Thinking About The Role of Terrorism in Fiction

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In the past weeks, an editor and an agent have suggested that they’re not looking for the terrorist novel, the classic “someone goes into a crowd and blows stuff up” sort of thing. While some took an expanded view of this idea, we, perversely, took it quite literally. We presumed that these publishing professionals were seeking subtlety and depth. Please understand that we’re not being flippant when we say that blowing up stuff is easy — it’s getting to the point where you’re willing to do so that is hard. We’ve thought a lot about this idea since we first […]

Books/Mags/Blogs

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up. Well, You Can, But It Would Be Deemed Unbelievable

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Admittedly, our fascination with the recent Michael Jackson trial was limited to the idea that a lot of people were being introduced to the idea that Santa Maria is a real city. Then, of course, came the jurors and their book deals, sort of like rainbows after rain. As we weren’t planning to purchase and/or read these first-hand accounts of harrowing deliberations and mind-changing, we rely upon the media to keep us updated. And you rely upon us to point out that the world is, indeed, stupider than you thought. You all remember Ray Hultman, right? He was one of

Square Pegs

We’re Back, Safe and Sound

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We couldn’t help but notice that our blog was napping all afternoon. Apparently, the second the power in Los Angeles went out, the site decided to climb into the hammock and nap. We are uncertain as why the blog could take the rest of the day off while we had to pretend to work, but clearly we have less pull with those in charge of our life than we thought.

Square Pegs

Commercial Break, Blog Style

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog reading to point you to an exciting new product. Someone let us share our thoughts on a book we recently read. We’ll be doing this regularly at Paperback Reader. Too Wilde To Tame by Janelle Denison

Square Pegs

Totally Off Topic

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It is one of those days when not much is catching our attention, except, of course, this lovely quote from the BBC, circa 2005: A Day In The Life, the Beatles’ most ambitious work to date, featured what Lennon described as “a sound building up from nothing to the end of the world”. This is where we suggest that sometimes it’s helpful to pay attention to what you write. Beatles hailed ‘best of British’ – The 1967 Beatles track A Day In The Life has been hailed the best British song of all time.

Square Pegs

On Books, Movies, Movies, Books

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No, this is simply to answer small practical questions, to help all you puzzled movie consumers out there: Should you read the book before you see the movie? Does it matter if they change the book? If you know how it ends, what’s the point in seeing it? Hollywood Follows the Reader – When Filmmakers Go by the Book, Should Filmgoers Go Buy It Too?

Quote of the Week

The Finite Jest

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Let us, for a moment, ponder the act of editing books. There are many in the publishing ranks who complain that they don’t so much edit as administer. Oh sure, every interview you read with an editor talks about the hands-on approach and collaborative process. . .given the continual output of major label publishers versus available and experienced staff, just how much care and feeding can an editor do? Jonthan Karp who is running Warner’s “Twelve” imprint thinks he knows how to change the business model. Note: there are two critical steps: I love books. So even though I thought

Publishers and Editors

There’s Not a Line Here That Goes With Anything

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Something about the statement that S.E. Hinton is rarely interviewed sent us to our trusty friend, Google. And sure enough, when her novel Hawkes Harbor was released last year, there were interviews. It’s always a relief to know that the brain still functions, at least on one cylinder. Okay, maybe the novel didn’t do so well, but she popped out of the woodwork for a moment. Hinton doesn’t have a new book nor, technically, anything else new, but there’s this little rerelease of the film The Outsiders. Even a reclusive author cannot stand firm against a marketing juggernaut. Overall, the

Books/Mags/Blogs

On Rereading

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The point about the return visit is not the infantile pleasure of repetition, but the possibility of surprise. A good work of art never stays quite the same: it ambushes you, outwits you. A first exposure can provide the primitive excitement of wanting to know what happens next, a second provides the opportunity to register details, a third brings a sense of the underpinning joints and girders that make up the structure. And so it goes on. The arts column: ambushed by the unexpected – again – Rupert Christiansen acclaims the surprising possibilities of repetition

Quote of the Week

One Giant Step for Publishing Kind

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Today, Holtzbrinck, the corporate parent of fine publishers like Audio Renaissance, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Henry Holt, Picador, St. Martin’s Press, and Tor/Forge, left the competition in the dust. What’s that, you say, how could this be? What happened when I wasn’t paying attention? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re kidding you. Sure, Holtzbrinck is the first publisher to take advantage of podcast technology as a marketing tool. You can hear fine authors like Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost, and H.G. Wells reading from their upcoming novels. There is a menu of weekly selections and a featured title (also known as the

Books/Mags/Blogs
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