Interesting Articles on Books, Authors, Reading, etc. - Nov/Dec 2009

CharlasClub Read 2009

Únete a LibraryThing para publicar.

Interesting Articles on Books, Authors, Reading, etc. - Nov/Dec 2009

Este tema está marcado actualmente como "inactivo"—el último mensaje es de hace más de 90 días. Puedes reactivarlo escribiendo una respuesta.

1fannyprice
Nov 1, 2009, 2:31 pm

Post away!

2kidzdoc
Nov 2, 2009, 8:30 am

Today's Guardian has an article about today's announcement of the LONGlist for the 2010 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It also lists all 156 books!

Aravind Adiga heads Impac Dublin prize longlist

3kidzdoc
Editado: Nov 2, 2009, 11:23 am

The French-Senegalese author Marie NDiaye is the winner of this year's Prix Goncourt, for her novel Trois femmes puissantes (Three Powerful Women), which "weaves together the stories of three women: Norah, who arrives at her father's home in Africa; Fanta, teaching French in Dakar, who is forced to follow her partner back to a miserable life in France, and Khady Demba, a young, penniless African widow who is trying to join her distant cousin Fanta in France." She is the first black woman to win the Prix Goncourt, which is considered to be the top literary prize in France.

Today's Guardian has an article about today's announcement. I was amazed to learn that the Prix Goncourt is worth only €10. The winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize gets €100,000!

Black woman wins Prix Goncourt for the first time

The same article also announces the winner of this year's Prix Renaudot, Frédéric Beigbeder, for his autobiographical novel Un roman français (A French Novel).

4kidzdoc
Nov 2, 2009, 7:35 pm

This month's issue of Bookslut features an interview with the acclaimed translator Margaret Jull Costa, whose clients include José Saramago and Javier Marías:

An Interview with Margaret Jull Costa

5SqueakyChu
Editado: Nov 3, 2009, 8:21 am

I found this interview interesting since Concord Free Press has been featured on the LibraryThing blog by Abby recently. The audio interview is with Stona Firch and Wesley Brown, authors of the first two books offered by CFP.

6kidzdoc
Nov 3, 2009, 4:47 pm

The online edition of today's New York Times has a lengthy obituary for Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, intellectual, and author of the four volume Mythologiques series, who died on Friday:

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologist, Dies at 100

7solla
Nov 7, 2009, 1:35 pm

I read that article. I was partly looking for some enlightenment on Levi-Strauss's central ideas. Many years ago I read the Raw and the Cooked. At the time I wasn't sure whether his central idea was very simple, and, to me, self-evident - in which case I didn't understand why people raved so about the book - or so subtle that I just wasn't grasping it. I noted that the article didn't really come up with a summary of his idea, but stated that he was controversial.

8polutropos
Nov 9, 2009, 9:20 pm

Elsewhere on ClubRead there was speculation earlier about likely Nobel Prize winners and Adonis was acknowledged to be a frontrunner, even though of course he did not get it.

There is a sampling of his poetry, translated for the first time, in the most recent issue of InTranslation.

http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/arabic/a-celebration-of-the-obscure-and-th...

9avaland
Editado: Nov 10, 2009, 4:01 pm

Publishers Weekly's top ten books of 2009 (notice anything about the list?)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6704263.html

(hint: it's not that six out of 10 are published by Random House...)

10fannyprice
Nov 10, 2009, 4:36 pm

>9 avaland:, Lois, to be fair, many of their top 100 are by women. I know it would be great to see more women on these lists, but is it really the oversight/issue that some are suggesting it is?

11kidzdoc
Nov 10, 2009, 4:49 pm

The Guardian had an article about the PW list last week, as many other papers did. But, this article also had a link to a wiki list of "great books published by women in 2009" by WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) a new US literary organization:

Fury after women writers excluded from 'books of the year'

12ShabaShundi
Nov 10, 2009, 4:55 pm

Este mensaje ha sido denunciado por varios usuarios por lo que no se muestra públicamente. (mostrar)
I stumbled upon your guy's site and found who I see to be one of the most prolific authors of our time.

I want to share his work with everyone I know so when finding this site.. naturally I went right to trying to post who I understand to be some of the more serious readers. In Hopes that ..you guys would consider the works of MIKE BICKLE and maybe if you guys think his books are as awesome as I do, maybe you will help get the word out. Mike is a very humble guy and he has not promoted his books.. like he could. He is busy waisting his life Gazing on God.

Anyway.. I want to help him.. because the comprehinsion that this man posses's should be shared and known by everyone.

With Love
From Inside The Father's Heart

13ShabaShundi
Nov 10, 2009, 4:55 pm

Este mensaje ha sido denunciado por varios usuarios por lo que no se muestra públicamente. (mostrar)
I stumbled upon your guy's site and found who I see to be one of the most prolific authors of our time.

I want to share his work with everyone I know so when finding this site.. naturally I went right to trying to post who I understand to be some of the more serious readers. In Hopes that ..you guys would consider the works of MIKE BICKLE and maybe if you guys think his books are as awesome as I do, maybe you will help get the word out. Mike is a very humble guy and he has not promoted his books.. like he could. He is busy waisting his life Gazing on God.

Anyway.. I want to help him.. because the comprehinsion that this man posses's should be shared and known by everyone.

With Love
From Inside The Father's Heart

14kidzdoc
Nov 11, 2009, 6:23 am

The giant UK bookseller Waterstone's has lost its soul and killed bookselling, according to this interesting article in yesterday's Guardian by Stuart Jeffries. He does give praise to the London Review Bookshop, which is my favorite bookstore in the capital, as one of the newer "culturally significant small independent bookshops".

How Waterstone's killed bookselling

15fannyprice
Nov 11, 2009, 10:11 am

>14 kidzdoc:, Darryl, that was a very interesting article.

An interview with sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/10/kim-stanley-robinson-science-fiction...

A bizarre article about a Massachusetts boarding school that has done away with physical books in its library: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120097876&ft=1&f=10...

And the Guardian on WW1-era writers: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/11/writers-first-world-war

16avaland
Nov 12, 2009, 7:17 pm

>15 fannyprice: yeah, I heard the Cushing Academy story. Fascinating (and somewhat horrifying). Imagine a library, not only completely digital, but with a cafe in the middle of it.

17avaland
Nov 13, 2009, 6:10 am

>10 fannyprice: Fanny, my test is always to imagine the reverse. Thus, can one imagine (honestly) that PW might have been just as likely to come up with a top ten that included no books written by men. The answer there is clearly, no. (that's my short answer)

18tonikat
Editado: Nov 22, 2009, 7:25 am

Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.

19tonikat
Nov 22, 2009, 7:27 am

Ok I'll try to post that again.

Enjoyable ariticle on Nabokov by Martin Amis in the Guardian from last week:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/14/vladimir-nabokov-books-martin-amis

20kidzdoc
Editado: Nov 22, 2009, 10:20 am

In today's Observer Review, several well known writers and other public figures list their favorite books of the year:

Books of the year 2009

21dukedom_enough
Nov 23, 2009, 7:55 am

Small Beer Press satirizes ripoff pay-to-publish schemes, prompted by the recent "Harlequin Horizons" program. Via the Making Light blog.

22janemarieprice
Nov 23, 2009, 9:25 pm

More Nabokov - redesigned covers, complete with slideshow.

The Nabokov Collection

25kidzdoc
Nov 28, 2009, 7:36 am

Motoko Rich of The New York Times interviews Colum McCann, the winner of this year's National Book Award for Fiction for his novel Let the Great World Spin, which I'm currently reading, and thoroughly enjoying:

Significant (Little) Moments Pulled From Obscurity

26polutropos
Nov 30, 2009, 1:39 pm

Tobias Wolff on writing, especially writing short stories

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/birnbaum_v/tobias_wolff.php

27wandering_star
Dic 2, 2009, 6:41 am

This is a podcast, rather than an article.

I am a big fan of the New Yorker's Fiction podcast in which a writer reads and discusses a short story of his/her choice that originally appeared in the New Yorker. November's is particularly good - Orhan Pamuk discussing a piece by Vladimir Nabokov (actually an extract from Speak, Memory).

http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction

28kidzdoc
Dic 3, 2009, 7:52 am

The New York Times' web site lists its 10 Best Books of 2009:

The 10 Best Books of 2009

29SqueakyChu
Editado: Dic 4, 2009, 11:48 am

Very thorough and well-written (long) article on IndieReader.com contemplating the demise of author book tours:

article by John Doulgas Marshall

30kidzdoc
Dic 6, 2009, 10:31 am

The New York Times includes in its list of Holiday Books a review of POSING BEAUTY: African American Images From the 1890s to the Present, a "definitive history of black beauty", which I'll give to my mother as a Christmas gift.

Holiday Books: Photography

31wandering_star
Dic 11, 2009, 9:25 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_jyXJTlrH0, again, is not an article, but please go and have a look at it - it's amazing. (I don't want to say any more, because I don't want to spoil the surprise by giving away any hints about the short video.)

32SqueakyChu
Dic 12, 2009, 10:29 am

Best Books of 2009 picks by The Washington Post.

33tonikat
Dic 12, 2009, 11:52 am

#6 - finally read the obit of Levi-Strauss who has interested me for a long time, really enjoyed it and guess I will try the raw and the cooked some time.

It made me think of different approaches to thinking/writing (not saying this was him by the way) but between thinking creatively for yourself and thinking but limiting yourself very much by evidence as you go - I guess both approaches have their own drawbacks.

34dukedom_enough
Dic 16, 2009, 8:24 am

New York Times reviews Chinua Achebe's latest book, first since 1990, The Education of a British-Protected Child. It's an essay collection.

35dukedom_enough
Dic 17, 2009, 7:43 am

The Guardian has a list of the past decade's best unread books. Many such lists could be made, of course.

36kidzdoc
Dic 19, 2009, 12:47 pm

The San Francisco Chronicle lists its choice of the top 100 books of the year:

The 100 best fiction, nonfiction books of 2009

37kidzdoc
Dic 24, 2009, 12:01 am

Today's Guardian has a fun 40-question 2009 in Books Quiz:

2009 in books

38rebeccanyc
Dic 24, 2009, 8:48 am

Well, I got an embarrassing 15/40 - but considering I actually knew the answers to maybe 5 of the questions, that's not too bad. I think if I lived in England, I would have done better.

39bobmcconnaughey
Dic 29, 2009, 9:33 pm

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/12/29.php#30998 -
Donald Hall and Billy Collins on the Diane Rehm show discussing death, poetry and the dubious quality of Carl Sandburg's doggerel.