The Sun Singer's Travels

A Writer's World in Multiple Dimensions

Book Bits Friday: Brazil offers translation grants, Philip Roth retires, Holmes at 125, ‘Fifty Shades of Earl Grey’

I found some interesting links and thought I’d go ahead and post them rather than waiting until Monday,

  1. News: World Book Night U.S.: Honorary Chairpeople & Book Picks – “Authors Ann Patchett and James Patterson have been named honorary national chairpeople for World Book Night U.S., which also announced the WBN 2013 U.S. book picks and opened the online application process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers next spring.” Shelf Awareness
  2. News: Brazil Offers $35.5 Million in Grants for Literary Translations, by Edward Nawotka – “The Brazilian National Library Foundation established a translation grant program in July of this year and the government has committed $35.5 million to the initiative.” Publishing Perspectives
  3. Roth Society Photo

    Feature: Philip Roth is calling it a career – “In an interview with a French publication called Les inRocks last month — which does not appear to have been reported in the United States — Roth, 78, said he has not written anything new in the last three years, and that he will not write another novel.” Salon

  4. Feature: The digital challenge, I: Loss & gain, or the fate of the book, by Anthony Daniels – “The first entry in our series “The digital challenge.” What does the future hold for printed books?” The New Criterian
  5. Viewpoint: Did Writing Your Book Change Your Life? by Pat Bertram – Thoughts from several authors on what it was like to complete a book. Angie’s Diary
  6. Quotation: “I’m inspired and discouraged by the same idea, it just depends on how I spin it at any given moment. There will always be writers and there will always be readers no matter what form or medium the “book” takes, and so there will always need to be a mechanism that gets the “book” from the writer to the reader. Bookstores are still really, really good at getting books from writers to readers. But those pure impulses, the impulse to write and the impulse to read, don’t interact very well with market economics.” Josh Cook, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
  7. Dirda

    Feature: Book Shopping with the Best-Read Man in America, by John Lingan – “It was him: the book critic and author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, known apocryphally as the best-read man in America, whose essays had enticed me to read everything from Little, Big to Three Men in a Boat—and here he was, squinting his way through the lowest shelves in the same crusty bargain dungeon I came to all the time.” The Paris Review

  8. Feature: Sherlock Holmes at 125, by Gregory McNamee – “It was an inspired but utterly accidental moment when Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish doctor struggling to establish himself both as a physician and as a writer in late Victorian London, drew upon the habits of an irascible medical school mentor to concoct a character that he pegged as a “consulting detective,” an utterly newfangled job description.” Kirkus Reviews
  9. Viewpoint: Dear Reader: If you buy books like widgets, I don’t want you, by Malcolm R. Campbell – “We hear stories from time to time about artists, jewelers, furniture makers and other stubborn souls who, after perfecting the art and the craft of their work for nearly a lifetime, refuse to sell their work to customers whom they believe won’t appreciate the work for its inherent beauty and artistry or who try to prostitute themselves, the art and the artists by acquiring the perfect bentwood rocker, diamond ring or sonnet at a rock bottom price.” Malcolm’s Round Table
  10. Review: Holiday Gift Guide: Fifty Shames of Earl Grey by Fanny Merkin, reviewed by Aron Blanton – “The title warns you not to expect high art and, in case you were ever in doubt, the cover confirms it. Yes, this is a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey. Of course it is. But there is a surprise or two left in store: in a market that seems clotted with mashups and parodies, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey (Da Capo) actually exceeds all expectations. ” January Magazine
  11. Essay: What’s in a Name? by Michael Dirda – “Oh, the joys of being tuckerized …” The American Scholar
  12. Obituary: Mississippi author Ellen Douglas dies at 91, by Emily Wagster Pettus – “Ellen Douglas, a Mississippi native whose novel ‘‘Apostles of Light’’ was a 1973 National Book Award nominee, died Wednesday in Jackson. She was 91. Douglas, who cited fellow Mississippi native William Faulkner as a literary influence, was the pen name of Josephine Ayres Haxton; she said she took a pseudonym to guard the privacy of her family. Douglas’ Mississippi-set work dealt candidly with race relations, families and the role of women.” The Associated Press
  13. Upcoming Title: “Sure Signs of Crazy,” by Karen Harrington (“Janeology”) – “You’ve never met anyone exactly like twelve-year-old Sarah Nelson.  While most of her classmates geek out over Harry Potter, she writes letters to Atticus Finch. Her best friend is a plant. And she’s never known her mother, who has lived in a mental institution since Sarah was two.” author’s website
  14. How To: You Can Write Today, by Beth Hill – “A lot of you are writing today. At least you’re trying to. You’re feverishly putting out word counts for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Or maybe you have a school project due soon. Or maybe, just maybe, you’re making your first attempt at long fiction or a short story.” The Editor’s Blog

“Book Bits” is compiled by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of four novels including the contemporary fantasy adventures “Sarabande” and “The Sun Singer.”

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3 thoughts on “Book Bits Friday: Brazil offers translation grants, Philip Roth retires, Holmes at 125, ‘Fifty Shades of Earl Grey’

  1. Sure Signs of Crazy looks like just my kind of book! Can’t wait for next summer, now. Good links here; thanks, Malcolm.

  2. oops, “Janeology” doesn’t need that extra “o” in it!

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