Stranger Than Fiction

Some strange book covers via Mental_Floss

Send Them Your Nanotale

The Guardian has teamed up with Ziji publishing and Bebo.com to give you the chance to see one of your short stories in print. All you have to do is send a story of less than 1,000 words before March 16 2007.
For terms and conditions, and details of how the stories will be judged, visit Bebo.

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Cultured stamps

A literary stamps blog! How cool is that?

Snowleg

On his 16th birthday Peter Hithersay learns that the man he thought was his father isn't. This disclosure profoundly influences the direction his life takes. His mother can tell him very little about his biological father other than that he was East German, from Leipzig. He used to be a doctor and was, at the time of their brief encounter, an escaped prisoner. Peter decides to explore and exploit his Germanness. He studies the language and attends medical school in Hamburg. While a student there he visits Leipzig and tries to find out more about his father. He meets a girl nicknamed Snowleg and engages in a very brief but intense affair with her. He treats her poorly in the end, denying that he knows her and this act of cruelty haunts him throughout his life. Although he becomes a physician he remains unhappy. He has numerous affairs, some more serious than others, but they do not fill his emptiness nor his need to atone.
A credulity-straining coincidence takes him back to Leipzig, 19 years after his first visit. He searches for Snowleg and for information about his father against a grim eastern European backdrop - the grey cold desperation of the place is palpable.
Nicholas Shakespeare is a good writer (I loved his novel, "The Dancer Upstairs") but in this book he relies too heavily on coincidence to pull the story together. I enjoyed the story all the same and found it to be a compelling romantic thriller.

Pulp Fiction Still Lifes

Inspired by a View-Master and “pop-up” books as a child, Allen became interested in recreating these three-dimensional experiences by using old books and pulp fiction paperbacks as still life subjects. More

Via Kottke

Comment Parler des Livres que l’on n’a pas Lus ( How to Talk About Books that You Haven’t Read)

Well, zut alors! A distinguished French literary professor has become a surprise bestselling author by writing a book explaining how to wax intellectual about tomes that you have never actually read.
Pierre Baynard, 52, specialises in the link between literature and psychoanalysis, and says it is perfectly possible to bluff your way through a book that you have never read — especially if that conversation happens to be taking place with someone else who also hasn’t read it. More

I'd Be One Of These If Only I Could Write

Like many writers of my generation, I studied in the school of liquor and lit. Previous generations of American writers pointed the way. My literary heroes when I was learning the craft in the 1960s were (or had been) hard drinkers if not outright drunks: O'Neill and Saroyan and Williams, Faulkner and Steinbeck and Hemingway, Mailer and Baldwin and Cheever, James Agee. The hard-drinking American writer was a figure of mythic proportions, and by the time I graduated from UCLA I was eager to join his ranks.

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Via Coudal

Truth and Beauty

This work of non-fiction by Ann Patchett is all about her friendship with author, Lucy Grealy. Lucy had childhood cancer, she survived but carried the residual effects of her illness to the end of her life. She required numerous surgeries to correct the disfiguration caused by radiation therapy. Her need for love and attention was a bottomless pit. She used sex and, eventually, drugs as a substitute for the love and acceptance she craved.

Ann and Lucy were roommates in grad school and maintained a strong friendship until Lucy's death. I wondered a bit about the kissing, carrying, bed and bath sharing. I'd feel uncomfortable with all this physical closeness but what do I know?

If I were ill, or even if I weren't, I'd want a friend like Ann. She seems sincere, accepting and filled with compassion, loyal to the end.

I liked this one and liked Patchett's novel Bel Canto as well.

Augusten Burroughs: Writing saved my sanity

Raised by his mother's analyst, who fed him on dog food, he survived to produce two hugely successful books, now made into a film. Read the interview.

Literary Locales

More than 1,000 picture links to places that figure in the lives and writings of famous authors

Paper Portitude

Nevermind the musty smell; it's merely the scent of dusty books, waiting to
be opened and read.
Presented to you here - in our humble library - are the classics. From the Grimm fairy tales, to the poems of Robert Frost, there's enough on our shelves to keep you occupied for long time.
You've been reading since you were a child, so this should be easy. Just pick an author, or a genre, and get started.

The Light of Day

Graham Swift wrote the oh so excellent Last Orders (Booker Prize winner, made into a very good film). The Light of Day , his most recent work, is a story told in flashbacks. It features George Webb as a disgraced copper (a character type I find strangely appealing) who was somehow involved in a murder two years ago. On this day he checks into his office (he's now a private detective), buys some flowers and visits an inmate (the perpetrator of the aforementioned murder) in prison. While he is performing these duties he ponders significant events in his own life: the discovery that his father was a philanderer, the scandal that led to his dismissal from the police force, the effect that had on his marriage, his relationship with his grown daughter and with his female colleague and, of course, the events leading up to the murder. I found myself waiting for a twist that never came, not that I minded. This is a very understated novel that confronts the moral choices every individual comes face-to-face with. It's a beautifully and simply written novel, a love story that illustrates the healing power, I think, of penance.

Penguin plans 'wiki-novel'

Can creative writers put their egos to one side and work successfully as a team? That's the question Penguin and De Montfort University are exploring with a new literary experiment - a collaborative wiki-novel.
Based on the principles of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, the novel, called A Million Penguins, is open to anyone to join in, write and edit. None of the words, characters or plot twists will be attributed to any individual and - and this is the element of the project most likely to bruise delicate egos - participants are free to edit, chop and change other writers' work.

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