Louis Theroux: ‘I’m not that comfortable doing polemic’

 

His ability to make the subjects of his documentaries reveal how strange they are has made his name. But Louis Theroux says he never sets out to turn someone over.

 

What is it about Louis Theroux that makes people want to show him how odd they are? For more than a decade now, ever since Jimmy Savile confided on camera that he used to beat people up and lock them in a basement during his career as a nightclub manager, Theroux’s subjects have been sharing their strangeness with him. But I’ve never been able to work out why. Critics have accused the presenter of tricking interviewees by pretending to be a bumbling fool – a faux naif – yet within minutes of meeting him, I think I see the real reason why his subjects reveal all. I don’t know him at all, but would quite happily tell him anything.      …read more

Fiction Longlist Announced for 2011 Best Translated Book Awards

By Hannah Johnson

Now in its fifth year, the Best Translated Book Awards (BTBA) fiction longlist highlights 25 translated works of literature published in the United States in 2010. The longlist represents authors from 19 countries writing in 12 languages.

The award was started in 2007 by Three Percent, a blog about literature in translation from Open Letter Press. Co-founder Chad W. Post said the list is a “testament to the number of high-quality works in translation that are making their way to American readers, thanks to a number of talented translators and exciting publishing houses.”

Criteria for selecting was based on the quality of both the original work and the translation.   …read more

                                         

Picador in Room paperback giveaway

31.01.11 | Graeme Neill

Picador is teaming up with The Reading Agency and Mumsnet to give away 2,500 copies of the paperback of Emma Donoghue’s Man Booker shortlisted novel Room.

The Reading Agency’s Room Mega Read library promotion will distribute 500 copies of Room to four libraries in Bury Domcaster, Tonbridge and Norwich.   …read more

Warnock condemns library closure “barbarism”

31.01.11 | Benedicte Page

The philosopher, author and life peer Baroness Mary Warnock has said closure of her local library, Sydenham Library, would be “barbarism”.

Warnock will be among the local authors and poets taking part in a read-in at the library on Saturday 5th February, as part of the national day of protests at proposed library cuts across the UK.   …read more

Local independent booksellers are still fighting the good fight — and winning

By Mary Ann Grossmann

Hans Weyandt, left, and Tom Bielenberg are co-owners of Micawbers Books in St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

“A good local bookstore is like a good local bar, where everybody knows your name,” jokes Sue Zumberge, manager of St. Paul’s Common Good Books.

Zumberge is among managers and owners of Twin Cities-area independent bookstores surveyed by the Pioneer Press this month who are optimistic in this new year.

They want book lovers to know their stores are alive and well and were not affected by year-end closings of three used-book stores in Minneapolis and Anoka. They’re also fighting the misconceptions that brick-and-mortar independent bookstores are dead and print books are doomed.

Strong indie bookstores contributed to the Twin Cities’ rankings in Central Connecticut State University’s list of most literate cities.   …read more

Designing Books for a Digital Age

The Dutch book designer Joost Grootens has created works like ‘‘I swear’’ and ‘‘Atlas of Conflict’’ that reinvent the concept of books, focusing on information and simplicity

By ALICE RAWSTHORN

LONDON — The final page of Joost Grootens’s new book contains a dedication to his two daughters. Sweet, you may think, but hardly surprising, at least until he identifies them as “Step (born between 17 and 18) and Clara (born between 73 and 74).”

The numbers refer to the books he was designing before and after the girls’ births. Like the other 98 books Mr. Grootens has produced in the last decade, they are numbered in chronological order on page 2 of his new book, titled “I swear I use no art at all: 10 years, 100 books, 18,788 pages of book design.”In it, he describes the process of designing each book and the evolution of his career as a designer partly in words, but mostly visually, in maps, charts, grids, infographics, indices and so on.  

 …read more

Foreign Rights: How Authors Tap a Rich Vein of Royalties

By KAREN DIONNE

Despite ever-increasing caution on the part of the book industry, publishing a book has never been easier. Between the recent explosion of e-reading devices, generous royalty rates from online retailers and enticing tales of six-figure incomes, self-publishing is becoming an attractive option for many aspiring authors.

Frustrated by the slow, conservative pace of traditional publishing, writers are abandoning their agent search in droves to stride out into the Brave New Publishing World.

But as they weigh the financial pros and cons of self-publishing, there’s one potentially lucrative market that do-it-yourselfers often overlook: foreign rights sales.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/fQhJQV

Secrets to Success as a Writer from Mediabistro Grad Rose Fox

We asked Mediabistro graduate Rose Fox, reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, if she had any advice for aspiring writers. She generously passed on a few helpful pointers:

   …read more

Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 Coming from Knopf This October

Craig Morgan Teicher — January 31st, 2011

Fans of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami are cheering in the streets due to the news that Murakami’s magnum opus, 1Q84, will be published in English by Knopf on October 25, 2011.

The news came in the form of a tweet from Knopf publicity director Paul Bogaards, who, on Friday, wrote “Haruki Murakami’s long-awaited magnum opus, 1Q84, out from Knopf 10/25. In one volume. Booyah! Midnight store openings for this one?”   …read more

Best African books of 2010

Africa’s best books of 2010 including Nelson Mandela’s Conversations with Myself and a biography of Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo, plus what books to look out for in 2011.

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