RIASS stuff:
Narrative layers and Barbara Shapiro's The Art Forger'Rating: 
On reading and memory: is it possible to read too much?
The purpose of chick-lit and Debby Holt's Recipe for Scandal'Rating: 
Other bookish stuff:
Some pet hates in romance books'I had a bit of a giggle at these, which include: the use of turgid and velvet sheath, the prevalence of billionaire ex-navy SEALs, and modelesque heroes who fall for plain Janes.
On climbing the peak that stirred Jack Kerouac'Three months after Kerouac came down from Desolation he learned that Viking would finally publish 'On the Road' ' ostensibly his greatest triumph, but in reality the beginning of his end. Kerouac's time on the mountain was a literal and figurative apex for him, his last truth-seeking adventure before he was transformed by the hostile media into first a caricature of himself, and later a shadow.
A lost Hitchcock film now available for all online''The White Shadow can be viewed online here.
An interview with Jeffrey Eugenides''I think fiction allows you to say things you might not be able to otherwise: you assume a mask that, paradoxically, allows you to reveal yourself' To get the reader to believe your story, you have to be accurate about the way people think, dress, speak, and behave. Tolstoy was one of the greatest truth-tellers that ever lived and, for the same reason, one of the greatest novelists.''(see also my review of'The Marriage Plot)
A list of obsolete English words'Aw, guys, I think we should adopt some of these and start using them again. Spuddle and whingle! How on earth can we lose words like those?
Twilight is not feminist: its female masochism'There is the controlling male, the female with low self-esteem, the threats of suicide and murder, and so on. The day after her wedding night Bella examines the bruises on her body with something like aroused awe.
Reading books not enough for you? How about wearing them?
Why writers must embrace social media, no matter what the genre'Writers dont get to meet readers very often and when they do its only for a short time (after a book festival or library event, for example). On Twitter, people who had read my book followed me and I could see what else they were reading, why theyd liked what Id written and by the by, more about them than Id ever elicit from two minutes in a tent at a book festival, stuck at a signing desk. It was fascinating.
On how an author tripled his royalties'A very different approach to your stand author/publisher agreement: My publishing companycontracted with the author to write the book (that would be me, obviously), did all editing and production work on the book, and paid all up-front costs for printing and distribution. Simon & Schuster handled the printing, shipping, warehousing, sales, accounts receivable and returns.This means I went from just another author with the same royalty deal every author gets 15 percent of hardcover price to owning my own publishing company and taking 89 percent of net receipts.
Five writing tips from Laini Taylor''Be an unstoppable force. Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It's who you want to be, your most powerful self.
Mario Vargas Llosa just isnt an erotica writer. Although hes tried.'When a novel is focused only on the sexual experience, it can be monotonous, repetitive, it can become a tedious experienceHowever the sexual component cant be excluded from a great novel, as well as eroticism. It is very difficult to exclude sex because sex is a very important part of human life.
An interesting podcast about Agatha Christies mysterious disappearing act that Christie fans might enjoy.'I enjoyed this one about the Shakespeare riots, as well.
With bookshops refusing to stock his Amazon-published book, Tim Ferris is claiming that his book is banned and is using this as a marketing gimmick.
Im loving these hilarious cliched cover designs from Jen @ Bookthingo (wholl be chatting with me about trends and cliches in cover design in a forthcoming featurestay tuned!)
On reading interfaces and tactility'But on another level we could say that digital texts don't so much cancel the book's closedness as reinscribe it within themselves. Where books are closed on the outside and open on the inside, digital texts put this relationship in reverse order. The openness of the digital text'that it is hard to know where its contours are'contrasts with a performed inaccessibility that also belongs to the networked text. There is always something out of touch about the digital. I justIm not even sure what to make of this article.
Philip Roth on his decision to quit writing fiction'So I read all that great stuffand then I read my own and I knew I wasn't going to get another good idea, or if I did, I'd have to slave over it.'
Harlequin books looking for freelance editors for a new digital-first publishing program
