MetaFilter posts tagged with Books and authors

My pen is mightier than your pen!

The Card Cheat — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:05:58 -0800

The Top 10 Literary Feuds Of The Aughts, as compiled by Toronto journalist and author Shaun Smith. Some highlights: #8: Dale Peck vs. Rick Moody [previously] #7: Jonathan Franzen vs. Oprah Winfrey [previously] #4: Christopher Hitchens vs. Henry Kissinger [previously] #3: James Frey vs. Oprah Winfrey [previously] [previously]

(not-so) Real Housewives of Lancaster County

Miko — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:21:49 -0800

A new subgenre is rising to meet the significant demand for romance novels that won't corrupt the flesh: Amish Romances. The relatively chaste romances, mostly written by non-Amish authors, the books are selling well, with Cindy Woodsnall's Sisters of the Quilt trilogy leading the pack on the New York Times bestseller list, and many new authors jumping into the game.

Let's Go To Pommeroy's And Have Toast To Rumpole

Xurando — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:50:50 -0800

John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey died today.

Yukio Mishima 14 January 1925 - 25 November 1970

eccnineten — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:59:33 -0800

"There's something very shabby about a noble grave... Political power and the power of wealth result in splendid graves. Really impressive graves, you know. Such creatures never had any imagination while they lived, and quite naturally their graves don't leave any room for imagination either. But noble people live only on the imaginations of themselves and others, and so they leave graves like this one which inevitably stir one's imagination. And this I find even more wretched. Such people, you see, are obliged even after they are dead to continue begging people to use their power of imagination." - Yukio Mishima via Kashiwagi in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. On this, the anniversary of Mishima's transformation into a headless god, a collection of video links. The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima. A speech with English subtitles. Yukio Mishima vs. Tokyo University Zenkyoutou on 13 May 1969. BBC production titled The Case of Yukio Mishima. Mishima on bodybuilding. ... and a single essay: "I Cut Off the Head of Yukio Mishima" by John-Ivan Palmer.

In case you were wondering

kliuless — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:38:37 -0800

Joyce explained. (via)

Moby Dick? Middlemarch? Jane Eyre?

fiercecupcake — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:28:19 -0800

Humiliation: Which book are you most embarrassed to admit that you have never read? Several "respectable" authors answer the question at the Ways With Words festival. (single-link Telegraph post)

No more posts until Matt starts paying up

Horace Rumpole — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:47:10 -0800

Home ~~taping~~ downloading is killing ~~music~~ authorship. The Society of Authors warns that authors will simply stop writing if they aren't compensated for piracy of their work (as unlikely as that seems). Perhaps they should follow the example of Jim Griffin, newly hired at Warner Music to persuade broadband providers to attach a $5 per month surcharge for the benefit of the major labels, in exchange for halting the lawsuits that have thus far been their mainstay weapon against piracy.

Nicholson Baker on Wikipedia

ed — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:52:16 -0800

Nicholson Baker, who in his book, Double Fold, argued for saving newspaper collections, explores "The Charms of Wikipedia" with insightful and hilarious results. He also has a new book, Human Smoke, coming out (excerpt)

Ideas in the Air

Miko — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:13:46 -0800

To The Best Of Our Knowledge is one of the most wide-ranging and literate public radio shows in the US, a two-hour "radio salon" featuring leisurely exploration of weekly themes like No Smoking, Identity Crisis, Weekend, and The Mind, Music, and Math. Host Jim Fleming approaches these big ideas through the works of authors - journalists of all stripes, memoirists, poets, fiction writers, essayists. Five years' worth of shows are available on audio archives; you can also search the impressive list of authors by name, or subscribe to the podcast. To the best of my knowledge, episodes from the show have been linked in relevant post topics, and the show has been mentioned in comments, but has not yet been the subject of its own post. Of course I could be wrong; I often am.

Photographs of Authors

Kattullus — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:17:44 -0800

Pictures of writers in a thread on I Love Music. Lots and lots of pictures of lots of writers. Another thread from the same board with more pictures (some duplicates). Author photos are most often seen on dust jackets or in the back of books, a practice Frances Wilson wishes to see abolished. One famous connoisseur of pictures of writers is Javier Marías who wrote a whole book on the subject, Written Lives. Here are a few excerpts from the book: William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen) and an edited extract covering a whole lot of authors. Bonus: Julia Lipman riffs on a pair of photos of Jonathan Franzen in Flak Magazine.

"turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book."

amberglow — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:17:56 -0800

The Page 69 Test --inspired by Marshall McLuhan's suggestion to readers for choosing a novel, a new blog, inviting authors to describe what's on page 69. One says: Not the best, but not the worst. If my pages were presidents, I’d put page 69 somewhere in the James K. Polk range.

Tax in the Age of Amazon

mattbucher — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:28:41 -0800

New York State goes after Amazon "affiliates." So if you, as a New Yorker, link to your book on Amazon, you are now an independent contractor and shall be taxed accordingly (PDF). John Smith is the author of a guide book to kayaking on New York lakes and rivers. The book is listed for sale on an e-commerce retail Web site. Mr. Smith maintains a Web site that contains a variety of information on kayaking and also contains a link to the e-commerce retail Web site through which visitors to his site may purchase his book. For each visitor that follows this link and purchases his book from the e-commerce retail Web site, Mr. Smith is entitled to receive compensation from the e-commerce retailer. Mr. Smith regularly speaks on the subject of kayaking at forums within the State. In the interest of earning commissions from the ecommerce retailer, he actively markets his book at these events by referring attendees to his Web site, where potential purchasers can click on the link to the e-commerce retailer’s Web site and purchase his book. Based on this arrangement, the e-commerce retailer is considered to be soliciting business through Mr. Smith, who is acting as an independent contractor, agent or other representative of the e-commerce retailer, and making sales of taxable tangible personal property to persons within New York State. Therefore, the e-commerce retailer must register as a New York sales tax vendor, collect the New York State and local sales taxes, and file the required sales tax returns.

Frankenhand is alive ... meet LongPen

phoque — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:31:27 -0800

LongPen from inventor (pdf) Margaret Atwood

Gotta Catch Em All!

RokkitNite — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:59:04 -0800

Booktribes is a new site from the creators of writing site Abctales where bibliophiles can compile lists of every book they've ever read. Replete with a simple, intuitive interface, compiling your life's reading list becomes strangely addictive, and for the whole of March, the best comment of the day on this as-yet underpopulated site wins a copy of David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, with the best comment of the month winning the entire 21 volume Sceptre Collection. And if you're worried your reading list isn't up to scratch, don't panic - you can always cheat.

(some) books are for girls

grobstein — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:28:56 -0800

Gender differences in literary taste - The Guardian (inter alia) has been reporting two English professors' studies of reading habits and feelings about books by gender. Others (newest to oldest): most revelatory books by reader gender (for men), (for women), author gender by reader gender. The methodology may not be unassailable but the findings are interesting and plausible. [viaduct vianochicken]
Sidenote: I did a little research following a comment on MR and reached a non-obvious conclusion: wo men hate Akira Kurosawa (check out those charts; for comparison). Theories welcome.

"My instincts in publishing are very much a gut reaction"

matteo — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:29:54 -0800

In those days, he could do no wrong. In the Sixties, he was the man who published Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint and Hemingway's A Moveable Feast; he put John Lennon's doodles into cold print, launched the careers of John Fowles and Gabriel García Márquez, looked after Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut and later, in the early 1980s, was the godfatherly mentor of Amis fils, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie. He was equally adept at commissioning inspired non-fictions such as The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris's zoological inspection of human behaviour.
The Independent profiles Tom Maschler, publisher, founder of the Booker Prize. (via Bookslut)

R.I.P. Will Eisner

Jeffy — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 07:23:29 -0800

Will Eisner Dies at age 86 The father of the modern Graphic Novel and hugely influential comics figure has died today from heart surgery complications. His concept of Sequential Art helped move comics out of the idea of being solely "kid's stuff" and was seen as a cannon in the comic art world. He was working on a book called "The Plot" due out later this year. He will be missed. More info and Eisner Bio at Newsarama

Wow! All the crusts of bread I can eat!

jscalzi — Fri, 24 Dec 2004 06:54:35 -0800

How much money do first-time novelists make? Author and upcoming first-time novelist Justine Larbalestier is constantly asked by aspiring writers what first-time novelists should expect in advance payment for their beloved texts. So she asked some of her author friends what they got for their first novels. The responses ranged in time from 1962 to 2004. What didn't change in all that time was the basic amount: Not much. Quoth Larbalestier: "The life of a novelist is, financially speaking, a mug's game. Enter at your own peril."

3 young writers achieve acclaim years after their deaths from cancer

escorter — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 07:19:32 -0800

Although cancer got these three young writers before their books were published, their now-acclaimed work -- from children's inspirational to humorous fantasy to coming of age (book and movie) -- was brought to life by the efforts of parents or a brother or friends.

Fascism in America?

socratic — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:39:14 -0800

Fascism in America? It Can't Happen Here is a masterful satire in which a popular, dimwitted politician rises to dictatorial power on the backs of radio evangelists, opponents of urban, yacht-owning, college professor liberalism, common people, and the Rotary Club. America is pushed into a manufactured war by all-powerful corporate interests, liberties are restricted in the name of national emergency, and all is coordinated by a behind-the-scenes political maestro sometimes called "the brain." Sound familiar? It's nothing new: the book was written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935.

Give a hoot

drezdn — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 07:46:18 -0800

Enter a world where friendship is king and smiles abound. Owly is continuing graphic novel series created by Andy Runton. The series uses no words to tell the stories, instead relying solely on the art (which recalls classic cartoons), creating something fun and cute to read for pretty much any age. But don't take my word for it.

Congratulations to Austria

mr.marx — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 04:10:57 -0800

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2004: Elfriede Jelinek, probably best known for the story behind Michael Haneke's La Pianiste.

Connolly 100 updated

Grod — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:43:36 -0800

100 key books “Cyril Connolly chose 100 key books from England, France and America first published between 1880 and 1950 to represent ‘The Modern Movement’.”

This site asks: “How does the list look now, in the first decade of the 21st Century?” “an additional list of key books is needed for 1950 to 2000. What should be included and why? Does Connolly's selection criteria need adjusting [just England (when so many of the books are from Ireland), France and America!] and if so how should this be done, remembering that Connolly was very precise in delineating the list as Key books, not best books?”

His books are required reading for the rest of your life

chinese_fashion — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 09:51:49 -0800

The Greatest War Protestor of All Time --Wise, hilarious, and kind words from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. If you don't know who he is, fake it.

Critique Magazine's On Writing III

dobbs — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:22:55 -0800

Critique Magazine's On Writing III - Each year, Critique Magazine's staff compiles essays by and interviews with writers, teachers, and translators of merit for inclusion in the special anniversary edition "On Writing".

Basically, a shitload of authors provide thoughts on, ahem, writing. {Both sites are worth a look, imo.}