I’m lucky enough to have Book Expo America right here in Los Angeles this year, so I’m taking full advantage. I’ll be living in the Los Angeles Convention Center for about four days, eating up all the lovely literary goodness. And, of course, in true BookFox fashion, passing all that lovely information on to you. […]
One of the last interviews we conducted at the LA Times Festival of Books was with Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King and an accomplished horror writer in his own right. Joe Hill and I talked about the difference between conceptual horror and horror of the act, as well as how the Vietnam and […]
As the Literary Saloon notes, Michel Houellebecq’s MOM has written a book about him. And it doesn’t sound nice. I don’t want to be this old when I publish my first book. (Also, I really don’t want it to rhyme.) From the Guardian, Jonathan Franzen has called Michiko Kakutani, the lead fiction reviewer for the […]
My review of Jim Krusoe’s "Girl Factory" is up at California Literary Review. Also, despite a harried schedule, the second half of the LA Times Festival of Books author videos (many more great answers, same authors) should be up by late tomorrow.
Just on the heels of turning eighty and putting out a new collection of short stories, Cynthia Ozick is raking in the prizes. She was just awarded the PEN/Malamud prize for short fiction, as well as the PEN/Nabokov prize. Both are lifetime acheivement awards, which is not only quite an honor, but also conveys the […]
Nathaniel Rich, the editor of “The Paris Review” and recent author of “The Mayor’s Tongue,” has a new short story over at Five Chapters called “Trainchasers.” More Nathaniel Rich at the LA Times, as part of a trio of recent authors who have written books where characters are defiantly proud of print journals. It’s been […]
Because of the budget crisis in L.A., Mayor Villaraigosa has been cracking down on the LA public library — not only freezing journal and database subscriptions but limiting new book purchases. Now there’s apparently a plan to charge a fee for library books that come from other library branches. So naturally, there’s a big hullabaloo […]
It was quite nice to see a post from The Elegant Variation reprinted in the May issue of Harper’s magazine. With a clever title — Textually Transmissible — the piece, translated from the French by Dorna Khazeni, is hilarious, especially if you’re familiar with Michel Houellebecq’s sexually infused novels or, Houellebecq aside, know the literary […]
Zoran Zivkovic, a Serbian writer, has his short story collection “Steps Through the Mist” reviewed. ZYZZYVA recaps the rejections that turned out to be mistakes, as well as quite a funny response to a rejection by Howard Junker himself. Over at Ward Six there’s a discussion of the Alice Munro story “Material,” finishing up with […]
So HarperCollins made big news with the creation of a new division that is trying out “new” techniques in selling hardcover books. The most salient news is that they’ll eliminate advances in favor of higher royalties on the back end. Read: a kind of profit-sharing. From what I know of corporate accounting, though, mostly through […]
