Happy Saturday, bookworms! I’m making a point of relaxing today with a massage and a pedicure. Hey, a girl cannot live on books alone (though she can try!). Here’s this week’s book news:
- Once upon a time, schools taught us how to read and write. But according to Copy Blogger, there are 7 deadly writing sins we commit from time to time and they’re all courtesy of old school lessons. Among the admonishments: paragraphs do not, in fact, need to be at least five sentences long and being objective isn’t as fun as having an opinion.
- Been holding out on buying a Kindle? Maybe it’s because it was too….small? Amazon recently announced the rollout of Kindle for PC, a free downloadable program that lets you read Kindle books on your PC (with promises of a Mac version soon). You still have to pay for the Kindle books, of course, but now you can lug your books around on your laptop!
- Of all the story anthologies published, Best American Short Stories is probably the only one I’ve ever read. And, according to The Millions blog, it’s also the most popular. The writers and editors over at The Millions took a look at some of the numbers and found that Alice Munro, who is not actually American (but – gasp! – Canadian) has been the author featured the most over the past 30 years. Thereby proving that the best Americans (Michael J. Fox, Alex Trebek) are really from the north.
- Narrative Magazine is hosting a Fall 2009 story contest. Entrants can write short stories, essays, memoirs, and excerpts from longer pieces of fiction and nonfiction. Entries can’t have been published before and must adhere to the 15,000 word limit. The submission deadline is November 1st. For more information, click on that helpful link I added above. (I’m not just a pretty face, folks!)
- Three cheers for rebellion! She Writes, a community for women writers, is encouraging members and other readers to boycott the Publisher’s Weekly Best 10 Books of 2009 list because it did not include any female authors. They ask people to post a response to Publisher’s Weekly outlining their disappointment, buy a book by a female author and share posts with other readers. I’m all for subversive-ness, but since there’s still 90 other books on the PW list, is all the outrage really necessary?
- Warning to parents: sometimes teenagers do stupid things. Cory Doctorow wrote a great – and thoughtful – article about the sex and drinking in his best-selling novel, Little Brother. (That the parents worried about the sex missed all of the stuff on how to overthrow a government – well, that worries me.) Doctorow defends his choice as an author, pointing out (quite rightly) that real teens drink and have sex. To omit such common occurrences from a novel about teens would be silly. File his essay under “more reasons why I think Cory Doctorow rocks.”
- Speaking of the man himself, he’ll be at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge on Monday (the 16th) at 7pm to do a reading and sign books. If politics is more your speed, David Plouffe, President Obama’s campaign manager, will be talking about his new book, The Audacity to Win at First Parish Church in Cambridge on Wednesday (the 18th). The Plouffe reading requires $5 tickets, available from Harvard.com or the Harvard Book Store.
- Last, but certainly not least, I’m famous!
