MSDaniel Alarcón, author of Lost City Radio and War by Candlelight, and a favorite of mine, featured in a quality panel discussion with Guillermo Arriaga, Jorge Franco, Patrícia Melo during the PEN World Voices Festival.
Photo, audio, and audio segments are available on the PEN website: Gritty Realism
MSThis one’s for Carrie: Joy Division Wins Top Award at Cannes
A low-budget British film about the late JOY DIVISION frontman IAN CURTIS has won the Best European Film award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film, entitled Control, was directed by famed Dutch still and music video photographer Anton Corbijn and stars former warehouse worker Sam Riley as troubled Curtis in the years leading up to his suicide in 1980.
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Mick Castagna, writer, photographer, innkeeper, commuter, and our P.S. manager, runs the blog Jersey Lightning. He chronicles his life in Four Taverns, NJ* on the Deleware River. It’s a welcome window into a slower pace of life (anything is slower than NY) and the photos are great.
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But if you must distract yourself with online gadgetry, visit The Amazing Dostoevsky Machine:
Ordinary readers of Dostoevsky frequently complain of headaches, confusion, and a sense of inadequacy. Given the complexity of the Russian naming system, holding onto the names of all the characters is a formidable task.
I can attest. Take a look at the list of characters in The Idiot. Now multiply that about three for all the chummy variations of each name and you’ve got the dense reality of proper nouns in a Dostoevsky novel. The ADM replaces all those tricky names with names more agreeable to a native speaker of English, like Timmy, Duke, Maureen, and Nancy. Though “all of the beautiful subtlety of Dostoevsky’s half-mad gypsy scholar naming system is lost”, there’s no harm in futzing about.
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Mister Pip by by Lloyd Jones has won the 2007 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize: “Organizers announced Sunday that Jones had won the $19,840 book prize in the competition, open to writers in the Commonwealth of former British colonies.”
MSNicholas Kulish, author of Last One In (which will go on sale June 26), is interviewed on Up Close & Personal with E.I. Johnson.
MSNot sure how I feel about this: “Mo. bookstore owner burns books to decry decline of printed word“
MSPart of the NBCC’s Campaign to Save Book Reviewing, their blog features “posts by concerned writers, op-eds, Q and As, and tips about how you can get involved to make sure that owners and editors know that book sections and book culture matter.” Here’s an excerpt:
Q. What forms do you find effective online?
A. Peer marketing, word of mouth. You grow to trust a website or friends. And whether that’s a blog or a bookstore website or a MySpace page, it’s important to get our books in the hands of the right people.
Q. Is there a bookstore website you can use as an example?
A. Powells.com does a tremendous job. I’m a big fan of their website. It’s one of the best bookstore websites out there. It’s the experience you get when you walk into a store. They’ve been able to replicate that experience online. Really hand selling, with recommendations, news, It’s a nice informative website. They have a Powell’s blog, with authors who guest blog. There are recaps of what is going on in publishing today, an award just announced, a book that was just reviewed. It’s a good way to keep people interested.
Q. And literary blogs?
A. I know there has been a lot of discussion lately of the importance of bloggers to the industry. I think they are important. Whether you write for a newspaper or a magazine or you’re just my mom, and you tell me about a book you like, I think opinions matter. The blogging community is important to the industry.
MSThe NY Times shows some dirty-water love: “Everything and the Kitchen Sink: The Memoir of Dishwasher“:
When addressing a tub of dishes, Mr. Jordan takes an extremely wide stance, with his feet well outside his shoulders, to bring himself closer to sink level. He holds the dish in his left hand and after swabbing the center, gives it a careful clockwise wipe around the rim. He scrubs pots with a giant wad of steel wool and a liberal application of spray from the overhead nozzle.
MSWhat many hoped would be an opportunity to buy literary treasures at a bargain turned into a textbook example of big fish swallowing the minnows whole. The NY Times reports: “Wall-to-Wall Books, and All of Them for the Landlord“.
And now I can’t get Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” out of my head.
MSThe latest podcast is up, featuring an interview with Willy Vlautin, author of The Motel Life.
MSThis past Monday at Housing Works Bookstore, Ecco held a party for the release of the novel I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER by Larry Doyle. A few photos were taken:
Above, Lee Boudreaux, Ecco’s editorial director and editor of the book, makes a few welcoming remarks.
Here, author Larry Doyle wends his way down the spiral staircase, making a fine entrance for a week of readings in New York. See him at 7pm tonight at the B&N Chelsea.
Here are some nice mentions of the ILYBC party:
Publishers Weekly
GalleyCat
Bookmark MSNo, that’s not how we casually greet each other in the morning. It’s WORD Books, which recently opened in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It’s always nice to have a new bookstore, so here’s a belated welcome.
MSFrom the Times:
To howls of indignation from literary purists, a leading publishing house is slimming down some of the world’s greatest novels.
Tolstoy, Dickens and Thackeray would not have agreed with the view that 40 per cent of Anna Karenina, David Copperfield and Vanity Fair are mere “padding”, but Orion Books believes that modern readers will welcome the shorter versions.
The first six Compact Editions, billed as great reads “in half the time”, will go on sale next month, with plans for 50 to 100 more to follow.
The first books in the series will be trimmed down to about 400 pages; that’s not exactly breezy reading. From a purist’s perspective, you might be able to argue that an abridged version will encourage readers to take up the whole book; but will a reader really desire the additional 260 pages? I see that as unlikely. So you’re not providing them incentive, you’re only damaging the existing text. If a reader would like a shorter version, let them skim using their own discretion.
*”NY Times“:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/weekinreview/20mrich.html?ref=books
MSI’m for it.
This from the blog of Alex Itin, “an artist-in-residence at the Institute for the Future of the Book.” There’s one drawing for each page of Moby Dick. It’s reminiscent of Zak Smith’s recent treatment of Gravity’s Rainbow, where each page inspired a drawing, but I’m in favor of the moving medium in this case.
MSFeeling mean? You look it.
Maybe that’s me being presumptuous. But does your lip always curl like that? It does? And should I ignore that highly inappropriate (and passé, if you ask me) tattoo scribbled on your forehead. Oh, that’s a birthmark? What, were you delivered onto a lit grill?
Anyway, it’s Friday, so I’ll lay off. Unlike you, however, the covers featured on the Judge a Book by its Cover blog aren’t so damn lucky. Then again, they deserve what they get, and what they get is burned. Join Maughta as she considers the “other” covers.
MSThis time we make you work. Share your pain and pleasure. Tell us your best of days, your worst of nights, your most mind-blasting, soul-crushing, thrilling, terrorizing, delightful and humiliating memories of high school. In your best approximation of English.
The link above will lead you into your past and, possibly, your improved future.
And in case you were faultlessly cool, visit the I Love You, Beth Cooper website to see a fantastic video.
MSD’you know why I like you guys? Because you’re so emo. Always have been. You’d as likely die as wear a scorching combo of stripes and calf-hugging jeans. But you can’t die, you’re too beautiful. Is that even emo? Does it matter?
Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture by Leslie Simon and Trevor Kelley is the definitive handbook for the heart-on-your-sleeve set. This bomb of cultural decoding drops today, so make it a priority. Even more undeniably real is your chance to win the “Ultimate Emo Kit.” Yes, you heard me, “ultimate.”
Follow the pleasing image above to win:
You’ll never need to win anything ever again.
