Books, Patrick Marnham, Wild Mary, Writing

Wild Mary – fascinating, scandalous and passionate

Wild Mary: The Life of Mary Wesley

by Patrick Marnham

Mary Wesley famously began writing at the age of 70. Her ten best-selling novels won her thousands of fans, and described a world that she had known in her youth - the world of war-time London, with its fear and high-spirits and casual sex. They created an image of Mary that her fans took to their hearts, but it was an image that was carefully created and one that raised more questions than it answered. The real Mary Wesley had lived a life more fascinating, scandalous and passionate than any she created for her heroines.

Buy it here for just $12.24
Also available from:The Book Depository, and fishpond.com.au

Authors, Books, Writing

Psst! Secrets of a Best-Selling Hack: Basic Rules for Writing Fiction

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for this one ..

Steve Hely needed to know how to write very well in order to write as miserably as he does in “How I Became a Famous Novelist.” In a satirical novel that is a gag-packed assault on fictitious best-selling fiction, Mr. Hely, who has been a writer for David Letterman and “American Dad,” takes aim at genre after genre and manages to savage them all. You are invited to trawl the mass-market fiction in your local bookstore if you think Mr. Hely is making much up.

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Bestsellers, Books, Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes

Gentle stories of love, music and change from this bestseller

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
by Kazuo Ishiguro

In this sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores love, music and the passage of time. This quintet ranges from Italian piazzas to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the “hush-hush floor” of an exclusive Hollywood hotel. Along the way we meet young dreamers, café musicians and faded stars, all at some moment of reckoning.

Gentle, intimate and witty, Nocturnes is underscored by a haunting theme: the struggle to restoke life’s romance, even as relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.

Nocturnes

Kazuo Ishiguro

Best Price $28.94
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Books, Graham Greene

Long-Lost Graham Green work

Long-lost Graham Greene work to be serialized in the Strand

The first lines Graham Greene uttered in the literary universe are these, from his 1929 novel "The Man Within":

He came over the top of the down as the last light failed and could almost have cried with relief at sight of the wood below. He longed to fling himself down on the short stubbly grass and stare at it, the dark comforting shadow which he had hardly hoped to see... >>>

Books, Carolyn Parkhurst, Lost and found

Today’s must-read is fast-paced – Lost and Found

Lost and Found

by Carolyn Parkhurst

Here's a fast-paced novel featuring a reality TV show that is like The Amazing Race and Treasure Hunt combined. Contestants have personal secrets and have been chosen specifically because producers hope that they will spill their guts for ratings. The action focuses on four characters. Justin and Abby are a married couple, a lesbian and a gay man who have renounced their lifestyles and proudly carry the banner of their newfound faith while they both struggle to remain straight. Although described as young, these two seem much older than their years in their pursuit of a traditional marriage. Meanwhile, the mother-daughter team of Laura and Cassie deals with the fact that the girl gave birth without anyone even noticing that she was pregnant. When she is given the chance to choose a different teammate–and does–emotions and rivalry ratchet up exponentially. Teens may well relate to Cassie, who feels alienated from her mother and unable to communicate about the most basic parts of her personality (most notably, that she is attracted to women). Lauras reaction is that of love and guilt. Despite being rejected, she keeps trying to find a way to connect to her daughter. An over-the-top, dramatic ending leaves some loose ends, but there is satisfaction in the resolution for a couple of the characters. Older teens may find that this book presses just the right buttons.–Charlotte Bradshaw, San Mateo County Library, CA

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Books

Once upon a digital time

Christina Bell, of Mitcham's Central Book Services, browses her e-reader over coffee.
Photo: Pat Scala

For more than 10 years, the e-book has been hyped as the "next big thing" in world publishing — a prediction usually underpinned by dire prophecies about the imminent death of the conventional "hard" book.

Now, more than a decade since the launch of the first clunky, chunky, expensive e-readers (one of which lost its stored information when the batteries were changed), the e-book era seems finally to have dawned, at least in the US. >>>

Books, comics, graphic novels

Graphic Novel Lifts Curtain on Modeling Business

Petite model Isobella Jade has already written a memoir, Almost 5’4”, and now she's written a fictional graphic novel based on her experiences in modeling. Model Life, illustrated by Jazmin Ruotolo, will be published by Soft Skull Press in October.
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Books, comics, graphic novels

Illustrator Fills In Photographer’s Tale Of War

In 1986, French photographer Didier Lefevre traveled illegally into Soviet-controlled Afghanistan with a medical team from Doctors Without Borders who were on a mission to set up a field hospital. Lefevre's assignment was to document the difficulties of providing humanitarian aid — along the way, he captured 4,000 images.

At the time, only six of Lefevre's photographs were published in newspapers. For two decades, his contact sheets languished in boxes. And they might have remained there had it not been for graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert.

Guibert collaborated with Lefevre to produce The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders, an unusual graphic novel that combines Lefevre's photos and Guibert's illustrations with a comic-book style narrative. >>>

Books, Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge, Pulitzer Prize

Today’s must-read is a Pulitzer prize winner – Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge

by Elizabeth Strout.

Strout won The Pulitzer Prize for her collection of 13 short stories set in small-town Maine. The Pulitzer judges commended her for work that "packs a cumulative emotional wallop" held together by the "blunt, flawed and fascinating" character of title character Olive.

Strout's book was a finalist for this year's National Book Critics Circle award for fiction.

“Hell. We’re always alone. Born alone. Die alone,” says Olive Kitteridge, redoubtable seventh-grade math teacher in Crosby, Maine. Anyone who gets in Olive’s way had better watch out, for she crashes unapologetically through life like an emotional storm trooper. She forces her husband, Henry, the town pharmacist, into tactical retreat; and she drives her beloved son, Christopher, across the country and into therapy. But appalling though Olive can be, Strout manages to make her deeply human and even sympathetic, as are all of the characters in this “novel in stories.” Covering a period of 30-odd years, most of the stories (several of which were previously published in the New Yorker and other magazines) feature Olive as their focus, but in some she is bit player or even a footnote while other characters take center stage to sort through their own fears and insecurities. Though loneliness and loss haunt these pages, Strout also supplies gentle humor and a nourishing dose of hope. People are sustained by the rhythms of ordinary life and the natural wonders of coastal Maine, and even Olive is sometimes caught off guard by life’s baffling beauty. Strout is also the author of the well-received Amy and Isabelle (1999) and Abide with Me (2006). --Mary Ellen Quinn

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