2018: Articles about books, writers & publishing

Time to re-discover Borges:

http://lithub.com/surviving-2017-with-borges-on-the-art-of-wonder-and-wonder-of-...

Was thrilled to discover our local library had a copy of Ficciones, borrowed and read that, loved it. Less thrilled to find it in the library's sale pile a year later as a discard. Bought it of course, but, sad.

Thanks, that was lovely!

>2 Cecrow: Hm, that is a bittersweet story, but I am glad the book came to rest with someone who appreciates it.

My God, L.F. Celine's wife is still alive:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42661452

Denis Johnson: generous writing teacher, good man:

http://lithub.com/the-largesse-of-denis-johnson

...and an interview with Will Self:

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/will-self-on-the-literary-novels-demise-and...

Book thieves strike again:

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/first-edition-harry-potter-stolen-norfolk-711...

>4 CliffBurns: I am astounded. It's a jolt to be reminded that a writer with so misanthropic a persona was married, never mind to learn that Mme Destouches is alive.

Was relieved to learn that publication wasn't banned outright; not sure how I feel about Gallimard giving in. Inclusion of experts' notes sounds a fair enough suggestion, I suppose, if the notes were to be about the pamphlets in relation to Celine's writings as a whole & Celine the person rather than being argumentative ones.

I've read some of the Celine screeds and they're ugly, ugly stuff.

Is it necessary to publish this stuff, is anyone other than a few Celine scholars interested in it?

I'm absolutely against censorship and think Celine's a genius but...does his anti-Semitic ranting warrant publication? I dunno...

How to live your life like great writers (at your own risk):

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjpy8z/i-copied-the-routines-of-famous-writer...

William Melvin Kelley, lost but no longer forgotten:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/29/the-lost-giant-of-american-literat...

Folk tales had nothing to do with morality:

https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-battles-between-good-and...

Authors who grew to hate one of their books:

http://lithub.com/13-writers-who-grew-to-hate-their-own-books

Indie booksellers aren't throwing in the towel yet:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/29/independent-booksellers-could-join...

February reads:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180130-ten-books-to-read-in-february

Support a journal of the macabre, affiliated with Thomas Ligotti:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/867956165/vastarien-a-literary-journal?ref=...

PEN Awards salute Ursula LeGuin:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/pen-awards-ceremony-1.4544569

Will Self tells us we should be reading more "difficult" novels:

https://lithub.com/will-self-in-praise-of-difficult-novels

>18 CliffBurns:, I've had moments reading Henry James and James Joyce, etc. where I realize I'm enjoying it expressly because it's difficult. In between the moments when I'm feeling a bit lost, that is.

Then I can also pick up something like Ready Player One and enjoy the rush of its ease and pacing, but it's a different reward. Doesn't make me smarter, no, but inspired? Hopeful? Something emotionally positive anyway, which seems equally valid and worthwhile in moderation.

Sherman Alexie admits wrongdoing:

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/589909379/it-just-felt-very-wrong-sherman-alexies...

A chat with modernist Robert Coover:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/books/review/robert-coover-by-the-book.html

Found this in-depth article on a new translation of Bruno Schulz's stories:

https://thenewinquiry.com/the-diasporist-of-drohobycz/

The legacy of Denis Johnson:

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-magic-of-denis-johnson

I got an announcement for a book that sounds surprisingly interesting to me, an urban dweller since the age of 15 (I was raised in the country until then though). I have always loved cities and this looks like an interesting celebration of them. What do you all think?

http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-cities-and-...

#24--then you might like...THIS:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/022647030X/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_9?ie=UTF8&ps...

Lionel Shriver speaks out against the imposition of diversity at Penguin Books:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44424803

This could lead to a great debate in the arts world but instead it will, I predict, quickly descend into defensiveness and vitriol, the term "racism" being liberally tossed about.

>26 CliffBurns: I had this argument back in the days when I was a union rep.

My union, which organises within the UK Civil Service for the most part, ran annaul diversity training schools to try to get under-represented groups - women, minority ethnic and young people - to take part in union activities, such as being on Branch committees or standing as conference delegates. Some of my members asked why we were doing this. My response was:

"If you went to Conference, you'd see that the majority of delegates look like you and me - middle aged white male. No problenm getting people like us to take part."

"Now look around the office. Are we 100$% representative of the membership?" We were located in Birmingham, one of the UK's most diverse cities. The answer was, of course, no.

"We're trying to improve that balance, make the governing bodies of the union more reflective of the membership. Is that not a good thing?"

End of argument.

As a working author and a white, middle-class male, I can tell you that these "cultural checklists" are worrisome to me. Years ago, during a conversation where she rejected a book of mine she'd had under consideration for more than a year, an editor for a major Canadian publisher joked: "It's too bad you're not an Indian author, they're really hot right now."

Excellence should be the sole criteria for publishing literary efforts (of course, in the commercial marketplace I realize the criteria is different, economic considerations leading the way).

I read there are over a quarter million books published in North America every year and I have enough competition, frankly, without adding cultural and ethnic and gender considerations to the stew pot.

Will a book that represents "diversity" be selected over a work of superior literary merit under the philosophy Penguin is envisioning? That's what Lionel Shriver wants to know and, personally, I think it's a valid query...

I hear what you're saying. The trouble with that, Cliff, is that we won't know until these books are published. And in a way, that's the problem. I'm sure there are talented writers out there from minority ethnic groups, but the issue is whether they get sufficient exposure to be seen by a wider audience.

I also think that there are issues over these writers not being part of "mainstream" literature, and so their having to reinvent the wheel in terms of subjects and themes. That may mean that they produce works which they may feel are new and innovative but which, when exposed to a wider readership, may seem hackneyed and over-done.

And I worry they they may well get bracketed as "minority writers" and only expected to write on "appropriate" themes; the "black experience". This will only serve to ghettoise them further.

I'm in touch, via social media, with a young black writer who is working on an sf novel. I've offered to beta read it for him, because I think he needs to avoid things which I know are clichés but which he may not. He also won't have had any contact with the wider sf community, which would otherwise give him an advantage he currently lacks. If his work is good, I know an agent who will give his MS a fair reading. In the end, all I am concerned about is whether the writing is any good or not.

These days, when you apply for a job in the UK (at least in the circles I move in), it's becoming more common for identity details to be stripped out of CVs so that applications have a better chance of being considered on merit alone. It's never going to be a perfect process.

It's hard for me to cross swords in any sort of caustic or argumentative way with a fellow union guy. There are so damn few of us about.

Of course I see where you're coming from, Robert, and I'm not without empathy. But I'm just not sure about this notion that a nation's literature should reflect their ethnic makeup. Shouldn't it reflect the very best writers working at the very top of their game? I would argue that "art" and "culture" are two separate things, along the lines of "religion" and "science". They might even be, in the best of circumstances, irreconcilable.

Canada has been a particularly grievous example of a nation that has attempted to impose a national literature by artificial means, employing that aforementioned checklist to focus on narratives of a multi-ehthic nature, emphasizing Canada's diversity and mix of nations ("a community of communities', as Paul Martin, our ex-Prime Minister, once put it)...the end result being tepid, dull prose that hits the right cultural touchstones and is therefore considered acceptable to the poobahs in charge of allotting funding for the arts. No one else need apply.

I guess the politically correct (and the arts are full of such nitwits) have decided that the white boys have had their chance and, regardless of the legacies of Shakespeare, Beckett and Joyce, it's time for them to give someone else an opportunity.

The only problem being...who among these newcomers and "alternative voices" can write as well?

Aye, there's the rub...

THE N.Y. TIMES rates the best summer reads:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/books/review/summer-reading.html

>30 CliffBurns: But when the definition of excellence privileges white males, then it's a rigged game. Back in the day, not all female science fiction writers used initials to hide their gender, but pretty much all of their stories featured male protagonists. Readers weren't interested in reading about women, they were told. But there are enough exceptions, like Jirel of Joiry, to show that wasn't true.

The comment made to you Cliff had nothing to do with diversity and everything to do with tokenism. That editor was being just as racist as those people, like Lionel Shriver, who claim black people are incapable of writing good books.

>30 CliffBurns: Also, are you saying no other culture on the planet has produced literature equivalent to "Shakespeare, Beckett and Joyce"? Because that''s not true. And don't forget, Shakespeare was pretty much forgotten for 200 years, and only became popular again in Victorian times.

>28 CliffBurns: Will a book that represents "diversity" be selected over a work of superior literary merit under the philosophy Penguin is envisioning?

Just because a book has been written by an Indian author doesn't mean it's not "of superior literary merit."

I think when cultural/ethnic/etc. considerations are included when weighing a book for publication, the next Delillo or Cormac McCarthy might be over-looked in favor of the "minority flavor of the week/month".

I don't judge a book by the author's photo on the back cover--this desperate attempt to satisfy all tastes in the spectrum, waving the rainbow flag, does a disservice to the pursuit of excellence.

And as a white, middle-aged author, I'm told my work no longer reflects the zeitgeist but, at the same time, if I try to incorporate minority or marginalized populations into my writing it's, wait for it, "cultural appropriation". Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

I understand the mentality of the people cited in the original post on this subject but I think literary writers, already an endangered species, will be cast even further into the dark in this rush to ensure every race, color, creed or gender on the spectrum needs to be heard, even if they have little to say except "look at me" and "celebrate me because I'm different".

Again, Ian, I argue that "art" and "culture" are too very different things, completely unconnected. Art makes no consideration of the tastes of the times, but strives for posterity, universality.

Great authors write for the ages, not a demographic.

Lionel Shriver's speech on cultural appropriation: "You're not supposed to try on other people's hats":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/13/lionel-shrivers-full-speec...

>35 CliffBurns: Shakespeare didn't write for the ages, he wrote for the masses. And he was forgotten a decade or so after his death. Dickens wrote for his readers - he even asked them to vote on how the plot progressed in one novel.

What we currently consider high art and high literature is a result of a bias toward art and literature produced by white men. When people talk about diversity, they mean overcoming that bias. That doesn't mean they'll ignore a quality submission from a white man, it means they'll make sure that people of other genders, races and cultures have equal access - and sometimes that means editors limiting what they will accept as submissions. Despite all that, a publisher is not going to publish a book if they don't think it will make money. Editors don't choose these days, accountants do.

Lionel Shriver is full of shit. No one says you can't write about other cultures. You just have do your research and make sure you get it right. And treat the culture you're writing about with respect. I've read no end of books by US authors that are set in the UK but make stupid, annoying mistakes. Because they've not done their research.

I carry no "white man's burden".

And I resent that while so many talk about privilege and power, they neglect to mention, I dunno, the Salk Vaccine, Dr. Banting refusing to take out a patent on insulin...the Christ-like service to humanity of a Jean Vanier...not all white men are colonialists, rapists, exploiters, etc. That is a ridiculous canard.

Posterity has a funny way of separating the wheat from the chaff. Shakespeare's genius eventually shone through, Joyce escaped the label of pornographer to become a writer's writer, displaying the kind of devotion to the printed word that many so-called scribblers wish they could emulate.

Shriver is NOT full of shit, she makes a valid point which will be distorted by those who proudly carry their heavy liberal guilt and want to inflict it on the rest of us...or non-talents who wish to push a racial/sexual agenda in order to hide their ineptitude as artists and deep thinkers.

Probably should bow out of this conversation and let others have their say.

Diversity does NOT equate to talent or innovation and mere grievance is not a sound aesthetic position.

As they say, we'll agree to disagree...

>38 CliffBurns: But you carry "white man's privilege".

Posterity does no such thing. They say Jane Austen was neither the best nor the most popular of her contemporaries. Yet her works survived.

I'm a Marxist, Ian, to me, it's much more about class than color or gender.

The latter two are just sub-sets of the first.

In that sense, I can tell you I do NOT come from privilege--in many respects my beginnings are as modest and impoverished as you can get (at least in North America).

Atomising society, all of us breaking up into small interest groups, each of them pursuing their own agenda, totally destroys the power of mass action, the one thing the ruling class is afraid of. Instead, we get a cult of individuality, everyone screaming to be heard. The words used most by such people are "I" and "me", rarely "us" and "we". The most solipsistic, narcissistic bunch imaginable.

"Humanity is in crisis and there is no exit from that crisis other than solidarity of humans." (Zygmunt Bauman)

>40 CliffBurns: You may have to fight class, but a black author has to fight class AND racism, a female writer has to fight class AND sexism. And diversity is not about atomising society, it's the opposite - it's about every voice being heard. Those at the top are deeply entrenched, and you won't get them out by treading on the bodies of minorities.

Good enough. We'll leave it at that.

Happy Bloomsday...and to celebrate, a Joycean mystery:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/magazine/the-strange-case-of-the-missing-joyc...

A bad book gets a proper gutting:

https://thebaffler.com/latest/begone-president-mccormack

Really nasty, vicious reviews of terrible books are in short supply these days and that's unfortunate.

James Patterson should have his fingers burned off with an arc welder. He is an abomination.

Wow I’ve never smoked but I feel like I need a cigarette after that. Bill should be ashamed of himself. If I were his very long suffering wife I’d divorce him for even being friends with Patterson.

I didn't know of the existence of this book until I saw one in a bookshop today. I hadn't even spotted that the other name on the spine was James Patterson. I think the reviewer has tapped into the zeitgeist. And if Donald Trump could write, I could imagine him writing something like that!

Verso Books is offering their entire stock of e-books at 90% off, but only until Sunday.

Support a good Leftie press and pick up some excellent books at the same time:

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3895-ebook-flash-sale-90-off

oops, wrong thread

Literary immortality:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44779492

Who claims Kafka's legacy:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/franz-kafka-archives/565763

The great Richard Russo, on the perils of the writing life, circa 2018:

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/the-writing-life-still-ours-to-de...

The sad life of Dorothy Parker:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170605-dorothy-parkers-stunning-wit-and-tragi...

>52 CliffBurns: A wonderful lady with a difficult life. How interesting and touching that she left her estate to MLK and the NAACP. Next time I'm in Baltimore I'll pay her a visit.

Female authors sweep the Hugo Awards:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/20/hugo-awards-women-nk-jemisin-wins-...

Long interview with Martin Amis:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-age-of-acceleration-an-interview-with-ma...

*oops, wrong thread

Books to look forward to this fall:

https://nylon.com/articles/fall-book-preview-2018

#57--loved the excerpt from the book on Cocteau.

Added to my reading list.

New Jonathan Lethem book this fall:

http://www.vulture.com/2018/09/jonathan-lethem-the-feral-detective.html

(Thanks, Gord)

Are audiobooks as good for you as reading?

http://time.com/5388681/audiobooks-reading-books

Audiobooks are *not* reading

I read aloud to my husband, whose vision has deteriorated. What he is doing, is that not at some level better than not having the book at all? We have hundreds of years of passing stories around orally, isn’t that a fine way for people to experience a story? I love reading but if I went blind tomorrow I’d try to get used to audiobooks, I guess that would be fine too.

I think the point that people can multi-task with audiobooks but not with printed text is an important distinction.

I've listened to a number of audiobooks but the experience is NOT the same.

If I am not mistaken there is a difference in the way your brain processes information visually and aurally. Being more of a visual person I prefer reading a text, specially when it comes to poetry. My retention is definitely better and I participate in the reading more actively. Unfortunately I just don't have the time for that. Audiobooks are tricky, some things work and some don't. A book that works well in audio is not a lesser experience in my opinion. In fact I've listened to books where the reader improves the experience.

Gary Shteyngart's just released another beauty:

https://www.barrons.com/articles/gary-shteyngarts-view-from-hedge-fund-land-1536...

Interview with Gary Shteyngart, in the GUARDIAN:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/gary-shteyngart-interview-lake-suc...

David Mitchell, writing in the NEW YORKER:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/start-with-the-map

>68 CliffBurns: A friend of mine once commented about authors' maps: "Just make sure the rivers don't run uphill." It's surprising how many of them do, when you look closely.

My abiding memory of Mary Gentle's Golden Witchbreed, a planetary romance where a human emissary goes to a world which once had high technology but has reverted after nuclear war to a roughly 17th-century society (and which was otherwise generally well-received at the time), was that there was a map at the front of this book, and about a quarter of the way in, I began to get the horrible feeling that the author was going to take us to every bloody place on this map. And she did, with appalling inevitability.

Personally, I'm the last person who should be consulting a map. I have absolutely no sense of direction, something my wife will attest to.

Must be an inner ear thing...

>69 RobertDay: Mary Gentle sounds a plodding soul. In fact, I don't understand why any author wants to plonk a map into a work of fiction. Lately I've been running into the phrase 'world building'--is it something to do with that? I do remember reading The Hobbit and thinking how cool it was that there was a map in it but I was 13 then.

>71 bluepiano: I've never met her but others I know who have speak well of her. Her writing has merit, and GW was her first novel, so I've sort of forgiven her (but not forgotten).

>72 RobertDay: >71 bluepiano: Her first novel was A Hawk in Silver, but after the two Orthe novels, Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light, she started writing fantasies based around hermeticism. And they're bloody good. Her best book is undoubtedly Ash: A Secret History, which is a bona fide genre classic. She's suffered from ill-health for a number of years, which is why she's not had anything published since 2012's The Black Opera. Which is a shame. She's definitely worth reading.

>72 RobertDay: I would second Ian Ash: A Secret History is a masterpiece of the genre.

>73 iansales:, >74 justifiedsinner: It's working its way to the top of my TBR pile. I recollect reading Architecture of desire and Left to his own devices with pleasure (I gather these have now been omnibussed).

>75 RobertDay: Yes, White Crow, which also includes the first novel is the sequence, Rats & Gargoyles, and some linked short stories. I think the omnibus is already OOP, though,.

>71 bluepiano:, maps occur frequently in the fantasy genre, since it's an invented world and helps the reader become oriented. It's also a cliché of the genre to visit every place on the map, or it is at least predictable that the novel's climax will take place at the opposite end from where the story began.

'Worldbuilding' is a more general term for introducing a measure of realism to a fantasy setting by considering its society, politics, religion, history, economy, geology, etc.; much more than just the map. 'Infodumping' is consequently a problem, in which a fantasy novel is liable to launch into lengthy exposition about these topics to convey information required to understand the plot.

Cecrow, thanks so much for defining the term.--Sorry to say that it sounds to me as if successful worldbuilding would be the result of excellent organisation rather than skilful writing.

https://www.france24.com/en/20180928-you-are-here-france-ardennes-region-slate-f..., though the pertinent bit is in the segment's description: Rimbaud is still receiving fan mail, care of a cemetery in the Ardennes.

>78 bluepiano:, you're not wrong about world building getting too much emphasis in some fantasy works, rather than being gradually unveiled-when-relevant as it ought. I tend to disparage those examples myself, frequent reader in the genre though I am. Fantasy involving a lot of suspended disbelief, so it does help if at least the world it takes place in has some tangible rules to it that make some logical sense. But then there are also examples where 'anything goes' that also come off well, provided they remain mostly allegorical and/or don't take themselves too seriously.

>79 Cecrow: Fantasy readers can be a bit illogical about what they're willing to believe. As Joe Abercrombie once said (mockingly), "Giant flying lizards that breathe fire? No problem. Female blacksmiths? INCONCEIVABLE!"

>80 iansales:, as recently as when he said that, it was probably true. But the last ten years have witnessed a sea change in fantasy and science fiction towards being more inclusive of sex, sexual orientations and race. The topic has earned a very high profile, with attempts to control the Hugo vote being overthrown by broader minded voters who have just given the top award (but deservingly so) to N.K. Jemisin three years running. Publishers like Tor, the biggest name in fantasy, have been getting behind this effort and are now promoting a much better range of diversity not just in content but also its authors.

Jemisin identified the 'RaceFail' Internet event of 2009 as a turning point, in her blog: http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/why-i-think-racefail-was-the-bestest-thing-evar-for...

"RaceFail was a several-months-long conversation about race in the context of science fiction and fantasy that sprawled across the blogosphere. It involved several thousand participants and spawned several hundred essays"

On a personal note, I'm looking forward to reading Marlon James (winner of the 2015 Booker) share his take on the genre this fall with "Black Leopard, Red Wolf".

>81 Cecrow: Richard Morgan's gay swordsman (a gay blade?) in The Steel Remains was published in 2008.

Finished reading Her Body and Other Parties 4.5*. About to start on At the Mouth of the River of Bees.

>82 justifiedsinner: Delany was writing in the 1960s, and I think Katherine Kurtz had gay protagonists in the 1980s.

>80 iansales: Yes, I saw both Racefail and the whole Sad Puppy thing. But that wasn't my point. Jemisin deserved her first win, but not for the two sequels. But then she is high-profiel these days and very vocal. Abercrombie's point was not about diversity but about readers' expectations of what a fantasy world *should* be, despite the fact the whole thing is completely made-up by the author.

>83 iansales: I think of Delany more as SF than Fantasy although with him it's sometimes hard to tell. I don't know if he wrote anything overt until Tides of Lust in '73 and that was hard to get hold of. David Gerrold's The Man Who Folded Himself won a Nebula nom. in '73. Kurtz was fantasy but offhand I don't remember any LGBTQ characters in her fiction. Fantasy has always struck me as more dick-centric than SF.

>84 justifiedsinner: The Neveryon books are outright fantasy - in fact, they deconstruct the genre. I'm pretty sure some of Delany's stories featured gay protagonists in the 1960s, and he was certainly open about his sexuality. There's an entire book which lists LGBT sf and fantasy: Uranian Worlds

Two writers, including Jack Womack, talk about our obsession with the "true crime" genre:

https://crimereads.com/what-does-our-true-crime-obsession-say-about-america

(From Gord)

Adam Cohen on his father's last book:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/28/leonard-cohen-poetry-the-flame-ada...

National Book Award finalists:

http://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2018/

The last days of George Orwell:

https://lithub.com/the-last-days-of-george-orwell

Don Hall rediscovered inspiration in his final years:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/donald-halls-late-burst-of-creativit...

Lovely gesture to a fallen war poet:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46092004

>90 CliffBurns: 'Orwell told her that he would get better if she married him.' One would assume this was a bit of black humour rather than an attempt to induce guilt but given that I've always felt Orwell was essentially humourless I can't help wondering if he was in fact enough of a berk to have said this in earnest. Would like to think not. Good article.

A bit of a paraphrase: "A dying man will grab the point of a sword."

I don't think literary history paints a very good picture of the widow--my understanding is she largely abandoned his adopted son.

George Saunders, genius:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/16/george-saunders-interview-booker-p...

Kim Stanley Robinson believes climate change and capitalism are directly connected:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kimstanleyrobinson/climate-change-capitalis...

Best reviewed SF and Fantasy books of 2018:

https://bookmarks.reviews/the-best-reviewed-books-of-2018-sci-fi-and-fantasy/

Many thanks for this link. My husband is a keen fan of sci-fi(although he loathes fantasy) and I have passed this on to him.

Wasn't wearing my glasses when I typed "books". "Booms"?

Good grief...

>80 iansales: iansales: Late in to this topic. Ian, you have some excellent comments. You are absolutely right that an editor will not "ignore a quality submission" or what King said below as "great". We lived for those to come our way....speaking as someone who has retired from book publishing. This is what it came down to in my opinion in the industry (others may not agree): many good books, books that were "publishable" came across our desks. By good, I mean in the sense that Stephen King wrote about in his book "On Writing":

The two theses of On Writing: “The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling
the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while is equally
impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent
one” (142).

So, if many books come in that are "good" (and they do) and you could only accept a few, and you have to make money, how do you decide? Well, you look at the good literary books and see if any of the good literary books have something that makes them stand out as more easily marketed or more likely to stand out from the many, many good literary books published each year. It could be that the author has a famous relative that you can put a marketing "hook" on to, or that there is a timely event that links to the book in terms of geography or content, or that the theme or topic of the book is "news" such as the revival of inner cities, or.....as the editor said to about "Indian authors being hot right now". That is how you hone down the many manuscripts that you receive to ones that you will present to the publishing board. However, if the quality of the book is so apparent to you, you would not hone; you would present it directly to the board with an impassioned, genuine call for publication.

That goes the other way. I knew of a novel that was sentimental, even somewhat manipulative in appealing to emotion. Several publishers turned it down for that very reason. It ended up being a big seller precisely because it was so highly sentimental: it captured an audience that wanted to feel those emotions. So if anything, I found that editors, from extensive reading and education, often had tastes that were too developed for what readership was clamouring for.

In the end, I personally saw the tremendous bias in the book industry and I, for one, am thrilled that there has been significant attempts to have more equal access to publication. Not perfect, but a heck of lot better than when I started. There is nothing wrong with having literary books representing authors who represent diversity, whether the book be a good book, or a great book.

Charles Williford, writer and war hero:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-train-hopping-nazi-fighting-literary-hero-youv...

Roberto Bolano, the Beats & SF:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/roberto-bolano-and-the-beat-connect...

(Cheers, Gord)

Is Nelson Algren due for rediscovery?

https://www.thenation.com/article/nelson-algren-biography-norton

Remembering W.S. Merwin:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-you-go-away-remembering-w-s-mer...

Robert Caro, on the final volume of the greatest political biography ever written:

http://time.com/5564169/historian-robert-caro-interview/

This year's Pulitzer Prize winners:

https://bookmarks.reviews/these-5-books-just-won-pulitzer-prizes

An article on James Crumley, one of my all-time favorite writers:

https://crimereads.com/jim-crumley-and-the-rocky-mountain-crime-renaissance

Kafka news:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/the-last-treasure-trove-of-kafka-s-works-to...

Controversial scribe wins France's highest honor:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47973357

>109 CliffBurns: I love Houellebecq, a marvelously nasty man.

Cliff, when I read your post the L d'h instantly came to mind & then I thought, that's ridiculous--he must have meant to write 'highest literary honor'. Leaving aside his (repugnant) pronouncements, on the basis of the 3 or so books of his I've read I can't see why he would be considered a remarkable writer; I think him a sometimes refreshing one, a good one, an often interesting one but certainly not a Great Writer. Taking into account those pronouncements it's even more difficult to understandd the honour and I wonder what the climate in the Academy? Council? government? who actually decides who gets the award? was that he received it or indeed whether the award was a way of making a statement.

Hard to figure out the French--clearly they admire his writing and are willing to let his incendiary comments pass.

How do you judge a writer, by his body of work or his personal beliefs?

I believe our group has debated this in the past, with no consensus.

It goes back to Satre's comment that one cannot be an anti-semite and a great writer. Then we have Celine. Both a greater writer and a greater shit that Houellebecq will ever be.

>113 justifiedsinner: What bullshit. You'd expect a philosopher to know what a category error is.

Come to think of it Houellebeck's honour is less surprising when you realise that he received it in the same universe in which Sartre was considered sexually attractive. Oh god that was uncalled for I'm just off to jump onto the kitchen counter to see is there any tuna up there before I go outside to find a mouse or bird I can ambush.

An author writes about grief--very moving:

https://longreads.com/2019/04/22/to-grieve-is-to-carry-another-time

10 books to watch for in May:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190430-ten-books-to-read-this-may

Will Self on creative writing classes & the future of writing:

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/self-says-literature-becoming-giant-quilting-...