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Monday, March 28, 2011

March's Compendium of Literary Links

This month's issue of literary links includes an all-out assault on your senses, and your funny bone hopefully. Here we have novelist David Mitchell writing about talking, Margaret Atwood talking about writing (and publishing), as well as Charlie Sheen's "talkings" condensed into New Yorker cartoons. Enjoy!

1. Lost For Words — Novelist David Mitchell (of Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet fame), and "owner of speech defect" gives his take on this year's Oscar Best Picture winner, The King's Speech.

2. The Publishing Pie: An Author's View — (video) — Margaret Atwood delivers this talk at a "tech" conference in February. She talks the changing author/publisher dynamic, and she's surprisingly hilarious!

3. Charlie Sheen's Quotes as New Yorker Cartoons — Speaking of hilarious, here are some very well done faux-New Yorker cartoons of some of Charlie Sheen's more memorable (read as: crazy) quotes.

4. E-books Rock — The trade journal Publisher's Weekly is now, for the first time, collecting sales data on e-books. Still, many publishers have declined to provide that information. This article gives some background, and also a list of the best-selling e-books for which PW does have data.

5. National Book Critics Circle Award Winners — In case you missed it, Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad nabbed this year's NBCC award for fiction.
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7 comments:

  1. Patrick (at The Literate Man)March 28, 2011 at 1:04 PM

    I had no idea that Margaret Atwood was so hilarious! Not to mention brilliant. Thanks for the link, Greg.

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  2. RedMarch 28, 2011 at 1:18 PM

    The Charlie Sheen quotes as New Yorker cartoons crack me up.

    I still don't understand the publishing worlds reluctance to release sales data on e-books but I know very little of the publishing world so I can't say if it's reasonable on their part or not.

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  3. Ben CarrollMarch 29, 2011 at 5:16 AM

    Margaret Atwood is amazing! That talk is exactly what I needed to hear. Next time I read a blog telling me authors need to have Facebook Pages, 3000 Twitter followers and a degree in marketing before they start writing, i shall repeat to myself: Primary Source, Primary Source.

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  4. KathyMarch 29, 2011 at 7:50 AM

    Loved the Margaret Atwood video, she is amazing! Also thought the Mitchell article was interesting. Thanks for the links Greg.

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  5. lady tMarch 29, 2011 at 12:15 PM

    Those Charlie Sheen/New Yorker cartoon mash-ups were knee slapping funny-thanks,Greg!

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  6. Greg ZimmermanMarch 29, 2011 at 2:14 PM

    @Patrick - Me either! I've never actually read her, but I always had the impression she was a bit stodgy.

    @Red - Yeah, those are fantastic. I don't understand the reluctance either - I'm sure there must be a very good reason.

    @Ben - Ha - exactly!

    @Kathy - You're welcome - I really enjoyed both of those, too.

    @ladyt - Good way to kill 15 minutes, indeed!

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  7. Laura from CanadaMarch 29, 2011 at 4:19 PM

    That Jennifer Egan book is A-MA- zing. So pleased she nabbed that award.

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