Patrick Ness’s YA novel THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO, “about a world where thoughts are audible,” won the Guardian’s children’s book award. The judges praised the “breathtaking quality” of the writing. “It’s challenging but not bleak – an excitingly different book.”Guardian
Another Chronicle Book Editor to Leave
Regan McMahon, who took over as books editor at the San Francisco Chronicle when Oscar Villalon took a buyout, is now also take a buyout and leaving the paper. “When SF Weekly contacted McMahon Monday morning, she said people in the publishing world didn’t know about her imminent departure, and she feared that once they heard the news, they’d freak out. But she insists they shouldn’t worry — she’s been assured by higher-ups that the paper plans to name a new books editor and keep the section going.”SF Weekly
Who Will Crash the Crash Books?
The Observer looks at book proposals about the financial meltdown. Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean have one out for a “definitive chronicle of the stunning financial crisis” through Darhansoff, Verrill and Feldman, and the asking price “is said to be more than $1 million.” Nocera says, “We want to write the big book, and I’m not afraid of saying that. It will be a book for the ages and–I know this is going to sound egomaniacal, but–between our contacts and our reporting skills and our writing skills, I think we’ll be pretty tough to beat.” Newsweek’s Daniel Gross is aiming […]
"The Next Generation of Fiction Writers"
The National Book Foundation announced their 5 Under 35 list of young fiction writers “selected by a previous National Book Award Finalist or Winner as someone whose work is particularly promising and exciting and is among the best of a new generation of writers”: Matthew Eck, The Farther Shore (Milkweed Editions, 2007)Selected by Joshua Ferris Keith Gessen, All the Sad Young Literary Men (Viking Press, 2008)Selected by Jonathan Franzen Sana Krasikov, One More Year: Stories (Spiegel & Grau, 2008)Selected by Francine Prose Nam Le, The Boat (Knopf, 2008)Selected by Mary Gaitskill Fiona Maazel, Last Last Chance (FSG, 2008)Selected by Jim […]
Prose's Novel, and More
The Washington Post has a quirky profile of Francine Prose following the recent release of her novel GOLDENGROVE, highlighting her thoughts on the writing process. “Francine Prose has thought a lot about writing in the 35 years she’s been trying to make a living at it. And one of the things she thinks is: It can’t be taught…. Never mind that Prose supplemented her income by teaching creative writing for two decades. And never mind that she achieved unlikely bestsellerdom a couple of years back with a text called Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books […]
Barney Rosset, The Man, the Movie, the Money-Losing
Charles McGrath celebrates the colorful life of publisher Barney Rosset in advance of his lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation. He quotes the old line of Rosset’s, “I had a very good publishing career, but not money-wise. We got rid of the money.” On his landmark legal battle for the right to publish Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer–which inspires in the print headline that Rosset “fought Puritanism, and won,” Rosset’s take is, “I loved that book. When I was a young man, it never occurred to me that it was about sex. What interested me was that Miller […]