The most interesting US poet is Natasha Trethewey
12 Jun 2012 09:42:11
Natasha Trethewey, a 46-year-old poet whose work "digs beneath the surface of history" to "explore the human struggles that we all face", has been named America's 19th poet laureate.
An English and creative writing professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Trethewey is the first African American to hold the post since Rita Dove in 1993, and the first southerner since Robert Penn Warren. She won the Pulitzer prize for her third collection, Native Guard, which explores the racial legacy of the Am... Read Full Story
Dirt by David Vann - new review of the new book
12 Jun 2012 09:40:53
I don't know quite when I first got a whiff of real, vicious discomfort in David Vann's new novel. Was it just a few pages in, when Galen, its apparently normal 22-year-old protagonist, getting into his mother's car to visit his grandmother, decides – for no apparent reason – to attempt the manoeuvre without the use of his arms and falls flat on the gravel? Or was it some pages later when, eating dinner with his relatives, he crams an entire plateful of hot dogs into his mouth before heading ups... Read Full Story
Jane Austen: literature and paintings on canvas
12 Jun 2012 09:37:35
New evidence may have revealed the true face of one of Britain's most beloved authors. Using digital photographic tools analysis has revealed writing on a long-disputed oil painting that its owners claim shows Jane Austen as a teenage girl. No other professional likeness of the writer exists.
The discovered words appear to include not only the novelist's name, but also that of the suspected artist.
In the top-right corner of a reproduction of a photograph of the portrait taken before the paint... Read Full Story
Another literature writer have died at 81
11 Jun 2012 03:19:50
The Durham-born author had lived in Umbria for many years. His publisher Hutchinson confirmed the news of his death this morning.
"Barry was a wonderful writer and this is a great loss," said publishing director Jocasta Hamilton. "Barry's work was characterised by a willingness to tackle big subjects with great humanity. His writing brought enormous pleasure as well as being thought-provoking and illuminating. We are incredibly proud to have had the opportunity to publish his last novel, The Qu... Read Full Story
Shehan Karunatilaka become a winner of literature prize
11 Jun 2012 03:17:22
Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka, a former advertising copywriter, has won the Commonwealth book prize for his highly praised debut novel Chinaman: the Legend of Pradeep Mathew.
Narrated by the alcoholic former sports journalist WG Karunasena, the novel is the story of his quest for Pradeep Mathew, a devastatingly talented Sri Lankan spin bowler who appears to have been expunged from historical record. Despite its cricket focus, Karunatilaka promises in the book: "If you've never seen a cr... Read Full Story
New literature program for school
11 Jun 2012 03:15:09
Children as young as five will be expected to learn and recite poetry by heart in a major overhaul of the national curriculum for schools in England.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, will promise a new focus on the traditional virtues of spelling and grammar when he sets out his plans for the teaching of English in primary schools later this week.
At the same time, Gove will put forward proposals to make learning a foreign language compulsory for pupils from the age of seven.
Under his ... Read Full Story
Nathan Englander: authors and their stories
08 Jun 2012 13:00:38
American author Nathan Englander's acclaimed What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank has made the shortlist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story award, the world's richest prize for a short story collection.
Englander's second collection of stories, which on publication drew effusive praise from authors including Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers and Jennifer Egan, looks set to become the favourite for this year's award, worth 25,000 euros to the winner. But the author, who ope... Read Full Story
Do ebooks are so safety as people thinking?
08 Jun 2012 12:59:43
Researchers at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in New York worked with 32 pairs of parents and their three to six-year-old children for the small study, Print Books vs Ebooks, which gave each family a print book and either a basic ebook or an enhanced ebook version of the same title. Enhanced ebooks were found to distract children from the story, and their bells and whistles prevented children from remembering as many narrative details.
The news follows Gruffalo author and children's laureate Julia... Read Full Story
New book What You Don't Know by David Belbin
08 Jun 2012 12:54:32
October 1997: MP Sarah Bone, having taken her Nottingham seat in Labour's landslide election, is now a junior minister. Scandal brews for the city's Crack Action Team when the project's leader is discovered to be the main source of Nottingham's drug supply. In a damage limitation exercise, Sarah is asked to sit on a replacement project, chaired by charismatic and ambitious Paul Morris. Meanwhile, her former lover Nick Cane is on probation for a five-stretch for possession and struggles to make f... Read Full Story
Whats the metter with Paul Sussman?
06 Jun 2012 20:43:39
Bestselling thriller author, journalist and archaeologist Paul Sussman, whose novels were described as "the intelligent reader's answer to The Da Vinci Code", died unexpectedly last week aged 45.
His wife, Alicky Sussman, a documentary producer, wrote on his Facebook page that the author "suffered a ruptured aneurysm and died suddenly on Thursday 31 May. He was a truly unique person – a brilliant dad and adored husband. We will all miss him so, so much xxx."
Sussman had a number of jobs – he w... Read Full Story
It is impossible - but legendary Ray Bradbury is really died!
06 Jun 2012 20:28:30
Despite the exhortations of Mr Electrico, a carnival sideshow act with an electrified sword who demanded that a 12-year-old Ray Bradbury "live forever!", one of the most well-loved and highly-regarded modern writers of the fantastic has died.
At 91, though, he left a body of work that might just fulfil the prophecy of that showman in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1932.
One of the most widely read authors of his generation, Bradbury published a string of titles in the early 1950s – The Martian Chronic... Read Full Story
Nick Clegg instills a reading culture
06 Jun 2012 20:24:59
Nick Clegg reads at least a few pages of a novel every night and would love to write one himself, he has revealed.
The deputy prime minister started writing a novel in his early 20s but it was "shockingly bad", he said.
In an interview with Easy Living magazine, he said he would still like to write one in the "simple, sparse" style of the double Booker prize winner JM Coetzee.
Clegg said he read "religiously, every night before I go to sleep".
"I cannot think of a time when I have finished t... Read Full Story
