Bookish links 10 Jan: poetry from (the) heart, revision tips, libraries fightin words more!

RIASS stuff:

Review: Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man by Joseph Heller Rating: A wry look at the problems of an author who has nothing left to contribute, but still wants to write.

Possible truths and Helen Dunmore's Talking to the Dead'Rating: 'We all know that I love unreliable narrators, so it's little surprised that I adored this one!

Review: My Life in Pea Soup by Lisa Nops'Rating: '(A fascinating memoir that blends ex-pat life in Sri Lanka and Bahrain with raising a severely autistic daughter.)

Other bookish stuff:

Bookseller+Publisher changing its name; also launching a new publication.

How difficult is it to learn a poem from heart? Way easier than memorising prose, Id say. I can still recite Pushkins'' ''' ''''' from memory (tellingly, thats about all I remember from four years of Russian) Why not type out the poem myself; pretend I am writing it; and not move on to the next bit until it has been memorised? My journey has begun. After 20 minutes I have the first eight lines locked down. The catch is that when I try to memorise the next four, it makes me forget the first part. The problems of memorisation are exponential.

Are libraries fighting to stay relevant?'I do not see this as a furtive grasp to stay relevant. This is what libraries'do. I think its great that some libraries are able to lend out items other than books, because it shows that they are responding to the needs of their particular community. But again, I do not see it as a desperate move to stay relevant. Weve got relevancy coming out of our ears.

Why authors should write like cornered animals We're called to be wounded and belligerent. We're called to be savages about this one thing. Entitlement destroys this calling, our work. It domesticates it. And maybe you're like me. Maybe this is the sort of thing you don't want to put in a cage. The sort of thing you don't want to ruin.

Tracking the Price of Ebooks: Average Price of Ebook Best-Sellers on a Two-Month Tailspin

Mystery writers seek scientific accuracy'Im not a very technical guy, says author John Gilstrap. The challenge for me was to sell Jonathans knowledge of technology while not understanding a lot of it myself. The research I do is just enough to sell the notion that he can do what he does. I dont need to know how to do it myself.

An interview with Jonathan Franzen at the Paris Review 'An apt quote given my review of'Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man yesterday:'One of the great problems for the novelist who persists is the shortage of materialAfter'The Corrections'I found myself thinking, What is my hot material? My Midwestern childhood, my parents, their marriage, my own marriage'I'd already written two books about this stuff, but I'd been younger and scared and less skilled when I wrote them. So one of the many programs inFreedom'was to revisit the old material and do a better job.

Agent Nephele Tempest is running a Q&A over at her blog

The two faces of self-publishing While the ebook insanity continues though, there is still the book, the humble paperback, which Amazon continue to support, unrestricted. Perhaps though, this is the all too forgotten face of self publishing. The book. The thing true authors yearn to have their name on.

Interview with Matt Haig (see also our review of'The Radleys) Don't worry about what people (parents/friends/reviewers etc.) will think. The only person who ultimately needs to approve of you, is you. It is better to be a flawed but authentic human than a fake perfect one. But be kind. Always be'kind.

Infographic: who reads ebooks?

McDonalds to offer ?1 deal on 15m books over two years

Some tips on revising a novel'Follow your key thread all the way through.'It might be the relationship between two characters if your book is a love story; it could be the progress of your main character from weak and uncertain to powerful and strong. It could be the series of clues that outs the murderer in a mystery. Whether you're a plotter or a pantser, chances are you've added and deleted some scenes along the way, maybe changed the order around'' does everything still make sense? Read only for what's on the page in this draft, not all those other drafts before.

Hand-written poem by John Keats to sell for ?45k

Oh, how much do you want to read this? Books and food, people!