David Foster Wallace on Ambition | Blank on Blank | PBS Digital Studios (by blankonblank)
Hot to Speak Well at a Book Festival
Great review of Will Gompertz Stand-Up-Art-Lecture based on his hugely entertaining book, What Are You Looking At?
If you haven’t seen the show, or read the book, you know what to do…
What should you be reading this week?
Well, it really should be Zadie Smith’s NW, as she picked up her third literary honour of the week today. Named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists on Monday, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize on Tuesday and now (on Wednesday) she has been shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje prize too. Not ebough praise can be heaped on this remarkable author and her amazing book.
Read what the Guardian say about it here.
Bound & Flogged, literally …
Nathalie Olah over at Dazed Ditigal Bound and Flogged book blog just totally rocked our world with her review of Eric Reinhardt’s The Victoria System. She’d loved it, we love, it, you should love it.
As she says:
“Finally, a sexy book written by someone who would appear to have had sex. Don’t get me wrong: there’s a place somewhere, far away from my home, for Twilight fan-fiction written by Joy of Sex-era fantasists. But this, this is actual boning with dirty texts and weird shadowy figures in cars. Basically it benefits from having been written by a French person, aka Eric Reinhardt, whose upfront style has a way of making you feel like a bit of a prude”.
Read the full review here. Nathalie, we salute you.
It’s been a morning of celebration here at OTS, with 3 of our 4 Best Young Novelists hanging out at the office. Here is Ross Raisin, Naomi Alderman and Taiye Selasi (Zadie Smith also made Granta’s list). Congratulations to all the writers. Books rule.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction have announced their shortlist and it is a cracker. Congratulations to Zadie Smith, whose NW makes the cut, alongside novels from A M Homes, Hiliary Mantal, Barbara Kingsolver, Kate Atkinson, and Maria Semple.
Elif Shafak - Author of the Day at London Book Fair
“The conversations we are having about identity, amnesia, past and future don’t concern solely the society in Turkey but they resonate through the Muslim world, and the world in general.”
Elif Shafak is the author of the day at the London Book Fair today.
Here she is in the Independent, interviewed by Joy Lo Dico, ahead of the fair.
