Of Interest

The San Francisco Chronicle – uh – chronicles a drunken celebrity spelling bee. By “celebrity” they mean authors and publishers that live in the Bay Area. Atlanta has hosted an annual Orthographic Meet for over 35 years. Drinks feature prominently. The event began at The Stein Club (RIP) and has migrated to Manuel’s Tavern. It is held in February, so there’s plenty of time to get your spelling prep on.

The NYT has the scoop that no one knows how to make a book become a best seller. The New York Sun follows up with how can’t miss best sellers sometimes do. (Both links via Book Ninja.) The Penguin Books blog joins the discussion with two posts on their take about predicting the future of books. The first post is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the book business (that also mentions a book that they published. The second post talks about how to sell books in an interesting way when “word of mouth” travels faster than ever before.

I’ve been stunned by the expectations for Delillo’s new novel, Falling Man. Maureen Corrigan says that he failed “to deepen our understanding of September 11.” A Guardian review that applauds DeLillo’s “masterly way” of telling the story is actually a negative review. The Washington Post says, “there’s nothing to be learned from Falling Man about September 2001…”

The Guardian likes Chuck Palahniuk’s Rant.

No disrespect intended, but did you know that S.E. Hinton was still alive? Did you know that she received a publishing contract for The Outsiders on the day of her high school graduation? She also has a new book out, Some of Tim’s Stories, which is reviewed in the New York Times.

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  By Dr J, May 18, 2007 @ 5:43 pm

  Stay gold, DJ Cayenne. Stay gold.

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  By DJ Cayenne, May 18, 2007 @ 8:43 pm

  I’m doing it for Johnny, Dr J. I’m doing it for Johnny.

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