The Club Read group has a topic on articles that members discover and wish to share with others, and I thought I would see if the 75ers would like to do the same.

One of my main resources for new books is The Guardian (UK), especially the Saturday Guardian Review, which can be viewed online for free. There are lots of good articles and reviews in today's edition, too many to post individually here. So, I'll just post a link to the Review's page:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/gu...

Tomorrow's New York Times Book Review has reviews of two books I'll be reading soon, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers and This Is How by M.J. Hyland:

After the Deluge

Heartbreak Hotels

Thanks for starting this thread, Darryl. I have been checking the one in the Club Read group since it was started, but it is nice to have one here as well.

An article about a new Arthur Ransome autobiography in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books...

Message edited by its author, Aug 16, 2009, 6:47pm.

#3: That looks like a very good book. I was going to order it until I found out it was $33 and my husband would most likely kill me, lol.

Not necessarily connected with his work, but an interesting article that talks about Terry Pratchett's views on dying with dignity: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...

I found this New Yorker article on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane interesting: Wilder Women

Message edited by its author, Aug 17, 2009, 10:30am.

Today's Guardian Review has several meaty reviews of interesting books. Sebastian Barry gushes over Love and Summer by William Trevor, which is on the current Booker Prize longlist:

Sebastian Barry applauds the timeless integrity of William Trevor

Michael Faber reviews The Blue Moment by Richard Williams, an analysis of the impact that Miles Davis' 1959 album Kind of Blue has had on art, music and culture since then:

A recording from the 1950s continues to inspire modern musicians

Finally, Maya Jaggi writes about the latest book by Diana Evans, The Wonder, a novel about a troubled black Londoner who finds solace and freedom in dance:

Ever-changing London sparkles through the prism of dance

I am going to have to look for the new Trevor book. Thanks again for posting the links, Darryl.

Stasia, I should be receiving my copy of Love and Summer from The Book Depository any day now. According to Amazon US, it will be available here on September 17th.

Thanks for letting me know!

Ooo, the Trevor and Evans books both sound good. I've added them both to the list. Thanks.

Yesterday's Observer Review has an insightful interview with Sadie Jones, author of The Outcast. Her latest novel, Small Wars, will be released on Thursday.


'Even when we do talk, we often lie': Sadie Jones's affecting second novel is about a marriage destroyed by war, as she tells Eva Wiseman

The Latin American Herald Tribune features an e-mail interview with Jose Saramago, who recently finished his latest novel, Cain, "in which he absolves that Biblical villain of the killing of his brother and puts the blame squarely on God". His two previous books, Memories of My Youth and The Elephant's Journey, have yet to be translated into English.

Saramago Takes Irreverent Aim at Old Testament in New Novel

An interesting article on the future of reading for students - let them choose what they want to read - what a novel idea!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/...

#14: That was a fantastic article, and I was so encouraged by the results of the teacher and her students. I've read the book mentioned in the article, and had thought about putting it into practice - once I get a teaching job - so I am happy to see others viewing it as successful as well. It should be much easier to implement in Ontario, as we don't have standardized exams, though we do have a standardized literacy test.

You might want to followup by reading this blog post which talks about the article. http://medinger.wordpress.com/2009/08/30... If you are going to be teaching younger children you might find the work of Vivian Gussin Paley interesting.

The latest edition of the New Zealand Book Council's Booknotes arrived in my mailbox today and it makes interesting reading but isn't available online yet. So here's the link to the previous edition. http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/users/Imag...

Been having fun on this site:
http://www.wetellstories.co.uk/

Penguin asked six authors to create stories designed purely for the internet. So far I have read an interactive fairytale, an interesting take on the 39 steps (using google maps!) and an "infographic" reworking of Hard Times. There aren't perfect but they interesting.

Interesting article in today's New York Times about the apparent effect that the Oxfam bookstores are having on secondhand bookshops in the UK:

Beleaguered Bookseller Knows Whom to Blame: Oxfam

Darryl, I found the most interesting part to be the last line of the article: “I’ve had loads of people coming to tell me it’s such a tragedy I closed,” Mr. Harrison said. “If only they’d bought books.”

I think that says an awful lot...

Interesting article on cnn.com today about how, in the "new library," books are being pushed aside in favor of digital learning centers and community gathering spots.

It's at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/04/futur...

#20: Right. That sentence stuck with me too, and it was a perfect way to end the article.

This isn't an article, but I received an e-mail from AbeBooks, which announced the opening of its Weird Book Room, which includes books such as Ductigami: The Art of the Tape, Is Your Dog Gay?, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, and The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America.

Possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Cheese Problems Solved? How to Avoid Huge Ships? I'm rolling on the floor.

I want to meet the doc who wrote The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. If that book can get published there is hope for all of us budding authors.

And the best part is, there are 4 people on LT who own that book!

As the deadline draws near there has been a lot of dismay at Google's digital book project. Writers, publishers have only a few days to either opt in or out of the settlement.

Here's a link to a Guardian article about it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/200...

UK writer Nick Harkaway tries to make up his mind in this blog post: http://www.nickharkaway.com/2009/09/goog...

BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/82...
Germany: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN01492...;

Interesting article on a private school near Boston that is opting for a digital library and thrown out all their paper books. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massach...

An article on the accelerated reading program used in US schools and how reading a Harry Potter book and Gossip Girl is 'worth' more than reading 5 classics. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/...

Tomorrow's Guardian Review has a profile article on William Trevor here:

A Life in Books

And, there is an article about the alter-egos found in Coetzee's works:

The many faces of JM Coetzee

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has a nice article on the poet/spoken word artist/activist/former university professor Sonia Sanchez, who will celebrate her 75th birthday on Wednesday with a blow out bash at her home in the Germantown section of the city:

For poet Sanchez, it's life that's always knocking at the door

An interesting review of Lorrie Moore's latest book, A Gate at the Stairs, is in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, along with another glowing review of Love and Summer:

Master of the short story ranges wide, triumphs in the long form

Every year I look forward to the Fall books preview article in the San Francisco Chronicle, as I always find at least half a dozen books to add to my collection. This year is no exception; these are the books I'll be especially interested in:

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Knopf). The Turkish author's first novel since winning the Nobel Prize concerns an impossible love.

The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). A new translation of the acclaimed 1959 novel.

Where the Wild Things Are by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's). Three whole months after publishing "Zeitoun," Eggers returns with this novelization of the Maurice Sendak story. (Eggers also co-wrote the script for the forthcoming film with director Spike Jonze.)

A Community Organizer: People and Power in San Francisco by Mike Miller (Heyday). The activist's take on the movement to protect the Mission District.

The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe (Knopf). A collection of autobiographical essays from the author of "Things Fall Apart."

Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood (Knopf). The prizefighter and the challenges he confronted, in and out of the ring.

Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley (Free Press). A biography of the great jazz composer.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy (Knopf). New translations by husband and wife Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who also breathed new life into "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina."

A Good Fall: Stories by Ha Jin (Pantheon). The author's first collection since 2001 focuses on Chinese immigrant life.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper). A man befriends the artist Frida Kahlo, and his life is forever changed; by the author of "The Poisonwood Bible."

Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing, edited by Ilan Stavans (Library of America). A mammoth work, more than 800 pages long, whose many authors include Junot Díaz, Jhumpa Lahiri and Czeslaw Milosz.

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith (Penguin). A far-ranging collection by the author of "White Teeth."

Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan's America by Gerald Nachman (UC Press). The man who came before Burnett, Letterman, Leno and all the rest; by the San Francisco author of "Raised on Radio."

I'll be pulling some of those over to Planet TBR. Thanks for the list, Darryl!

An interview with Margo Lanagan, author of Tender Morsels at readersplace.co.uk http://readersplace.co.uk/author-spotlig...

Tomorrow's Guardian has a fascinating and insightful interview of Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall:

'I accumulated an anger that would rip a roof off'

This year's Royal Society for Science Book Prize was awarded today to Richard Holmes for The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. Today's Guardian has an article about the award:

Romantic adventurers win book prize

The paper reviewed the book last year:

Brave new world

Dennis Lehane writes about Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch Novels http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/200...

Today's San Francisco Chronicle features a review of a new collection of short stories about first- and second-generation Chinese-Americans, All That Work and Still No Boys by Kathryn Ma:

'All That Work and Still No Boys'

#36

That truly was a fascinating piece on Hilary Mantel. And not at all what I was expecting! Thanks for sharing the link.

Message edited by its author, Sep 20, 2009, 2:01pm.

The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009 http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/t...

Link didn't work for me :(

#41, 42: Try this link:

The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009

Oh thanks! That one worked. Of course, I probably could have googled it myself, but I was responding before coffee...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...

The Timbuktu manuscripts have hit the mainstream media. There are several other articles online if one wishes to follow the fate of physical historical documents.

A new blog following the work of Geoffrey Trease by respected academic Farah Mendlesohn.
http://treaseproject.livejournal.com/

edit: add touchstone for Trease

Message edited by its author, Sep 29, 2009, 6:21pm.

Today's Sunday Telegraph features an article by Michael Prodger, the literary editor of the paper and one of this year's Booker Prize judges, on this year's offerings and the judging process:

Confessions of Booker Prize judge Michael Prodger

Yesterday's Guardian Review includes a review of Simon Mawer, author of The Glass Room, which is on this year's Booker Prize shortlist:

Simon Mawer: 'I'm a novelist. I don't want to tell the truth. I want to manipulate things as I choose. I want to lie'

An obituary of the novelist Sarah E. Waters appears in today's New York Times. She wrote only one novel, This Child's Gonna Live in 1969, which was selected as an outstanding book for that year by the NYT. According to the article, "it portrays the lives of an impoverished black woman and her family in a Maryland fishing during the Depression. Often compared to the work of Zora Neale Hurston, the novel was unusual in its exploration of the black experience from a woman's perspective, anticipating fiction by writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker." Although she didn't write any other novels, she led an active and rich life up until her death last month.

Sarah E. Wright, Novelist of Black Experience in the Depression, Dies at 80

#49: I confess I have never heard of This Child's Gonna Live, but now that I have, I am going to seek out a copy. Thanks for posting, Daryl.

PD James talks about detective fiction in the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books...

Her latest book is nonfiction: Talking about Detective Fiction.

I found this 2006 New Yorker profile article of Hilary Mantel, which discusses Beyond Black and some of her previous works:

Devil’s Work: Hilary Mantel’s ghosts

For anyone who looks at the New York Time bestseller lists here is an interesting mashup showing the list alongside amazon ratings & info.
http://readingradar.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/books/

Some mainstream stuff. Some off the wall stuff. About to move into book overload territory.

Need some cheap hardcover bestsellers for the holidays? Amazon and Walmart are having a price war. Under the Dome and such for $9.00.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2...

Both Susan Hill and Rick Gekoski have just published their books about books and reading - here is the Telegraph article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books...

I need to relearn how to do links

An interesting article in the New york Post about Michael Chabon's latest - Manhood for Amateurs: a series of essays including his brilliant essay on childhood that was in the New yorker earlier this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/books/...

I love this: 'Mr. Chabon also describes himself as oddly passive. On the eve of meeting his wife, Ayelet Waldman, he writes: “When it came to the art of living, the only medium susceptible to my genius was inertia. If someone wanted to get married, I would marry her. If she wanted out, then it was time to get a divorce. Otherwise, in either case, I was okay with things the way they were.” And yet, deep down inside, he adds, he wanted to find someone “to challenge me, to serve as a goad, an instigator, a stirrer of the pot,” and he found that in his wife, who, he says, “has dragged, nudged, coaxed, led, stirred, embroiled, mocked, seduced, finagled, or carried me into every last instance of delight or sorrow, every debacle, every success, every brilliant call, and every terrible mistake, that I have known or made.”'

Thanks for posting the link about Chabon, Kerry.

An interesting short read on China's censorship issues http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=697...

Book bloggers in the US beware: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblo...

#60: I'm speechless! Thanks for sharing that article.

The Chinese poet Duo Duo is the winner of the 2010 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. The World Literature Today magazine web site has a link to the press release here. I've included a summary below.

An international jury representing nine countries selected critically acclaimed Chinese poet Duo Duo as the 2010 laureate of the $50,000 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international magazine, World Literature Today. The decision was made during deliberations on Oct. 22 on the OU Norman campus.

Duo Duo (Li Shizheng) was born in Beijing in 1951. He started writing poetry in the early 1970s as a youth during the isolated, midnight hours of the Cultural Revolution, and many of his early poems critiqued the Cultural Revolution from an insider’s point of view in a highly sophisticated, original style. Often considered part of the “Misty” school of contemporary Chinese poetry, he nevertheless kept a cautious distance from any literary trends or labeling. After witnessing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Duo Duo left China and did not return for more than a decade. Upon his return to China in 2004, the literary community received him with honor and praise. Duo Duo currently resides on Hainan Island and teaches at Hainan University in China.

Today's Guardian has an article about today's announcement of the LONGlist of 156 books nominated for the 2010 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award:

Aravind Adiga heads Impac Dublin prize longlist

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 8:34am.

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).

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 11:25am.

Here is the shortlist announcement for the Guardian Best First Book Award to be announced early December.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct...

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

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

Also recently passed away is writer Esther Hautzig, her NY Times obituary is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/books/...

Message edited by its author, Nov 4, 2009, 5:11am.

I keep meaning to post this, some very funny writing advice. http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/

Whilst I am posting the Guardian carries comments by Margo Lanagan on the controversy surrounding Tender Morsels (after jointly winning a world fantasy award)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov...

edited to stop spelling insanity

Message edited by its author, Nov 4, 2009, 8:19am.

#69 - Thanks for the link to the Margo Lanagan article.

Germaine goes medieval on Proust.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/n...

Yikes! And here I am thinking of trying Proust!

I am just starting Proust (I've tried several times before), but really enjoying it so fare, with a non-LT group read. Getting lots of guidance and support.

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

Cormac McCarthy doesn't interact with the public or his readers very often. He'd rather hang out at the Santa Fe Institute instead. That alone is a reason to like him. The Wall Street Journal did manage to get an interview with him recently.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...

An enthusiastic review of Robert Harris' second book of his trilogy about Cicero. Lustrum http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times...

New Zealand writer, Witi Ihimaera, best known for The Whale Rider, is facing plagarism complaints over his latest book, The Torwenna Sea - http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl...
There was an indepth article about this in this week's NZ Listener magazine, the full text will be released online in a couple of weeks. http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3627/fea...

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

Check the top of your toilet. Might be treasures there.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entert...

What a great find!

Thought you guys and gals might like this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books....

I had no idea the decade we are currently in is called 'the noughties'. Am I the only one who didn't know this?? :)

>79 - That's hilarious!

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

The actual passages from this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award nominees.
http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsexpa...

About the future of bookselling in the UK and introducing an interesting book Women who read are dangerous by Stefan Bollman in the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/n...
About an anti-sale Black Friday bookshop in the US and the longterm impact of book discounting:
http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=838...
Susan Hill blogs on independent bookshops, publishing and discounting in the Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk/susanhill/557...

#84: OK, that may have put me off having sex again forever, especially the last one :)

#85: Thanks for those links, Kerry.

World's smallest library.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketco...

#87: Gotta love it! Booklovers refuse to give in to the loss of the mobile library.

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

The 10 Best Books of 2009

If you've read A Gentle Madness then you might remember William Self. His collection is going to sell at auction on Friday. A stained, frayed, beat-up book will be the centerpiece with an estimated $500,000 to $700,000 price tag.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...

The Tamerlane was sold for $662,500, a record for American literature.

Wow!

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

Message edited by its author, Dec 6, 2009, 10:24am.

A NZ Book Council promo - 'literally brings the experience of reading alive in an immersive creative video stop-motion animation' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_jyXJTlr...

edit:
I wanted to add this one that I mentioned earlier in the year for the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate
http://www.vimeo.com/2295261

Message edited by its author, Dec 6, 2009, 10:03pm.

#94: Love that video of the Maurice Gee book, Kerry. Thanks for posting the link!

"She was a horrible human being," recalls Otto Penzler, one of her publishers.

Yet the "toxic brilliance of her trail goes on glowing" 15 years after her death in 1995 -- when "she drove a last, devoted visitor from her hospital room and then died unobserved."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/new...

From the Seed Magazine science book recommendations for Dec. 09 under a series called The Animal Series. "In Snail, we learn that the thriller author Patricia Highsmith carried pet snails in her purse and hid them under her breasts while traveling."

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/...

I couldn't have made this stuff up even if I had a month of Sundays to do so. I might have to read this biography.

Message edited by its author, Dec 7, 2009, 6:55pm.

I read Andrew Wilson's Patricia Highsmith biography Beautiful Shadow earlier this year and she was a particularly interesting, extremely private and difficult person. The snails were her pets and she was devoted to them. Next year I plan to read more of her novels.

#96 - Having disliked the movie "The Talented Mr. Ripley", I never felt compelled to read a Patricia Highsmith novel (I know - never judge a book by the movie!), but after reading the review of The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar, I am this close to buying this biography!

According to Amazon, which still has it on pre-order, it's due to be released today.

petermc, I was just going to read the review but didn't think it would be a book I wanted to read. By the time I got to the end I was thinking- I should order this. That review had hooks.

avatiakh, I'm not sure I've ever met anyone that had snails for pets.

I got hooked into buying the Andrew Wilson biography Beautiful Shadow when reading the blurb on the backcover. I'd only read a couple of the Ripley novels before and seen the movies.

petermc - there are a few Southbank interviews of her on youtube - she was more popular outside of the US for many years, and at times couldn't find a US publisher for some of her work. Hitchcock's movie Strangers on a train is based on one of her novels. Plein soleil (Purple Noon) is the 1960 movie based on The Talented Mr Ripley and had her favourite Ripley actor, though she also liked 'the Ripley' they used during the Southbank interviews. The books are of course better than the movies.

I just got the latest copy of the New Zealand Book Council's Booknotes in the mail yesterday which reminded me that the pdf of their last edition would now be available online - includes bookgroup notes for Elizabeth Knox's The Angel's Cut, crime writer Paul Cleave's masterclass notes on balancing fact with fiction, revisiting John Mulgan's classic Man Alone, Under the Mountain and YA fantasy and Eleanor Catton's letter from London. http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/users/Imag...

#101: Thanks for posting the Booknotes. I found it very interesting (and added more books to the BlackHole, too).

Guardian article on the worst books of the decade: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblo...

#103: I love the comment about all the books that won the Booker prize that probably shouldn't have - my thoughts exactly!

After 76 years Kirkus Reviews appears to be dead.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/200...

#105: I probably should not be, but I am just stunned!

Salon has writers pick their favorite books of the year. Nick Hornby, Curtis Sittenfeld, Anne Lamott and others are featured.

Nick Hornby, ugh. Never heard of the others. I suspect we don't look for the same things in fiction...

#109: Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing that, Luxx.

An old prof posted it on facebook; she said she has worked in three. I was very jealous! I knew people here would appreciate them.

Sunday Star Times has Best Books of 2009 lists by their reviewers. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times...

Message edited by its author, Dec 12, 2009, 10:30pm.

With the scheduled closing of its last bookstore, Laredo, TX is set to become the largest American city without a bookstore. 250,000 people. Once their B. Dalton's closes, the nearest bookstore will be in San Antonio, which is 150 miles away.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34452179/ns/...

#113: That is so, so sad!