Zooba's got the newest from Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The New York Times calls The Yiddish Policemen's Union "a gripping murder mystery and one of the most appealing detective heroes to come along since Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe." (Whoa!)
Zooba's got the latest from bestselling author Elmore Leonard, Up In Honey's Room. This is a much better book name than his working title, Hitler's Birthday. (via ElmoreLeonard.com)
Check out a review, and get it now from Zooba.
USA Today has a brief interview with Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner. His newest is A Thousand Splendid Suns. Get it now from Zooba!-The London Book Fair begins! (via London Book Fair)
-Ray Carver's short story hits the big screen on April 27 (via New York Times)
-The New York Times Book review explores international lit (NYT Book Review via LitKicks)
-Big Brother watches George Orwell's flat (via Slush Pile)
Sadly, one of our favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, died last night. (via Shelf Awareness)
Read more via The New York Times. Better yet, read Slaughterhouse-Five for a taste of his sheer brilliance.
-Hey, our parent company, Bookspan, is in the news! All publicity is good publicity, right? (via The Wall Street Journal)
-Write your own bite-size fiction threads at Ficlets (via The Olive Reader)
-Guerilla artists' book installation brightens our commute (via New York magazine)
-A moment of clarity in the midst of our rereading addiction (via Moonlight Ambulette)
-The Washington Post reviews Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes. Check out the excerpt, too. (via Washington Post)
-Publishers revamp Jane Austen (via New York Times)
-Farrar, Straus & Giroux Publishers launches a poetry blog for National Poetry Month (The Best Words in the Best Order via Bookdwarf)
-It's never too early to celebrate July, part II. Here's part I. (Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You via Moonlight Ambulette)
-How did Gabriel García Márquez get that shiner? (via New York Times)
-The first rule of promoting Chuck Palahniuk's new book is: You do not talk about Chuck Palahniuk's new book! (ChuckPalahniuk.net via Bookninja)
-PopMatters reviews Sheridan Hay's upcoming The Secret of Lost Things (via PopMatters)
-Mitch Albom's secret? Keyboard shortcuts. (via Yankee Pot Roast)
*Update: Is The Namesake based on a man author Jhumpa Lahiri briefly dated? Probably! (via New York Magazine)
-Dan Brown: not a plagiarist, but still a possible murderer...of fiction! (via BBC News)
-TC Boyle's story "Balto" will appear in the upcoming Best American Short Stories 2007 (via The Paris Review)
-GalleyCat has your first glimpse of the upcoming Harry Potter cover (via GalleyCat)
-Read a review of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (via PopMatters)
-NYC: Check out Jonathan Lethem, George Saunders, and The Night Time at Housing Works Used Book Cafe this Friday 3/30 (via New York magazine)
-Wish I Could Be There is a "vividly written combination of memoir and scientific inquiry." (via The New Yorker)
-T. Jefferson Parker's noir thriller Storm Runners is "a great read." (via Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
-Mississippi Sissy: Growing up gay in the South in the '60s (via Washington Post)
A literary Sliding Doors of sorts, NPR says the novel is "'the next step after chick lit.' As a married woman is tempted to cheat on her husband, the story divides into two 'what if' tracks."
Available now from Zooba!
-Madonna's nanny gets book deal, loses book deal (via The Book Standard)
-Announced first print run for upcoming Harry Potter? 12 million--a new record (via Publishers Weekly)
-Ex-CIA Director George Tenet's autobiography At the Center of the Storm drops April 30 (via Publishers Weekly)
-Up for grabs: film rights to Jonathan Lethem's newest book, You Don't Love Me Yet (JonathanLethem.com via NPR)
-UK announces "Blooker" prize shortlist for the best books based on blogs. PostSecret, anyone? (via Librarian's Place)
Who knew thriller author Dean Koontz was such an early adopter?
Today, he visits Second Life "as the virtual stop on the promotion trail for his latest book, The Good Guy. (via 93 Colors)
-PEN appoints author Francine Prose as president (via Boston Herald)
-A Long Way Down author Nick Hornby writes children's book (via Publisher's Weekly)
-Penguin Books UK blog discusses South by Southwests' Blogs to Books panel (via The Penguin Blog)
-Random House and Whole Foods team up to promote memoir (via Publisher's Weekly)
Gawker ponders shrinking book review sections in the L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other top newspapers. Apparently, "the only book review in the country that will not be affected is the one that comes in the New York Times."
Yeah, Californians may not read book reviews, but don't forget that they've got literary cred with 826 Valencia and San Francisco's City Lights bookstore.
Wait a minute, that's just northern California...
-Janet Fitch, Paint it Black
-Sean Wilsey, Oh the Glory of It All
-Dr. Connie Guttersen, The Sonoma Diet
The National Book Critics Circle announced their awards for the best reads of 2006. The Inheritance of Loss won in the fiction category, and Rough Crossings won in nonfiction. Get the winners and the finalists from Zooba! (via Laila Lalami)
-Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
-Simon Schama, Rough Crossings
-Cormac McCarthy, The Road
-Donald Antrim, The Afterlife
-Terri Jentz, Strange Piece of Paradise
-Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma
Not to get all Matrix on you, but Jean Baudrillard died at the age of 77 at his home in Paris (via BBC News). Who else but a Frenchman could have masterminded such advances in the field of semiotics?
OK, nerdfest is over. (But, seriously, you should rewatch The Matrix.)
On with it, then. The French reading list!
-Julia Child, My Life in France
-Daniel Young, The Bistros, Brasseries, and Wine Bars of Paris
-Sena Jeter Naslund, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
-Mark Sarvas, The Elegant Variation blogger, signs with Bloomsbury (via Slush Pile)
-Catherine Sanderson, La Petite Anglaise blogger, gets fired, inks Penguin book deal (via The Independent)
-Jessica Hagy, Indexed blogger, signs with Viking Studio (via Indexed)
Literary magazine Granta names their choices for this year's Best of Young American Novelists issue (via The Literary Saloon). Want to read the books? Zooba's got you covered!
-Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
-Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation
-Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead
-Dara Horn, The World to Come
-Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Tipped off by a letter of complaint, the FBI is considering whether books by Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, and others should be banned from a high school reading list (via Maud Newton). Also from Maud comes this piece about how books originally deemed obscene become classics.
For more on banned literature, check out Reading Lolita in Tehran, a memoir about the power of books during a time of upheaval.
Check out this trailer for the film based on the novel The Namesake by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri. The film opens on March 9, but I suggest you get the book from Zooba first.
A moving exploration of identity, the novel is a great follow-up to her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies.
-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)
-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)
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)
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.
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)
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
Check out The Love Calculator! A naysayer, are you? Plug in literary figures for frighteningly accurate results!
And get Pride and Prejudice from Zooba.
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.)
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.
Flannery O'Connor is one of those authors on your high school recommended reading list that you actually end up enjoying. If you took the show Six Feet Under, set it in the South, adapt