Book News

[Sharpie66]

For any literary news!

I saw this over at Talking Points Memo, and as the headline says, This Is a Real Wow:

 

Letter That Inspired Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road' Discovered

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's been called the letter that launched a literary genre — 16,000 amphetamine-fueled, stream-of-consciousness words written by Neal Cassady to his friend Jack Kerouac in 1950.

 

Upon reading them, Kerouac scrapped an early draft of "On The Road" and, during a three-week writing binge, revised his novel into a style similar to Cassady's, one that would become known as Beat literature.

 

The letter, Kerouac said shortly before his death, would have transformed his counterculture muse Cassady into a towering literary figure, if only it hadn't been lost.

 

Turns out it wasn't, says Joe Maddalena, whose Southern California auction house Profiles in History is putting the letter up for sale Dec. 17. It was just misplaced, for 60-some years...

 

"It's the seminal piece of literature of the Beat Generation, and there are so many rumors and speculation of what happened to it," Maddalena said.

Kerouac told The Paris Review in 1968 that poet Allen Ginsberg loaned the letter to a friend who lived on a houseboat in Northern California. Kerouac believed the friend then dropped it overboard...

 

As for the quality of the letter, Kerouac described it this way: "It was the greatest piece of writing I ever saw, better'n anybody in America, or at least enough to make Melville, Twain, Dreiser, Wolfe, I dunno who, spin in their graves."

[NewDigs]

Interesting.

I listened to the audio version of OTR and so enjoyed the vibrancy of Kerouac's prose that I fully intended to read the book. By the time I got maybe 2/3 through it Moriarty/Cassady had worn me out so thoroughly that 6 months later I have yet to start the book. Though I will say that I considered his appearance at the very end to be really essential and vital to the entire story.

I hope this letter gets into the public domain!

[mortonsalt]

Sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman coming out on July 14th. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/harper-lee-published-july-28687808

Apparently, Harper Lee wrote this before To Kill a Mockingbird, but thought she had discarded it until she found it this fall. That makes me a feel a little bit better that it won't taint TKaM in anyway.

[Sharpie66]

This article has a good overview of what we know about the TKAM "sequel".

[Darian]

Half my Facebook feed is about the new Harper Lee book. One article that just started popping up (and I don't want to be a downer; I just wanted to share it in case people are interested and some of this is in the article Sharpie66 linked to) is this: Be Suspicious of the New Harper Lee Novel.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Darian

[theschnauzers]

I'd be skeptical about the skepticism. People have to remember that what little Harper Lee has said to the public for the past four or five decades has been through others, and given the reports about her current condition (recovered stroke victim needing some ALF care) and age, it makes sense that her attorney would be in the position to be processing her literary papers after her sister's death a few years ago, and it certainly makes sense that the attorney would be dealing with the publisher as her representative.

 

And I doubt we'd even know about this unless the quality of GSTW was at least of enough quality to not distract from TKAM. It really does seem to be the literary event of the past half-century, and it's hard to find an historical parallel in publishing. It is a remarkable development. (And good news for us Kindle fans -- the publisher is going to also release the new novel in electronic format; otherwise I am not sure printing 2 million copies in hardback would be enough.)

[Etta Place]

 

after her sister's death a few years ago,

I just want to point out that her sister died a few months ago.

[theschnauzers]

My statement was based on media reports that mentioned 2012 as the year Harper's sister died. (More than one, btw, as both Reuters and AP among others used the 2012 reference in their reporting.) If it isn't correct, I have no way of knowing.

[Luciano]

Alice Lee died in November. I'm including the article because she sounded awesome.

Alice Lee, the author was said to have remarked, was “Atticus in a skirt."

[...]

Miss Lee practiced law until she was 100.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Luciano

[Joe]

KJ Parker's identity revealed! Turns out it was the prime suspect all along, Tom Holt. He wanted to do things different to his regular stuff, and was inspired by female authors like CJ Cherryh. What's interesting is just the other day I found myself wondering and went looking. Nothing. Now, it's out in the open. Must have been something in the air.

[GaT]

Ruth Rendell has passed away at the age of 85

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32564813

[Black Knight]

RIP Ruth Rendell. Weirdly, I tended to like her Barbara Vine books a little better. The last Rendell book I read was 2007's The Water's Lovely, which eight years later still stands out in my memory for a singularly nasty ending in which no one got what they deserved (except possibly Ismay, if you take the harshest view possible of her character).

[threebluestars]

Get a free copy of my YA/NA novel Brookline University: Freshman Year on Kindle today (May 17).

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XQJPZC

 

 

[shoregirl]

Apparently this was asked for....

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/01/el-james-christian-grey-book-50-shades

[GaT]

Apparently this was asked for....

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/01/el-james-christian-grey-book-50-shades

What amazes me about this is that not only did she steal the characters from Stephenie Meyer, now she's stealing the idea of writing the first book from the guy's POV. Midnight Sun was the holy grail to Twilight fanatics, I don't think they ever gave up the hope that Meyer would finish it.

 

Coincidentally, I just got rid of all my Twilight books & related things last week. I finally admitted I was never going to read them again, & I needed the room for other books.

[Black Knight]

What amazes me about this is that not only did she steal the characters from Stephenie Meyer, now she's stealing the idea of writing the first book from the guy's POV.

What's even nuttier is, she stole her fan fiction. Somebody else had already written a BDSM take on Bella and Edward that people say was better written - granted, from what I've read of 50 Shades, that's hardly a high bar.

[GaT]

What's even nuttier is, she stole her fan fiction. Somebody else had already written a BDSM take on Bella and Edward that people say was better written - granted, from what I've read of 50 Shades, that's hardly a high bar.

She really just coasted into millions on other people's work, I still don't understand how she got away with publishing stories that were based on someone else's books, but Cassandra Clare did the same thing, so I guess you can.

[Sharpie66]

Salon has a really fun look at BookCon, a book-lovers equivalent to ComicCon.

 

They diss BookExpo America, the national booksellers convention that preceded BookCon at the same location. I've attended BEA back in the late 90s/early 00s, and had a much more enjoyable time than the people they quote in the article, but then, I was going not as a professional trying to score contacts, but as a booklover trying to score free books and meet authors, much like the girls at BookCon.

[psychoticstate]

Vincent Bugliosi has died.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/09/us/feat-vincent-bugliosi-dead/

[Dejana]

In absolutely stunning news, there's "no evidence" any theft took place in the case of that stolen 50 Shades book. But seriously, did anyone not think that whole thing was a publicity stunt? If you are going to go with angle that a copy of your highly anticipated book has suspiciously gone missing, at least try to bring the drama.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Dejana

[GaT]

In absolutely stunning news, there's "no evidence" any theft took place in the case of that stolen 50 Shades book. But seriously, did anyone not think that whole thing was a publicity stunt? If you are going to go with angle that a copy of your highly anticipated book has suspiciously gone missing, at least try to bring the drama.

So, she stole the characters, she stole the idea of writing the book again only from the guy's POV, & now she stole the "drama" of having the story stolen? This woman has some serious balls.

[Joimiaroxeu]

This woman has some serious balls.

Well, she's probably missing at least one of them now. Twitter went in on her at her online Q&A yesterday:

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/fifty-shades-of-shade

[GaT]

Well, she's probably missing at least one of them now. Twitter went in on her at her online Q&A yesterday:

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/fifty-shades-of-shade

OMG, I can't stop laughing

 

"Did you see the abusive relationship of Bella and Edward and think "hmm needs more abuse" #AskELJames"

 

"Are you going to answer any of these questions, or do you need Stephenie Meyer to do a Twitter chat first? #AskELJames"

 

"So whats your favourite moment in Twilight? When Bella meets Edward or when Stephanie Meyer sent you a cease and desist"

[Snow Apple]

My favorite is "Do all these negative tweets sent to you seem abusive to you? I think it's romantic enough to be turned into a novel!"

[NewDigs]

Salon has a really fun look at BookCon, a book-lovers equivalent to ComicCon.

 

They diss BookExpo America, the national booksellers convention that preceded BookCon at the same location. I've attended BEA back in the late 90s/early 00s, and had a much more enjoyable time than the people they quote in the article, but then, I was going not as a professional trying to score contacts, but as a booklover trying to score free books and meet authors, much like the girls at BookCon.

I wanna go! To score free books! Have only attended regional publishing conventions attended by those in the biz. This looks much more fun. Though, looking through the 2015 guide I was kind of surprised that the the list of Guests/Authors was alphabetized by first name. And some of the 2015 Exhibitors are alphabetized using the "The" part of company name. Odd. You'd think...

I had no idea about the 50 Shades controversy. Hysterical questions! Thanks for sharing those. Love it.

[Sharpie66]

The first time I went to BEA, back in 1999 (so, before the recession of the late '90s really hit and the publishers still had money to throw around at the conventions), I came home with over 140 free books!  Most of those were pretty quickly passed onto co-workers at Waldenbooks (my part time gig) or left in the bathroom at my full time office, but I did get some really good stuff.

 

The big get by a newbie author at that convention was a Civil War novel by some unheard of author with the title Cold Mountain--gee, I wonder whatever happened to that book :-)

[NewDigs]

edit:

n/m

tmi

Freebies are a wonderful thing. No such thing as too many books!

Is it too early to start planning for BookCon 2016!!

Edited July 7, 2015 by NewDigs

[raezen]

So, there is going to be a follow-up novel for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. I don't know what to think about this.

www.ew.com/articles/2015/09/01/david/lagerkrantz-interview-girl-spiders-web

Edited September 4, 2015 by raezen

[Skyline]

The Booker Prize shortlist. I'm rooting for A Little Life.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/15/man-booker-shortlist-2015-marilynne-robinson-drops-out-as-new-writers-surge-ahead

[Joe]

Playboy is dropping the nudity. You can get porn anywhere, so they're going to put more focus on the articles. However, they'll still have sexy pictures of women, they just won't be naked.

 

A part of my teenagerhood just died. No matter what the article, I only read it for the pictures. However, they always seemed to have a better attitude than the other magazines. There's a difference between saying 'look at this beautiful woman' and 'check out this hot girl'. Playboy was the former. Ah well, good luck to them.

[Rick Kitchen]

Neil Gaiman reads "A Christmas Carol" as Charles Dickens.

[GaT]

I can't tell you how NOT happy about this I am http://www.gossipcop.com/stephenie-meyer-anna-dressed-blood-movie-film-adaptation-book/ I really enjoyed the Anna Dressed in Blood books & the fact that Stephenie Meyer is adapting it because "the hope is that this will become a movie franchise" makes me want to scream.There were only two books in the series, & I actually contacted the author after I read the 2nd one to see if there would be a 3rd & was told no. Now all I can see is Meyer ruining everything. AND, I got to the bottom of the article & I see this:

The next month, it was announced Meyer was developing a Hulu TV show called “Rook.”

The bitch is going to ruin The Rook too, another book I really liked http://deadline.com/2015/11/twlight-stephanie-meyer-television-rook-hulu-1201616999/ & she's doing it with Lionsgate, so it will probably be at least 3 movies & they'll add a love triangle that didn't exist in the books. 

Why doesn't she just stick to sparkling vampires & leave other books alone? 

[Athena]

7 minutes ago, GaT said:

I can't tell you how NOT happy about this I am http://www.gossipcop.com/stephenie-meyer-anna-dressed-blood-movie-film-adaptation-book/ I really enjoyed the Anna Dressed in Blood books & the fact that Stephenie Meyer is adapting it because "the hope is that this will become a movie franchise" makes me want to scream.There were only two books in the series, & I actually contacted the author after I read the 2nd one to see if there would be a 3rd & was told no. Now all I can see is Meyer ruining everything. AND, I got to the bottom of the article & I see this:

The next month, it was announced Meyer was developing a Hulu TV show called “Rook.”

The bitch is going to ruin The Rook too, another book I really liked http://deadline.com/2015/11/twlight-stephanie-meyer-television-rook-hulu-1201616999/ & she's doing it with Lionsgate, so it will probably be at least 3 movies & they'll add a love triangle that didn't exist in the books. 

Why doesn't she just stick to sparkling vampires & leave other books alone? 

This news is befuddling. Why is Meyer involved with the adapted works of other authors? Does Hollywood love her that much that they are now allowing her to develop movies and TV for books she hasn't even penned. If I were O'Malley and Dressed, I would be a bit irritated at least.

I like The Rook a lot too, but why has the sequel been delayed two years any way?

[GaT]

She started her own production company & now she's a player apparently. Anna Dressed in Blood & Girl of Nightmares are YA books, someone, somewhere is screaming "it's just like Twilight!" & that's what they're going for but 

Spoiler

the 2nd book didn't end on a HEA (for the male lead at least) so I bet they do a lot of rewriting which will ruin it

I have no idea why Stiletto has been pushed back so many times, I've lost count of how many times I've gone to buy it & found out it had been delayed again. Hopefully it really will come out on 6/14. I'll have to read The Rook again because I only remember parts.

[Athena]

9 hours ago, GaT said:

She started her own production company & now she's a player apparently. Anna Dressed in Blood & Girl of Nightmares are YA books, someone, somewhere is screaming "it's just like Twilight!" & that's what they're going for but

I thought it was something like that so she's not writing novels anymore but basically going into TV & Movies production. It could be worse. At least she's not E. L. James.

[SmithW6079]

I'm not sure where this goes, so I'll start here. I read that "Game of Thrones" the TV series has now left the books behind, and recently, there were leaks (from George RR Martin or not) of a chapter or two for the next book in the series, he has a different take on one of the storylines that appeared in the TV series.

But my question is, now that the TV series has eclipsed the book series, why is Martin bothering? Will people even care? I know movies change things all the time if their source material was a book, but generally, the books are completed. Even the Harry Potter movies didn't start making up their own Potter stories until Rowling was finished the book series.  

[Rick Kitchen]

The Bourne books and movies went at opposite directions and yet more books came out which contradicted the movies.

[Athena]

On 2016-05-18 at 2:11 PM, SmithW6079 said:

I'm not sure where this goes, so I'll start here. I read that "Game of Thrones" the TV series has now left the books behind, and recently, there were leaks (from George RR Martin or not) of a chapter or two for the next book in the series, he has a different take on one of the storylines that appeared in the TV series.

But my question is, now that the TV series has eclipsed the book series, why is Martin bothering? Will people even care? I know movies change things all the time if their source material was a book, but generally, the books are completed. Even the Harry Potter movies didn't start making up their own Potter stories until Rowling was finished the book series.  

The books have a dedicated following that precedes the show. While he agreed to let the show be adapted and there was an idea that this may happen, there will be people who read the books. GRRM has a story he wants to finish telling; it's a matter of debate if that will actually happen, but he's still writing it. The show runners have noted that while they may have deviated on a number of storylines, the story ending is allegedly more or less the same as what GRRM and them discussed when they started the show process.  So apparently they are all going to the same place with the ending, but through different journeys.  YMMV obviously.

This is why I generally treat books and their adaptations as separate entities. Comparing them is inevitable, but it does not necessarily take enjoyment out from one or the other if they differ. I've enjoyed movies and TV shows which were very different than their books, but still fun or enjoyable. I've liked some adaptations more than their books in certain ways as well.

[Joe]

Because the books are a lot better. I found the show full of cheap sets and bad acting. You can't get that on the page.

[Hanahope]

On 5/18/2016 at 2:32 PM, Rick Kitchen said:

The Bourne books and movies went at opposite directions and yet more books came out which contradicted the movies.

Well, to be fair, the original 3 Bourne books, written by Robert Ludlum, were done before the first movie was made.  The books also weren't this huge multi-book story arc that 'wasn't finished' when the movies came out.

Ludlum also died before the first movie came out.  The more recent Bourne books were written by a different author.

Now a better comparison might be True Blood, books and show going in different ways, and I think some books still written.  But its not quite the same type of overall story with an end either, at least for the books.

[Athena]

Yes, the Southern Vampire mysteries aka the True Blood books continued after the show. I thought of that example to except the author and the show split after S2. The two are not even remotely alike after awhile; to the point where I think the only thing the same was they had a bunch of characters with the same names. The divergence was significant after awhile. The author did not have the say or control that GRRM does on the Game of Thrones and the show runners felt no inclination to do the books some justice. D&D of the show do still follow aspects of the books that have not been published that they gleaned and discussed with GRRM.

[GaT]

5 hours ago, Athena said:

Yes, the Southern Vampire mysteries aka the True Blood books continued after the show. I thought of that example to except the author and the show split after S2. The two are not even remotely alike after awhile; to the point where I think the only thing the same was they had a bunch of characters with the same names. The divergence was significant after awhile. 

And they both sucked in their own special ways.

[Ruby Gillis]

Anne M. Martin, the author of the Baby-Sitters Club, has a new book based on the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series.  (Had to really work at places the hyphens in that sentence.)

I think it was in the old Fametracker forums that I was devastated to learn Martin had ghostwriters for BSC, but she does say 

Quote

I outlined each and every book, figured out the plot, and line-edited them afterward

and considering Scholastic was asking for 12 books a year, I think I have finally gotten over it.  I loved the series so much when I was a kid.  I had over 200 books and could tell you the titles and color of the covers for each one.   

[Darian]

This isn't about a book, but it's literary news, I think. James Patterson is doing something cool:  You can nominate independent bookstore employees for a bonus!

Got mind in mind. My favorite local indie is two stories without an elevator, and one employee always carries my walker up and down for me and is so kind and cheerful. He started it, too. I asked if there was an elevator and he said no and offered!  

http://bookweb.org/james-pattersons-holiday-bonuses-booksellers

Patterson did it last year, and my bookstore is on there, but under a different employee. They're all sweeties. 

[RealityCheck]

For those who enjoyed Anne Bishop's "The Others" series, her next book due to be released 2018 will be set in Northeast Thaisia with a whole new set of characters and she provided some info here.

[chitowngirl]

Putting this here for lack of a better place, but I think this may be of interest to this group. 

Books on t-shirts, totes and scarves.

My Christmas shopping just got easier!

[GaT]

Wasn't really sure where to post this, but I guess this is as good a thread as any. Amazon is having free shipping for everyone for the holiday season. I noticed that a lot of books I've been thinking about getting are part of the free shipping thing, so this may be a good time to stock up on books.

[AimingforYoko]

Barnes & Noble sold to hedge fund.

And the countdown clock on B & N starts....now.

[babyhouseman]

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/publisher-drops-central-park-prosecutor-linda-fairstein-63563094

"Linda Fairstein has been dropped by her publisher as fallout continues for the former Central Park Five prosecutor over the wrongful conviction of five teens for the 1989 rape and beating of a female jogger"

I've read her books, and this is surprising. 

[Sharpie66]

If you find it on your tv listings, I highly recommend catching the latest Secrets of the Dead on PBS, titled “Galileo’s Moon.” It’s about a proof copy of Galileo’s magnum opus, Siderius Nuncias or Starry Messenger, brought to experts for authentication not too long ago and deemed real. It turns out that the experts were wrong—you can forge a 17th century book printed with movable type. The forger is interviewed, and he is amazing in his audacity.