Doubleplusgood: Nineteen Eighty-Four turns 60It’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.
Literature
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
Rundle: Vale Solzi … Solcze … Sulzo … that Russian guy
The obituaries for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn could not help but note the complexities of this extraordinary — actually a greater word than extraordinary is required — man’s life. Guy Rundle reflects.
Remembering the Space Age: Arthur C Clarke dead at 90
Bugger. The Space Age ended today, writes recovering science fiction nerd Stilgherrian.
A pipe dream solution to doctor-drug company nosh-ups
Former pharamaceutical industry employee Peter Wildblood outlines how to cirucmvent the often too-cosy relationships of doctors and drug companies.
