“Almost anyone can be an author; the challenge is to collect money and fame from this state of being.”
~ A.A. Milne, b. 18 January 1882
Archive | Literary marketplace RSS feed for this section
Aldous Huxley: “Fiction makes too much sense.”
17 Jan
“The trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense, whereas reality never makes sense.”
~ ALDOUS HUXLEY
BookTalk Nation
9 Jan
Booktalk Nation returns from its holiday hiatus with a full slate of nationwide dial-in events. This week, former CNN anchor Kitty Pilgrim discusses her latest thriller and Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher talk about collaborating on their acclaimed YA novel, The Future of Us. Next week, Lois Lowry will discuss the concluding book in her Newbery winning series that began with The Giver, and Emma Straub will talk about her widely praised debut novel about Hollywood’s golden age.
Later this month, Pulitzer Prize winners Richard Russo and Robert K. Massie will be discussing their latest books, and PEN/Robert Bingham Prize winner Vanessa Veselka will talk about her debut novel, Zazen.
Here’s this month’s Booktalk Nation events (all start 7:00 Eastern/4:00 Pacific):
Wed, Jan 9: Kitty Pilgrim talks with journalist Peter Tedeschi about The Stolen Chalice.
Thurs, Jan 10: Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher discuss their collaboration on The Future of Us with Karen Holt.
Mon, Jan 14: Author Lauren Groff interviews Emma Straub about her debut novel, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures.
Tues, Jan 15: Newbery Medal winner Lois Lowry talks about her latest novel, Son, with fellow children’s author Tanya Lee Stone.
Tues, Jan 22: PEN/Robert Bingham Prize winner Vanessa Veselka discusses her novel, Zazen, with Pauls Toutonghi.
Thurs, Jan 24: Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Russo discusses his most personal book, Elsewhere: A Memoir, with author Nick Taylor.
Tues, Jan 29: Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie talks about his latest biography, Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman with biographer David Michaelis.
—————————————
About Booktalk Nation
Booktalk Nation’s nationwide phone-in events are intended to supplement book tours and other efforts promoting new books. Booktalknation.com provides an e-commerce platform in conjunction with its events, allowing readers to order books that authors will personally sign at host bookstores. Proceeds from these sales are divided between the host store and any affiliate brick-and-mortar bookstores that bring book buyers to the site. For the next few months, Booktalk Nation will be hosting up to three events per week. The number of events are expected to increase as more bookstores sign on as hosts.
.
Booknote: The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene
5 Jan
Over the years, I’ve read all of Graham Greene’s books. His writing is impeccable, and his characters are often trapped in some backwater of life, whether literal or figurative, in which faith struggles against despair.
This novel centers on a “whisky priest”, hunted and hounded by Marxist “Red Shirts” in the service of an anti-clerical Mexican government that in certain states has driven the Catholic Church into hiding. This sounds like SF, but actually happened in the mid-1930s.
As do many Greene characters, the nameless priest carries a heavy load of guilt. In his case, it’s the illegitimate child he fathered during the years when priests were de-celibatized and made to act like real men. Now he’s escaped into the jungle, running from the Red Shirts and administering baptisms, confessions and last rites to faithful peasants.
It’s a bit of an allegory, with the priest as Christ, a peasant Judas and a Marxist lieutenant as Pilate. The novel moves as slowly as an anaconda on a heavily humid day, but the language is deft and the story is as old and rich as the Bible.
~ Alan, Toronto, 5 Jan 2013
Something Wanton This Way Comes
20 Oct
Ever since the runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey, reading glasses the world over have been fogging up with heavy breathing. Publishers, having taken the pulse of this phenomenon and found it throbbing, are now trolling through their backlists, looking for something salacious to satisfy the public’s new appetite for literary erotica.
Lacking fresh product to satisfy growing demand, book marketers are now desperate to put new lipstick on old tarts. A major search portal and a men’s magazine are rumored to have joined forces, and are buying up the rights to hundreds of literary classics. After tweaking the titles, a small army of hacks will then refurbish the story lines with just enough romance and raunchy sex to make readers come back for more.
Expect to see some of these titillating titles appearing as stocking-stuffers for mommies everywhere this Xmas:
- A Massage in India ~ E.M. Forster
- A Whore’s House ~ Heinrik Ibsen
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlust ~ Lewis Carroll
- All the King’s Women ~ Robert Penn Warren
- As I Lay Coming ~ William Faulkner
- Briefing for a Descent into Her ~ Doris Lessing
- Chiquita ~ Vladimir Nabokov
- Dr Jekyll and Mrs Hyde ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
- Fagtime ~ E.L. Doctorow
- Girl Farm ~ George Orwell
- Hot Little Women ~ Louisa May Alcott
- I, Priapus ~ Robert Graves
- In Search of Lust Time ~ Marcel Proust
- King Leer ~ William Shakespeare
- Lady Oral ~ Margaret Atwood
- Midnight’s Chicken ~ Salman Rushdie
- Native Bastard ~ Richard Wright
- Necromancer ~ William Gibson
- Never Let Me Come ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
- Obsession ~ A.S. Byatt
- On the Broad ~ Jack Kerouac
- Play Her As She Lays ~ Joan Didion
- Sluthouse Five ~ Kurt Vonnegut
- Something Wanton This Way Comes ~ Ray Bradbury
- Son and Lover ~ D.H. Lawrence
- The Executioner’s Thong ~ Norman Mailer
- The French Lieutenant’s Boy ~ John Fowles
- The Lord Of The Cock Rings ~ J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Penis is A Lonely Hunter ~ Carson McCullers
- The Portrait of a Ladyboy ~ Henry James
- The Pot-Weed Factor ~ John Barth
- The Sex Adventures of Augie March ~ Saul Bellow
- The Sex Tourist’s Guide to the Galaxy ~ Douglas Adams
- The Way of All Flesh ~ Samuel Butler
- The Way We Love Now ~ Anthony Trollope
- Uranus is a Harsh Mistress ~ Robert Heinlein
Follow Alan on :
Sextile 