So Barnes and Noble released its e-reader today, which will compete with Sony’s e-reader and Amazon’s Kindle. Over at Business Center, they’re calling the Nook a Kindle-killer. Ironically, wasn’t this the term for not-yet-unveiled-but-hoped-for Apple Tablet? I guess they’ve waited so long to bring it out that it will have to be a Sony/Nook/Kindle killer. […]
On November 3rd, John Grisham is dipping into the short story realm with his first collection, “Ford County,” which has a manly ring to it (it’s where his first novel, A Time to Kill, takes place). Nice to have the commercial boys dip into a realm normally owned by the literary folk. I predict sales […]
Over at The Reading Experience, Dan Green isn’t happy with Tin House’s “The Writer’s Notebook”: If we take The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House (Tin House Books) to be a representative gathering of critical wisdom from current American writers, what does it ultimately tell us about these writers’ understanding of the purpose of […]
What can we learn from this year’s announcement that Herta Muller has won the Nobel Prize for Literature? Here’s Seven Tips for Future Predictions. The Nobel Prize Committee has a leak. When Herta Muller rockets from 50/1 odds to 3/1 odds in the last few days of voting, that’s not a hunch. That’s a good […]
Okay, last minute speculation here before the big announcement tomorrow. The Guardian notes that the Swedes have given a tip-off by critiquing their European focus in the last decade: Peter Englund [the new frontman of the Nobel literature prize jury] has said that he believes the prize has been too “Eurocentric” in recent years (nine […]
When arguing for the importance and relevance of physical books in “The Case for Books,” Robert Darnton mentions smell as a factor: “Books also give off special smells. According to a recent survey of French students, 43 percent consider smell to be one of the most important qualities of printed books—so important that they resist […]
First: Who decided to give a melancholy book called “Nocturnes” a bright white cover? Check out the British cover — much more evocative. But aside from quibbles over cover art, I enjoyed Ishiguro’s latest very much. Slow, stately prose reminiscent of Jhumpa Lahiri, and highly readable. Also, “Nocturnes” holds together remarkably well. In fact, almost […]
Thank God for bookies. While literary prognosticators give us wet dreams of lit crushes, bookies give us good old numeric odds, backed up by hard cash. Not that they usually know what they're doing (see: last year. J.M.G. Le Clezio, 14 to 1 odds — and when Harold Pinter won, he wasn't even in the […]
Okay, so let's get the order of events correct. First, Cliff at Perpetual Folly tipped me off to Evanston Now, a local online news source in the Northwestern area (where TriQuarterly is published). Evanston Now reported that the Northwestern University Press, which publishes TriQuarterly, would be scaling back a number of its operations. Mentioned in […]
So the National Book Award is taking a page from the Man Booker Prize by deciding to do a “Best of the National Book Award.” It’s not much more than a stunt to draw attention to the prize, and of course the winner takes nothing but popular acclaim, but who are we to complain? Contests […]
