Russian writers not convinced by new Putin stage demonstration -
“The meaning of this stroll is to show that we didn’t like the way authorities treated us in the first days of Putin’s presidential term […] If that was the face of a new Putin we’ve been promised — we don’t want this. He can either change his ways or we will stay on the streets.”
Grigory Chkhartishvili, known by pen name Boris Akunin, quoted by The Associated Press, via The Washington Post (Washington, D.C., USA), May 13, 2012.
From digital age writers: e-books like pancakes -
The push for more material comes as publishers and booksellers are desperately looking for ways to hold onto readers being lured by other forms of entertainment, much of it available nonstop and almost instantaneously. Television shows are rushed online only hours after they are originally broadcast, and some movies are offered on demand at home before they have left theaters. In this environment, publishers say, producing one a book a year, and nothing else, is just not enough.
Julie Bosman, The New York Times (New York City, USA), May 12, 2012.
Elizabeth Taylor, the writer... -
Her preferences in fiction mirrored a life in which, as she acknowledged, “nothing sensational, thank heavens, has ever happened.” Favoring novels and stories true to her experience, she wrote “in scenes, rather than in narrative, which I find boring,” and preferred writing and reading books in which “practically nothing happens” and very little gets resolved—a fact that makes summarizing her books pointless and, well, boring.
Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic (USA), September 2007.
“If Kafka had been a woman, then Gregor Samsa would not have turned into an insect, he would not have had to. Gregor would be Gretel and she would wake up one morning pregnant. She would try to roll over and discover she was stuck on her back. She would wave her little hands uselessly in the air.” — Novelist Anne Enright in “Making Babies,” her memoir, as quoted by Dwight Gardner’s book review in The New York Times (New York City, USA), May 10, 2012.
(Source: The New York Times)
Novelist Enright writes books in different places -
I don’t write two books in the same place. I seem to have settled on a chair that I write. I’m very happy with it.
Anne Enright, interview with The Independent (London, UK), May 5, 2012.
Biography: Tolstoy was 'an indefatigable copulator' -
Before he married 19-year-old Sofya Bers, he made her read his diaries of debauchery. ‘I never got over the shock,’ she said, but for many years they were very happy. She made fair copies of his novels as well as bearing him eight children in the first eight years.
Peter Lewis, reviewing “Tolstoy” by A.N. Wilson, the Daily Mail (London, U.K.), May 3, 2012.
Satirical novelist David Bowman dead at 54 -
Mr. Bowman’s books — which almost never came to be after he was hit by a car in 1989 and suffered a brain injury — achieved a devoted following among readers who love highly allusive literary fiction in which plot, character and landscape are subordinated to the narrator’s absolute freedom of movement.
Paul Vitello, The New York Times (New York City, USA), May 3, 2012.
Writer: Prescribe romance novels to raise libido -
“My gynecologist told me that she ‘prescribes’ romance novels to her patients, to jumpstart libidos dampened by childcare, work and everyday stress,” Maher said. “I frequently sneak romance novels to friends for this very reason, and it works.”
Rebecca Rogers Maher speaking to Joanna Prisco, Carroll Gardens Patch (Queens, New York City, USA), May 3, 2012.
Buddhist novelist against Japan's reactivation of nuclear plant -
She described the government’s moves to restart two idled reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Oi nuclear power plant after the Fukushima nuclear crisis as “scary.” “I think they are acting strangely,” she said.
Story about Jakucho Setouchi in The Mainichi (Tokyo, Japan), May 2, 2012.
Carlos Fuentes made his voice heard -
…it was mainly through his literature, Mr. Fuentes believed, that he could make his voice heard, and he did so prolifically and inventively, tracing the history of modern Mexico in layered stories that also explored universal themes of love, memory and death. In “The Death of Artemio Cruz,” a 1962 novel that many call his masterpiece, his title character, an ailing newspaper baron confined to his bed, looks back at his climb out of poverty and his heroic exploits in the Mexican Revolution, concluding that it had failed in its promise of a more egalitarian society.
Anthony DePalma, The New York Times (New York City, USA), May 15, 2012.