The Pulitzer prize-winning author discusses her follow up to A Visit from the Goon Squad and how imagining a new technology set her writing freeWhen Jennifer Egan bought her house in Brooklyn 20 years ago, it had been on the market for eight months. The owners were an elderly couple, and the place was distressed. “There were holes in the floor and the walls were drab,” says Egan, sitting in the kitchen of what is now a beautifully renovated property, full of lovely art and restored period details. Remembering how it was fills the 59-year-old novelist with a peculiar and very specific dread. “What really made it gloomy – and I’m very conscious of this – was that the family who’d lived here, the child had grown up, the parents had gotten old, and I think they’d stopped seeing it. There are moments when I think: is that happening now?”It’s the condition in which most of us live – after a while, we stop seeing our surroundings – and one against which Egan’s skill as a novelist is set. She is highly attuned to the falsifying effects of nostalgia, complacency, solipsism and ignorance of history, and to the delusions of uniqueness that dog every age. She is obsessed, for example, with the 1870s, “an amazing decade, because, except for the telegraph, almost none of the inventions we take for granted now – electricity, say – existed yet. And yet, 20 or 30 years later, there were cars. I think we underestimate the degree to which the change we experience is what it’s always been... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-04-16 08:00:03 UTC ]
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A new printed book celebrates all of the quirky flaws of the world’s most famous ebook. Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-09-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage at a large airplane hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., this morning and presented a dazzling, methodical, hourlong disquisition on the state of the technology business. He began by explaining why most of the iPad’s competitors have failed: “They’re gadgets,” he... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The New York Times Co. named former BBC director general Mark Thompson as its new CEO earlier this week, and now comes word that he will receive a pay package totaling as much as $10.5 million, including an annual salary of $1 million, according to Bloomberg News. Mr. Thompson, who was... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2012-08-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If you've ever been so embroiled in a chat or sharing splurge that you've been told to "take it off of Twitter," you now can -- sort of. Twitter co-creators Biz Stone and Ev Williams have launched Branch and Medium, two companion services that (naturally) use a Twitter sign-in but narrow the... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-08-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Got an email from a “fan” outraged that a novel I’ve been working on for two years, six days a week is $13 in ebook. Enjoy your $4 coffee. – Author Brent Weeks, via Twitter Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2012-08-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ingram Content Group has announced a new “standard color” pricing model for print-on-demand technology that has reduced costs by roughly two-thirds, making color POD an economical publishing option for the first time. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Legend Press and Bloomsbury both have two books on the £30,000 University of Wales Dylan... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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News updates all day from Fast Company.Amazon is getting ready to introduce new tablets, Staples' president of U.S. retail, Demos Parneros, told Reuters Monday.Parneros said the online retailer will introduce five or six new tablet SKUs, or stock-keeping units, including those for a 10-inch... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-07-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury has appointed Kathleen Farrar to the role of Bloomsbury Group sales and marketing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HTML5 promises to get publishers closer to digital media’s Promised Land: create once, deliver everywhere. As deployments increase and the standard evolves, media companies are finding it easier to make a business case for HTML5 investment. .. Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-07-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The publisher, in conjunction with city libraries and 3M, will make its books available in e-format, though they will not be available immediately after release. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2012-06-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After posting significant gains in 2011, the 16 publishers highlighted in PW’s annual Twitter snapshot all continued growing in 2012, showing that the book activity on the social media platform is still increasing substantially. All told, the total number of Twitter followers across all 16... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Germans, grab your reading glasses, for it's today that Google is announcing the arrival of Play Books -- complete with the ability to purchase native language texts -- in the land of the Kant and Goethe. Yes, those in Deutschland may now buy and read titles from Google Play Books on their... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sceptre has acquired two titles which look to give more insight into two of the world's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-06-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hutchinson senior editor Sarah Norman has made her first acquisition since joining the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Huffington Post is expanding the way it works with brands in an effort to cash in on the popular brand-as-publisher trend, Ad Age has learned. The company, part of AOL, has been talking to ad agencies and marketers about helping them build websites for brands and subsequently aiding in... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2012-05-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Rachael Ray's "The Book of Burgers" could just be this year's burger bible. Here, the Food Network star shares tips on planning a burger bash and what she'd serve at a White House cookout. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-05-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Collins & Brown has acquired a series of titles in a partnership with craft magazine Mollie... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Society of Authors has written to schools minister Nick Gibb urging him to support children... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Foyles has strengthened its marketing team and made a series of changes to its bookshop staffing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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