Penelope Lively's recent short ebook for Penguin drew criticism for its brevity – but readers should not be put off the genre as a whole"Overpriced", "ridiculous", I feel cheated". Amazon reviewers haven't been wholly positive about a digital short Penelope Lively has written for Penguin Specials. On the evidence of the story itself, it's not Lively's fault. Abroad is about a pair of art students who travel to 1950s Spain in search of picturesque peasants and are disappointed when they don't live up to expectations. It's funny and evocative of a time when rural Europe was still exotic.It also peters out after just 4,000 words, so I sympathise with anyone who felt ripped off by its £1.99 price tag. These days you can buy two whole novels for that. The sad fact is, publishers don't make any money if an ebook costs less than £1.99. Amazon does, because singles are the literary equivalent of a gateway drug.This was brought home to me on finishing Susan Hill's latest effort, Printer's Devil Court (99p), a haunting tale about pre-second world war medical students who experiment with resurrection. More substantial than Lively's, it's a great, old-fashioned ghost story, whose chilling impact was somewhat undermined by turning the final page to find Amazon ordering me to rate, review, tweet, Facebook and buy more books by Susan Hill. Was the ebook I'd enjoyed little more than a trailer?Singles are a clever marketing tool. But it would be a shame if readers short-changed by one... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
As a literary genre, fantasy is one of the oldest and most recent. Although modern fantasy only began to be recognised as a distinct genre in the late twentieth century, thanks largely to the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien and his imitators, its roots can be traced back millennia. […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-02-23 15:00:28 UTC ]
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Publishers and literary agents report their books to film deals, and the year ahead already is a standout for film and television adaptations. The post Books To Screen Edition: Literary Agents’ and Rights Directors’ Film Deals appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2022-02-11 15:09:04 UTC ]
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Philosopher David Chalmers contemplates the deep questions surrounding virtual reality. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-02-11 13:00:00 UTC ]
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This is Underreported with Nicholas Lemann, from the publishing imprint Columbia Global Reports. We don’t just publish books; we use books to start conversations about topics that weren’t getting the attention they deserved. At least, until we took them on. This podcast is your audio connection... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-09 09:49:28 UTC ]
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He founded Anchor Books, publishing high-quality paperbacks in the 1950s, then led Random House and helped launch the New York Review of Books. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-02-05 02:25:43 UTC ]
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A nonbinary teenager on their way home from an eating -disorder treatment center who tries to convince a stranger she is not a vampire, an aspiring fashion designer/dry-cleaning worker who develops an obsession with a customer, a community of people with Hansen’s disease that welcome and attempt... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The Wingate Literary Prize shortlist this year includes Nicole Krauss and Edmund de Waal with a mix of indie and corporate publishers in the running for the £4,000 award. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-27 00:47:48 UTC ]
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65 authors and translators are nominated across 11 awards. Winners will be announced at an in-person ceremony on February 28. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-01-26 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Independent press Scratch Books, "dedicated to the art of the short story", is to launch in London in March, kicking off with an event featuring authors including Irenosen Okojie and Sarah Hall. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-24 22:49:58 UTC ]
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Death is a common theme in literature, and many of the finest writers of short fiction have explored the fear, event, and aftermath of death using the short-story form. Below, we select and introduce ten of the very best classic short stories which have death as their theme, ranging from […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-01-19 15:00:39 UTC ]
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Andrew Lipstein's "Last Resort" captures our tenuous ownership of life experiences and the vampiric practice of fiction writing. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-01-18 13:57:08 UTC ]
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The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize has announced a new landmark partnership with The Literary Consultancy and revealed the judging line-up for 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-16 04:07:20 UTC ]
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Facing tough comparisons to 2021, when sales got off to a strong start compared to 2020, unit sales of print books fell 13.9% last week from the first week in 2021 at outlets that report to BookScan. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-01-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Oneworld editor and former Guardian journalist Richard Lea is heading a new web-based short fiction journal, Fictionable, which is aiming to raise £15,000 in the next month on Kickstarter. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-09 17:09:42 UTC ]
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For decades, I sat in meetings with all-white teams. The industry needs an independent body to advise on equalityI’m a literary agent and at the height of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests I was sent a list, with accompanying photographs, of the top editors working across the major... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-01-01 10:00:46 UTC ]
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Exploring the diversity of The Atlantic’s original fiction: Your weekly guide to the best in books Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2021-12-31 15:24:18 UTC ]
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The stories of the US short-story writer O. Henry, real name William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), are characterised by their irony and by their surprise endings, which became something of a signature of a good O. Henry short story. However, another word that is often used to describe O. Henry’s... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-31 15:00:32 UTC ]
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An interesting dispatch from prize world: as The Bookseller reported, a new international survey conducted by Nielsen Book shows publishers, writers, booksellers and media consider the Booker Prize the “most important” literary prize. The Booker’s status isn’t completely out of left field, but... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-12-23 20:28:47 UTC ]
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Spanning dreamy teenagers to furious parents, violence to kindness, each of the ten short stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter is rendered with Lily King’s signature longing and wit. We are all learning to carry our grief, this collection argues, yet still hoping to scrape together a few more... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-21 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The monarch had plenty of shortcomings, but he wasn’t a brute, writes Andrew Roberts. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-12-17 13:00:00 UTC ]
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