Can Wolf Hall Take the Booker Prize?
In today’s news, the Man Booker shortlist has been announced, setting Coetzee up for a possible third win. This leads us to wonder, if Coetzee farmed out the actual task of writing his books like James Patterson does, could he win 30 Bookers instead of 3? Well, no, not unless his co-writer were Elizabeth Costello…
- You don’t often hear the phrase “hat trick” associated with literature, but that’s just what J.M. Coetzee is going for with this year’s Man Booker prize. The short list was released Tuesday, and many are calling Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall the favorite. The Guardian comments on the six finalists, pointing out that “the majority of writers in contention all have a few books to their names already, which perhaps underlines the fact that most outstanding authors are like vintage wines, developing a fuller, richer appeal as their careers progress.”
- Omnivoracious has gone out on a limb and selected what they call “The 10 Best Books of 2009… so far.” While the collection is basically just a sweepstakes to get people to subscribe to their email list, it’s always nice when somebody sorts through the overwhelming number of good books published this year and names just 10. Included are nonfiction works like Cheever: A Life and The Lost City of Z, as well as many novels, like Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor and Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn. Toibin may have been cut from the Booker list, but at least he has a friend in Amazon.
- Have you ever wondered how James Patterson can write so many books every year? The partial answer is, he doesn’t. Like an efficient boss delegating work, Patterson hires various co-writers to build novels out of intricate outlines he develops. The co-authors are usually credited alongside Patterson on the cover, but it leads one to wonder if there should be limits to this “collaboration.” As ShelfLife puts it, “Are you still a writer if you subcontract out much of the actual, you know, writing?”
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