Books/Mags/Blogs

Just as your parents had lives before you came long, so did your favorite authors (though we can’t imagine Edith Wharton doing anything but spending her days anticipating our eventual joy at her cleverness). Author Rachel Cohen, in A Chance Meeting, has taken the liberty of reimagining famous literary encounters. Like any good writer, she takes a dash of reality and enhances. We find ourselves intrigued by the concept almost as much as ashamed that our rather fuzzy notion of history made our jaw drop when we realized that Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant were contemporaries. We are pathetic; […]

To the shock and horror of high school students everywhere, history is hot (wait, didn’t someone else say this recently? Ah yes, we see our memory is not yet failing. Much.). Never fear, it’s not that dry dates and places stuff — the good kind of history…yes, that history which is fiction. Not that you won’t get your dose of accuracy and sense of place (and, if the author’s good, scents of place as well). The new historical novel is exciting, thrilling, all the things a any textbook worthy of the name lacks. After all, the beauty of fiction is

There is a sense of Eureka is this week’s publishing news. For proof, one need look no further than the “black women read, too” article about chick lit from the New York Times. Or the breaking story that Christian romance novels sell like…well, romance does outsell every other genre. We honestly don’t know what surprises us more: learning that Christians are sexy and passionate or learning this is a surprise to some people. Publishers finds profits in Christian romance novels Where One Plus One Is A Rough Equation

We don’t pretend to understand the complex minds of publishers (well, sometimes we do, but mostly we’re just guessing). So we’re not sure why the concept of black chick lit took so long to catch on. Especially in light of the fact that Arabesque books is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Yet it is only now in the chick lit lifecycle (we may need to ponder this concept further) that we have the publishing industry saying: “We think that there is a very healthy market for African-American chick-lit, and we plan to capitalize on it,” [Janet Hill] added. Yes,

It turns out that not everybody has a blog. This shocks us. If you’re planning to get rich with your blog, rethink this. You have a better chance of winning the lottery. Sex is good. You can read that any way you wish. There is a certain jump-the-shark feel to blogging articles lately (there is also a jump-the-shark feel to using the phrase jump-the-shark, but that’s another post). Now Wired’s gone and written a long story on the phenomenon. Yeah, another story about Nick Denton with Jason Calacanis making a guest appearance. We think blogs offer great opportunities for authors

This week, we discussed favorite books and the plight of the translator. Lo and behond. it turns out thre’s a new translation of Booksquare favorite Notes from Underground. This is wonderful news (if you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for — it’s a long weekend with nothing but food, drink, and hammocks on the schedule). But…is buying this new edition hypocritic? After all, we make fun of friends who buy every newly remastered version of Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan (not that these are the only artists whose labels soak suckers by coaxing another layer

We’ve been seeking an angle on this Washingtonienne story, and, because our luck seems unusually high this week, we found one. The tell-all (and we do mean all; see Wonkette’s reproduction and, um, analysis) blogger has been contacted by Pilar Queen from Carlisle & Company who finds “…the people who have these blogs and post these Web sites are fascinating…” If she only knew. For more fascinating blog to book coverage, check out our previous stories. The Reliable Source (you’ll need to scroll down the article for the story) The Lost Washingtonienne (WONKETTE EXCLUSIVE, ETC., ETC.) Carlisle & Company

A few weeks ago, we posted on blogs spawning book deals. Now it appears the phenomomenon will hit critical mass within the next few hours. This, of course, means that by the time your mother figures out what a blog is and thinks it might help your career, you will know the awful truth: you leapt onto the blogging bandwagon far too late for Kate Lee of ICM to discover you. But that’s okay, isn’t it? You write from your soul, not for awful mercenary reasons, right? Besides, it turns out that bloggers have short attention spans or something like