 7
Junot Diaz The Brief … Oscar Wao 7
Non-fiction
Richard Holmes The Age of Wonder 15
JG Ballard Miracles of Life 12 (+1)
Alex Ross The Rest is Noise 12
Ferdinand Mount Cold Cream 12
Kate Summerscale The Suspicions of Mr W … 11
Barack Obama Dreams from My Father 9 (+1)
Simon Gray Coda 8 (+3)
Patrick French The World Is What It Is 8
Mark Bostridge Florence Nightingale 7
Cheeta Me Cheeta 7
Tom Holland Millennium 7
Jackie Wullschlager Chagall 7
The Clash 7
Julian Barnes Nothing to be Frightened of 7
Yotam Ottolenghi Ottolenghi 7
Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money 7
Mark Thompson The White War 7
Poetry
Mick Imlah The Lost Leader 9
Authors
Joseph O’Neill 17
Simon Gray 16 (two titles)
Richard Holmes 14
Zoe Heller 14
Barack Obama 13 (two titles)
JG Ballard 13
Alex Ross 12
Ferdinand Mount 12
Sebastian Barry 12
Kate Summerscale 11
John le Carre 10
Publishers
Faber 138
Bloomsbury 103
Fourth Estate 86
Allen Lane 82
Joseph O’Neill Netherland 17
Zoe Heller The Believers 14
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture 12
John le Carre A Most Wanted Man 9 (+1 audio)
Nadeem Aslam The Wasted Vigil 8
Tim Winton Breath 8
Philip Roth Indignation 8
Tom Rob Smith Child 44 7 (+1)
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger 7
Junot Diaz The Brief … Oscar Wao 7
Non-fiction
Richard Holmes The Age of Wonder 15
JG Ballard Miracles of Life 12 (+1)
Alex Ross The Rest is Noise 12
Ferdinand Mount Cold Cream 12
Kate Summerscale The Suspicions of Mr W … 11
Barack Obama Dreams from My Father 9 (+1)
Simon Gray Coda 8 (+3)
Patrick French The World Is What It Is 8
Mark Bostridge Florence Nightingale 7
Cheeta Me Cheeta 7
Tom Holland Millennium 7
Jackie Wullschlager Chagall 7
The Clash 7
Julian Barnes Nothing to be Frightened of 7
Yotam Ottolenghi Ottolenghi 7
Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money 7
Mark Thompson The White War 7
Poetry
Mick Imlah The Lost Leader 9
Authors
Joseph O’Neill 17
Simon Gray 16 (two titles)
Richard Holmes 14
Zoe Heller 14
Barack Obama 13 (two titles)
JG Ballard 13
Alex Ross 12
Ferdinand Mount 12
Sebastian Barry 12
Kate Summerscale 11
John le Carre 10
Publishers
Faber 138
Bloomsbury 103
Fourth Estate 86
Allen Lane 82
Not bad for 91
Diana Athill talks to Kira Cochrane about infidelity, heartache and old age - and the real reason she wants to win the Costa book award
Diana Athill talks to Kira Cochrane about infidelity, heartache and old age - and the real reason she wants to win the Costa book award
Diana Athill at home in London. Photograph: David Levene/Guardian
Diana Athill's life has been full of unexpected twists. There was the broken relationship that led to a brilliant career in publishing, working with some of the world's most esteemed writers, and being regularly described as "the finest editor in London". At the same time she was engaged in a maze of love affairs that saw her cast more than once as "the other woman". And now, at 91, when most people's lives have slowed down considerably, Athill is enjoying perhaps her most exciting and unexpected new chapter - winning huge critical and commercial success as a writer.
Her latest memoir, Somewhere Towards the End, is shortlisted in the biography category for the Costa book awards (formerly the Whitbread); the category winner will be announced tomorrow. She says that she is very pleased about the shortlisting, "but I'm not allowing myself to get excited". In her five decades as an editor, Athill recalls having to "sit with authors of mine who had been shortlisted for prizes at those wretched dinners, saying, 'Now, we mustn't hope, we might easily not win', and then seeing their poor faces when in fact they didn't, and they were bravely pinning on a smile." Much better, she suspects, to let your feelings show. Athill is a stickler for directness.
Read the full piece at The Guardian online. I have great admiration for her and her writing.
ScrollMotion concludes publisher deals
The Bookseller, 24.12.08
The Bookseller, 24.12.08
Mobile application developer Scrollmotion has signed an e-book deal with publishers including Random House, the Penguin Group and Simon and Schuster. The New York content-technology company creates digital versions of books for the iPhone and iPod Touch using the firm's Iceberg reading application.
E-books available as Iceberg Apps may be purchased and downloaded wirelessly directly to the device. In addition, consumers will be able to simultaneously listen to music and read e-books.
Books included in Iceberg format are BRISINGR by Christopher Paolini, as well as Paolini’s previous two novels in his Inheritance cycle, ERAGON and ELDEST; the celebrated HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy by Philip Pullman, which includes THE GOLDEN COMPASS; PERSUADER by bestselling novelist Lee Child, and the 2008 Fiction National Book Award winner, SHADOW COUNTRY by Peter Mathiessen.
Matt Shatz, vice president, digital for Random House Inc. said: "The iPhone and iPod Touch present exciting and fun ways for people to access some great Random House reading. With this valued collaboration with Scroll Motion, we are pleased to be making this initial list of outstanding books by some of our top-selling authors available to a ground-breaking group of readers."
JULES OLDER RESUMES DUTYWRITER’S LIFEGUARD
Hello, writers. New Year’s greetings from San Francisco.
First, the SMS — Still More Steinbeck.
From Vermont poet and playwright David Budbill:I come out of working class stock in Cleveland, Ohio.
I'm the first person with my name to graduate from high school, not to mention college. In other words, as I was growing up, books and words were not much a part of my life. My relatives were factory workers, Post Office employees, domestics, addressograph-multigraph operators, waitresses, and so forth.
All my uncles were in WWII. One uncle, Uncle Judy--his name was Charles Judy--had been in Europe. He worked at the Post Office and he, unlike anybody else in my family, loved books. Uncle Judy had a set of identical, fake leather bound, hardback books with gold lettering on the spine and an embossed cover with a picture of a house top in blue and a red signature that read: JOHN STEINBECK.
All the books in the series and there were a lot were bound exactly the same way and published by an outfit called P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, New York.
As I said, there were a lot of books in the series, maybe 6 or 8 or 10. The first one I read was OF MICE AND MEN.
It was the first real book I'd ever read on my own. I was in high school at the time, I think, sometime in the middle 1950s. It was the first time I'd ever been totally take in by a book I'd read all by myself, the first time I had ever heard a "real" writer talk about people like the people I knew, even if they were from the countryTo this day OF MICE AND MEN remains one of my favorite books.
And from Philadelphia author and translator Larry Schofer:
Jules, This has been a wonderful thread. There are still people out there interested in literature.I'm afraid though that we Americans might be as insular as the Nobel literature prize secretary accused us of being.If you were to ask me what the most memorable novels I have ever read – those that touched my soul - (as opposed to the greatest novels I have ever read), I would have to include I.B. Singer's The Slave, Heinrich Boell's The Clown, and Siegfried Lenz' The German Lesson.
And now, on to AFINZ — Almost Famous In New Zealand.
One of the Writers Lifeguarders (there are 114 of us as we speak) is Graham Beattie in Auckland, New Zealand.
Graham has been a bookseller, publisher, editor and consultant; he's now the sole proprietor of Beattie’s Book Blog, New Zealand’s best-read literary website. You can see for yourself at http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/
On said blog, Graham has posted my original Steinbeck essay and your subsequent thoughts on the subject.
So, should Christine and Kim, J.B. and Moira, David and Steve, et al ever turn up on New Zealand’s beauteous shores, they will be:
Really, Truly, Deeply, Almost famous.
Kia ora from
NICKY PELLEGRINO SURVEYS THE BOOK YEAR AHEAD
When writing about the year ahead it seems almost mandatory to be all doom and economic gloom but for booklovers at least 2009 holds plenty of promise - new authors to discover, new releases from well-loved writers and the publishing industry, both here and overseas, as vibrant as it’s ever been.
First let’s get the shameless self-promotion out the way. My own new novel, The Italian Wedding (Orion) is released here in April (two months before the UK gets it) and is a story about food, feuds and discovering who your parents really are. Naturally I highly recommend it.Most publishing companies encourage their big-name authors to release a book a year so I can expect some stiff competition on the shop shelves. For instance Jodi Picoult’s next blockbuster also lands in April. Handle With Care is the story of a child born with brittle bone disease whose mother decides to file a wrongful birth lawsuit against the obstetrician who also happens to be her best friend.
Crime/thriller writers tend to be especially prolific for some reason. Michael Connelly has two new titles on offer this year as do Janet Evanovich, Jonathan Kellerman and Ian Rankin who will be introducing readers to a brand new series to replace the retired Rebus. There will also be offerings from all the usual suspects; John Grisham, Jeffrey Deaver etc. and a book called Dead Man’s Dust about a vigilante hero from newcomer Matt Hilton who’s being heralded as the next big thing in thriller writing – think Lee Child crossed with Richard Patterson but better apparently.
Personally I’m looking forward to new offerings from a few of my favourite writers. Canadian Margaret Atwood is back in the future with her September release The Year of The Flood which publishers describe as “a journey to the end of the world”. UK writer Paul Torday, who began his writing career in a satirical frame of mind, seems like he too is getting darker in his third novel, The Girl on the Landing. And Douglas Kennedy sounds like he’s back on form after the disappointing The Woman In The Fifth with the story of a woman who runs away from her own life called Leaving the World. Other international names releasing new work this year include John Irving, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro and, of course, the terrifyingly fecund Alexander McCall Smith whose new Botswana book, called Tea Time For The Traditionally Built, hits the shelves next month.
There are some new writers I reckon it’s worth looking out for. Farahad Zama’s style is described as “a dash of Alexander McCall Smith with a pinch of Jane Austen” and his first novel, Marriage Bureau for Rich People is billed as a charming, funny tale set in a contemporary Indian marriage bureau. And Sonia Orchard’s book, The Virtuouso, a love story set in the music world of London in the 1940s and 50s, is compared to both Alan Bennett’s memoirs and Patrick Suskind’s Perfume so sounds completely tantalising.
There are also opportunities to discover lost classics and half-forgotten authors. One of the most intriguing is The Women In Black by the late Australian writer Madeleine St John. Set in the Ladies Cocktail section of a department store in 1950s Sydney this is what author Kaz Cooke has to say about it…”This book is like the perfect vintage little black dress. Beautifully constructed, it evokes another time while being mysteriously classic and up-to-date, and it makes you feel happy. I love it.” Some books are bound to attract attention. Al Gore’s follow up to An Inconvenient Truth explores solutions to climate change problems – called The Path To Survival it’s due out in November and will be a must-read for greenies. And it’ll be interesting to read Murong Xuecun’s book Leave Me Alone. Described as an unflinching and darkly funny look at the pressures of life in modern China it had five million online readers in that country and 500,000 copies were sold there before the book was banned.
One of 2008’s big publishing success stories was vampire novels. Fans of Stephanie Meyer’s addictive Twilight series would have been disappointed that she abandoned the next instalment, Midnight Sun, after a draft was posted on the internet without her permission. Instead they’ll have to make do with Twilight Saga: The Official Guide, due out in the second half of the year.
As far as local fiction goes, later in the year Penguin NZ will release a collection of short stories from our Booker hero Lloyd Jones – his first work since Mr Pip – plus there’ll be a new collection of short stories from last year’s Montana winner Charlotte Grimshaw. In April there’s a new novel from Fiona Farrell called Limestone that’s set in New Zealand and Ireland and in the same month Barbara Ewing follows up her successful The Mesmerist with another rich historical novel set in London called The Fraud.
Plus there’s a new name on the scene. Lindy Kelly, a journalist, poet and playwright, releases her debut novel Bold Blood which is set in the equestrian world of eventing and comes with an endorsement from Olympian Mark Todd who says: “Much more than just another horsey story, it will appeal to anyone of any age who likes a well-written suspense thriller. A thoroughly enjoyable read.’
Finally if you remember the furore surrounding euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin’s book, To Die Like A Dog, then a May release from independent publisher Cape Catley called Before We Say Goodbye is bound to provoke interest. It’s Sean Davidson’s account of how his terminally ill mother asked him to help her die. Christine Cole Catley says this candid book holds little back and is expected to create much discussion. These titles are, of course, just a taste of what is to come. The book world as always will hold surprises – unexpected pleasures, new publishing sensations, the odd disappointment. For avid readers, at least, it’s going to be a good year…. NICKY PELLEGRINO
Nicky's piece was first published in the Herald on Sunday, 4 January, 2009.
Epic romance is reborn as Thorn Birds, the musical
The publishing and TV sensation is being adapted for the stage and is set to tour the UK this spring
Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 4 January 2009
The publishing and TV sensation is being adapted for the stage and is set to tour the UK this spring
Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 4 January 2009
That much-loved popular literary saga of forbidden passion and Catholic guilt set in the wild open spaces of the Outback, The Thorn Birds, is to be staged as a musical, 30 years after it caused a publishing sensation.
The book's reclusive Australian author, Colleen McCullough, has jealously guarded her work from all other attempts to adapt it for the stage, but this weekend the 71-year-old writer has announced plans to premiere a new musical version, directed by the award-winning Michael Bogdanov, before it starts a tour of Britain this spring.
The book's reclusive Australian author, Colleen McCullough, has jealously guarded her work from all other attempts to adapt it for the stage, but this weekend the 71-year-old writer has announced plans to premiere a new musical version, directed by the award-winning Michael Bogdanov, before it starts a tour of Britain this spring.
McCullough's novel, which has sold more than 30m copies since it was published in 1977, is still regarded by many fans as the most romantic ever written. Germaine Greer recently dubbed it 'the best bad book ever' in response to publisher Virago's decision to reissue it as a modern classic.
Read the full report here.
America, ‘Amerika’
By ADAM KIRSCH in The New York Times, January 2, 2009
By ADAM KIRSCH in The New York Times, January 2, 2009
Most writers take years to become themselves, to transform their preoccupations and inherited mannerisms into a personal style. For Franz Kafka, who was an exception to so many rules of life and literature, it took a single night. On Sunday, Sept. 22, 1912, the day after Yom Kippur, the 29-year-old Kafka sat down at his desk and wrote “The Judgment,” his first masterpiece, in one all-night session. “Only in this way can writing be done,” he exulted, “only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul.”
Illustration by Leonardo Sonnoli
Related
Times Topics: Franz Kafka
Illustration by Leonardo Sonnoli
Related
Times Topics: Franz Kafka
Everyone who reads Kafka reads “The Judgment” and the companion story he wrote less than two months later, “The Metamorphosis.”
In those stories, we already find the qualities the world would come to know as “Kafkaesque”: the nonchalant intrusion of the bizarre and horrible into everyday life, the subjection of ordinary people to an inscrutable fate. But readers have never been quite as sure what to make of the third major work Kafka began writing in the fall of 1912 — the novel he referred to as “Der Verschollene,” “The Missing Person,” which was published in 1927, three years after his death, by his friend and executor Max Brod, under the title “Amerika.”
The translator Michael Hofmann, whose English version of the book appeared in 1996, correctly called it “the least read, the least written about and the least ‘Kafka’ ” of his three novels.
The translator Michael Hofmann, whose English version of the book appeared in 1996, correctly called it “the least read, the least written about and the least ‘Kafka’ ” of his three novels.
Now Schocken Books, which has been the main publisher of Kafka’s works since the 1930s, hopes to reintroduce his first novel to the world with a new translation, by Mark Harman. “If approached afresh,” Harman promises in his introduction, “this book could bear out the early claim by . . . Brod that ‘precisely this novel . . . will reveal a new way of understanding Kafka.’ ”
Harman offers a compromise between Kafka’s intended title and Brod’s more familiar one by calling his version Amerika: The Missing Person ($25). And he follows previous English editions by retaining the German spelling of America, with a “k.” This lends the name, in American eyes, a more ominous and alien quality than it would have for the German reader. That “k” is hard to resist, however, and not just because readers have come to expect it. No writer has ever annexed a single letter the way Kafka did with “k.” Between the two in his own last name, Joseph K. of “The Trial” and K. of “The Castle,” the letter seems imbued with his own angular essence. Amerika is not America; it is a cipher for Kafka’s dream of a country he never visited. Read the rest of the story at NYT online.
From The Times
December 31, 2008
The Hottest Reads of 2009
Nicholas Clee picks some of the likely highlights for the new year
December 31, 2008
The Hottest Reads of 2009
Nicholas Clee picks some of the likely highlights for the new year
Fiction
As always, previewing the bestsellers is a matter of rounding up the usual suspects. John Grisham (whose The Associate should please fans by returning to the themes of his best-known novel, The Firm), Jodi Picoult, Stephen King, Josephine Cox, Wilbur Smith ... they all have new novels this year. James Patterson, who has done for fiction what Ford did for motor cars, has eight. However, following the collapse of the supermarket supplier EUK (a Woolworths subsidiary), these bestselling “brands” may not match their usual sales figures.
Who are the new names who might add some variety to the charts? To answer this question in recent years, one has had simply to refer to the authors selected by Richard and Judy for their various book clubs. Now, however, the pair are lurking on the digital channel Watch, which not many people are watching. Whether from there they can promote the careers of writers as effectively as they did Picoult's remains to be seen - although there is some research to suggest that the Richard and Judy imprimatur can transcend the viewing figures.
Among the debut novelists for whom publishers have high hopes are the journalist Anthony Quinn, who has set The Rescue Man (January) in his native Liverpool during the Second World War; Alan Bradley, who has written a village crime mystery set in the 1950s and called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (January); (Dame) Joan Bakewell, the Government's champion of the elderly and, at 75, fiction newcomer (All the Nice Girls, March); Reif Larsen, whose The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (May) is about a 12-year-old mapmaker making a long journey to Washington to collect a science prize; Eleanor Catton, who wrote the distinctive The Rehearsal (July), about a sex scandal in a girls' school, at the age of 22; and Matt Hilton, a policeman and martial arts expert who introduces his hero, Joe Hunter, in Dead Men's Dust (June).
And then there are those aiming to rival the success of the celebrity novelist Katie Price - Sharon Osbourne (an as-yet-untitled first novel for the summer) and Martine McCutcheon (The Mistress, July).
And then there are those aiming to rival the success of the celebrity novelist Katie Price - Sharon Osbourne (an as-yet-untitled first novel for the summer) and Martine McCutcheon (The Mistress, July).
The full piece from The Times online here.
A book lover's guide to building a brilliant children's libraryby Lucy Mangan , The Guardian, Saturday 3 January 2009
No 12 Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (1958)
Oh, the complete and utter agony of waiting for the next instalment of Tom's Midnight Garden.
My beloved Mrs Pugh was reading it to us in brief, precious bursts every day before we had to put our chairs on tables ready for hometime. I therefore spent much of 1984 wishing a short, but painful, death on fellow 10-year-olds who kept delaying us by mucking about and cutting into the 25 minutes on which my day's happiness had come to depend.
Because the story of Tom Long, who is sent away to stay with relatives while his brother is ill, is exquisite. Lonely and bored, Tom discovers that when the grandfather clock in the communal hallway - on whose casing is carved the words from Revelation: "Time no longer" - strikes 13, the magnificent garden that once belonged to the house before it was carved up into flats is restored to it - along with the equally lonely Hatty who used to play there as a child and who becomes Tom's night-time companion. Tom gradually realises that he is returning to the 19th century, but it takes a visit from his brother to show him that time in the garden is moving on and Hatty is growing up. One night, he at last becomes as invisible to her. Soon after that, the garden disappears too and it is almost time for Tom to go home.
There is one last twist, which I am not going to spoil for you, partly because I cannot bring myself to rob you of its power and pleasure by baldly summarising it, and partly because if I had to learn, through Mrs Pugh's meagre apportionments, the painful lesson of deferred gratification, I am most certainly going to force the experience on to others too, wherever I can.
At the time, however, I was so firmly locked in a battle of wills with my teacher that I restrained myself from asking my father to buy the book for me so that I could read on ahead. But as soon as Mrs Pugh had turned the final page, I dragged him down to Dillons so that I could read the whole thing for myself - in one sitting, free from the desire to stab Darren Jones in the heart with his ever-clattering pencil - a process that yielded a better sense of the finely honed shape of the book and its careful, masterly pacing and let me linger over the beauty of the prose and the wealth of possibilities offered by its suggestion that the past and the present could merge into each other if only you knew where to look.
I have re-read it countless times since then. Within three pages, I am my 10-year-old self again. Within six, I am with Tom in his 1950s world and after that we are both in the Victorian garden again with Hatty and the yew trees and hedges that preceded and will outlast them all. Time no longer.
FOOTNOTE
I share Lucy Mangan's enthusiasm for Tom's Midnight Garden. I first read it as an adult back in the 60's in my bookselling days and subsequently I used to sell it to everyone I could. It was always a best-seller with us as a result. I recall it was part of the very fine children's paperback list of that time published by Oxford University Press. I rate it one of the great children's books of all time and it is interesting to recall that it has been made into television on three occasons, has been performed on stage and made into a movie. A great great book. It also won the Carnegie Medal the year of its publication. If you haven't read it then treat yourself soon.
I met Philippa Pearce on one occasion in the UK, when she was the children's editor at Andre Deutsch. Recently a Memorial Lecture has been set up in her honour.
My thanks to Lucy Mangan and The Guardian for reminding me of Tom's Midnight Garden and its talented creator.
Method and Madness
Reviewed by JEREMY McCARTER in the New York Times.
Published: January 2, 2009
Published: January 2, 2009
On the night “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway, Tennessee Williams sent his young leading man a rapturous telegram: “From the greasy Polack you will someday arrive at the gloomy Dane for you have something that makes the theater a world of great possibilities.” Looking back now, you might describe that as, word for word, the most poignant couple of lines Williams ever wrote.
For one thing, “greasy Polack” reflects a pinched view of what Marlon Brando achieved. Stanley Kowalski is a brute, a vulgarian and a rapist, but Brando also gave him a canny intelligence and enough charm that the play’s audiences joined him in laughing at Williams’s heroine, Blanche DuBois, every night. Brando’s looks also helped: thanks to the poetic face he carried atop his muscled body, his loutish Stanley could have passed for a slumming demigod.
SOMEBODY
The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando
By Stefan Kanfer
Illustrated. 350 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95
SOMEBODYThe Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando
By Stefan Kanfer
Illustrated. 350 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95
Related
First Chapter: ‘Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando’ (January 4, 2009)
'Somebody,' by Stefan Kanfer: The Lion of the Screen, and What Made Him Roar (December 9, 2008)
Times Topics: Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando's Filmography
Why 2009 is no time to be iconic
By Ian Johnston, writing in The Independent, Friday, 2 January 2009
By Ian Johnston, writing in The Independent, Friday, 2 January 2009
"It's that time of year again" so a bunch of "maverick" American academics has completed their "desperate search" for words and phrases that have become "iconic" of our apparent love of meaningless slogans, stock responses and exaggeration.
Lake Superior State University's 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness sifted through 5,000 nominations to arrive at the 15 sayings they would most like to stop hearing. Environmental jargon featured prominently, with "carbon footprint" and the overuse of "green".
"Icon" or "iconic" – and its use in relation to the most mundane of subjects –was one of the most nominated terms. Also on the list are: "desperate", thanks to the tendency of journalists to describe any search as just that in order to imply greater drama; "not so much" when a simple "no" would do; and "it's that time of year again".
"When is it not 'that time of year again?'" the Canadian Kathleen Brosemer wrote in her nomination. "Just get to the point... and cut out six useless, annoying words."
John Flood, from Wicklow in Ireland, was among the many hoping for fewer "icons" – a visual symbol or representation which inspires worship or veneration. "Everyone and everything cannot be 'iconic'. Can't we switch to 'legendary' or 'famous for'?"
John Flood, from Wicklow in Ireland, was among the many hoping for fewer "icons" – a visual symbol or representation which inspires worship or veneration. "Everyone and everything cannot be 'iconic'. Can't we switch to 'legendary' or 'famous for'?"
Jodi Gill, of Wisconsin, said: "It's overused to the point where everything from a fast-food restaurant chain to celebrities is 'iconic'."
The US presidential election campaign contributed "maverick", which the Republican candidate, John McCain, used to distance himself from the establishment, and "First Dude", the title given to the husband of his running mate, Sarah Palin. Lake Superior university said the list was not meant to be a form of censorship, but a light-hearted way of making people think.
The American author Maureen Freely, who is now an academic at Warwick University, said she had compiled a personal list. This year, she would try to stop saying "tick the box", "too much information", "iconic" and "possibly 'terrific'... although that would be very painful".
Princess Leia’s Wit Tames the Dark Side
By CHARLES McGRATH , writing in The New York Times, January 1, 2009
The title of Carrie Fisher’s funny, sardonic little memoir is a bit misleading. Drinking seems to have been the least of her problems. Pills were more her thing, and for a while hallucinogens. As a teenager, she dropped so much acid that her parents called in the greatest LSD expert they knew: Cary Grant.
Michael Lamont
Carrie Fisher, pic by Micahel Lamont.
Carrie Fisher, pic by Micahel Lamont.
WISHFUL DRINKING
By Carrie Fisher
Illustrated. 163 pages. Simon & Schuster. $21.
Illustrated. 163 pages. Simon & Schuster. $21.
Her parents were Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, and that was part of the problem. They were the Jennifer and Brad of their day, the tabloids’ favorite couple, with Elizabeth Taylor, for whom Mr. Fisher left his wife and family, eventually taking on the role of Angelina, plusher and without the tattoos. “You might say I’m a product of Hollywood inbreeding,” Ms. Fisher writes. “When two celebrities mate, something like me is the result.”
Though Ms. Fisher now lives next door to her mother, and is on good terms with her father, neither was much of a parent. He was too busy dating, getting married and having face-lifts. She meant well enough, but was first and last a performer. The great event of Ms. Fisher’s childhood was watching Mom enter one end of a room-size closet — the Church of Latter Day Debbie, her daughter called it — and come out the other powdered, sprayed and gowned, with better posture and a different accent. As a consequence of her upbringing, Ms. Fisher says, “I find that I don’t have what could be considered a conventional sense of reality.”
When the author was 15, Ms. Reynolds gave her a vibrator for Christmas, and also gave one to her own mother, who declined to use it for fear it would short out her pacemaker. Some years later, perhaps taking the inbreeding principle to extreme, Ms. Reynolds suggested that her daughter ought to have children with Richard Hamlett, Ms. Reynold’s last husband.Read the full piece at the NYT online.
I Wish I Could Read Like a Girl
By MICHELLE SLATALLA writing in The New York Times, December 31, 2008
By MICHELLE SLATALLA writing in The New York Times, December 31, 2008
FOR weeks now, I have been watching my children endure life in the fishbowl of the holiday season. On hiatus from school, they swim patient laps around one another in the cramped space of a family.
Illustration by Hadley Hooper
I don’t envy this. I know from personal experience that the last thing you want, in that awkward decade when you are trying to figure out who you are and where you are headed, is the pressure of being under the constant observation of cranky grown-ups who wonder why you aren’t unloading the dishwasher for them more often.
My daughters cope with having to live around me in much the same way that I remember dealing with my mother. They sleep in. They stay up very late. They put gasoline in the car just often enough to neutralize criticism.
Watching these delicate negotiations makes me glad to be past that stage of life. Most of the time. But there is one thing I notice my daughters doing when they hang around the house that makes me ache, with a terrible yearning, to be young again. They read.
Or more precisely, they read like I did when I was a girl. They drape themselves across chairs and sofas and beds — any available horizontal surface will do, in a pinch — and they allow a novel to carry them so effortlessly from one place to another that for a time they truly don’t care about anything else.
Read the rest of this story at the NYT.
By RICHARD EDER writing in The New York Times.
Published: December 31, 2008
It’s not quite a “please don’t read,” but David Rieff comes close in the doleful preface to “Reborn,” the first volume of notebooks by his mother, Susan Sontag, who died in 2004. He refuses to use the classically unprovable “she would have wanted it” to explain his decision to publish them. Alive, she would never have let them appear, he tells us; in fact she might have burned them.
Pic left - Eddie Hausner/The New York Times
Inner vision of the outside world: Susan Sontag in 1962.
REBORN
Journals and Notebooks
1947-1963
By Susan Sontag
Edited by David Rieff.
318 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $25.
Times Topics: Susan Sontag
All but visibly wincing, he states that he would rather have left them unpublished. They are raw and unvarnished and perhaps that is a virtue; still, they contain “much that I would have preferred not to know and not to have others know.” Reading her entries, he writes, he felt like the Greek theatergoer who watched Medea about to kill her children, and shouted, “Don’t do it!”
So why does he do it? His answer, in this oddest of editor’s notes — written with touching laconic power — is that Sontag had left her papers without restrictions to the University of California, Los Angeles. If he did not do the job, thus at least keeping some control, someone else would.
Read the full pice at NYT.
TERRY PRATCHETT KNIGHTED A dubbing for creating a flat world on top of a turtle
Sam Jones writing in The Guardian, Wednesday 31 December 2008
Sam Jones writing in The Guardian, Wednesday 31 December 2008
The creator of a fantasy world borne on the back of a turtle swimming through space, Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld novels have won him legions of fans, said he was "flabbergasted" to receive a knighthood."There are times when phrases such as 'totally astonished' just don't do the job. I am of course delighted and honoured and, needless to say, flabbergasted," said the author, who has sold more than 55m books worldwide.
Last year the 60-year-old announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, an affliction he described as an "embuggerance". He has since campaigned to raise awareness of the disease.
Diana Athill, the editor, memoirist and novelist who spent half a century in publishing, tending to the works of VS Naipaul, Norman Mailer, Jean Rhys and Philip Roth, receives an OBE for services to literature. As does Victoria Barnsley, who has been in publishing a couple of decades less than Athill and is chief executive of HarperCollins UK.
Still Paging Mr. SalingerBy CHARLES McGRATH writing in The New York Times, December 30, 2008
Pic left, NYT photo -J. D. Salinger in 195l.
On Thursday, J. D. Salinger turns 90. There probably won’t be a party, or if there is we’ll never know. For more than 50 years Mr. Salinger has lived in seclusion in the small town of Cornish, N.H. For a while it used to be a journalistic sport for newspapers and magazines to send reporters up to Cornish in hopes of a sighting, or at least a quotation from a garrulous local, but Mr. Salinger hasn’t been photographed in decades now and the neighbors have all clammed up. He’s been so secretive he makes Thomas Pynchon seem like a gadabout.
Mr. Salinger’s disappearing act has succeeded so well, in fact, that it may be hard for readers who aren’t middle-aged to appreciate what a sensation he once caused. With its very first sentence, his novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” which came out in 1951, introduced a brand-new voice in American writing, and it quickly became a cult book, a rite of passage for the brainy and disaffected. “Nine Stories,” published two years later, made Mr. Salinger a darling of the critics as well, for the way it dismantled the traditional architecture of the short story and replaced it with one in which a story could turn on a tiny shift of mood or tone.
Read the full piece at the NYT online.
WRITER’S LIFEGUARD - another instalment from Jules Older
The Steinbeck story unfolds...
From travel writer Christine Loomis in Colorado:
I'm with Larry on Of Mice and Men. That story haunted me in high school, the same way To Kill a Mockingbird had in middle school. Reading it made me realize at 16 that life isn't fair. Life will never be fair. Dreams can only take you so far. We all need a protector.
But if asked at age 21 the name of my favorite American author, the answer would have been Faulkner. Light in August, Chapter 6, opening paragraph. This was for me a blinding blaze of literary light putting forever to rest the school teacher notions that writing must be linear, traditionally correct, and that every word in the world already exists. Cinderstrewnpacked. What a word. "Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own, set in a grassless cinderstrewnpacked compound surrounded by smoking factory purlieus and enclosed by a ten foot steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo, where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant as the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys streaked like blacktears.”
From Hawaii-based travel writer Kim Steutermann Rogers:
Ah, Jules, we mustn't overlook The Man's nonfiction. We're travel writers here, yes? (Well, a few of us, perhaps.) Travels with Charley inspires me.
In it, Steinbeck achieves something that another immortal, Paul Theroux, wrote that goes, "The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, make voluminous notes, and tell the truth.
There is immense drudgery in the job. But the book ought to live, and if it is truthful, it ought to be prescient without making predictions." For me, Travels with Charley is prescient.By the way, love the Moira story.[Kim wasn't the only one who loved the Moira story.]
And from Vermont newspaper editor and journalist, J.B. McKinley:
Hi, Jules – personally Grapes of Wrath is my favorite Steinbeck, followed not by another novel but by Travels with Charley, a book I have semi-consciously modeled parts of my life upon. Steinbeck was worried at that writing that Americans had lost their penchant for loudly voicing their true opinions. I agreed in the ‘60s and agree now. Political correctness of the media and the courts in speech and writing is the most insidious evil America faces. That said, Faulkner is my favorite writer.OK, I'm pretty sure I'm not up for Faulkner just now, but I've just ordered Travels with Charley from my local library.
And now, that rejection slip. It’s translated from a Chinese economic journal, and it goes like this:
'We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.'
Read well, write well, travel well, dear friends and colleagues.
more from Jules Older following his Steinbeck rave last week.
SUCH A SWEET response to the Steinbeck piece. Many of us seem to hold a special spot in our hearts, minds and typing fingers for the man and his writing. Here are three I'd like you to see.
From Larry Schofer, author and translator in Philadelphia:
Hi Jules,I wonder why you didn’t mention Of Mice and Men.
Although the members of my book club were not impressed when we read it not long ago, I still have vivid impressions of the relationships among the people. It’s more like a play than a novella, but I was very touched by it.I've read only the famous ones you mention, but they certainly leave an impression. Let me throw a related book into the pot: Wallace Stegner’s Big Rock Candy Mountain – for me it has a lot of parallels to Grapes of Wrath – the wandering, the inability to find a place in life, the inter-family tension. This was the first book to be enjoyed by all 4 members of my family (wife and 2 sons when they were teenagers).I have to admit that Stegner stands higher in my pantheon than does Steinbeck.
Thanks for the interesting and stimulating comments.
From Steve Foreman, novelist and screenwriter in the woods of upstate New York:
Jules, I'm with you on Steinbeck. Discovered Grapes of Wrath at 14. Am still haunted by it as I am with East of Eden. [and] I never tire of Of Mice and Men. It's got to have maybe the most agonizing ending in literature. And how about The Red Pony, a very puzzling book.I'm an anomaly to a certain generation of male writer: it's not Hemingway who ever really got to me. It was Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair.
And let's not forget about Jack London, even Bret Harte. Melville and all the rest of those lit heavyweights came much later for me.
And, finally, Moira McCarthy, ski writer and activist from Massachusetts, seems to share my Steinbeck gene:
True story: My very first REAL job interview. I'm 21 and interviewing to be editor of six tiny weeklies. The receptionist walks me through the production room/newsroom. Old nylons are everywhere (great for wiping wax off galleys). A few empty beer bottles rattle around my feet (apparently some kind of party the night before). I walk into a tiny disheveled office in the back and the publisher -- who looks like he hasn't brushed his thick white hair in days and may have been the one who scoffed down the beers I saw -- gestures to a rickety chair. I sit down.
He stares at me for a moment and then barks: "What 20th century writer has influenced you most?''I don't hesitate. "Steinbeck.""Yeah, well gimme a line. A line that mattered to you," he barks back."Why don't you go take a flying fuddug to the moon?" I reply.I was hired instantly. And while I left the company to move on a year or two later, that publisher is still a good friend.
HNY, writers. Let us prosper in tough times.
jules
Marie Arana Leaves The Washington Post's Book WorldLong serving (15 years) editor of the Washington Post Book World section, Marie Arana departed with a final post at Short Stack, the book section's blog. She is leaving the Post to pursue a full-time writing career.
Here is what Jane Ciabattari writing on the excellent Critical Mass blog had to say about Marie's move:
To begin this last roundup of the old year, I note with sadness that as of this week, Marie Arana will no longer be at the helm of the Washington Post Book World, where her insights, intuitions, and sheer good matchmaking put reviewers and books together with consistent wizardry.
As an assigning editor Marie challenged me with a Stephen King short story collection, which made me understand why Hollywood can’t afford to miss a single word that man writes, and sent me an Oscar Hijuelos novel, “A Simple Habana Melody” without knowing I had spent time in Havana.
She kept a remarkable section going, adjusting as needed to the requirement of expanding into an online presence, launching a Podcast and a blog.Her contributions to book criticism and book culture, including her years on the National Book Critics Circle board, have been remarkable. (See one of her Critical Mass posts here.)
Now I look forward to her continuing incarnation as an author of remarkable books (her new novel, “Lima Nights,“ sits on the stack I will attack after finishing the year-end stint of reading for the NBCC awards, and I gather she’s working on a book about Simon Bolivar and will also continue to write for the Post).
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL READERS OF BEATTIES BOOK BLOG
I hope you have a happy and relaxing holiday season and that 2009 proves to be a lot better than the doomsayers are suggesting.
To quote the editorial in Spectator Australia (www.spectator.co.uk/australia) (my current favourite magazine) when writing about the international financial woes:
....these problems remain fundamentally superficial. Happiness arises from good relations with family and friends; real despondence emerges only when these fray, not from transient material developments.
And Bookman Beattie says amen to that!
THE GUARDIAN'S BOOKS REVIEW OF THE YEAR IN 22 PHOTOS
This pic of Sebastian Faulks, author of the new James Bond book, Devil May Care, and Tuuli Shipster, the model on its cover, at a press launch for the book on board HMS Exeter, London is but one of a photographic essay of the year in books.
Do check it out at the Guardian online., it is well worth a look.
Publisher pulls children's book based on discredited Holocaust storyLast Updated: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 11:08 AM ET
CBC News
The publisher of a children's book inspired by a Holocaust survivor's now discredited love story is pulling the title from store shelves.
Lerner Publishing Group has announced it is recalling all copies of Angel Girl by Laurie Friedman from the market. The company has cancelled all future print runs of the title and will offer refunds on returned copies of the book.
Friedman's book, which was published by Lerner in the fall, was based on Herman Rosenblat's tale of meeting his future wife as a child while he was held at a concentration camp in Germany.
Over the past decade, the Miami man gained renown for his story: about how his wife lived on a farm nearby and helped sustain him with food passed through a fence.
Over the past decade, the Miami man gained renown for his story: about how his wife lived on a farm nearby and helped sustain him with food passed through a fence.
According to Rosenblat, they eventually met again as adults in the U.S. and married. The couple's story was carried widely by press and led to two appearances on Oprah Winfrey's popular talk show and speaking engagements at various literary and Holocaust-themed events.
On the weekend, Rosenblat said that while he had indeed been imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Second World War, he admitted fabricating the story about meeting his wife during that time.
Lerner president and publisher Adam Lerner and Angel Girl author Friedman expressed their disappointment at the fabrication in a statement issued Tuesday.
"While this tragic event in world history needs to be taught to children, it is imperative that it is done so in a factual way that doesn't sacrifice veracity for emotional impact," Lerner said.
"We have been misled by the Rosenblats, who gave us and our author what we believed to be an authentic and moving account of their lives."
Read the complete story at CBC Canada
Glory Days of Youth Culture, Revisited By MICHIKO KAKUTANI writing in the New York Times, December 29, 2008
Mikal Gilmore’s devastating 1994 memoir, “Shot in the Heart,” was part “Brothers Karamazov,” part Johnny Cash ballad, and it was a remarkable bookend to Norman Mailer’s “true life novel” “The Executioner’s Song.” In recounting the story of how his brother, Gary, in a senseless act of anger murdered two men and in 1977 became the first American in a decade to be executed after a Supreme Court decision restored the death penalty, the author created a wrenching portrait of their family and its sad, violent history of “dark secrets and failed hopes,” which became part of his brother’s “impetus to murder.”
Mr. Gilmore’s experiences left him with a keen sense of the dark undertow of the American dream and a sympathy for the lost, the dispossessed and the dislocated, and this outlook informs both “Night Beat,” his 1998 collection of essays about rock ’n’ roll, and his new book of writings about the 1960s, “Stories Done.”
STORIES DONE
Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents
By Mikal GfULL PIECE BY nytilmore
391 pages. Free Press. US$27.
Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents
By Mikal GfULL PIECE BY nytilmore
391 pages. Free Press. US$27.
Full piece at NYT
First Memoirsby Sheelah Kolhatkar writing in The New Yorker, January 5, 2009
Memoirs by First Ladies are often more hotly anticipated than those by their husbands. Once the Presidential wife is liberated from the White House and has access to a skilled ghostwriter, it is hoped, she will finally have her say. The results can be broken down by genre. There is the campaign-platform memoir—Hillary Clinton’s “Living History”; the score-settling version—Nancy Reagan’s “My Turn”; and the memoir of ambitious co-Presidency—Rosalynn Carter’s “First Lady from Plains.” And then there was Betty Ford, who blazed a (perhaps unfortunate) trail with “The Times of My Life”—the addiction memoir. The next installment in the First Lady canon is still to be written.
When Laura Bush stopped in at the Council on Foreign Relations for a chat the other day, the crowd contained, in addition to the usual banker