Some of the literary world’s brightest stars, including Junot Diaz, Hilary Mantel, Anne Rice and Kazuo Ishiguro, explain their novel methods for writing great works of fiiction — from retreating to the bathroom to color-coded plot charts.
Literature
Macquarie Anthology to have a global reach
The Macquarie PEN Anthology will have a considerable effect on the burgeoning study of Australian literature abroad, writes Nicholas Birns. Yes, some bits are very literary, and some authors miss out, but finally Australian literature might get its deserved world recognition.
More drama over the PEN anthology
After nearly 40 years of public support for our literature, dramatic literature is still the poor relation, writes Katherine Brisbane. Are plays really that difficult to enjoy?
Guy Rundle: Rundle’s Friday Book Review: The Land of Green Plums
Big Les Murray has been dudded again after the Nobel Prize for Literature went to Romanian-born German language poet Herta Mueller, writes Guy Rundle.
The Booker Prize gets it gloriously, marvellously right
Author Hilary Mantel has been awarded the Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall, and rarely has the award gone to someone more deserving, says Neel Mukherjee. It is the most gripping book you’ll ever read.
Philip Pullman: Dan Brown’s new novel is “flat, stunted and ugly”
Author Philip Pullman has laid into fellow writer Dan Brown’s new novel, The Lost Symbol, labelling the characters “flat and two-dimensional” and the prose “stunted and ugly”. Ouch.
Which famous author would you go boozing with?
Literary figures are long time lovers of drinking and alcoholism. Would you have been more likely to share a tipple with Oscar Wilde or a rum with Ernest Hemingway? Take the quiz!
A hornet’s nest in the garden at Lit Land
Simon Hughes defends Peter Craven’s controversial critique of The Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature.
The black and white of the Australian literary canon
Peter Craven’s highly theatrical review of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature in the September issue of Australian Book Review is worth picking a fight over, says Sophie Cunningham.
Fashion in fiction: jacket-less books
This season, the trendiest books will be baring it all with new “in” thing in book design: forgoing the jacket and printing the art straight on to a hard-back cover. Less is more.
Heathrow Airport’s writer in residence
Author Alain de Botton is writing a new book — from the middle of London’s Heathrow Airport. His book, masterminded by the airport’s PR department, will document his experiences living in the airport for a week, chatting to travellers, baggage handlers, airline executives and others.
Are all sci-fi writers insane?
The idea that sci-fi and fantasy writers are a few bottles short of a six pack is one that has probably around for as long as the genres have existed, says Renai LeMay. But the grown adults who dream about dragons and space ships all day may just be some of the sanest people around.
Behind Brideshead: the scandalous story that’s no fiction
Fast cars, faster women and sexual experimentation: the real world inhabited by Brideshead Revisited author Evelyn Waugh was stranger and more scandalous than any fiction.
Booker Prize finalists revealed
The longlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize has been announced, with old hands like JM Coetzee and William Trevor sitting alongside newcomers like James Lever, the much-hyped first-time author of Me Cheeta.
Doubleplusgood: Nineteen Eighty-Four turns 60
It’s been 60 years since George Orwell penned his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and while it hasn’t quite come true (yet), much reads a little too lose for comfort.
Oprah lets indie books into her club
Books from independent publishers are rarely anointed by the big O’s seal of approval, but in a recent list of recommended reading, Oprah gave the thumbs-up to titles like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors.
Judge bans Catcher in the Rye sequel
Author J. D. Salinger has won his court case to ban the US publication of a book by a Swedish author that is being touted as an “unauthorised sequel” to The Catcher in the Rye.
Newsweek’s top 100 books: the meta-list
Newsweek makes a top 10 list of ‘top 10 book’ lists, to come up with the top 100 books of all time.
15 things you didn’t know about bestselling authors
Mental Floss dishes the dirt on some of the literary world’s biggest names.
When copyright is specious: Salinger and The Catcher
The dogmatic insistence that The Catcher in the Rye is a masterpiece beyond change, adulteration or imitation is naïve at best, disingenuous at worst, writes Binoy Kampmark.
Marilynne Robinson wins Orange prize
This year’s Orange prize — for the best novel written by a woman — was won last night won by Marilynne Robinson for her novel Home.
Vonnegut as I Knew Him: art or gossip?
An aspiring writer pens a memoir about a fling with Kurt Vonnegut; is it literature, or just a kiss-and-tell?
Illustrated books for adults, the good and the bad
Wyatt Mason on authors who use more than their words to tell a story.
Elaine Showalter on women’s literature
It’s time to move on to the next stage of assessing women’s literature, says writer and academic Elaine Showalter
