Top prize

Sarah Weinman at GalleyCat has an illuminating round-up of recent stories about the backstage machinations at book awards -- including the CIA's involvement in getting the Nobel Prize to Boris Pasternak for Doctor Zhivago (we wanted to embarrass the Soviets, who'd banned the book). But perhaps the most interesting item is the way the rules for the Man Booker regularly skew what gets submitted and therefore chosen.

January 18, 2007 10:02 AM | Permalink

Categories:

THE REVIEWS:

Pat Barker, Frankenstein, Cass Sunstein on the internet, Samuel Johnson, Thrillers, Denis Johnson, Alan Furst, Caryl Phillips, Richard Flanagan, George Saunders, Michael Harvey, Larry McMurtry, Harry Potter and more ...

ESSAY:

Big D between the sheets -- Dallas in fiction

ESSAY:

Reviewing the state of reviewing

ESSAY:

9/11 as a novel: Why?

ESSAY:

How can critics say the things they do? And why does anyone pay attention? It's the issue of authority.

The disappearing book pages:

Papers are cutting book coverage for little reason

Thrillers and Lists:

Noir favorites, who makes the cut and why