Thoughts from a literary agent

Andrew Wylie has ruffled a few feathers recently, battling with publishers over digital book rights. You could say he's at the forefront of whatever we're doing in the future, but he's also a solid representative of quality publishing. So the thoughts he shared with Daniel Gross at WSJ.com are worth thinking about.

"So the business we're in is to identify and capture and anticipate the value of books that are inherently classics, future classics. If publishers did the same there would be less of the wild weekend in Las Vegas approach to acquisition that distinguishes the industry and its decline.... We try to avoid people who can't write. You can usually spot them from the first sentence, or from the cover letter. It's a little like sitting in the audience at Carnegie Hall and watching someone walk up to a piano. If you're trained, you can tell the difference between someone who knows how to play and someone who doesn't. Of course, sometimes you want to work with people who have a significant achievement, which is not writing, and so that usually requires closer editing, and ghostwriting. Heads of state are not always the best writers."

Read the article, Andrew Wylie: The superagent on upholding great literature in an e-reading world.

An Aldous Huxley children's book

The Crows of Pearblossom, written in 1944, has been out of print for years. Now republished with new illustrations by Sophie Blackall, it gets a great reading from Daniel Pinkwater and Scott Simon from NPR.

How to review books

We review books all the time, but only for our own Select Editions series, so what we're concerned with is simply whether we think the book is right to be one of our 24 a year. We don't have to write up much except a note on why we recommend a book or not, and it's only among ourselves, so it doesn't have to be picture perfect. But how do actual reviewers do it? A couple of them are interviewed in The Guardian. Linda Buckley-Archer's approach sounds like the best way to handle any writing:

"Writing reviews is like baking bread. You add the yeast to the flour and let the dough rise. Then you give it a jolly good kneading and let it rise some more and only then do you bake it. Personally, I leave at least a day between finishing the book and starting the review. Then, once I've written it, I have to leave it another day and look at what I've written with fresh eyes. I always want to change something—make something clearer, tighten it up, add something..."

Read How do I write a book review?

Walt Whitman was born on this day in 1819

We have a mall named after him on Long Island, and a rest stop named after him on the New Jersey Turnpike. If you're really serious about him, check out The Walt Whitman Archive, where they even have a purported recording of his voice. And if you just wish you had read him, and always meant to, and maybe even keep a copy of Leaves of Grass by the bed, we offer this.

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

The Audie Awards 2011

With a 45 minute commute in each direction, I have become a fanatic about audiobooks. It doesn't take long to devour one and go on to the next. So it's nice to have a list like this of award winners, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association. The big winner was Life by Keith Richards, narrated by Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley and Richards himself. I've listened to it, and I can't argue with its winning status: I've recommended it to everyone I know.

For all the winners (and nominees) in a long list of categories, check out The Audie Awards 2011.

The linotype machine

Invented in 1886, by 1954 there were 100,000 linotype machines in operation. Their name supplies their function: they can take a "line of type" and transfer it from a keyboard to the page. Or more to the point, a lot of pages, once you throw in a little hot metal (to make the type) and figure out how to fold the resulting pieces of paper. Apparently the life of a typesetter was a very romantic one, as these craftsmen roamed from town to town, living the good life, and apparently tippling whenever the opportunity presented itself. But let's face it. They were at the front lines of information technology. John Hendel captures their world at The Atlantic:

"Linotype machines powered newspapers, factories, a whole industry that was as American as any and existed for a century, at least until the tides of technology wiped it out as an occupation in the 1960s and 1970s -- and now, Linotype is nearly extinguished from American memory. Yet Thomas Edison, it's said, called the machine the Eighth Wonder of the World (no faint praise from the man who invented the light bulb)... Before its invention and implementation, no newspaper could easily run longer than a few brief pages, and this new way of producing text marked a radical evolution in the history of printing and typography. Linotype dominated for nearly a hundred years."

Read Celebrating Linotype, 125 Years Since Its Debut

The James Bond authors

Yesterday we celebrated Ian Fleming's birthday. He created James Bond, but that was really only the beginning. Jeffery Deaver has just published a new installment in the series, and there were four other authors who tried their hand at 007 in print between the two. In a way, one can pick one's favorite author of Bond the same way one can pick one's favorite portrayer of Bond. (Me, I'm a traditionalist, a Connery man all the way.) As for the books, The Telegraph outlines who wrote what, and how.

Read: James Bond authors.

Jennifer Egan and the Goodreads Book Club

If you're unfamiliar with Goodreads, a social site for dedicated readers, this may be the perfect time to find out about them. This summer they are launching a book club, where folks will read Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and then participate in all sorts of fun challenges, topped off with a live chat with the author herself. The video from Egan inviting folks to join up is very appealing; who can resist an author who cites the influence of Iggy Pop?

Read: Introducing the Goodreads Book Club.

Ten top short stories of all time

Flavorwire is one of those great sites that is always worth taking a look at. And this list, which they solicited from the One Story folks, is a worthy conclusion to May and National Short Story Month. The names on the list include Salinger, O'Connor and Joyce, some other famous folk and some less famous folk. There's information on each story, and links to click if you're interested in reading the stories for yourself. If you'd like some classy short fiction, it's worth taking a look.

Read: ‘One Story’ Names the Top 10 Short Stories of All Time

"Fleming. Ian Fleming."

Ian Fleming was born on May 28, 1908. An intelligence officer in WWII, he introduced James Bond to the world in Casino Royale in 1953. Bond, like his creator, was also in the intelligence business, but unlike his creator, he had a license to kill, denoted by the double 0s in his code number, 007. But, of course, you know all that already.

The Bond books had a slow start in the US. It took a recommendation from then President John Kennedy to make the books bestsellers in the States. Around that time the first Bond film, Dr. No, came out, starting a series that continues to this day (Sony has recently signed up for the next installment).

There's an abundance of Fleming/Bond material on the internet. There's an offical site for Fleming that is as good a place as any to start feasting on all that material, from films to tv shows to books to rumors to parodies to you-name-it. I wish there was more Fleming video, though. This little teaser below really convinces me that, if he were an actor, he could have played the Bond part as well as anyone. And he was right not to go with Peregrine Corruthers!

Dashiell Hammett

"I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of."

The great hardboiled author, a former Pinkerton himself, was born on May 27, 1894. His glory days were the '20s and '30s; his last novel, The Thin Man, was published in 1934, although he lived until 1961, often in poor health. There's a lot of myth surrounding Hammett, especially his relationship with Lillian Hellman. And he refused to name names in the red-hunting 1950s, and spent time in jail for it. What survives is the books, and the wonderful characters. You can get a full biography of Hammett at Thrilling Detective.

Hammett only wrote the one Thin Man novel, but it was the basis for a successful film series and, later, a television series. Word is that Johnny Depp is going to take on the role of Nick in an upcoming remake; no Nora has yet been cast.

China Miéville

We've covered Miéville before. He's absolutely at the cutting edge of modern science fiction, and he's also very good. So why not keep up with him?

Justin Jordans write in The Guardian: "Miéville's passions crystallised early on: 'Ever since I was two, I've loved octopuses, monsters, abandoned buildings . . . One gets asked, if you're into the sort of thing I'm into, how did you get into it, and my response is always: how did you get out of it? You look at a class of six-year-olds, they're all reading about witches and aliens and spaceships and magic spells.' "

Read A life in writing: China Miéville.

Oprah sold books

Oprah Winfrey, now retired from the daily broadcast TV grind, has pretty much dominated the airwaves for the last few weeks. Her exit from the scene has been examined from every direction, and as we saw recently, not only is she the second most powerful celebrity out there (Lady Gaga, for the moment, has her beat), she is also one of the few to also be on the list of billionaires (take that, Gaga).

Over the years, one of the most talked about features of Oprah's show was her bookclub. She touted some famous books, and she discovered some far from famous books. So how did those books do with the readers? Were they bestsellers? The numbers are pretty convincing. Over 3,000,000 Eckhart Tolles, well over 2,000,000 James Freys, 1,300,000 or so John Steinbecks. And the list goes on. These are serious sales. Some books, as this article on the Nielsen blog shows, were absolutely made by Ms. Winfrey. It makes for interesting reading. Publishers, and writers, are going to miss her.

Read The Oprah Effect: Closing the Book on Oprah’s Book Club.

Philip Roth

There's been plenty of controversy about the Man Booker Prize winner, but that's neither here nor there. Or more to the point, you can make up your own controversy if you want. Meanwhile, if you follow Roth, this long-form interview is for you. He talks about his books from his own point of view.

Invitation to World Literature

That sounds a little forbidding, like an introductory lit class you can't wait to skip, but this is a great, eclectic series. Put together by the Annenberg Foundation, it covers 13 different books from all over the globe and all over history. Things Fall Apart, The Odyssey, The God of Small Things—it's that kind of mix. We went to the One Hundred Years of Solitude page and there was a video, maps, a Spanish glossary, a timeline of the settlement of South America, critical analysis, you name it.

The introduction says, "This multimedia series, Invitation to World Literature, offers you a passport to this rich heritage via thirteen works from a range of eras, places, cultures, languages, and traditions. These are books that we hope spark your interest, or satisfy long-standing curiosity about things you wished you had read, or introduce works that are new to you, opening up a world of connections and experiences."

You can get lost on this site: Invitation to World Literature.

Dracula

Oxford University Press interviews the editor of a new edition of Dracula, Roger Luckhurst. What did the Victorians think about blood? What were the vampires like before Bram Stoker? What's the relationship of Stoker and Oscar Wilde? It's interesting material, with written questions and recorded answers, and a nice adjunct to reading the book on some upcoming dark, stormy night.

Check out Dracula: an audio guide.

Frederick Forsyth

The Day of the Jackal was a phenomenal breakthrough book when it was published in 1971, and it began the career of Frederick Forsyth with quite a bang. It was not a predictable success. After all, everyone reading the book knew that its unnamed hero, the Jackal, was not going to succeed in his attempt to assassinate Charles De Gaulle. But readers were undeterred (as were moviegoers in 1973). As for Forsyth, more bestsellers followed, and he's still at it.

Helen Brown talked with Forsyth about Jackal, and the rest of the author's career, in The Telegraph.

"If the terrorists really wanted the job done, Forsyth figured, they should hire an outsider: a professional hit man with no ties to them and no file with the French police. The thought simmered away. 'I would come back to it in airport lounges,' he says, 'but I never thought I’d do anything with it.... When I left the RAF in my early twenties all I wanted to do was travel, which is what motivated me to go into journalism. I just saw writing a novel – stupidly – as a way of making a bit of money. A means to get me out of a jam.' ”

Read Frederick Forsyth: 'I had expected women to hate him. But no...’

Best books for babies

We firmly believe (and the numbers back us on this) that reading when you're young leads to a lifetime of benefits. Best Books for Babies goes right to the beginning, and provides an annual list of great books for infants through 18-months, an age group not so easy to find books for.

The list for 2011 is available at Welcome to Best Books for Babies 2011.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Thus does Dr. Watson describe his roommate, Sherlock Holmes, in their first tale, A Study in Scarlet: "His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments."

Sir A.C. Doyle was born on this date, May 22, in 1859. His signature character was introduced to the world in 1888. Doyle did try to kill him off, tossing him over Reichenbach Falls along with Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem," but pressure from fans forced Doyle to resurrect him. Even after Doyle's death in 1930, Holmes would live on, not only in Doyle's own stories and the movies and other entertainments based on them, but in new adventures written by others. If any fictional character can be said to be immortal, it is Sherlock Holmes.

Fans wanting more should start with the official Doyle site, which goes beyond the famous detective to other aspects of Doyle's life.

Great Science Fiction writers

This is a set of short interviews with Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, J.G. Ballard, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., talking about their work and how they got started. Consider Adams talking about where the idea for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy came from:

"The actual title came when I was hitchhiking round Europe in 1971. I was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck – I've now told the story so often, I can only remember the story and I can't remember the event any more, so I have to take my own word for it that it's true – I was lying drunk in this field in Innsbruck and I had with me a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe. And it occurred to me as I stared up at the night sky that somebody ought to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. I think this is largely because I thought that Innsbruck was dull."

Check out Great Voices of Science Fiction.