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Monday
July 31
- CHARACTERS
WITH OPINIONS: Louis de Berniere, author of the best selling
novel "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," says the main character
of his book is purely fictional. But An 89 year-old Italian veteran,
who wartime experiences seem to uncannily match those of the fictional
Captain Corelli, speaks out, saying the author was not only rewriting
history, but is a racist to boot. BBC
06/29/00
- ROMANCE
WRITERS UNITE: Last week over 2000 female writers, aspiring
writers, agents and publishers attended the 20th Annual Romance
Writers of America Conference. "These nice ladies are actually
serious pros - just looking at them, you can tell who makes the
really big money, and who writes the nasty sex scenes and who
doesn't. We're talking some of the best research and writing craft
on the shelves." Washington
Post 07/31/00
- YOU
EITHER LIKE MUSICAL THEATRE OR... James
Joyce's grandson wants to stop the staging of a musical adaptation
of Joyce's "Ulysses." "Stephen Joyce has threatened
legal action over the production of Molly Bloom, A Musical Dream,
which is due to be premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe."
BBC 07/31/00
Sunday July 30
- CHAPTERS
IN ARREARS: HarperCollins cuts off deliveries of books to
Chapters, Canada's largest bookstore chain, says National Post.
Chapters owes as much as $11- million in unpaid bills dating back
to 1999, and there are fears the superstore bookseller may be
in deep financial distress. National
Post (Canada) 07/29/00
- SO
MUCH FOR THE EVIL EMPIRE: "The bankruptcy of Chapters
would be a calamity that might set publishing back two decades.
One publisher told me this week that about four out of five
Canadian publishing houses will go under if Chapters goes
bankrupt."
National Post (Canada) 07/29/00
- JUST
IN TIME: Stanley Kunitz will be named America's new Poet Laureate.
What a birthday present - he turns 95 today. The nonagenarian
is the 10th laureate in an impressive succession. He follows in
the wake of Robert Penn Warren, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn,
Rita Dove and Robert Hass. Robert Pinsky has been poet laureate
for the last three years.
Washington Post 07/30/00
- TELLING
STORIES: Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Philip Rother, John Updike
- they're all old and they're all American. "But they have
two further features in common. First, they are all prophetic;
they map, analyse and judge the condition of their nation and
they consider its future. Second, they are, in this, completely
unlike any British writers. We simply do not have a single writer
of stature who feels obliged to tell our national story. Sunday
Times 07/30/00
Thursday July 27
- "IT
SUFFERED DEEP MEAT WOUNDS": Translating devices are making
their appearance, helping to bridge the communication gap between
languages. Or do they? A writer takes one of the devices for a
spin: "The bear nut/mother attacked and bit the attendant
into the legs, levers and the basin area."
Feed 07/27/00
Wednesday July 26
- DOES
A NEW LIBRARY REALLY NEED BOOKS? Marquette University is building
a new library. Only one problem - too many books to get in the
way. Originally the $70 million library was to be conventional
- just bigger. "But that began to seem old-fashioned. Now,
the proposal is to keep books in the old library, and in the new
one create a cyber cafe, complete with Internet hookups, a 'technology
warehouse,' and spaces for live video conferences and large, computer-driven
presentations. " Chicago
Tribune 07/26/00
Tuesday July 25
- 41,000
DOWNLOADS LATER, Stephen King has confirmed his faith in the
popularity of internet publishing. Fans flocked to his website
Monday as soon as the first installment of his new novel “The
Plant” was posted. An amazing 78% abided by the honor system and
actually paid the $1 download fee. Inside.com
07/24/00
- THE
HORROR: "King is one of about 25 fiction writers
capable of pulling off this sort of thing: He has a substantial,
loyal fan base; he has developed a solid relationship with
his readers through his Web site and various fan organs; and
he writes the kind of fiction that's really, really hard to
stop reading once you start." Salon
07/25/00
- NOT
QUITE THE MONSTER: " 'The Plant' is a story
recycled, in part, from a manuscript begun in the 1980s. Despite
a flurry of interest from the press, it hasn't received much
publicity. And at its current rate of sales, it remains to
be seen whether the book will prove very profitable for any
of the parties involved."
Variety 07/25/00
- THE
"POPE OF LITERATURE": "Marcel Reich-Ranicki
is not merely the most influential literary critic in Germany--the
country which created modern criticism - he is also an educator
and an impresario of literature; the man who has made housewives
read serious novels and poetry. By exploiting the postmodern media,
he has enabled millions of ordinary Germans to rediscover the
premodern pleasures of the literary imagination."
Prospect 07/25/00
- IDENTITY
ISSUES: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri (“Interpreter
of Maladies”) reflects on the elusive nature of identity politics
and the need of readers and critics alike to compartmentalize
authors. “Take, for instance, the various ways I am described:
as an American author, as an Indian-American author, as a British-born
author, as an Anglo-Indian author, as an NRI (non-resident Indian)
author, as an ABCD author (ABCD stands for American born confused
"desi"). According to Indian academics, I've written
something known as "Diaspora fiction"; in the U.S.,
it's "immigrant fiction." In a way, all of this amuses
me.” Feed
07/24/00
Monday July 24
- IS
STEPHEN KING LEADING A REVOLUTION
in book publishing, as he’d have us believe, or “just exploring
the power of celebrity in the digital age?" After the success
of his earlier e-tale, King releases his next e-novel - this time
available in installments over the net. "The launch has touched
off a debate over whether the Web can liberate authors from their
dependence on publishers, or just make it easier for truly famous
people to rally their fans.” New
York Times 07/24/00
(one-time registration required for
entry)
Sunday July 23
- RETHINKING
VANITY PRESS: "While in the past, self-publishing meant
paying for costly print runs and then praying the books would
sell, new digital technology enables books to be printed on demand
quickly and inexpensively. Barnes & Noble is already using
print-on-demand machines in their regional centres, and in July
Simon & Schuster enlisted the Lightning Source unit of Ingram
Industries to fulfill its print-on-demand orders." National
Post (Canada) 07/22/00
Thursday July 20
- ORIGINAL
CHAUCER ANYONE? In the 1560s Archbishop Thomas traveled England
looking for the oldest books and manuscripts he could find to
try to prove that the Church of England was the true church. That
collection sat in a library in Cambridge, available only to scholars
all these years. The school recently had the 500 manuscripts appraised
and discovered they were worth about £500 million, forcing the
school to try to build a proper home for the collection and open
it to the public for the first time.
Financial Times 07/20/00
- KING
OF THE WEB, PART II: Stephen King plans to publish his next
novel online in installments, beginning Monday. Readers would
pay through the honor system - "to send King a check or money
order for $1 per installment in a direct transaction that King
describes as a way to thumb your nose at the publishing industry."
Seattle Times (AP) 07/20/00
Wednesday July 19
- IT
WAS THE WORST OF TIMES: "American poetry has never passed
through such a scattered era. This diffusion may be a result of
the deaths in the last few decades of so many of its ablest practitioners
and guides (Eliot, Frost, Roethke, Bishop, Berryman—and these
but begin the unhappy list), or perhaps it is tied to the larger
directionlessness that seems presently to haunt so many of the
arts."
New Criterion
Summer '00
- THE
BIRTH OF A PHENOM: How could Amazon afford to give away the
costly overnight shipping of "Harry Potter" books? "Harry's
initial success is key to Amazon's initial success, which is key
to the rise in the Internet-stock market, which is key to Amazon's
ability to spend on promotion more than it makes on sales, which
is how it can FedEx 250,000 Harrys for free. This helps to create
the biggest publishing event of all time, which actually does
not even primarily benefit Amazon (which will sell fewer than
10 percent of Harrys sold) but in fact benefits most of all its
primary competitor, Barnes & Noble, which will sell far and
away the lion's share of Harry."
New York Magazine 07/17/00
- HARRY
LOVES A PARTY: While Barnes & Noble and Amazon sold
about a million copies between them on the opening weekend
of "Harry," independent bookstores used the occasion
to throw elaborate parties, many of them beginning with the
midnight release of the book.
Publishers Weekly 07/18/00
Tuesday July 18
- WRITERS
FESTIVAL CANCELED: Next year's Perth Writers' Festival has
been canceled after the festival's artistic director quits in
a dispute with the organization's management. Sydney
Morning Herald 07/18/00
Monday July 17
- MISTAKEN
IDENTITY: A famous photo, thought to be of Oscar Wilde in
drag, turns out to be a Hungarian opera singer instead. The
Age (The Telegraph) 07/17/00
- WHAT'S
SO GREAT ABOUT GREAT BOOKS? "Many of the Great Books
contain allegories for the journey of the soul from one's particular
time, place and attachments to a transcendental perspective, where
the mysteries of human existence, love, faith and longing are
illuminated. After this journey to the heights of insight, we
return to our own time and place better able to appreciate both
its shortcomings and its virtues." National
Post (Canada) 07/17/00
- POETRY
IN THE FAST LANE: In 1992 the annual Poetry Publication Showcase
was begun. "In 1992 the mood was feisty but beleaguered:
'We few, we happy few, we band of poets' went the boast. Now there's
a sense that poetry's making it, moving rapidly to the center(s)
of our cultural life. Poets House executive director Lee Briccetti,
who dreamed up the Showcase as a way to bring attention to a severely
marginalized literary form, hopes the poetry world is poised to
take advantage of what she terms 'a moment of cultural readiness.'
" The
Nation 07/17/00
Sunday July 16
- IN
RAY CARVER'S MEMORY: "The role of the famous writer's
widow is an awkward one. She is the custodian of the work. She
is responsible for the placement of archives, the decision about
what remaining material should or should not be released to the
world; the keeper of the flame. Tess Gallagher says it was never
her intention to become simply 'a function of Ray's absence'.
As much as she was Carver's spouse, she is also a writer herself."
The Telegraph
(London) 07/16/00
Friday July 14
- HOW
CAN YOU IMAGINE I WROTE THAT? A story in an Italian magazine
purporting to be by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García
Márquez on how he is dying of cancer, moved a publisher to contact
Marquez's agent to get reprint rights. The note back was incisive:
"García Márquez is ashamed that this rubbish might be considered
as a text written by him. It has gone around the world and I have
no means of righting this usurpation of his name. It seems to
proceed from a Colombian actor whom I hope I will never run into
or I will insult him as he deserves." Sydney
Morning Herald 07/14/00
Thursday July 13
- SOMETIMES
IT JUST TAKES PERSISTENCE: She wrote 13 books over the course
of 50 years, only to have every one of them rejected by publishers.
Then No. 14 hit and now she's a star.
Sydney Morning Herald 07/13/00
- BAD
REVIEWS CAN RUIN YOU: "It has long been known that writers
suffer from a much higher incidence of mood disorders, including
depression and mania, than other people. The precise medical reason
for this has never been adequately explained. But [an anthropologist]
believes it is because writing is less a true expression of the
artist's life (except in the case of the daily diarist) than it
is a form of compensation and redress for denied satisfactions."
National
Post (Canada) 07/13/00
- SPOILING
STORIES WITH IMAGES: The New Yorker has begun publishing photos
of its fiction writers. Sure we're an increasingly visual culture,
and promoting the writer is all part of the package. "But
there is something different about fiction, which depends for
its power on our willingness to believe that it is as much about
the reader's life as it is the writer's. Linking too readily the
author's image with the work seems to make the story more disposable.
It's just another product, just another package deal."
Chicago Tribune 07/13/00
Wednesday July 12
- THE
MIGHTY HARRY: Bookstores report they have been packed continuously
since last weekend's release of the new Harry Potter book. Barnes
& Noble said it had its biggest weekend in history, selling
502,000 Potters as of the close of business on Sunday night. The
publisher plans to print about two million more copies in the
next few months, adding to the 3.8 million copies generated during
the first U.S. print run. Philadelphia
Inquirer 07/12/00
Tuesday July 11
- TAILOR-MADE
READING: Consolidation of the book industry is reshaping the
face of publishing. But just as significant is the rise of print-on-demand
publishing. "Print-on-demand technology allows books
to be produced quickly and in small quantities. It eliminates
huge print runs, which require large sales to break even. It relieves
publishing companies of the need to warehouse inventories and
process bookstore returns."
Chicago
Tribune 07/11/00
- BEST
READ: What are America's top public libraries? Here's a list.
Book 07/00
Monday July 10
- THE
JOYCE INDUSTRY: More exciting than a dotcom (and more profitable
too), the cult around perpetuating James Joyce is a big and fascinating
business.
New
Statesman 07/10/00
- AN
EXPENSIVE NAME: Comic book writer is told to pay a hockey
player $24 million after the writer uses the name of the hockey
player as a character in a comic book. The court judgment sends
a chill though all those who need to name the characters in their
books (or comics or songs). Inside.com
07/10/00
- WHEN
SAID MET SARTRE: Edward Said met Jean Paul Sartre in 1979:
"For my generation he [Sartre] has always been one of the
great intellectual heroes of the 20th century, a man whose insight
and intellectual gifts were at the service of nearly every progressive
cause of our time. Yet he seemed neither infallible nor prophetic.
On the contrary, one admired Sartre for the efforts he made to
understand situations and, when necessary, to offer solidarity
to political causes. He was never condescending or evasive, even
if he was given to error and overstatement. Nearly everything
he wrote is interesting for its sheer audacity, its freedom (even
its freedom to be verbose) and its generosity of spirit."
London Review of Books 06/00
Friday July 7
- A
DOORSTOP OF A BOOK: Jacques Barzun's new 900-page history
of the last 500 years looks formidable on the bookshelf. But it's
a kind of history seldom seen: a "technicolor, wide-screen,
multi-media epic in print of what you missed while suffering through
Western Civ. 101. Here is an intellectual Dr. Seuss: 'Oh, the
Places You'll See! The People You'll Meet!'
The Idler 07/07/00
- THE
NEXT BIG THING:
“Why should anyone be surprised to learn that a Western nation
of 18-odd million people has among it some novelists, poets and
playwrights whose work is wondrous and breathtaking and reaches
into all the dark corners where only art can go?” Commemorating
Australia’s 100th anniversary of nationhood, London
hosts a weekend-long Australian writing festival with many of
the country’s literary lights in attendance. The
Telegraph (London) 07/07/00
- A
NEW “NEW TESTAMENT”:
The first version of the Bible to be reproduced in English
- a 1526 “New Testament” translated from the Greek - has been
fully reprinted for the very first time by the British Library.
Times
of India (AP) 07/07/00
Thursday July 6
- THE
411 OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE: That E. Ethelbert Miller
is a major mover in the African American literary world is undeniable.
That he is considered by many to be an outstanding poet is indisputable.
"I can't think of an African American writer whose life I
haven't affected." So why is Howard University - his alma
mater - going out of its way to ignore him?
Washington
Post 07/06/00
Wednesday July 5
- STREET-SIDE
BOOKS: Contrary to popular opinion, those street-side booksellers
set up on card tables in Manhattan aren't vagrants or low-lifes.
"While many street booksellers resemble refugees from the
Beat era, they're generally savvy and erudite - and they know
their books. They have to, in order to survive" A new movie
puts them in the spotlight.
Publishers Weekly 07/03/00
- NO
MORE OVERDUE FINES: San Francisco's Public Library is beginning
to allow readers to browse, search, borrow, read and return 1,500
electronic books from the library's collection. The process of
doing so is still arduous, but if the practice catches on, doesn't
that mean the end of the publishing industry?
Salon 07/05/00
- YOUR
LIFE FOR $4,000: A new website allows visitors to commission
biographies of themselves from well-known writers. It is expensive,
however.
CBC 07/05/00
Monday July 3
- WILD
ABOUT HARRY: The Harry Potter books have sold 21 million copies.
But the hoopla over the latest book - even before it has been
released, is formidable. "At least 9,000 Federal Express
trucks will be deployed around the nation on that morning by the
Internet retail giant Amazon.com to help deliver 250,000 presold
copies of the fantasy novel."
New York
Times 07/03/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
- INDIA'S
NEW GENERATION OF WRITERS: "Although their voices are
being heard much more loudly in the West than in India, they are
ushering in a new era for Indian literature in English. They are
often called Midnight's Grandchildren in homage to another seminal
Indian novel, Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children,"
the dark parable of Indian history since independence that won
the Booker Prize in 1981 and in 1993 won a special Booker Prize
as the best British novel of the previous quarter century. Now
the new generation of writers have in many ways broken away from
the magic realism that characterizes much of Mr. Rushdie's work.
New York
Times 07/03/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
- BETTER
HISTORY THROUGH THE INTERNET:
Academic publishing is in
dismal shape. Squeezed by the rising cost of science journals,
libraries have been buying fewer academic monographs. In the early
1990s, in response to dwindling library demand, the number of
new titles began to decline. So Princeton professor Robert Darnton
has decided to do something about it. He has become a true believer
in the Internet's potential to transform academic publishing -
by helping university presses publish more monographs and maybe
even by enabling scholars to produce better history.
Lingua
Franca 07/00
- WRITING
EMPLOYMENT DOWN:
Reversing five years of growth,
employment for writers on TV and movie projects dropped last year.
Total employment of writers was down 2.7 percent to 4,419.
Inside.com
06/29/00
- RECONSIDERING
WRITING OF THE SOUTH: "The field of southern literary
studies has been dominated by a huge Faulkner industry that both
overshadows and tames the terms we use for reading southern women's
fiction. If we are to see this fiction in all of its power, we
need to change the categories we use to think about southern literature."
Chronicle
of Higher Education 07/03/00
Sunday July 2
- PRIZE
TO NOWHERE:
It used to be that winning
a major literary award was a ticket to great sales. But a look
at recent book sales charts suggests that winning a big prize
no longer has much impact on getting a book sold. The
Independent 07/01/00
- HANGING
WITH THE WRITERS: A small unpretentious used book store in
downtown New York has become a hangout for writers. The bookstore
relies entirely on random donations, which come variously from
people who are moving or deceased, book reviewers, literary agencies,
publishers, and collectors. In selecting which books to display,
the staff caters to the tastes of regulars—people who live or
work in the neighborhood, book dealers, and collectors.
Village Voice
07/02/00
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