What is JacketFlap

  • JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans.
    Join now (it's free).

Sort Blog Posts

Sort Posts by:

  • in
    from   

Suggest a Blog

Enter a Blog's Feed URL below and click Submit:

Most Commented Posts

In the past 7 days

Recent Comments

Recently Viewed

JacketFlap Sponsors

Spread the word about books.
Put this Widget on your blog!
  • Powered by JacketFlap.com

Are you a book Publisher?
Learn about Widgets now!

Advertise on JacketFlap

MyJacketFlap Blogs

  • Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.

Blog Posts by Tag

In the past 7 days

Blog Posts by Date

Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Ian McEwan, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 19 of 19
1. Ian McEwan Delivers Commencement Address at Dickinson College

Atonement novelist Ian McEwan gave a commencement address at the graduation ceremony for Dickinson College’s class of 2015. McEwan spoke to the students about freedom of expression; he urged these newly minted graduates to do their part to preserve this important right. The video embedded above features McEwan delivering his speech.

Time.com has posted McEwan’s piece in its entirety. Here’s an excerpt: “It’s worth remembering this: freedom of expression sustains all the other freedoms we enjoy. Without free speech, democracy is a sham. Every freedom we possess or wish to possess (of habeas corpus and due process, of universal franchise, and of assembly , union representation, sexual equality, of sexual preference, of the rights of children, of animals—the list goes on) has to be freely thought and talked and written into existence.”

In the past, a great number of authors have delivered  moving commencement speeches. Coraline writer Neil Gaiman’s 2012 “Make Good Art” talk went viral. Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling’s 2008 “Very Good Lives” talk has drawn more than 1.5 million views on YouTube.

Add a Comment
2. Junot Díaz Book Named Greatest Novel of The 21st Century

oscar waoBBC Culture conducted a critics’ poll to select the “21st Century’s 12 greatest novels.” Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao captured the top spot.

The participating critics reviewed 156 books for this venture. Most of them named Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book as their number one pick.

The other eleven titles that made it include Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieAtonement by Ian McEwanBilly Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben FountainA Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer EganThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Did one of your favorites make it onto the list? (via The Guardian)

Add a Comment
3. Christmas for Literature Lovers

There are so many great books published each year. Here are my favourite 2014 literary novels. They’re the best I’ve read, with the exception of The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber – which I’ll write about soon. You will have other selections (and we’d love to hear them) but these are my Christmas […]

Add a Comment
4. Your Name in Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, or Ken Follett’s Book

LiteraryAuctionAuthorsImageJust like Will Ferrell’s character in “Stranger Than Fiction,” you might find “yourself”—or your namesake, your avatar—spinning through a tale told by Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Ken Follett, Hanif Kureishi, Will Self, Alan Hollinghurst, Zadie Smith, Tracy Chevalier, Joanna Trollope, or another of the 17 authors participating in a fundraising event for the UK medical charity Freedom From Torture.

In this Literary Immortality Auction, participating authors have donated a character in a forthcoming work that will be named after auction winners.

Tracy Chevalier, author of the international bestseller The Girl with the Pearl Earring, said:

“I am holding open a place in my new novel for Mrs. (ideally a Mrs.) [your surname], a tough-talking landlady of a boarding house in 1850s Gold Rush-era San Francisco. The first thing she says to the hero is ‘No sick on my stairs. You vomit on my floors, you’re out.’ Is your name up to that?”

According the New York Times, Margaret Atwood is “offering the possibility of appearing either in the novel she is currently writing or in her retelling of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest,’ to be published as a Vintage Books series in 2016.”

Bestselling author Ian McEwan (Atonement) said:

“Forget the promises of the world’s religions. This auction offers the genuine opportunity of an afterlife. More importantly, bidding in the Freedom from Torture auction will help support a crucial and noble cause. The rehabilitation of torture survivors cannot be accomplished without expertise, compassion, time—and your money.”

Freedom from Torture notes on its site: “Seekers of a literary afterlife can place their bids online from 6pm this evening,” so get going.

Click here for your bid for immortality.

The real-time episode of the auction will take place at The Royal Institute of Great Britain in London on November 20th.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Add a Comment
5. The Children Act

Ian McEwan's newest is a beautiful exploration of the distance we create between ourselves and other people and the irrevocable damage it causes. How can we move through life, the novel asks, from the unshakeable belief in the rightness of things in adolescence, into the gray areas of adult life, without shutting our gates and [...]

0 Comments on The Children Act as of 9/5/2014 9:38:00 PM
Add a Comment
6. Children Act

Ian McEwan's The Children Act tackles a very touchy subject these days: religious freedom and all the ethical, moral, legal, and criminal ramifications therein. Fiona, a High Court judge, must rule in a case involving a Jehovah's Witness family, in which the almost 18-year-old son is on the very brink of death unless given an immediate [...]

0 Comments on Children Act as of 8/6/2014 9:50:00 PM
Add a Comment
7. Review – Fallout by Sadie Jones

9780701188511I am a massive Sadie Jones fan. The Outcast was a debut from a writer of the highest calibre that could easily stand up to comparisons to Ian McEwan. Small Wars only confirmed this but The Uninvited Guests didn’t connect with me. So there was a little trepidation before I started reading her new book. Completely unnecessary trepidation because not only was this the Sadie Jones I loved, this was Sadie Jones at her absolute best.

The novel is set in and around the world of London theatre in the early 1970s. Luke Kanowski is a young playwright destined for big things. Big things not possible until he meets Paul Driscoll and Leigh Radley. Their friendship allows Luke to put his turbulent past behind him and introduces him to the fringes of the London theatre scene. Together they look set to change the world.

Interspersed with Luke, Paul and Leigh’s story is Nina Jacobs. The daughter of a failed actress she is bullied into the same career. Her marriage to a producer supplements her mother’s cruelty. When her life intersects with Luke their affair threatens to consume everything and everyone.  And the world Luke is set to change threatens to shatter completely

This is a wonderfully constructed novel that unfolds like a play. Each character is so vividly drawn especially Luke whose internal and external emotional confusion ricochets around everybody he meets. It is an intense novel of friendship and a deeply passionate love story. But it is also deceptively volatile keeping you enthralled until the very last words on the page.

Sadie Jones is an author like no other. The Outcast reminded me a mot of Ian McEwan but she is well beyond that now. I may not have liked her last book but that means nothing. Great writers should always strive to be different and take their craft where they see fit and The Uninvited Guestsresonated with many other readers. Her new novel though is simply sublime and I am over the moon that she has reaffirmed, for me, her immense talent.

Buy the book here…

Add a Comment
8. Ian McEwan Give Writing Advice in Interview With Zadie Smith For ‘The Believer’

thebelieverAuthor Zadie Smith interviewed author Ian McEwan in the current issue of The Believer. In the interview, the two authors talk about everything from time to falling out of bedroom windows.

McEwan also shared some advice for young authors. He advised writers to get practice through writing short stories, which he compared to “trying on your parents’ clothes.”

Here is more from The Believer:

When people ask, “Is there any advice you’d give a young writer?,” I say write short stories. They afford lots of failure. Pastiche is a great way to start. But I was never really a great one for that kind of extreme Angela Carter magic realist stuff… although actually I got to know her and admire her and was kind of a neighbor in Clapham.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Add a Comment
9. (Not So) Recent Reading Roundup 32

I've amended the title of this latest and long-delayed entry in the recent reading roundup series because some of these reads are not recent at all.  Some of them have been waiting for months for me to get around to writing about them, and it feels appropriate to finally get around to doing so now, when we're in the run-up to Passover, a period of spring cleaning, of clearing out the winter's

Add a Comment
10. Lisa O’Donnell: The Powells.com Interview

"Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were beloved." Those dramatic first lines of Lisa O'Donnell's debut novel, The Death of Bees, launch the story of two sisters, 15-year-old Marnie and 12-year-old Nelly, who, in alternating voices (along with [...]

0 Comments on Lisa O’Donnell: The Powells.com Interview as of 12/31/2012 3:47:00 PM
Add a Comment
11. Sweet Tooth

Ian McEwan's latest novel is a Cold War–era spy tale that is not exactly what it appears to be. After suffering through a couple of bad love affairs, Serena, a beautiful 20-something university graduate, stumbles into a job with MI5 and is initially thrilled — until she realizes women only hold lowly clerical positions. Still [...]

0 Comments on Sweet Tooth as of 10/2/2012 2:08:00 PM
Add a Comment
12. This Week in Publishing

Lots and lots of links this week, so let's get this started, shall we?

First off, I'm as surprised as you are that my bracket wasn't completely busted by 3 PM yesterday, which probably means that I'll be dead in the water by the end of the day. There's currently a nine-way tie atop the Blog Challenge -- we'll see how things shake out by Sunday!

In other literary sports news, ESPN columnist JA Adande wrote a terrific article about the relevancy of Malcolm Gladwell's book OUTLIERS to sports, and in particular he talked to the extremely intelligent Celtic star Ray Allen about his thoughts on the book. Allen reflected on the unique advantages that put him on his path to NBA stardom.

Given how many dreams we have to dash in a given day, and, yes, how many bad literary agent apples there are in the publishing orchard, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that literary agents have aroused so much antipathy out there on the Internet lately and lots of finger-crossing about our supposed impending demise. The Self Publishing Review took issue with my statement in my interview with Alan Rinzler that we're always on the side of authors because Henry feels that we first have our eye on the market.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin is Maya Reynolds, who went on a rant of her own about against anti-agent rants.

Victoria Strauss also pushed back against some of the agent-related Internet negativity and checked in with the ultimate, hilarious queryfail: querying someone who isn't even an agent.

Also, I love Seth Godin, who has an article about how important it is for literary agents to specialize and stand for something in order to add value (and I agree), but he begins with a foreboding comparison to how travel agents have disappeared, which only made me think of the rejection letters: "I'm really sorry, but Hawaii said they won't let you in. Sigh. It's just such a tough travel market and they say they can't take on yet another person from Indiana. I'll try Fiji next."

Lastly in agent news, Curtis Brown client Gretchen McNeil recently posted an awesome interview with ICM children's book agent Tina Wexler, a fellow faculty alum of the Atlanta Writers Conference and an excellent agent.

At SXSW this week, Penguin UK won awards for Best in Show and an experimental prize for their website We Tell Stories, devoted to experimental stories told through web tools, including a story told through Google Maps. Very cool.

Also on the web, reader Teresa Miller pointed me to WriteTV, which is a web compilation of interviews with authors such as Sue Monk Kidd, Amy Tan, and more.

Reader Mary Ulrich pointed me to a seriously terrific article by Kevin Kelly about the uneven adoption of new technology, and how different groups sometimes have irrational reasons for refusing to adopt superior technology even when it would be to their direct benefit. Hmmm.... A group with an illogical attachment to outdated technology..... grasping for a book-related example....

Speaking of new technology, Sony and Google got their deal on and you will soon be able to read 500,000 public domain books on the Sony Reader. For free. Wow. Your move, Kindle. (And yes, publishers weep for their backlists).

The David Foster Wallace tributes are making their way through the magazineosphere, and you probably can't do better than D.T. Max's profile in the New Yorker. And in the chiding-but-we-still-love-ya category is James Tanner's diagram of how to create a Foster Wallaceian sentence.

Still with me? Lots more to go.

Also in New Yorker profile news is blog favorite Ian McEwan. Daniel Zalewski's profile of McEwan is, shall we say, comprehensive. In fact I'm pretty sure it's longer than ON CHESIL BEACH. And ATONEMENT. Combined.

In presidential book news, via Publishers Lunch (subscription) comes word that former President Bush got himself a book deal, to be published by Crown, about making decisions. Commence sniggering or reverential expectation depending on one's political persuasion.

And also via Pub Lunch (subscription) comes word that current President Obama has contracted with Random House for more books post-presidency, and his book earnings now total...... close to $9 million. Commence "Holy crap that's a lot of dough" no matter one's political persuasion.

Amid a really big year for Hachette, one bookseller is none too pleased that they have cut back on the co-op programs, including their Emerging Voices program. Check out the post in case you're curious about what those co-op programs constitute, and yes, another example of publishers coalescing around established authors at the expense (potentially) of new voices.

Almost finally, Happy 40th Birthday to THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR, which Google is honoring today with a cool homage with a caterpillar logo.

And finally finally, you know how I like to end with puppies, and this week I get to end with a bestselling author's puppy. I give you... Jeff Abbott's insanely cute corgi. (UPDATE: oops, it's a cardigan. Not just a sweater anymore.)

Have a great weekend!

25 Comments on This Week in Publishing, last added: 4/6/2009
Display Comments Add a Comment
13. What is the Point?

These things happen in a day:

1) The sky breaks bright but the neighbor's chimney steams, predicting the weather to come. You sit with the writing that wasn't working yesterday, and then you add one word to a once-stuck sentence and the passage tilts and the world opens, but just for a moment.

2) A crane flies just west and lands on the roof of the house that stands on the diagonal across the street. The house they've been building for two years now. The house that has yet to suggest welcome. Then the crane takes off again and you're at the window of your office, chasing it with your eye, wondering what it knows that you don't, and where it's going.

3) A friend reveals the things the friend has grown to envy; the list is almost precisely your own. Not wealth. Not things. But talent, yes, and sentences that come when you beckon. And also (not on the friend's list, but yours): Beauty unimpeached by regret.

4) You face a long list of things that must be done, and precisely because of that you read the latest New Yorker instead. The Daniel Zalewski article about Ian McEwan. The thousands of words. The penultimate paragraph. You have to read that far to get the matter you need, which on this day echoes the thoughts in your head, only with greater and more resolute precision, for this is McEwan, after all:

"You spend the morning, and suddenly there are seven or eight words in a row. They've got that twist, a little trip, that delights you. And you hope they will delight someone else. And you could not have foreseen it, that little row. They often come when you're fiddling around with something that's already there. You see that by reversing a word order or taking something out, suddenly it tightens into what it was always meant to be."

7 Comments on What is the Point?, last added: 2/21/2009
Display Comments Add a Comment
14. You Tell Me: What Are You Reading At the Moment?

From time to time I like to hear what everyone is reading. How about it? Any good recommendations?

When I'm not reading manuscripts, I'm reading Ian McEwan's ENDURING LOVE, which, of course, is amazing.

166 Comments on You Tell Me: What Are You Reading At the Moment?, last added: 3/31/2008
Display Comments Add a Comment
15. More on the Finalists (and the naysayers)

This just in: I am not a seer.

No, really.

Long story short, some anonymous hecklers and some apparently published authors submitted their first pages in the contest, and since they were not chosen as finalists, they feel that this means that either a) I'm an idiot, b) the publishing process is broken, and/or c) well, I'm sure there may have been a c but I deleted their comments because I loathe anonymous snark (as opposed to the anonymous Miss Snark, whom I love).

First of all, don't you know that Spencer is the enemy? Why are you targeting me?

Second of all, welcome to publishing. Pull up a chair. I hope you'll stay awhile. It's an interesting place.

For the people who apparently believe agents should divine the publishing prospects of a work based solely on the first page of said work: uh, that's not really how it works actually. Over 20 publishers passed on A WRINKLE IN TIME when they had the whole manuscript in their hands, let alone just the few words that came after "It was a dark and stormy night." Publishers passed on [insert any bestseller and/or classic book here] a bunch of times. This is a subjective process in which many wonderful books are passed on. Publishing is all about matching up the right book with the right agent and the right editor at the right time. Even if an agent or editor passed up on the next huge book, it doesn't mean they're stupid -- they might just not have been the right fit. Enthusiasm and fit are everything.

But wait, you might say: don't agents try and divine the publishing prospects of queries all the time? Yes! We do -- but this is why the (admittedly imperfect) query process is in place. A query should give a sense of the overall work, whereas judging a book based on the first page is like trying to determine how awesome the Statue of Liberty is just by looking at her toenail. This is why it's necessary to write a good query and query widely. Subjectivity is the name of the game.

So for the people who are getting worked up about a for-fun contest on an agent blog: simmer down there, hot rod. This all goes with the territory. The purpose of this contest was to find some good first pages and have fun in the process. Aren't we having fun?

And oh by the way -- how about those six finalists? Aren't they good?

Some people requested that I speak a bit more on how I chose my finalists, so here goes. There were many awesome first pages, but I found myself drawn to a particular group, and frankly I'm very happy with the choices.

A first page really can do (basically) four things: reveal the setting, reveal the characters, reveal the plot, and/or reveal the style. There were many first pages (just as there are many wonderful books) that started off with a wonderfully evocative setting, there were many that started off with wonderful characters, an intriguing plot and/or an interesting style. You could find all sorts of wonderful books that start with a combination of one, two, three, or four of these elements (ATONENMENT, for instance, begins with a fascinating character, Briony, organizing a play with McEwan's intricate style).

For the purposes of this contest, perhaps because we're judging the first page and ONLY the first page, I, personally, found myself drawn to works that revealed all four elements.

I also found myself drawn to works with a high degree of difficulty. As I mentioned in the comments of the voting thread, at first blush, some of these finalists might seem very straightforward, but it is VERY difficult to capture a pitch perfect voice and a historical setting like Heather!Anne! did (she even used the word reckon well, which is nearly impossible to do), it's VERY difficult to ease the reader into a world while building some spine-tingling suspense like terryd, VERY difficult to simultaneously introduce a strange futuristic world while at the same time eliciting a response like "yup, I know this family" like luc, VERY difficult to master the impeccable flow of kari's first page and then bring a smile to the reader's face with that dialogue, VERY difficult to elicit a sense of place like Charlotte, and such an impeccable and precisely-constructed mood like Julianne.

While I can rule out some works objectively because they're far away from publishable quality -- ultimately it's subjective. I picked four out of 675. There were many more that were good, more that I want to see more of, and apparently a few by some excitable authors taking this contest just a tad too seriously.

I went with the ones that really struck me and that I was most enthusiastic about. And at the end of the day, that's the way the publishing process works.

0 Comments on More on the Finalists (and the naysayers) as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment
16. Jacketflap has a new Bookshelf Feature

Jacketflap.com has a new Bookshelf feature, where you can add a list of your favorite books, or books you've read. They've even made it easier by allowing you to import lists from LibraryThing and Shelfari and other places. I added my Shelfari list on mine. (It's not in the same order as it is on Shelfari for some reason.) I love online bookshelves. I've found some of the best books recently by perusing other people's online shelves, recommendations and lists. I've also met some amazing people through the lists and groups on the groups.

1 Comments on Jacketflap has a new Bookshelf Feature, last added: 8/31/2007
Display Comments Add a Comment
17. New Book Review Blog at Shelfari....coming soon

A Shelfarian has a soon-to-open Book Review Blog. It's not open yet, but check it out if you've got a book you want reviewed and blogged there. You've got to be a member of Shelfari . (free..and well worth the time to do.)

0 Comments on New Book Review Blog at Shelfari....coming soon as of 8/17/2007 8:30:00 AM
Add a Comment
18. Library Thing Blog

Library Thing...if you're a book lover and read with passion, you probably know about it already. They've got a Blog too. The latest post was about the Boston group. (How I wish I still lived in Boston at times. )
I've got more books listed on my Shelfari list, but enjoy Library Thing as well.

0 Comments on Library Thing Blog as of 7/27/2007 12:12:00 PM
Add a Comment
19. Potter! (and your electronic bookshelf)

So this little book came out at midnight on Friday, something called Harry Potter. Maybe you've heard of it? Since I didn't have to work it this year--and I'm still trying to weasel my way out of any reading promises I may have made in the mistaken belief that book seven would take a lot longer to come out*--I attended Hairspray instead of any HP parties and then went home, but I know many people didn't given the 8.3 million sold statistic being quoted by Scholastic.

How many of you bought a copy this weekend? Did you do so at a midnight party, the next day, or without a reservation at your local grocery store?

Have you finished it yet?

I want to hear your stories (not spoilers) on who gave the best party, who totally forgot your reservation (and how they handled that), and whether or not it was worth it. In return I'll see if I can get my hands on a picture of me dressed as a witch for our HP 6 event.

In unrelated news, I've joined Facebook and have been playing with its new Shelfari application to keep track of the books I've bought, received for free or read here at the Publishing Institute. I'm interested to hear how people think Shelfari measures up to LibraryThing.

*I was basing my assumptions on Jordan's track record, bad me.

17 Comments on Potter! (and your electronic bookshelf), last added: 8/11/2007
Display Comments Add a Comment