From YuppiePunk: A cornucopia of literary tattoos, from Shakespeare to Hunter S. Thompson, with enough Harry Potter maniacs and general weirdness thrown in for good measure.
July 31, 2009
July 30, 2009
Reading Cuts Stress Levels By 68%
Reading is the best way to relax and even six minutes can be enough to reduce the stress levels by more than two thirds or 68%.
New research by consultancy Mindlab International at the University of Sussex says reading works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea.
Click here to read the full article.
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Dahl Biography Postponed
Just months before the authorized biography of Roald Dahl was to be published, author Donald Sturrock became aware of some 300 letters written between the Dahl and his beloved friend, Charles Marsh. According to Sturrock these letters “make my subject seem a lot more human. Their discovery hasn’t involved a complete rewrite of the book, but significant sections of it needed to be amended.” As a result, the biography of the beloved author of Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach to name just a few titles, will be published in 2010, the 20th anniversary of Dahl’s death.
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July 29, 2009
Man Asian Prize
The 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize longlist has been announced.
Gopilal Acharya, With a Stone in My Heart
Omair Ahmad, Jimmy the Terrorist
Siddharth Chowdhury, Day Scholar
Kishwar Desai, Witness the Night
Samuel Ferrer, The Last Gods of Indochine
Eric Gamalinda, The Descar tes Highlands
Ram Govardhan, Rough with the Smooth
Kanishka Gupta, History of Hate
Kameroon Rasheed Ismeer, Memoirs of a Terrorist
Ratika Kapur, Overwinter
Mariam Karim, The Bereavement of Agnes Desmoulins
Sriram Karri, The Autobiography of a Mad Nation
Nitasha Kaul, Residue
R . Zamora Linmark, Leche
Mario I. Miclat, Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions
Clarissa V. Militante, Different Countries
Varuna Mohite, Omigod
Dipika Mukherjee, Thunder Demons
Hena Pillai, Blackland
Roan Ching-Yueh, Lin Xiu-Tzi and her Family
Edgar Calabia Samar, Eight Muses of the Fall
K. Srilata, Table for Four
Su Tong, The Boat to Redemption
Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, Shadow of the Red Star
N.B. It seems as if many of these titles are not available in the United States yet.
The 2008 winner was Miguel Syjuco, author of Ilustrado.
The 2007 winner was Jiang Rong, author of Wolf Totem.
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July 28, 2009
Booker Prize longlist revealed
The longlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize was announced today, and the nominees comprise an interesting mix of literary heavyweights and first-time novelists. The shortlist will be announced on 8 September, and the winner on 6 October. Aravind Adiga won the 2008 prize for The White Tiger.
The nominees are:
(Thanks to The Millions for the links and cover art)
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How the NYTBR works
If you’ve ever wondered how the New York Times Book Review selects the books it reviews, Scott Lorenz of the Book Publishing News blog has an insightful gloss of a recent speech by editor Barry Gewen that covers everything from the types of books reviewed, the Review’s place within the paper’s larger structure, and advice for first-time novelists aching for some Kakutani love. Courtesy of The Rumpus.
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New Saramago Novel to be Released in US in 2010
Jose Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel Prize winning author, has completed a new novel. The Elephant’s Journey will be translated by Margaret Jull Costa and is scheduled for a Fall 2010 release.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/books/28arts-ANELEPHANTNO_BRF.html?_r=1&hpw
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Manil Suri in The Boston Globe
Today’s Globe features a write-up of author and math professor Manil Suri. The Newtonville Book Club meets tonight at 7pm to discuss The Age of Shiva.
Manil Suri will be appearing at Newtonville on Thursday, July 30th, at 7 pm, along with Don Lee, author of Wrack and Ruin.
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July 27, 2009
Good news for fans of BONE
It was announced at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con last week that Jeff Smith, author of the incredibly popular “epic fantasy adventure graphic novel series” Bone will continue to create and publish more stories in the series, starting in summer of 2010. ROSE, the prequel to the BONE series, will be released by Scholastic/Graphix in August 2009.
There are more than 4.5 million Bone books in print since Scholastic released the full-color Bone #1: Out from Boneville in 2005.
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Cosmopolis Movie
Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg will bring Don DeLillo’s novel “Cosmopolis” to the big screen, the film’s producer said Friday.
“Cosmopolis” has yet to be cast.
About the book: It is an April day in the year 2000 and an era is about to end — those booming times of market optimism when the culture boiled with money and corporations seemed more vital and influential than governments.
Eric Packer, a billionaire asset manager at age twenty-eight, emerges from his penthouse triplex and settles into his lavishly customized white stretch limousine. On this day he is a man with two missions: to pursue a cataclysmic bet against the yen and to get a haircut across town.
His journey to the barbershop is a contemporary odyssey, funny and fast-moving. Stalled in traffic by a presidential motorcade, a music idol’s funeral and a violent political demonstration, Eric receives a string of visitors — his experts on security, technology, currency, finance and theory. Sometimes he leaves the car for sexual encounters and sometimes he doesn’t have to.
Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo’s thirteenth novel, is both intimate and global, a vivid and moving account of a spectacular downfall.
The film is set to start shooting in 2010 in New York and Toronto.
Click here to read full article.
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