Fair warning, book worms. This book news round-up is long, because I’m trying to catch up on all the news I missed while I was on vacation.
- Hollywood’s filled with adaptations of classic stories and plays. The Bard makes for good film fodder when all other ideas fail. But a new adaptation of Hamlet will apparently take on the twist of being a horror film. Actor Emile Hirsch and director Catherine Hardwicke are headlining the project, billed as a “Hamlet-meets-The Shining” type of movie. I’m not exactly sure this is what Shakespeare had in mind, though to be fair, there is a ghost in the story.
- Bookworms in Newark, NJ can treat themselves to a “Philip Roth Tour of Newark” should they so choose. The tour passes by many of the local landmarks Roth references in his books. In some cases, lucky fans are treated to glimpses of the man himself. The L.A. Times book blog reported that Roth recently took the tour himself, to the delight of a group of high school reunion attendees.
- Book signings are the bread and butter of an author tour, when a new book is released. The rise of e-books and e-readers, however, is causing some in the publishing world to ponder how the new technology will change the classic book signing. Most agree that the important part is meeting the author, not necessarily getting a signed book. Then there are the authors who will sign anything – including a Kindle.
- Instant gratification + books = one happy Librarian Next Door. Amazon has introduced same-day delivery for seven major cities and, be still my heart, Boston is one of them. Still, the convenience will cost me. Though it’s only $6 for Amazon Prime members, us regular folks have to pay $15 to get our books the same day. Still, there’s nothing quite like having a book delivered to your front door, mere hours after placing the order.
- On October 13th, author Neil Gaiman set out to do the impossible: get multiple Twitter users to collaborate on one story. Talk about too many cooks in the kitchen! Sponsored by BBC Audiobooks, the idea was that Gaiman would start the story and then other Twitter users could add on a line. BBC Audio then compiled all of the tweets to edit them and make an audio book out of them. The final project, presumably now in production, remains to be seen.
- If Sarah Palin could “write” a book in four months, surely Time Magazine‘s Joel Stein can write a memoir in one day. Challenged by Palin’s supposedly quick writing time, Stein set out to capture his entire life on page in just one day. While the experience was, no doubt, good material for his Time column, he did actually have a manuscript at the end of the day. You can download Stein’s memoir, Rogue Journalist: An Even More American Life, or read it on the Huffington Post.
- With the fall also comes the beginning of book award season: While Obama dominated the news cycles by winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature went to Herta Muller, a Romanian-born German poet and novelist. (Yeah, I didn’t know who she was either.) Meanwhile, the Man Booker Prize (given to an author from the British Isles, Ireland or the Commonwealth) went to Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, which details the intricacies of life in Tudor England from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. If it’s Tudor England, I love it, so this is one award I stand behind. And finally, the National Book Foundation recently announced the finalists for the National Book Awards. Five finalists in four categories were named earlier this month. The winners will be announced at the awards dinner in November.
