Yesterday, I was given a copy of The Writer Magazine. I haven’t looked at one of these in a long time and I’m truly sorry I did now. To say it was maddening, would be a gross understatement. Magazines such as this one, perhaps born of noble intentions, have become nothing more than another means [...]
Forbes magazine has just released their list of the top 10 writers. Of course, making the Forbes list has very little to do with quality, and everything to do with quantity. Of dollars! For the year, which runs from June 1, 2007 to June 1, 2008, Forbes listed the 10 writers who earned the most [...]
If you’ve been wondering why it’s been since 1993 that an American has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, we now have the answer. As reported on the Huffington Post, according to Horace Engdahl, a top member of the award jury, the United States is too insular and writers here are too ignorant to compete [...]
Recently, I’ve been reading a lot concerning publication of Literary Fiction as trade paperbacks rather than hardcover. This is especially true regarding new authors, but is also becoming more prevalent with an established writer who might have seen a reduction is sales on his or her last book. And while in previous posts I’ve dodged [...]
During the past week, I’ve become obsessed with the Amazon Kindle—and I don’t even own one. My obsession is more with the concept of ebooks in general, and with the Kindle as the delivery device in particular. I’ve gone so far as to request an interview with Jeff Bezos—the request was denied, but Amazon countered [...]
As you may have noticed, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time lately considering the future of the publishing industry. Over the weekend I happened across a great article by Boris Kachka published on the New York Magazine website titled The End. It’s long, but well worth the time to read. The question I’ve [...]
At first, I thought about posting something questioning whether Oprah’s Book Club was good or bad for Literary Fiction. I thought I’d mention something about the early selections being overly sentimental. I thought I might mention something about the Frey incident, how she was initially taken in, but, in fairness, how she ultimately took both [...]
Yesterday I posted Wandering the Aisles wherein I lamented the dearth of emerging books and authors of quality. As I thought about what I had written, I began to feel myself being sucked into what seems to be the quagmire du jour. I began to imagine the possibility of giving credence to the idea that [...]
Tuesday is book release day, and the top book release from yesterday is no secret. In fact, Houghton Mifflin dubbed September 16th as “Indignation Day” to celebrate the release of Philip Roth’s latest. Though I’m not at all a big fan of Roth (I feel as if he keeps writing the same book over and [...]
I happened across a post on the National Book Foundation site with the same title. In their article, past finalists or winners of the National Book Award were asked what books changed their life and/or influenced their writing style. Forgetting the “writing style” angle for now, I found the “changed my life” query to be [...]
