The shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 has been announced. This list features Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, and three other books by Spanish and Norwegian authors.
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced
Inside the Hive-Mind of the Class of 2013
For the Class of 2013, salsa has always outsold ketchup. For these and other wry conjectures, see the latest edition Beloit College’s annual “Mindset List.” (N.B.: For the class of 2013, “mindset” is not a clunky neologism.)
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No award given
Former Pulitzer Prize juror Laura Miller gives a little insight into how the award works, and posits some possible reasons that the fiction award may have been withheld.
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The Future of the Book (Studies)
Goucher College announced the creation of a new interdisciplinary minor this week. “Book Studies” will “explore the past, present, and future of the book,” according to the school’s administration. Regarding the “future of the book,” might we recommend our built-in syllabus?
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Is All publicity Good Publicity?
Is all publicity good publicity? Are all reviews—even bad ones—good for books? The answer, according to a new study [pdf] by the journal Marketing Science, depends on whether the writer is well known or unknown. The study examined the impact of a New York Times review on the sales of more than 200 hardcover titles. For books by established writers, a negative review led to a 15% decrease in sales. For unknown authors, a negative review increased sales by a healthy 45%.
Quick Links
What happens when you co-write a book with someone who’s illiterate? YPTR has the details.LitLinks, a well stocked collection of links about a few hundred notable authors.iPoems arrives promising a plethora of downloadable poetry so you can jam to some verse on your iPod.
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