Category: words

Novelist Tom Wolfe ups the heat on his feud with three fellow writers lumping his new adversary, John Irving, with Mailer and Wolfe, dubbing the literary troika the “Three Stooges” on a Canadian book show. – Salon

Last week Salon Magazine reported that television networks had taken money from the White House drug office in return for inserting anti-drug messages into their programming. The Washington Post now reports that “the drug office says it is spending $11.3 million in the current 12-month period to advertise in 250 newspapers, and that $893,000 of that money is being spent on the New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post. And White House officials say that in three cases–two of them involving the Times and The Post–newspapers were granted $200,000 in financial credits that reduced the amount of public service advertising they are required to provide under the program.” – Washington Post

Conventional wisdom has had it that consolidation in the book industry over the past few years would squelch opportunities for new authors and first books. Not so fast – “a roll call of the houses this week shows that some publishing schedules for 2000 are bursting with first novels, both literary and commercial.” – New York Times

A D.H. Lawrence scholar notes an alarming similarity between Raymond Carver’s brilliant 1980 masterpiece “Cathedral,” and a Lawrence story from 1918, “The Blind Man.” What to do? – Salon

Just as TV networks have come in for criticism for not representing more minorities, publishing has similar problems. Just why are there so few African-American book agents? – New York Times

The libel suit between Penguin books and David Irving, the controversial second world war historian, over his version of the Holocaust, began on Tuesday in the High Court in London. “The case raises a number of questions: When are the ideas of historians or academics so appalling that their work should be forever banned from public consumption? What limits do you place on free speech? And what makes a good historian anyway, especially when their subject is that most emotive one in 20th century history?” –Financial Times

The New Yorker is 75 in February and no fewer than seven books about the legendary magazine are about to grace the world. Who didn’t like someone’s writing, who cut another one’s article…these people keep their grudges. – New York Times

• “I’m one of the bad guys,” Robert Gottleib discovers in Renata Adler’s New Yorker book. – New York Observer
• Review of the Adler book. – New York Observer

Who says authors are good promoters in front of audiences or behind a radio or TV mic? Sometimes you just talk your way into a good humiliation. – The Independent (UK)

A group of writers and photographers is suing National Geographic Magazine for reproducing their work on CD-ROM. – CBC

Huxley, Yeats and Orwell painted bleak visions of the future into which we’ve entered. Not so bad though now that we’ve got here, is it? A look at what made their versions of our time so grim. – Irish Times