Where have all the book illustrators gone? – The Independent – Melanie McDonagh
Charles Dickens enjoyed close collaborative relationships with the illustrators of his novels, but now it’s rare to find a picture outside the world of children’s books. Is drawing a lost art, or could we be on the brink of a new golden age?
McDonagh talks about trends in art culture and the desires of authors and publishers. It’s pretty interesting to see the trends in publishing and illustrating.
The Unexpected Inspirations Behind Beloved Children’s Books – The Atlantic – Tom Hawking
The acid trips, war wounds, and survival stories that led to your treasured childhood fantasies…
What was the story behind Harry Potter, Where the Wild Things Are, Watership Down, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia? Take a look and find out about 10 of your favorite children’s books. Really neat and fun to read!
Will the Tablet Kill the Novel? – Huffington Post – Warren Adler
Technological advances have enhanced our ability to create a moving record of our lives through video and still photography, helped us connect to people, locally, nationally and internationally, and have improved our research skills and medical diagnosis abilities. It has enhanced our ability to react to events, bring people swiftly together to enlist their cooperation in various causes, air our grievances, and accomplish a thousand other tasks that might have taken past generations days, weeks or months longer to realize.
Such alleged progress cannot be ignored, but neither can the concept of deep, personal reflection, thoughtful concentration, philosophical cogitation, creative imagination and aspects of insight that one can glean from literature which can only be conveyed through the privacy of immersion into a parallel world best dramatized in the imagination through storytelling.
Not quite an ebook v traditional book debate as it’s technology v novel, but he does bring up some good points. Would you rather read classics by flipping paper, or punching buttons? As an owner of a Nook, I still prefer paper to technology, so I can see each side of the argument Adler proposes. Read this – what do you think about the future of the novel?
2012 Edgar Award Nominees Announced – Publisher’s Weekly
Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominees for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction and nonfiction. The winners will be announced at a gala banquet on April 26 in New York.
Big news! There are roughly five nominees per category. Categories include:
…to name a few. Authors such as Diane Gabaldon, Maureen Johnson, and Neil Gaiman are nominated! Plenty of new names and faces as well. Check it out!
John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list!
If you have not seen it, read it, heard of it, been living under a rock – check out my review of the book.
Source: Twitter’s @realjohngreen, @PWKidsBookshelf, @PublishersWkly, @jodipicoult, @sarahdessen
OverDrive Adds Foreign Language Titles – Publisher’s Weekly
Are you aware of that handy little app? It just got better.
Digital library distributor OverDrive has added “thousands” of foreign language titles to its catalog by signing a number of new publishing clients. The company’s online catalog has books in over 50 languages and the new titles include ones in Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, and Turkish with Spanish titles coming. The addition of the foreign titles brings OverDrive e-book catalog to 700,000.
Germany Joins World Book Night 2012 – Publisher’s Weekly
World Book Night has announced that Germany is the second international partner alongside the United States to stage a national one million book giveaway for adults on April 23rd, the Unesco International Day of the Book.
Fantastic news! Be a giver.
The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff 
Duke Wolff was a flawless specimen of the American clubman — a product of Yale and the OSS, a one-time fighter pilot turned aviation engineer. Duke Wolff was a failure who flunked out of a series of undistinguished schools, was passed up for military service, and supported himself with desperately improvised scams, exploiting employers, wives, and, finally, his own son.
In The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff unravels the enigma of this Gatsbyesque figure, a bad man who somehow was also a very good father, an inveterate liar who falsified everything but love.
I had to read this for my advanced nonfiction writing class, and it was extremely difficult to read through and find something positive. So instead, I’ve resorted to the analytical in hopes that it can enlighten future readers of the content.
Geoffrey Wolff entangles the reader in a long, arduous explanation for why he is thankful his father died. As a reader, I felt the memoir was too long, too detailed with explanations, and I found myself focusing on mental and behavioral issues Duke and Geoffrey shared. Whether or not I focused on the wrong details, it helped to enlighten the link between father and son and the excuse for why he was so thankful over the death of his father.
What every person has in common is a connection with another human being, blood relation or not. We are naturally curious about how another lives and what different facets in his or her life are like. How does one act around friends? Family? Strangers? While I enjoyed reading about these two men, I could not relate to them. Trust and honesty is a foundation in my life, and it seemed the only person in this memoir who I could trust to be honest was Geoffrey’s mother. She was a woman stuck in a sad situation, and wanted to make the best of what she had.
Duke drilled Geoffrey to tell the truth, to be proud of who he is, and yet Geoffrey lied as much as Duke. These two constantly tried to cover up their individual pasts and create newer, brighter histories for their identities. They lived in a world of confusion, and thrived off the snowballing of the tales. This probably explains why Geoffrey gave detailed accounts the various women who would walk in and out of his life. He was desperate for something to cling to that was solid, stable, and loving. If a girl showed any interest in him, he would leap at the idea and make advances far beyond his understanding and control to ensnare her. Love was his excuse to leave this world of deception.
The prologue and epilogue bookend the memoir of “things.” Things that Duke collected, enjoyed, stole, bartered, and in turn shared with his son and his fascination of material items. We learn of the squalor Duke died in, his loss of things. This loss, I think, opened up the door to the truth Geoffrey so desperately wanted.
Rating: ★ of 5
GoodReads: 3.92 of 5
Should JK Rowling Win the Nobel Prize? – Huffington Post -Jeff O’Neal
In his will that established the prizes, Alfred Nobel wanted the Literature award to go to “to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.” This phrase is as ambiguous as it is telling; the “ideal direction” of literature is not stated, but the award clearly is intended for authors whose work strives toward some kind of literary ideal.
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There are other ways of thinking about what literature’s goals should be, and the one that jumps to mind for me is reading itself. Reading is an end in itself and therefore writing that inspires people to read does indeed work in “an ideal direction.” And what living author has inspired more people to read and more love of reading than J.K. Rowling?
I think yes. The Nobel Prize shouldn’t just be limited to “high art” literature. Many of the authors and poets who have won the award are generally unknown, or known but the work is difficult to read and enjoy. Rowling has changed the lives of millions, and I believe she should be recognized for it.
But, feel free to read the article and discuss your opinion!
If You’re Mad for ‘Downton,’ Publishers Have Reading List – New York Times – Julie Bosman
I’m a huge fan of Downton Abbey, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have a reading list that relates to Highclere, Yorkshire, WWI, elite life, and servant life in the early 1900s. In case you’re interested, here’s a link to a great book list!
Happy reading!
Scribbles & Wanderlust 