In The Morning News, Jessica Francis Kane asks where is the line drawn between literary fiction and historical fiction; why is historical fiction maligned; and what happens when you write a novel and one of the characters attends your reading?
Why is historical fiction maligned?
New Murakami Coming in August
Big news: It looks like Haruki Murakami’s much-anticipated new novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage finally has a U.S. publication date: August 12, 2014.
Cracking the Code
The world’s oldest undeciphered writing is currently in the process of being deciphered.
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Tuesday Links: More LBC, Bookride, Vonnegut
My nominee for this round has been posted at the LBC blog. Though it didn’t grab my cohorts enough to be named our “Read This” pick, I do highly recommend it.I recently happened upon bookride, a blog by a rare book dealer that each day posts about a valuable book, explaining why the book is collectible and why it’s worth what it is. Fascinating stuff. A recent post looks at a rare copy of The Waste Land.Simon at Bloggasm rounded up a bunch tributes to Kurt Vonnegut including a slightly modified version of my post from last week.
Imre Kertész Retires
Hungarian author and 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész announced his retirement, reports Nicolas Gary in the French publication ActuaLitté. (Link to Google’s translation into English.) As a “gesture of reconciliation” the Fatelessness author and Holocaust survivor has decided to give nearly 35,000 of his papers to the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Meanwhile, Kertész has recently had several of his shorter works released in handsome Melville House editions. (h/t Hari Kunzru)
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Distraction-Free Writing Platforms
A new distraction-free writing platform has emerged. Can QuietWrite unseat WriteRoom as the best tool for internet-enabled authors?
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On Hating Poetry
Ben Purkert reviews Year in Reading alum Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry. If you like the title, check out ten poems for people who hate poetry.
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