Essay “Literature was a vast minefield occupied by enemies,” Roberto Bolaño, who enjoyed accruing enemies in the pantheon of Latin American letters, writes in the short story “Meeting with Enrique Lihn” (New Yorker, December 22, 2008): except for a few classic authors (just a few), and every day I had to walk through that minefield, where any false move could be fatal, with only the poems of Archilochus to guide me. It’s like that for all young writers. There comes a time when you have no support, not even from friends, forget about mentors, and there’s no one to give you a hand; publication, prizes, and grants are reserved for the others, the ones who said “Yes, sir,” over and over, or those who praised the literary mandarins, a never-ending horde distinguished only by their aptitude for discipline and punishment—nothing escapes them and they forgive nothing. Aptitude for discipline and punishment Bolaño himself had aplenty, too. And in spite of his precarious health, he had stamina. At a young age, he had made up his mind he would die. Who cared if he annoyed others? His mission, as is clear from The Savage Detectives (1998), was to upend that tradition, to take it by the neck and expose its platitudes. What is the use of sacred cows if not to be desecrated? Indeed, every tradition needs an enfant terrible, maybe more than one. When was the last time a rabble-rouser came along in Latin American literature? As Bolaño put it in... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-28 21:05:10 UTC ]
“Vellum” by Hal Duncan, “Mockingbird,” by Walter Tevis, the works of Tanith Lee and more. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-13 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Bookshop and Libro.fm, which help independent booksellers sell online, reported huge gains in 2020. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-01-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The number of independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland has grown for the fourth consecutive year, the Booksellers Association has confirmed. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-08 03:46:57 UTC ]
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Aged 15 I got a Christmas job at my local bookshop in Battersea so I could save to go interrailing. My parents’ bookshelves were brimming with mostly Black writers: Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Chester Himes, Terry McMillan, and I was surrounded by ‘consciousness’... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-30 21:25:59 UTC ]
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Police in Shanghai say a suspect has been detained in the death by possible poisoning of the billionaire founder of a Chinese video game company that is producing films based on popular science fiction novel “The Three-Body Problem.” Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2020-12-28 14:47:02 UTC ]
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Del Rey, the SFF imprint of Cornerstone, has acquired A E Warren's four-book high-concept science fiction series, described as "Jurassic Park meets Sapiens, set within a bold new imaginative world". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-21 17:20:07 UTC ]
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From talking tigers to automaton dragons and UFOs, find some of the best 2020 under the radar SFF books you may have missed, including Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-12-21 11:37:00 UTC ]
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Need a new novel? Classic adventures, satire, and dystopian science fiction top this year's round-up of reader book recommendations for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-18 22:08:27 UTC ]
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Need a new novel? Classic adventures, satire, and dystopian science fiction top this year's round-up of reader book recommendations for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-18 22:08:27 UTC ]
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Need a new novel? Classic adventures, satire, and dystopian science fiction top this year's round-up of reader book recommendations for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-18 22:08:27 UTC ]
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As editor of the magazines Analog and Omni, he was a champion of a new generation of authors, including George R.R. Martin. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-12-14 19:27:29 UTC ]
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A committee made up of booksellers and non-managerial staff at Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, Calif., has sent a letter to store owner Casey Coonerty Protti asking her to voluntarily recognize their joining with the Communication Workers of America Local 9423. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-12-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Anthologies like “The Big Book of Modern Fantasy” cover a lot of ground. Illustrated books like “Flyway” offer something special. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-07 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Nigel Jones, formerly of Ottakar's and the Totnes Bookshop, and his wife Claire Jones, a former W H Smith children's buyer, are to open their own independent bookshop in Totnes, two weeks before Christmas. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-30 12:29:44 UTC ]
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THE SKELETONS IN Ray Bradbury’s closet are out in Killer, Come Back to Me, a career-spanning collection of the science fictioneer’s crime stories. These 300 pages present a new side to readers who only know Bradbury from such classics as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and Fahrenheit 451 (1953).... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-24 13:30:59 UTC ]
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Publishers Nosy Crow and Pan Macmillan have been named winners of the FutureBooks Awards: Best of Lockdown, after the week-long virtual conference which culminated in the awards ceremony. The pair won alongside Bath-based bookshop Mr B’s Emporium, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and academic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-20 02:37:06 UTC ]
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FASCISTS LOVE Dune: Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation was highly anticipated on white nationalist sites such as Counter-Currents and the Daily Stormer. As soon as the trailer dropped, they began poring over it for signs of deviation from their pet interpretations of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-19 18:00:46 UTC ]
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Dystopias, adventures and new worlds in books by Stephen Graham Jones, Zen Cho and more. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-19 13:30:00 UTC ]
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“Wild landscapes, weird nature, science fiction — this really should be my jam. But no.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-19 10:00:06 UTC ]
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Achins Book Shop and Coffee Shop, thought to be the UK's most remote book retailer, has been sold to new owners six years after appearing on the market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-18 05:13:31 UTC ]
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