The novel has died again. I've been baited into reading yet another obituary, this time written by the Secret Author (a "former professor of English and creative writing at a leading British university") who laments, in the Critic magazine, the decline of serious novels about middle-class morals and God, in favour of those focusing on "identity politics". Sally Rooney and Zadie Smith are cited as the writers who symbolise this supposed decline. It did not escape my notice that these writers happen to be women, while the literary God-botherers of the past have tended to be men. Over the years, the novel has died more deaths than a cat. It has died from loneliness, and it has died as a result of its own stupidity. This time, it has died because women have murdered it.
Links of the week July 6 2020 (28)
Our new feature links to interesting blogs or articles posted online, which will help keep you up to date with what's going on in the book world:
13 July 2020
There's something about Sally Rooney that drives men wild, and not in the ways they are used to being stimulated (an attractive young woman's place shouldn't be an enthusiastic profile in the New Yorker. This was not part of the plan). It's all very well dismissing her work as "very simple stuff with no literary ambition", as Will Self did last year. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on the state of literature. But writing can be a petty business. A writer who claims never to be envious of other writers is as much a liar as one who claims not to care about sales. And Rooney, who has not only hit the publishing sweet spot of the literary and commercial crossover but is also very good at what she does, has provoked much jealousy.
One of the biggest "first-world problems" to arise during 2020's necessary isolation in response to Covid-19 has to do with e-books. I'm specifically talking about e-galleys, the early versions of books that critics, reviewers, and librarians often receive from publishers in place of paper versions.
Back in 2005, I ordered the first-generation Kindle straight away. I loved it, too. But it wasn't my first go-round with electronic reading. At two magazines where I'd worked, I'd tested different e-readers. I was an early adopter, and I'll never apologize for it.
However, in the 15 years since buying that first device, I'd fallen off the e-reading bandwagon. I'd moved on from working at the intersection of publishing and technology to a role as a literary journalist and book critic. As I began writing more and more, I began receiving more and more print books. No longer did I have to request a galley or a finished book; the floodgates burst, those floodgates being the shelves in my home office, which now groan with galleys, ARCs, trade paperbacks, and hardcovers.
When the first coronavirus-related erotica appeared on Literotica, one of the largest erotic fiction websites, in mid-March, the moderators were not sure if it was fit to print. Within a week, they were receiving a handful of sex stories relating to the virus every single day. As billions around the world went into lockdown, some people had seemingly found a new inspiration in isolation; quarantine-related porn started to appear online, and erotica writers began to self-publish lockdown romances on Amazon. "Quarantine has given me time to get back to writing," Silkstockinglover, one popular writer on Literotica, tells me. "I wrote a dozen stories so far."
"I don't think there's anything explicitly sexy about the pandemic itself, but any extreme situation is going to bring about fascinating experiences to explore in terms of sexuality," says Ian Snow, one author who entered the contest. "Add in isolation, boredom, and plain physical need to the mix, and you've got a recipe for some pretty hot stories."
On Monday, Simon & Schuster announced that Dana Canedy, the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes and a former reporter for the New York Times, will become its senior vice-president and the publisher of its flagship imprint. Canedy won a Pulitzer two decades ago, at the Times, for her work on the series "How Race is Lived in America." Canedy also published a book, "A Journal For Jordan," in 2008, about the death of her fiancé while he was serving in Iraq. She will become the first Black person to take over a major publishing imprint. Simon & Schuster, which is owned by ViacomCBS, is one of the largest publishers in the country, but it is also up for sale as changes and mergers continue to roil the book world.
I think people have broad interests, and I think that to some extent it's the role of the publisher to lead in terms of what people are reading. But it's also the role of the publisher to respond to what people are already reading and asking for. So there''s a place for both. I mean, Trump's a huge story, and he insists on being a huge story just in the way he approaches his job. And so I think it would be a dereliction of duty for journalists and authors not to focus on him to the extent that they are.
Authors, shut out of holding in-person events at bookstores, are getting more creative and collaborative when it comes to promoting their books. For the publication of Melanie Conroy-Goldman's debut novel, The Likely World (Red Hen), this means inviting as many people as she can to join her for what could be the world's first drive-in book launch. The event will take place August 4 at the Fingerlakes Drive-in in Auburn, N.Y., where Conroy-Goldman will have a conversation with author Bob Proehl and attendees will be treated to swag bags, free popcorn, and a screening of the 1989 movie Say Anything.
Silva's launch is just one of more than 40 virtual events that Poisoned Pen is hosting in July, including programs with bestsellers like Brad Thor and international authors such as Camilla Läckberg. Owner Barbara Peters said that, though the store has livestreamed its big events for several years, there was a bit of a learning curve involved in becoming, essentially, a broadcaster. "Every day we are learning new things and embracing new opportunities," she added.
In the last two weeks, Hong Kong publisher Raymond Yeung has hastily made changes to a draft paper copy of a book entitled "To Freedom," replacing the word "revolution" with "protests," tweaking a banned slogan and cutting passages that advocate independence for the Chinese-ruled city.
The changes were hard to make, he told Reuters, but impossible to avoid since China passed a national security law on June 30, making the broadly defined crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces punishable by up to life in prison.
"This is really painful," Yeung said as he flipped through pages of the collection of essays by 50 protesters, lawyers, social workers and other participants in the pro-democracy demonstrations that shook Hong Kong last year.
I think some of the spinout that happens in social media has to do with people being inside a dynamic that allows them to forget that there's another person on the other side of it-and also to forget the subject on the other side of it, and the origin, and the context in which they were initially speaking. But if a peace prize could be given to a thing, social media should get it. Because without it, policing never would have been held accountable in the way that it has over the last few years.
As harrowing as his (George Floyd's) death was, the response has asked our population - not our Black population, but our population - to respond differently to their relationship to protesting, differently to their appetite for holding Black death, differently to their understanding of policing, and differently to their expectations from the justice system. So yes, I think this is an unprecedented moment, one that brings me hope that we're not as entrenched and as final as we have seemed.
"You can really write anywhere, you know." So my non-writer friends love to say, usually as they attempt to convince me to accompany them to places I do not wish to travel to, or to move me out of their holiday homes. They are at once entirely correct and spectacularly wrong, because how can some uncertain "anywhere" guarantee me the combination of circumstances necessary to get any writing done on a given day? The basic prerequisites - electricity, water, a bathroom - are obvious and fairly easily obtainable, but at certain times I might also work best with solitude or company, silence or noise, high speed internet or technological isolation, a dog that needs walking every four hours, or a cat curled up asleep in the corner.
I suspect the punitive aspect is what makes the Reading Room such a productive place for so many of us self-flagellating writers. The atmosphere is spectacularly oppressive, the competitive shushing of our fellow readers combining with the deliberately full-voiced chit-chat of the librarians to endlessly remind us just who are the wardens and who the inmates in this institution. It does not necessarily make for the most enjoyable of working days, but perhaps that is the point, as I have still never found anywhere I get as much work done as in the Reading Room of the British Library.
With a new Ripley television series in production, and her diaries at long last to be published next year, Patricia Highsmith is enjoying an unparalleled moment in the spotlight. Europe has long embraced her antiheroic writing, but for decades she was ignored in her home country of the US. Will it be any different this time around? Let us hope so, not least because Highsmith's writing-often eviscerating, always uncomfortable-has never been more relevant.
Those seeking the reason behind her overdue renaissance might like to consider the parallels between our current socio-political climate and that of the Cold War, against the backdrop of which her most famous novels were written. Are we again in the grip of the paranoia and neurosis which typified so much the 1950s? Certainly were anxious, polarized, in a state of knuckle-biting instability. Our sense of belonging eroded, our sense of justice outraged. Were she at work today, Highsmith would find herself busier than ever, since writing about these feverish insecurities was her talent and her pleasure.
Imagine the first writer's block: perhaps a caveman with a rudimentary stick staring at a large, blank rock. Today's equivalent of the blank rock may be a computer screen, and your process may seem like the pie chart below.
When you sit down to write (and there's a problem right there; you may not do well sitting down), do you find yourself with a sudden urge to clean out a file drawer? Throw in a load of laundry? Search the internet for ways to clean wine stains out of carpet? Check the refrigerator for the third time? Bake a cake instead? You have something to say, but what's holding you back?
As an award-winning children's poet, Joshua Seigal uses poetry to inspire confidence and creativity in schools, so he is an enthusiastic supporter of poetry on the curriculum: ‘I think poetry's hugely important for the development of children's literacy - it gives them freedom to explore a whole toolbox of writing techniques and it's instrumental in exploring identity and self-expression, which helps foster confidence in all aspects of communication.
"I see it being used in numerous ways, and frequently embedded across the curriculum. Children love poetry as it allows them to be creative with language and to explore issues that are relevant to them. In my experience, they also love the humour, the wordplay, and the interaction of performance poetry with a real, live poet. After I've gone, schools will often continue to develop the skills that pupils explore during my sessions. They'll send their edited poems to me to put on my blog, which gives them a real sense of achievement."
In what is perhaps the biggest surprise in publishing since the Covid-19 pandemic began roiling the U.S. economy this spring, unit sales of print books in the first half of 2020 were up 2.8% over the same period in 2019 at outlets the report to NPD BookScan. The number of copies sold was 322.1 million in the first six months, up from 313.5 million in the first half of last year.
The increase was led by a combination of children's nonfiction books aimed at helping parents educate and entertain their children following the closing of most schools in March, as well as a spike in sales of books on race relations and social justice following the killing of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis police department in late May. The juvenile nonfiction segment had the biggest gain in the first half of the year, with units jumping 25.5% over 2019. The sales leader in the category was My First Learn-to-Write Workbook by Crystal Radke, which sold more than 379,000 copies, placing the $8.99 workbook in ninth place on the overall bestseller list in the first half of the year. The strongest subcategories within the segment were education/reference/language, which had a 64.6% jump, and games/activities/hobbies, where unit sales increased 41.2%
6 July 2020
"Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can never make reparation to the victim. Murder destroys privacy, both of the living and the dead. It forces us to confront what we are and what we are capable of being."
Labeled "the greatest contemporary writer of classic crime," "the best practitioner of the mystery novel writing today," and "a craftsman with a poet's vision," she was often said by critics to have "transcended" the genre. I have never liked that phrase myself. I've always felt that crime fiction has done quite nicely all by itself, thank you very much, with no need to be "transcended." What is true, though, is that James took the detective novel and helped to refine it, deepen it, amplify it. She liked to compare the form of the traditional detective novel with that of the sonnet-no one claimed that the fourteen lines and strict rhyming scheme of the latter constrained it from becoming great poetry; likewise there was nothing in the contours of the detective novel that kept it from becoming great literature.
Bolstering its expanding stable of original kids' and family programming, Apple TV Plus has signed a first-of-its-kind, multi-year agreement with the Maurice Sendak Foundation to develop children's series and specials based on the late author-illustrator's books and other artwork. Writer-director and author-illustrator Arthur Yorinks, who was a longtime collaborator of Sendak, will be developing the projects with Apple through his Night Kitchen Studios. The resulting programs will premiere around the world exclusively on Apple's streaming platform, which launched last November.
Globally recognized for his Caldecott Medal-winning picture book Where the Wild Things Are-which has sold more than 20 million copies-and other now-classic titles, Sendak's vast body of work encompassed other forms of media as well and has received numerous accolades. Caponera commented on this new chapter for his oeuvre. "We are delighted to be collaborating with Apple to bring the work of Maurice Sendak to screens around the world," she said. "Though most know him through his iconic books, Sendak's legacy also resides in theater, film, and TV, and this partnership with Apple will further the awareness of his unique genius."
Nicola Upson's crime novels featuring the author and playwright Josephine Tey have been widely praised as ‘historical crime fiction at its very best' and ‘a masterstroke of literary theft'. Set in the 1930s, each novel weaves an original murder mystery around a celebration of Tey's life and work, featuring events which defined those years and bridging the gap between the Golden Age and the contemporary.
You can never predict when an idea for a new book will arrive or what will spark it - a snatch of overheard conversation or a lonely stretch of landscape, perhaps just a quirk of history that not many people know about; the moment that it happens is thrilling and it's tempting to jump straight in - but of every dozen ideas for a novel, the chances are that only one of them will be rich enough to sustain a multi-layered plot and a memorable cast of characters. There's nothing worse - believe me - than getting 20,000 words in and wishing you'd never started, so make sure you choose wisely. My novels always explore something I'm fascinated by, something that troubles me or makes me angry, something I'm bewildered by and want to understand.
The final collection of early stories from the late Terry Pratchett, written while the Discworld creator was a young reporter, will be published in September. The tales in The Time-travelling Caveman, many of them never released in book form before, range from a steam-powered rocket's flight to Mars to a Welsh shepherd's discovery of the resting place of King Arthur.
"When it comes to Terry, there is always going to be an embarrassment of riches. His incredible talent and imagination knew no bounds," said Rob Wilkins, Pratchett's former assistant and manager of his estate. "With more tales of everything that would go on to make Terry Pratchett books the phenomenon they became - humour, satire, adventure and fantastical excellence - we just couldn't deny readers these gems, and the chance to read a Terry story for the first time, one last time. It will mean so much to fans."
James Patterson introduces a mystifying new character into his Maximum Ride universe in Hawk, a YA novel he wrote with Gabrielle Charbonnet, out this month from Little, Brown's Jimmy Patterson imprint. The original nine-book Maximum Ride series, published between 2005 and 2015, has sold more than 13 million copies.
I always start with an outline and I always want to involve a coauthor in creating that outline. It is vital to the success of the book. If writers are just looking for a payday, it is a disaster. If they are committed to making the book as good as it can be - a story they can be proud of - it is a success. When collaborating with another author, it is important to be in constant touch and read their scripts often - since occasionally books wander or march in place, and it's a lot easier to review stories every two weeks and talk it through if something's not quite right.
Britain's readers have been emerging from lockdown to restock their bookshelves, with book sales - and particularly crime novels - booming in the three weeks since booksellers were allowed to open their doors.
The print market continued its healthy run since England's bookshops reopened on 15 June, with 3.8m books sold in the last week, for £32.6m, up from 3.1m (making £26.9m) at the same time last year. This is a 15% increase in value on last week and 21% year-on-year.
Sales in the last three weeks are up 19% on the same period in 2019, according to book sales monitor Nielsen, with almost 11m titles worth £94m sold over the period. Readers have been pouncing on stories of murder and revenge, with nearly 120,000 more crime and thriller books bought in the last two weeks of June, when compared to the same point last year.
The nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice have set off conversations in nearly every industry about the treatment of Black workers, and book publishing is no exception.
The industry has long been criticized for hiring and retaining so few employees of color - according to a survey of the work force released this year by the children's book publisher Lee & Low Books, only 5 percent are Black. But the calls to diversify have intensified in recent weeks, as Black professionals have publicly shared long-suppressed frustrations about how racial prejudice has affected their work. In publishing, that has included discussions of hiring practices, workplace microaggressions and publishing companies' treatment of books by Black writers.
Eight publishing professionals - working in different facets of the industry, including an author, literary agent, marketer, publicist, editors and booksellers - told us what they are seeing now and what they've seen before, how being Black has affected their careers, and what they hope the future will bring. Here are their responses, which have been condensed and edited.
A group of best-selling authors is teaming up with Amazon in a lawsuit that aims to bring down an alleged counterfeit e-book publishing site described as "the biggest pirate book site the world has ever seen."
John Grisham, Scott Turow, R.L. Stine, Sylvia Day, and other top American authors are named as plaintiffs in the suit, along with Amazon Publishing and Penguin Random House. The complaint was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle against the operators of Kiss Library and affiliated websites
"In the last decade, and especially the last couple of years, the number of piracy complaints handled by the Authors Guild has skyrocketed, which is why we no longer could sit by and allow book piracy entities like KISS Library to continue to rob authors and publishers of their ability to earn a living," Preston, president of the Authors Guild, said in a statement. "We are filing this suit not only on behalf of ourselves but for the thousands of authors who labor years to write a book, putting their hearts and souls into every sentence, only to see their income lost to book piracy."
50 celebrated authors, academics and journalists including Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and Noam Chomsky have signed a letter slamming 'cancel culture' after JK Rowling was attacked for speaking out about trans women.
Ms Rowling has also backed the movement spearheaded by Pulitzer-prize winning writer Anne Applebaum who warned that 'Twitter mobs' including Donald Trump were placing 'very important restraints on freedom of speech'.
The letter, published in Harper's calls for: 'The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted' and demands that they want to 'uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter speech from all quarters.' It later adds: 'It is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.'
Boys Surveyed Said Audio Comprehension Was Higher
The United Kingdom's Publishers Association is pointing out that while the government fast-tracked its plan to remove its 20-percent VAT (value added tax) on ebooks in late April-in light of the country's lockdowns at the time for the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic-audiobooks were not included in that move.
This week (June 6), the association tells Publishing Perspectives, it's hoped that the VAT removal will be made to include audiobooks, and they're arguing for this in part on what a new report from the National Literacy TrustUK-based organisation which has campaigned since 1993 to improve literacy standards across all age groups. Excellent research information and details of the many initiatives the charity is currently involved in. www.literacytrust.org.uk. It also has a useful page of news stories on UK literacy, which links to newsletter http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx has indicated is benefits to children in audiobook listening.
The top-line conclusions of the report are that audiobooks can benefit children and young adults by: Improving reading skills and enjoyment of reading Supporting emotional intelligence and well-being Improving reading comprehension Widening access to books