Monthly Archives: February 2008

Dig It Deep

Publishers Weekly reports that its parent company, Reed Business Information, is burying the Quill Awards, the results of which in past years have been horribly embarrassing.

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n+1 #6

n+1 #6

Recommended.

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Three French Novels

Alexis Soloski at the Village Voice reviews English translations of Dominique Fabre’s The Waitress Was New, Quebecois author Sylvain Trudel’s Mercury Under My Tongue, and Philippe Grimbert’s Memory.

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Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster

[Cover]

Recommended with reservations.

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City of Dreams

In his article in The Chronicle of Higher Education covering the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference, Michael Dirda wonders whether New York is still the city of dreams for young American writers.

The rain was slashing down when my train from Washington pulled into New York. Outside Penn Station, the line at the taxi stand was long, and, with little else to do for the next 20 minutes, I found myself thinking about all those young writers who, year after year, had come to this city of dreams, some bringing with them nothing but their ambition, others already clutching the manuscript for a novel, a play, or a book of poems. Here a few had found great or moderate success — and most none whatsoever. Yet even as the disillusioned gradually drifted home to Nebraska or Indiana, the next generation of hopefuls was already stepping off the bus at Port Authority and looking around at the city they would surely conquer with their pens.

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Well Short of Happy

Jonathan Yardley at the Washington Post reviews Antonio Skarmeta’s The Dancer and the Thief. On The Diane Rehm Show guest host Susan Page interviews the Chilean author.

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Heavy Mantle

In 1993, Masako Owada, an Ivy League-educated Japanese commoner, married Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, and the pressures of life in the Imperial Palace soon started building.

Scott Simon of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition talks with John Burnham Schwartz about The Commoner.

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Birchwood by John Banville

[Cover]

Recommended with reservations.

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