Book Studio‘s Bethanne Patrick‘s Top 10 and, perhaps more interestingly, Bottom 10 Books of the Year. Patrick minces no words on Lethem, Kingsolver, Niffenegger, Moore, and Larsson.
Bethanne Patrick’s Bottom 10 of 2009
Kristen Arnett’s Refrigerated Abyss
Kristen Arnett takes the Paris Review on a tour of the abyss—the abyss of her beer-and-pizza-roll-stocked refrigerator, that is.
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Chummers
I’ve written before about the First Sentence series at Granta. The magazine asks a prominent writer to explain how they came to write an opening line. Recently, they asked Bear Down, Bear North author Melinda Moustakis to talk about the beginning of her story “River So Close”: “She’s a good-for-nothing chummer.” You could also read Jonathan Russell Clark on the art of the opening sentence.
A Worthy Send-Off
Edmond Caldwell, a longtime Millions commenter and member of the golden age of lit blogging, has passed away. Caldwell was the founder of The Chagall Position and Contra James Wood. Read a tribute to Caldwell by his friends Boyd Nielson and Joseph G. Ramsey at Dispatches, here.
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The Best of the Best
Theoretically, it pays to get a novel on Amazon’s best seller list. In reality, though, a bestselling novel doesn’t make as much in cold hard cash as you’d think.
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