Wilbur upset by his unjust connection to Swine Flu
This week at Books & Authors we’re spanning the globe with news involving the PEN World Voices Festival, President Obama, and pigs everywhere. If you’d like a reprieve from the dire news of the auto industry and growing need for Purell, take a look at the links below for some literary light.
- Jay McInerney has been writing about the cycle of excess and despair in Manhattan since his career began in the 1980s, and his latest collection, How it Ended: New and Collected Stories, seems particularly appropriate given today’s financial pitfalls. The collection spans McInerney’s thirty-year career, taking the reader from Manhattan’s club and cocaine culture of the 1980s to a post-9/11 world. You can read the review and get a closer glimpse into McInerney’s life and career here. (New York Times)
- Is Gayle Forman’s YA tearjerker, If I Stay, the next Twilight? The movie version of Forman’s novel will be directed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, but, according to Entertainment Weekly, the comparison ends there. While If I Stay packs an emotional punch and delivers satisfying prose, it doesn’t induce the near clinical addiction that Twilight fans know too well. (Entertainment Weekly)
- The fifth annual PEN World Voices Festival is happening in New York, and so far the theme “Evolution/Revolution” hasn’t evoked any readings about Darwinian finches. Instead, headliners like Peter Nadas and Salman Rushdie hypnotized crowds with portrayals of murder, guerilla training camps, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. GalleyCat does a nice job summing up the tone of unrest established by the headliners. (GalleyCat)
- Haven’t read Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland yet? Well, if the approval of Michiko Kakutani and James Wood weren’t enough to spark your interest, perhaps President Obama can change your mind. The president recently told the New York Times Book Review that Netherland is the book on his nightstand, so it’s safe to assume that the book’s sales (not to mention cool factor) are about to soar. (Guardian)
- On a final note, the World Health Organization has requested that swine flu be called something else to protect the reputation of pigs around the globe. In order to do our part for Piggy PR, we’d like to remind you of the positive role pigs have played in children’s literature – what would Charlotte’s Web be without Wilbur? What would children do without the entertaining antics of Olivia? And don’t even get us started on the Three Little Pigs… The list goes on and on here (LibraryThing)
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