RIASS stuff:
Book Review: 1.4 by Mike Lancaster'Rating: 
Book Review: The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling'Rating:
Murder in Mesopotamia: crime, archaeology and Agatha Christie'(my notes from a recent lecture at the Melbourne Museum)
Other bookish stuff:
Harper Voyager is going to accept unsolicited manuscripts over a two week period
The tensions created by Amazons move into publishing. A bookshop is refusing to stock a book by a local author because its published by an Amazon imprint. Selling the book, said the stores owner, would be akin to supporting the opposition.
Is JRR Tolkiens high fantasy actually low fantasy?'High fantasy assumes success and rewards those virtues ' nobility, chivalry and moral fibre ' that enable the hero to deserve it.' Low fantasy is the reverse: it assumes failure, and relies on the hero's baser virtues to reverse the odds: traits like cunning (also see: Bilbo), and, in the case of Frodo, blind luck.
How did F. Scott Fitzgerald come to be buried near a busy thoroughfare in a suburb of D.C.?'Fitzgerald was initially refused burial at St. Marys, on the grounds that he wasnt a practicing Catholic at his death. Instead, after an impersonal service, he was interred at another cemetery nearby. Apparently the minister who performed the service had no idea who the author was; the author was also too impoverished to afford a tombstone.
Are US uni students buying required textbooks? 75% say no.'With an annual textbook bill of around $700 a student (similar to what I paid at uni), its no surprise that students are opting out. Theyre not cheap, and so often theyre rarely even used. I got so much more use out of my uni readers (collections of essays and chapters and so on) than I did out of my actual textbooks. Textbooks are the perfect item for digitisation and for as-needed, chapter-based purchasing, in my opinion.
Is young adult the new chick lit?'With chick lit having largely fallen by the wayside, chick lit authors are turning to YA. Nicola Kraus, author of'The Nanny Diaries, wonders whether this has something to do with a need for escapism.'Were living in a scary time, she says, and I think theres something really comforting about reading about innocent problems. (Innocent, eh?) Author Donna Cooner also notes that YA is very open to new authors, which is an interesting take on things. David Levithan says that YA doesnt let itself be boxed in.
An interview with Zadie Smith'I like Smiths thoughts on technique and experimentalism: I think we should be a bit wary of labelling certain techniques experimental as if its just a set of tools one picks up to lend whatever youre writing a trace of hipster cool its like those superstores of alternative hipster tasteFor me, Joyce is the ultimate realist because he is trying to convey how experience really feels. And he found it to be so idiosyncratic he needed to invent a new language for it.
Even successful self-publishers long for a book deal''You can't join the Society of Authors or the Crime Writer's Association no matter how well your books sell without a book deal. People are treated differently in traditional publishing ' and not just by the industry but by friends and family too. There is still a stigma.'
When self-promotion backfires'A self-published author who left cards promoting his books in a bookshop in the UK was later trolled (yes, I just verbed troll, and yes, I just verbed verb) online by anonymous bookshop staff. The author then arranged with the shop to have his book featured on the shops ebook site (and some additional marketing stuff) as an apology. Im not quite sure what to make of this whole thing, actually. My response was sort of along the lines of He what?! followed by they what?! on repeat.
What does this years Booker shortlist say about the current literary landscape?'The list is slightly more literary than last years, which was criticised for dumbing down. This years is more about ambition and experiment and eccentricity and innovation; yet it features parallels to last years in that it supports first novelists and small publishers.
On writing on the lives of others'A podcast interview (with transcript) with biographer'Arnold Rampersad. Rampersads thoughts on the narrative to pursue when a public figures lifeparticularly when its a minority public figurefeatures less than positive elements is interesting. He says that hes often told not to expose certain things, and to emphasise the positive, but that his obligation is to his readers, who deserve the true, full story. He aims to focus on the'significant rather than whether something is negative or positive.
Loving this word war over on the Johnson language blog'Is there anything that can beat kerfuffle? I propose the following: fluffarse, flibertigibbet, gherkin, ziff, spelunk.
Just in case youre not a naturally critical person, here are some ways to spot fake reviews.
Send to Kindle
I found that the nearly yearly edition for each textbook to be quite a scam when I was in college. I tried to get used books or buy them of my friends. I think that is why websites like half.com are so popular. I was never picky about whether or not something was highlighted, because, as you point out, not every chapter is used every year. It was very frustrating. On the other hand the non-fiction books I bought for my sociology books still sit on my bookshelf as good reads I cant bear to get rid of.
Oh, I agree. A whole new edition for one new page? Or a slight change to an exercise? I know that the markets are small, and that these books are expensive to produce, but perhaps it suggests that theres not really a need for these books in that way?
I really wish Id kept my subject readers. Ive kept my textbooks purely because they were so damn expensive that Im at least going to get some shelf time out of them!