Showing all posts in the books category
Voting open in Dymocks Top 101 books 2023 poll
13 January 2023
Voting is open for Australian book retailer Dymocks annual Top 101 books poll. Eligible titles span seven categories being bestsellers, fiction, fantasy and science-fiction, crime, romance, non-fiction, and young adult, and voters have the unenviable task of selecting just ten books for inclusion.
Good luck, and get voting.
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The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, and another England
13 January 2023
Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1988 novel, The Remains of the Day, twenty-years ago, changed the way British freelance writer Max Liu saw England. When Liu re-read the novel last year, he changed the way he saw the central protagonist James Stevens, the stoic butler of Darlington Hall, where much of the story is set.
It was one of the most profound reading experiences of my life. Partly, this was down to geography and timing. I grew up in Cornwall and, living hundreds of miles from home for the first time, I was ready to think about England and its meanings. This quietly subversive novel showed how the English obsession with class colours our emotions, speech and interactions. It changed the way I saw the country I thought I knew.
If you haven’t had the chance yet, check out the brilliant 1993 Merchant Ivory produced screen adaptation of the novel, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
Seriously though, what of Ishiguro’s work isn’t thought provoking, or somehow transformative?
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books, Kazuo Ishiguro, literature, novels
Filippo Bernardini pleads guilty to manuscript theft
9 January 2023
Italian manuscript thief Filippo Bernardini, who was alleged to have stolen more than one thousand book drafts, has pleaded guilty, a year after his arrest.
Filippo Bernardini impersonated figures from the publishing industry to trick people into handing over their works. He used his inside industry knowledge, having been employed by the publishing giant Simon & Schuster in London. Bernardini, 30, pleaded guilty in New York to wire fraud, but his motive has never been clear.
Bernardini’s targets included Irish novelist Sally Rooney, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, and British author and screenwriter Ian McEwan.
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Apple Books puts AI narrators to work voicing select audiobooks
8 January 2023
Text-to-speech AIs have begun narrating select romance and fiction audiobooks available from Apple Books. Audiobook listeners electing an AI… entity (is that how I should refer to them?) to recite their title can choose between two digital voices, named Madison and Jackson. An additional two AI narrators, Helena and Mitchell, will soon be reading out non-fiction titles. Apple says the move will reduce costs, making it easier for independent authors and publishers to produce audiobooks:
The feature represents a big shift from the current audiobook model, which often involves authors narrating their own books in a process that can take weeks and cost thousands for a publisher. Digital narration has the potential to allow smaller publishers and authors to put out an audiobook at a much lower cost.
I don’t know what professional book narrators will think — though I can guess — but the move also makes sense for those authors who currently chose to narrate their own work. They can save several weeks of recording time, leaving them to focus on what they do best: write. While it could be said AI narrators were inevitable, that will be cold comfort for their human counterparts.
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artificial intelligence, books, technology, trends
README.txt, Chelsea Manning’s partly redacted memoir
4 January 2023
I’m not sure how often books with parts of their text blacked-out — rendering paragraphs, possibly entire pages, unreadable — are ever published, but README.txt, a memoir by former American solider, turned whistle blower and activist, Chelsea Manning, published by Penguin Books Australia in October 2022, is an example.
In 2010, Manning leaked hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents to WikiLeaks, and a number of media outlets. She was later incarcerated for her actions, but only served several years of a thirty-five year sentence the court imposed on her.
In her book, Manning wrote about releasing the classified documents, and her pre-trial jail time, among other things, but a number of pages have been redacted by the publisher, at least in Australia:
Manning feared being sent to Guantanamo as a terrorist. Her publishers simply feared lawyers: three sections of the book, which would appear to describe documents she uploaded, are blacked out.
It seems only a small portion of the book cannot be read as a result, but I wonder if blacking out pages in books in this way, has any effect on their long term value. In the same way, for instance, mint made errors can sometimes make a coin featuring some sort production flaw, more valuable.
Blacked out text would make Manning’s memoir unique in a certain way, possibly making it collectible for that reason. Time will tell.
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books, Chelsea Manning, writing
Book reading is a one night stand, not a lifelong commitment
28 December 2022
American author Fran Lebowitz says she owns twelve-thousand books. Twelve-thousand. With so many books in circulation, I couldn’t ever foresee the possibility of being able to re-read any book I’ve already read. Even the absolute favourites.
I want to finish one title and go straight to the next one, as there are more queued up behind that on my to-be-read list. But for many, it seems to be a case of read and retain, despite there being little chance of an opportunity to ever re-read.
Book lovers are known to practice semi-hoardish and anthropomorphic tendencies. They keep too many books for too long, despite dust, dirt, mold, cracked spines, torn dust jackets, warped pages, coffee stains and the daunting reality that most will never be reread. Age rarely enriches a book.
I dare say possessing a book collection would convey the impression I am well read and cultured, and even a small home library would be a conversation starter among guests, were they to site said books. But… nah. On the flip side, I can readily answer the question: what was the last novel you read. That’ll do me.
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Can an algorithm assess the quality of a novel manuscript?
18 December 2022
It pays to follow Australian scientist and writer Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (aka Dr Karl) on Twitter (as long as Twitter continues to permit such behaviour), especially if you are writing a novel.
The other day he posted a link to an article published in 2014, about a literary algorithm that is apparently capable of quickly assessing the quality of an unpublished novel manuscript. The article expounds upon research conducted (PDF) by Stony Brook University into the matter:
Regarding lexical choices, less successful books rely on verbs that are explicitly descriptive of actions and emotions (e.g., “wanted”, “took”, “promised”, “cried”, “cheered”, etc.), while more successful books favor verbs that describe thought-processing (e.g., “recognized”, “remembered”), and verbs that serve the purpose of quotes and reports (e.g,. “say”). Also, more successful books use discourse connectives and prepositions more frequently, while less successful books rely more on topical words that could be almost cliche, e.g., “love”, typical locations, and involve more extreme (e.g., “breathless”) and negative words (e.g., “risk”).
Fascinating, no? Remember though, don’t let the algorithm write the book, let it guide you in writing the book. But if you wish to avoid algorithms all together, look at the way Irish author Sally Rooney — for one — does things.
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publishing, science, technology, writing
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for awful novel opening lines
18 December 2022
Not a literary award at all, more of an anti-literary award really, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC), which has been running since its inception at San Jose State University in 1982. But unlike the literary awards we are more familiar with, the Bulwer-Lytton recognises terrible writing, and envisages the worst possible opening sentences to what will be awful novels.
Joe Tussey, from Daniels, in the U.S. state of West Virginia, was named winner in the 2022 adventure category, for this opener:
“Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard.
The BLFC accepts nominations, the usual categories, including fiction, crime, and young adult, in the form of the worst paragraph you can devise, all through the year.
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humour, literary awards, literature, writing
Seeing G, when John Berger donated half his Booker Prize money to the British Black Panthers
15 December 2022
Seeing G, a short documentary produced by the Booker Prize organisation, and British writer Jo Hamya, explores a fascinating chapter in literary award history. In 1972, British author and poet John Berger, was named the Booker winner for his novel G, also written in 1972.
During his acceptance speech though Berger caused — or is said to have caused — controversy, by pledging to give half of the £5,000 prize money to the London chapter of the British Black Panther Movement. But was the gesture truly controversial, or was that the way the media portrayed it?
‘I have to turn this prize against itself,’ he went on. ‘The half I give away, will change the half I keep.’ In a move made notorious by press, Berger donated half of his prize money to the London-based British Black Panther Movement. ‘I badly need more money for my project about the migrant workers of Europe,’ he explained, ‘[And] the Black Panther Movement badly needs more money for their newspaper and for their other activities… the sharing of the prize signifies that our aims are the same.’
Needless to say, there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
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Booker Prize, John Berger, literary awards, literature
Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2023 shortlist announced
15 December 2022
The Signal Line by Brendan Colley, book cover.
What do I like best about literary awards? They send a whole heap of reading recommendations in my direction. Yesterday the shortlists for the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were announced, and as a fan of fiction I’m looking forward to adding some more novels to my to-be-read list. While nominations span seven categories, including poetry, young adult, Indigenous writing, and drama, I’ve listed the shortlisted titles in the fiction category:
- Cold Enough for Snow, by Jessica Au
- The Signal Line, by Brendan Colley
- This Devastating Fever, by Sophie Cunningham
- An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life, by Paul Dalla Rosa
- Salonika Burning, by Gail Jones
- The Lovers, by Yumna Kassab
The winners in each category will be named on Thursday 2 February 2023.
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