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Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike dead at age 76

Posted by Dana on 01.28.2009 at 7:47 am

John Updike, the prolific and Pulitzer Prize winning author passed away yesterday, Tuesday January 27th, from lung cancer.

Updike was best known for his Rabbit novels - two of which won the Pulitzer Prize; Rabbit is Rich in 1982 and Rabbit at Rest in 1991. His latest novel Terrorist was released in 2006.

Born in 1932, Updike released more than 50 books in his career, many of which were bestsellers. He was known for his literary style and in addition to the two Pulitzers, he was also the recipient of two National Book Awards and many other literary prizes.

His voice will be sorely missed.

5 Comments » | Tagged Author News, Author News, John Updike, national book award, Pulitzer, Rabbit at Rest, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit Run

Book Publishers and a Changing Landscape

Posted by Jack on 01.06.2009 at 2:50 pm

Over on the New York Times Books section the pillory of publishing houses continues as ritzy lunches and lavish corporate outings are scrutinized. This is no outsiders barrage though. Unlike the one we’ve seen in automobiles and finance groups, this is primarily the internal struggle of an industry trying to grapple with its own unsustainable excesses.

As the article points out:

Just two weeks before announcing staff cuts and a substantial corporate restructuring in December, the publishing giant Macmillan gathered its sales and marketing staff at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego — Read more…

1 Comment » | Tagged Author News, james patterson, new york times, on my soapbox, the book industry

Better World Books Stance on Google Books Settlement

Posted by Jack on 11.18.2008 at 12:00 pm

The long awaited settlement for the Author’s Guild, AAP and Google is official. Under the settlement, “Google will have the right to make browsable copies of the books it has scanned through its Library Project as well as books scanned in through its regular Book Search program.”

From Publisher’s Weekly:

As part of the $125 million settlement, Google will pay $45 million to settle the class action lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild. Authors whose books have already been scanned will receive at least $60 per work. Another $34.5 million will go toward the creation of a Book Rights Registry that will be responsible for building a database of rightsholders information and for disbursing all money generated through the use of books in Google Products and Services. (The remaining $45.5 million will go to legal and attorney fees). Under the deal, Google will receive 37% of revenue and rightsholders 63%. Publishers and authors will have 120 days to opt out of the settlement once the agreement receives approval from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, something that is expected to take several months.

How does this affect us? Well, Read more…

1 Comment » | Tagged Author News, google, our stance, publishing

The 2008 National Book Award

Posted by admin on 11.17.2008 at 1:49 pm

“The City Council of New York officially declares the week of November 17, 2008 ‘National Book Awards Week in the City of New York’”

If you happen to be in the city that never sleeps this week, you can catch some incredible events, including a dinner with the various winners from the National Book Foundation (the rest of us can see updates as they happen at the website linked above). The crown jewel of prizes, the National Book Award, will be announced on Wednesday, and tomorrow there is a (sold out, sorry) reading by the finalists. They are as follows:

1 Comment » | Tagged Author News, aleksandar Hemon, annette gordon-reed, Drew Gilpin Faust, E Lockhart, Frank Bidart, Jane Mayer, Jim Sheeler, Joan Wickersham, Judy Blundell, Kathi Appelt, Laurie Halse Anderson, Marilynne Robinson, Mark Doty, national book award, national book foundation, Patricia Smith, Peter Matthiessen, podcast, Rachel Kushner, Reginald Gibbons, Richard Howard, Salvatore Scibona, Tim Tharp

Lux Perpetuam: Michael Crichton

Posted by admin on 11.05.2008 at 3:39 pm

Michael Crichton, the literary and literal giant (he was 6′9″!) passed away today after a long private battle with cancer. Crichton, known for his evocative writing and accessible but engaging style penned such works as The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, and a fantastically successful string of works subsequently made in to movies such as Eaters of the Dead (adapted into “The 13th Warrior”), Congo, Sphere, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, The Lost World, and Timeline.

Crichton’s works focused Read more…

3 Comments » | Tagged Author News, Uncategorized, lux perpetuam, michael crichton

White Tiger wins Man Booker Prize

Posted by Jack on 10.28.2008 at 1:18 pm

The White Tiger, written by Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize. From the website: “The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. Adiga is the fourth debut novelist to win the prize.

Also from the site:
Read more…

Have your say » | Tagged Author News, books, man booker, white tiger

Economics and the Grapes of Wrath

Posted by Jack on 10.23.2008 at 1:06 pm

The following is an excerpt from an interview with John Steinbeck (as culled by The Book Bench at The New Yorker), concerning his mindset while writing the epic The Grapes of Wrath. One could argue that it is fairly germane.

When I wrote “The Grapes of Wrath,” I was filled, naturally, with certain angers—certain angers at people who were doing injustices to other people, or so I thought. I realize now that everyone was caught in the same trap. If you remember, we had a depression at that time. The Depression

2 Comments » | Tagged Author News, great books, john steinbeck, the book bench, the depression, the grapes of wrath

Lux Perpetuam: David Foster Wallace

Posted by Jack on 09.15.2008 at 2:40 pm

Surprise is not a prerequisite for sadness.

David Foster Wallace, wordsmith notable for having written numerous great essays and the wonderful–if complex–Infinite Jest, was found dead yesterday. Wallace’s wife found him after he had passed by hanging himself.

Few who were familiar with Wallace and his work will be totally shocked; suicide and depression were oft mentioned material for the author. But the mere proliferation doesn’t ease the pain of losing this kind of talent.

His own prescience about knowing oneself (to use the cliche but correct Polonius phrase) and ability to take perspective, most notable (at least in the free-use realm) in his Commencement at Kenyon was one of his finest gifts. At the same time this deftness with converting experience into words was one of his most difficult challenges to transcend. As Wordsworth said of himself, “The world is too much with us; late and soon,” and one gets the feeling the world, and its dusty corners that Wallace shed light on, were indeed “too much with [him]“. Thus, it is with the same sense which we took on the suicide of Elliott Smith, David Foster Wallace will be missed not with shock, but with a kind of resigned tragedy. It’s like the rain on a parade after a dour forecast; you packed your umbrella, but hope still that the storm will pass. He was 46 years old.

Check out his excellent fansite for more information and resources about his writing.

1 Comment » | Tagged Author News, Author News, authors, David Foster Wallace, great works, Kenyon, lux perpetuam, obituaries

Lux Perpetuam: Robert Giroux

Posted by admin on 09.08.2008 at 3:36 pm

What do the following names have in common, besides their obvious amazing talent: Virginia Woolf, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carl Sandburg, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Katherine Anne Porter, Walker Percy, Donald Barthelme, Grace Paley, Derek Walcott and William Golding? How about this list: George Orwell, Jean Stafford, Robert Lowell, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O’Connor, Randall Jarrell, William Gaddis, Jack Kerouac and Susan Sontag?

Robert Giroux, who passed away on Friday at age 94 was the editor for the first list and the publisher for the second. The man had a freakish connectedness in the literary world, having done everything from publishing Orwell’s 1984 to having the following conversation with T.S. Eliot (which I liberally steal from the NYT):

“His ambition to write might have prompted an exchange with Eliot, then in his late 50s, on the day they met in 1946, when Mr. Giroux, “just past 30,” as he recalled the moment in “The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes,” was an editor at Harcourt, Brace. “His most memorable remark of the day,” Mr. Giroux said, “occurred when I asked him if he agreed with the definition that most editors are failed writers, and he replied, ‘Perhaps, but so are most writers.’ ””

Giroux was a man who went from high-school drop out to publishing house luminary and did so with considerable skill and success. Anyone who loves great literature should take a moment and think about an extraordinary man whose talent and risk-taking produced some of the finest works ever published (and even wrote a book himself).

Have your say » | Tagged Author News, Book Reviews, Author News, editors, lux perpetuam, robert giroux

J.K. Rowling and More Advice

Posted by Jack on 08.19.2008 at 11:04 am

I knew there should be a way to tie the last post into books and here it is: J.K. Rowling. The author of the Harry Potter series was the most recent speaker at Harvard graduation and I was sent a copy of her speech (best parts below).

Personally I don’t care much for her writing but I do love those type of books (I can’t imagine how many times I’ve read Lord of the Rings and I read literally just about every piece of literature related to Star Wars in my youth). It’s just her unimaginative prose that leaves me cold. Her deft story crafting is undeniable and I won’t say I haven’t seen the movies (and read the first two books when I was baby-sitting) but I can’t embrace the books (don’t throw anything at me, please, Harry Potter lovers).

In any event, in the face of her success, she was invited to give this address and managed to be fairly average for the most part but at least saw through through the (literal) pomp and circumstance to what was important:

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

The rest of it dodders along through thoughts on “failure” and “success” and is interesting to read, check out the full text here. I recall Bob Wright, CEO of NBC and a Holy Cross grad, talking at my graduation and honestly I can’t remember a single word he said (no offense Bob, I just wasn’t there for you) but Rowling’s effort isn’t too bad… maybe I would’ve listened harder in light of mere bemusement about the true nature of “success” that she was the speaker at Harvard’s graduation.