« January 2007 | Main | March 2007 »
-Journalist Bob Woodruff and wife co-write memoir (via NPR, with excerpt)
-Lyons Press will publish ReganBooks's aborted Mickey Mantle novel (via USA Today)
-NPR interviews Oil on the Brain author Lisa Margonelli (via NPR)
-Freakonomics author never ceases to surprise readers (via Freakonomics blog)
-Three Rivers Press (Random House) inks deal for biography of troubled indie rock artist Cat Power (via Publishers Marketplace)
-Hollywood glamorizes Jane Austen in the upcoming film Becoming Jane (via Bookninja)
-Columbia University's writing seminar spawns book deals (via NPR)
-Salon advises a novelist who fears getting published (Salon via Mediabistro)
-For bestselling self help book The Secret, the secret is packaging (via MSN.com)
-Random House launches Browse & Search functionality on their website. Take that, HarperCollins! (via if:book)
-French literature professor: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read? (via The New York Times)
-Oprah will bring Mitch Albom's For One More Day to the small screen (via ReadersRead.com)
-Remembering author Philip K. Dick on the silver anniversary of his death (The Times via Bookninja)
I borrowed this idea from our sibling blog, Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC). Read the answers to your burning Zooba blog questions here.
Q: I found this blog through a search engine...What's Zooba?
A: We're a book of the month club that gives you the best books for less. You select one book a month from our great selection and pay only $9.95 each. No shipping and handling costs, by the way...Kind of like our friend Netflix, except that you get to keep the books! Learn more about us here.
Q: What's the purpose of the Zooba blog?
A: We bring you publishing news and suggest the best books whether they're high profile or below the radar. The books we recommend are almost always available from Zooba. If not, please support your local independent bookstore by buying your book there.
Q: Who writes the Zooba blog?
A: Right now it's just me. But stay tuned! You never know who will grace us with their online presence.
Q: How can I submit news items to the Zooba blog?
A: E-mail us at zbookblogger at gmail dot com. Except for you, Nigerians in need of loans. You owe me.
Q: Is the Zooba blog available as a feed?
A: Why, yes!
Q: Can I comment on Zooba blog posts?
A: Yes. Just so you know, we approve your comments before posting them to the site in order to prevent spam.
-Philip Roth wins PEN/Faulkner award for Everyman (via San Francisco Chronicle)
-Stewart and Colbert drive book sales (via New York Times)
-HarperCollins launches book widget (via GalleyCat)
The New York Times points out that both Freakonomics and the Dalai Lama's Art of Happiness are "among the books to stay for the longest period of time on the New York Times bestseller list without ever making it to number 1." (via Freakonomics blog)
...Making Freakonomics the Kate Winslet of the bestseller list.
What, too soon?
I heart YouTube, I really do. It's not as if I have anything better to do than watch people lip synch or view footage of someone's cat. Sleeping.
Right. Well, as with movies or any other media, occasionally I want to watch something not just because I can. I want to watch something meaningful. Something I can relate to. Something earnest. Art. Poetry. Something. Anything.
Check out this reading by Poet Laureate and The Trouble With Poetry author Billy Collins set to beautiful animation. It's better than a video of your pet. Lip synching. To The Beatles.
Lest we forget infamous publisher Judith Regan and the cancelled O.J. Simpson book, NBC airs a new episode of Law & Order tonight about a "high profile publisher"...found murdered.
Scoff if you will, but have you ever inspired a crime drama episode? Or even, say, a chick lit tell-all?
This year's Oscars are two gay cowboys shy of being awesome. Nonetheless, don't miss the books that inspired last year's best films.
-James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia
-Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
-Lauren Weisberger, The Devil Wears Prada
-Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness
-Presidential hopefuls promote themselves through their books (via The New York Times)
-Roy Kesey's story will appear in Best American Short Stories 2007 (via GalleyCat)
-With wiki-novels and web writing anthologies, internet lit moves forward (via Literary Kicks)
-Choose Your Own Adventure format makes a comeback (via PrettyLittleMistakes.com and Publishers Marketplace)
This link is all over the lit blogs, but I thought I'd share a little story first...
Back when Bookblogger was an intern at a hip little magazine, an editor announced to us that George Plimpton, editor-in-chief of The Paris Review, had died. Cool kids that we were, we couldn't quite hear the editor in our open loft office space over the sound of our iTunes blasting. One editorial assistant said, "George Clinton died? Man, that's too bad."
Another editorial assistant straggled in from lunch, a greasy paper bag in hand. "Did you guys hear? George Plimpton died!"
"George Plimpton died? Oh..." the first assistant said. "Hey, what a coincidence...George Clinton died!"
And here, my friends, is The Plimpton Project, an organization collecting funds toward creating a statue of Plimpton for Central Park. Enjoy.
The Onion's AV club talks pop music with Adverbs author Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket. The undercover "accomplished accordionist" has great taste! Check out this Last.fm station based on one of his new fave artists, indie rock crooner José González.
I posted an article a couple of weeks ago about how audiobooks are gaining popularity among students. But what about cubicle dwellers on the go?
I've actually rocked some audiobooks on my iPod. And, multitasker that I am, they tend to be nonfiction titles on business, marketing, and new media. Here are my top picks, available from our friends at Audible.com.
-Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick
-Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics
-Chris Anderson, The Long Tail
-Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
After a year of unbearable sexual tension, Harlequin and Nascar have finally hooked up.
Good for you, NasQuin! Now women all over America can fill their insatiable needs for both steamy reading and racing puns!
(via The New York Times)
Who knew? Those who write book blurbs don't even read the books they're blurbing!
Say it ain't so, Penguin Books UK!
Comedian and author Al Franken announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate on YouTube earlier this week.
When asked to comment on the announcement, Stephen Colbert said, "I think it's great, but I don't get the joke."
I know I've been on a big "international books" tip lately...Maybe it's because American culture is all Anna Nicole Smith right now. Ahem. Anyway, Bookninja points out a surge in Indian literature. Plus, Arundhati Roy is back and better than ever! Here are some great reads from the seventh-largest country in the world (thanks, Wikipedia!):
-Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
-Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us
-Vikram Seth, Two Lives
-Monica Ali, Alentejo Blue
This week's New York magazine profiles Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Infidel. In case you're unfamiliar:
"She escaped to Holland from a forced marriage, eventually joined the Dutch Parliament as a Muslim criticizing her own culture, and made a provocative film with Theo van Gogh that got him killed and sent her into hiding."
Very Short List describes the book as Salman Rushdie meets Gloria Steinem meets Iman.
A recommended memoir.
-Anna Nicole Smith biography emerges from the backlist (via New York Times and Shelf Awareness)
-Judith Regan inspires upcoming Law & Order episode (via Slush Pile)
-George Tenet works on his overdue memoir (via Galleycat)
-Manchester University chooses Martin Amis as new creative writing professor (via Literary Saloon)
Check out The Love Calculator! A naysayer, are you? Plug in literary figures for frighteningly accurate results!
And get Pride and Prejudice from Zooba.
-Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy returns to fiction (via Galleycat)
-Salman Rushdie set to teach at Emory University (via The Literary Saloon)
-Heart-Shaped Box author is Steven King's son (via USA Today)
-Novelist Elif Shafak endangered by her book (via Galleycat)
-Asian chick lit offerings multiply (via SFGate.com)
Check out a video book report on Michael Crichton's Prey created by, oh, say, a high school student. Then check out the professional video for Next created by a marketing team.
It seems the student has become the teacher.
Get the book State of Fear from Zooba.
According to this week's New York magazine, Valentine's Day is when sneaky men buy gifts for their wives...and their girlfriends. And, according to Junot Diaz, infidelity sells! Happy Heart Day, everyone!
-Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores
-Karrine Steffans, Confessions of a Video Vixen
-T.C. Boyle, The Inner Circle
Thanks to http://junkmail.chattablogs.com/ for this graphic.
BOSTON: Norman Mailer will read from The Castle in the Forest on Thurs 2/15. Via Bostonist:
"What hasn't Mailer done? He boxed, he co-founded the Village Voice, he stabbed one of his wives with a penknife, and he is the president and founding member of the I-Hate-Michiko-Kakutani Club...Even odder, he made an appearance on Gilmore Girls."
Go for the Pulitzer Prize-winning writing, stay for the WB-worthy acting!
Read a feature on Mailer from last month's Esquire.
Hey, remember back when magazines used to feature serial fiction once a week?
Me neither!
Anyway, check out the new site Five Chapters for your daily dose of serialized fiction. While you're at it, check out free fiction from my comrades at the literary mags KGB Bar Lit and Pindeldyboz.
And if you have any lit mag suggestions for me, drop me a line.
Check out these words of wisdom on writing from New Yorker-published author Junot Díaz (via Penn State's Daily Collegian):
"I never understood why you would drop Moby Dick on somebody. That's like a pro football player being like, 'Lemme tackle you.'"
"It is always where you fail that you will find your most interesting material."
"People will read a story if there is infidelity in it."
"I write the kinds of stories that boys tell when they are talking to only boys."
(Thanks to Maud Newton for this tip.)
In real-life mystery news, someone swiped The Maltese Falcon as well as "several vintage and signed books by and about Maltese Falcon author Dashiell Hammett" from a San Francisco eatery this past weekend. If you're in the mood for even more intrigue, check out these true crime reads.
-Sebastian Junger, A Death in Belmont
-Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
-Edward Dolnick, The Rescue Artist
Happy birthday to you, Mr. Lincoln, the Dems' favorite Republican! For history buffs, might I suggest Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Manhunt by Lincolnologist James Swanson. And, here, a Lincoln comic by Conan O'Brien from back in his Harvard Lampoon days...
The Commonwealth Foundation announced its shortlist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. This award recognizes outstanding voices in fiction from around the world. Take a look at the list and get the books here...
-Emma Darwin, The Mathematics of Love
-Claire Messud, The Emperor's Children
-Alice Munro, The View From Castle Rock
-Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
-David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
-J.M. Ledgard, Giraffe
Thanks to The Literary Saloon for pointing this out.
Some people say that those who can't, teach. Well, sometimes writing professors move back to New York, write a novel, get a book deal with Riverhead (Penguin), and have their work compared to Memoirs of a Geisha. Take that!
My former creative writing instructor at UC Berkeley, Ellis Avery, has written an elegant novel called The Treehouse Fire. Check it out, and read an interview with her courtesy of KGB Bar Lit.
Starbucks has tapped Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier as this month's book club pick. Get it here from Zooba, watch this moving clip of him via YouTube, and read why Time magazine thinks the author is a rock star.
-Why wonder about Anna Nicole Smith's death when you can read about the demise of Kurt Cobain in Take a Walk on the Dark Side?
-Speaking of Kurt, thriller author Joe Hill titled his new book Heart-Shaped Box...Who knew grunge would have more literary gravitas than disco?
-How lucky is 24-year-old Beasts of No Nation author Uzodinma Iweala, who recently inked a two-book deal with HarperCollins? (via Juneau Empire)
-Sorry, Da Vinci Code fans, but is the Facebook group "Dan Brown is a literary genius" for real?
Check out this YouTube short of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett playing golf. Thanks, Bookninja!
And to answer your question: Yes, I was an English major.
This Sunday, HarperCollins and BlogHer team up to launch their Virtual Book Tour, "a three-month opportunity for you to chat intimately with nine prominent authors, get exclusive looks at their books and podcast interviews, and get free books!" Authors on (virtual) tour include Ms. No Good Deeds herself, Laura Lippman.
It's so refreshing to mention HarperCollins without Judith Regan appearing in the same sentence, no?
-Astro-nut lands book deal (via Galleycat)
-Judge prohibits O.J. from spending If I Did It advance (via Yahoo! News)
-National Book Critics Circle clash over racial themes of While Europe Slept (via The New York Times)
-Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking will hit Broadway (via NPR)
Check out this book trailer for Lisa Gardner's new book Hide.
Oh, book trailers! They're just like reading but without those...How you say...Ah yes--words.
-Iraq's National Library and Archive director blogs about Baghdad (via The New York Times)
-More Mom and Pop bookstores close their doors (via The L.A. Times)
-Audiobooks gain popularity among students (via U.S.A. Today)
Jeffrey Blitz, of Spellbound fame, will shoot a documentary following lotto winners set to release in 2008.
Daniel Gilbert discusses the perils of hitting the jackpot and other unexpected misfortunes in his book Stumbling on Happiness. It's a great read for the Malcolm Gladwell set. Check it out!
First Chicago banned foie gras. Now San Mateo County outlaws smoking outdoors, and New York City may ixnay listening to your iPod while crossing the street.
If you need me, I'll be smoking in my apartment and reading Everything Bad is Good For You and Muzzled.
According to publishing insiders, Sharon Stone is shopping around a memoir.
Wow. I can't think of anyone less qualified to write (admit it, ghostwrite) an autobiography.