Poetry: Poems by the classic masters. A Point Of View: And prizes for all. 14 September 2012Last updated at 17:13 GMT If a writer isn't JK "Harry Potter" Rowling or EL "50 Shades" James, how best to crank up book sales? Win one of the increasing proliferation of literary prizes, says Sarah Dunant. So - anyone looking for a good novel this weekend now has six official ones to choose from.
You are probably already aware of some the names on this year's Man Booker shortlist. Like everything we are being sold in a hopelessly over-crowded market, novels strain to get their voices heard amid the cacophony. Moisturisers soften your skin. About 25,000 works of fiction were published in the UK last year - a staggering average of 68 novels every day. Well, that word genre helps a bit: you love crime, sci-fi, history, romance or literary fiction, you can usually - to misquote the aphorism - tell a lot about a book from its cover. But when it comes to predicting the next runaway success, no-one has much of a clue. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End Quote. The 100 best mystery novels of all time. The Book Seer | What should I read next. The Top 10 Banned books of all time - ShortLists. How to Build a Universe That Doesnt Fall Apart Two Days Later.
First, before I begin to bore you with the usual sort of things science fiction writers say in speeches, let me bring you official greetings from Disneyland. I consider myself a spokesperson for Disneyland because I live just a few miles from it — and, as if that were not enough, I once had the honour of being interviewed there by Paris TV. For several weeks after the interview, I was really ill and confined to bed. I think it was the whirling teacups that did it. Elizabeth Antebi, who was the producer of the film, wanted to have me whirling around in one of the giant teacups while discussing the rise of fascism with Norman Spinrad... an old friend of mine who writes excellent science fiction. We also discussed Watergate, but we did that on the deck of Captain Hook’s pirate ship. Little children wearing Mickey Mouse hats — those black hats with the ears — kept running up and bumping against us as the cameras whirred away and Elizabeth asked unexpected questions.
“What does that mean?” 10 Things You Never Knew About Kurt Cobain. A.I. Answering Service & Call Center - Mayo and Beer. When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the beer. A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. Was. Into the jar. Open areas between the golf balls. The jar was full. Box of sand and poured it into the jar. Everything else. Responded with an unanimous "yes. " cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. Laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
Important things--your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions--things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. Well, At Least There Was Good Stuff to Read: The Books of the Decade. Anybody remember how anxious and thrilled we were in those last months of the 20th century? When we weren't at war and we had a budget surplus and it looked like Al Gore would be president? The prospect of a 21st century filled with new technologies, new art and literature loomed large and bright. But now, as we look back at what was decidedly a shitty decade for an incredible variety of people in an equally incredible variety of ways (evictions/invasions/bombings/etc), it's surprisingly hard to be pessimistic about the books that assessed, satirized, dramatized and distracted us from the events of the past 10 years.
Goethe said that the decline of a nation's literature is the precursor to that nation's fall, and with this look back at the books that defined the decade, we'd like to tell Goethe to suck it. Almost in spite of ourselves, we're still writing, translating, publishing and even occasionally buying good books in this country.