Wow, I got a lot of reading done here this week: After The Creation of Eve, I read another review copy: 31 Bond Street, by Ellen Horan. After that I read Hester, by Paula Reed, a book I won through LTER but never received, so I borrowed my copy from the library. Now I’m reading Margaret Oliphant’s Miss Marjoribanks. All of these books, with the exception of Hester, I enjoyed very much....

Editor John Klima, who edits Electric Velocipede (which has been nominated before for the Hugo, if memory serves), is trying to secure one of 10 Pepsi $25K grants in order to create a quarterly magazine that would focus on making "underrepresented cultures" (i.e. stories from authors who often aren't available in English translation) more visible in the Anglo-American markets. In order to get this...

We had achieved the dream of all fans, the conflation of the author with his creation, which we secretly believed to be the same thing all along. After all, here was one of the original Merry Pranksters, a man who hung out with the Beats, who was known to indulge in drugs, who went to dangerous places like Vietnam and the Middle East, looking for trouble. The man who famously said: “…...

A well adjusted Swedish policeman? Surely some mistake, but Camilla Läckberg's creation, Detective Patrik Hedstrom, is just that – as well as being a decent cook and attentive partner to his pregnant girlfriend, Erica.

The Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen is a historical fiction tale taking place between the years 1560-1568 in Spain. It is about a little known painter named Sofonisba Anguissola who became the first female painter to rise to prominence in the Italian Renaissance. Sofonisba had even been invited to study under Michelangelo; something quite unheard of for a woman. It was there, as indicated from the ...

Author bios on glossy book jackets give the illusion that a writer climbed to the top of the literary profession in heroic, purpose-filled strides. One New Yorker staff writer turned that creation myth upside down in an interview. Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was David Grann, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and the author of and The Lost City of Z. Grann discussed his new...

We think of jihadism as a modern creation, but the 19th-century anarchist movement was equally nihilistic

There are books that can never escape the circumstances of their creation. Suicide is one of them. French artist and author Edouard Levé submitted the manuscript of his novel on October 5th, 2007; three days later his editor at Editions P.O.L. called to tell him that he was utterly captivated by it, and they arranged to meet on the 18th to discuss publication. The meeting was not to be.Hugo...

Watch this awesome video from Tor.com as Greg Manchess creates his ebook cover for Robert Jordan’s Lord of Chaos in time lapse. So awesome! Great music as well as excerpts from the audiobook makes this one of the best pieces of promotional material I have ever seen! Here is an extended version: Related posts:Video: Sam Weber ...

Are You Willing to Give a Vook a Try?  I’ve mentioned Vooks here before, but I think it’s time for an update. About a year ago, Brad Inman started Vook, a creation that combines videos and photos with text. Vooks basically strive to make reading a multimedia experience. They are currently available online and as downloads