Category: publishing

Dale Peck is a human hatchet disguised as a literary critic. He’s unequivocal: “Novels and memoirs are on a wrong course. They are either inward-gazing, solipsistic and impotent or unconscious and rarefied, written by recidivist realists who pretend the twentieth century didn’t happen.” And America’s other book critics? “They are back-scratchers, afraid for their own careers – novelists reviewing their friends’ works. It is very dishonest.”

Rachel Billington thinks it’s great that children are excited about reading Harry Potter. But what comes after that? In orevious generations, “there was no aggressive marketing to switch us in the direction of a particular book. Finding a book was an adventure that involved real choice. The question for modern parents is how to build on the popularity of a smallish range of exceedingly popular contemporary children’s books and lead their goggle-eyed offspring to wider shores.”

Shirley Hazzard took the top fiction prize at the National Book Awards last night, winning for The Great Fire, her first novel in nearly a quarter-century. Cuban memoirist Carlos Eire took the non-fiction prize, and C.K. Williams won the poetry award. In the strangest moment of the evening, bestselling horror writer Stephen King accepted a medal of honor, and then lashed out at the literary world during his acceptance speech, explicitly criticising those authors “who make a point of pride in saying they have never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer.”

Terry Teachout attends the National Book Awards banquet as a judge. Stephen King’s speech was “interesting. He was clearly moved by the honor—he choked up. He was funny and unpretentious when paying tribute to his wife and talking about the “vulnerability” to self-doubt of poor, struggling authors (such as himself when young). I suspect he was the first National Book Award laureate ever to say “Oh, shit!” in his acceptance speech (he was describing the way an honest author might portray a terrified character in extreme circumstances). And he was simultaneously a bit defensive and more than a little bit aggressive when he informed the crowd that they’d be making a mistake if they treated their decision to give him the prize as an act of ‘tokenism’.”

There are about 4.5 million books in print. And the number of new books each year has been growing at an alarming rate. Why? The proliferation of digital self-published books. There are some downsides to the new publishing – self-published books haven’t been vetted through the usual process of editors and publishers. And print-on-demand publishers don’t take returns from bookstores…

The New York Times is looking for a new books section editor to replace Chip McGrath. “Mr. McGrath’s successor will arrive at a time when there is actually some larger debate about book reviewing going on. It’s all a bit strangely polarized: On one end of the spectrum are the likes of the militantly mild Believer editor Heidi Julavits, issuing rambling screeds against “snarky” book critics. On the other are bomb-throwers like the novelist Dale Peck, who routinely goes after big quarry in his long reviews in The New Republic, and whose supposed acts of critical derring-do got him an anthropological profile in The New York Times Magazine last month, as if an ambitious, bloodthirsty critic were some kind of special case that demanded to be analyzed. Some see these extremes, and the attention they’re getting, as reactions to the wishy-washy state of the Book Review.”

The Pop Idol series has been a hit around the world. Now the idea is being transfered to literature. “Lit Idol has been organised by London Book Fair to uncover untapped talent in the world of fiction writing. The winner will secure a deal with a leading agent which would be almost certain to result in a contract.” Entrants submit work, which will be voted on over the internet. Finalists will be judged after readings at the London Book Fair.

“The International Impac Dublin literary award, is the most eclectic and unpredictable of the literary world’s annual gongs. The Impac is one of the world’s richest prizes but it is arguably more remarkable for its breadth of coverage and truly global nature than the size of its coffers. Nominations for the prize are made by 162 different libraries in 47 different countries. As a result, the longlist is staggeringly long but also incredibly broad, featuring a range of genres and nationalities. This year the list is notable for the sprinkling of popular titles.

Who will replace Chip McGrath as editor of the New York Times Book Review? And what will happen to the section? “I understand why the Times wouldn’t want to give up the section’s gravity, but if you wanted to make your mark as the editor of the Times Book Review, the first thing you would do is to make it less influential. That would give you the license to make the reviews livelier and more discriminating.”

Ruth Lily’s $100 million bequest to Poetry Magazine last year has resulted in nicer offices and financial security for the publication. But the magazine certainly hasn’t gone on a spending spree. “In some ways, there is an oil-and-water mix to poetry and money. Poets just are sort of ill at ease around a lot of money. This thing has been a shoestring operation for years. I don’t think anyone wants to get too fancy. You know, it tends to make me nervous to go out and buy a lamp or something.”