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For a number of reasons, I found myself neglecting my literary fiction reading in the first half of 2015.  I tend to bounce back and forth between litfic and genre--too much of the mimetic stuff and I find myself longing for something about more than a few people and their emotional issues; too much SF or fantasy and I end up wishing for something more concrete to hold on to.  So this last month

Earlier this year, Macmillan established a partnership with Scribd. Initially, the publishing house agreed to allow subscribers to access more than 1,000 eBooks.

Today, the two companies have announced that an additional 1,000 Macmillan titles will be made available at the Scribd library. According to the blog post announcement, 300 of these new additions are children’s books.

The newly added books represent a wide range of genres such as fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Readers can now enjoy works by Tom Wolfe, Hilary Mantel, and Madeline L’Engle through this eBook subscription service.

Historians should be banned from watching movies or TV set in their area of expertise. We usually bore and irritate friends and family with pedantic interjections about minor factual errors and chronological mix-ups. With Hilary Mantel’s novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and the sumptuous BBC series based on them, this pleasure is denied us. The series is as ferociously well researched as it is superbly acted and directed. Cranmer probably didn’t have a beard in 1533, but, honestly, that’s about the best I can do.

The post Wolf Hall: count up the bodies appeared first on OUPblog.

BBC 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 Adichie, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, The 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)

During these cold, dark days of winter, there's nothing I enjoy more than losing myself in a book that evokes the mood of the season. Set in Swedish Lapland in the early 18th century, Wolf Winter is a wonderfully atmospheric novel that perfectly captures what it's like to live in a remote, unforgiving landscape. Debut [...]

Christmas holidays are all about catching up with friends and family, and catching up on all the books that I haven’t had a chance to read during the year. I’m not a fan of reading on the beach – too sunny, too many kids to watch, too many friends to chat with. But once I […]

Hilary Mantel’s newest book, a collection of short stories titled The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, has been getting quite a bit of press. It seems many people have decided to take offense at the titular story in which an IRA assassin tricks a woman into letting him into her apartment which has a perfect view, and perfect shot of the back of a hospital through which Thatcher will shortly be exiting. The woman at first is alarmed but ends up being sympathetic and helps the man by showing him an escape route through which he might be able to get away without capture. The story ends just before the gun is fired.

It’s a pretty good story. We are left wondering whether the assassination was successful. Well, we know it wasn’t, don’t we? Mantel isn’t out to rewrite history. So the shot was missed for some reason. We are left to wonder at the aftermath, left feeling sympathetic for the IRA man who fully expects to get caught but shows the utmost concern for the woman whose apartment he took over. And the woman? She’s middle-aged, single, tidy, reliable, caught in the habits of her daily life and not one to rock the boat. But this man gives her a chance to break free from the ordinary without much risk and she takes it. You can read the story yourself if you haven’t already.

Unfortunately all the talk about the one story has overshadowed the rest of the book. Most of these stories are complete stories with beginnings, middles and ends, no brief slice of life stuff that just goes for mood or effect, things happen in these stories. Whether it is an English woman living in Dubai with her husband for his job who inadvertently finds herself being courted by another man or a husband caught kissing a neighbor in the kitchen by his wife the shock of which actually causes his wife to die from an unknown heart defect, the stories feel complete.

Then there is the story “Comma” about two young girls, about twelve. The one who narrates, Kitty, lives in a solid, middle-class household. Her friend, Mary Joplin, who lives just across the street, is from a family of dubious status. But Kitty is friends with Mary and the pair slip away from the parental gaze to go wandering through the surrounding neighborhood. Mary discovers the house of a rich family across a field. At this house they have something that should be a baby but there is something wrong with it. Our narrator and Mary sneak over and spy to try and figure out what the adults refuse to talk about. And while we think the story is about this baby it is really about the relationship between our narrator and Mary and then finally on Mary’s low-class status and how that ultimately affects her life. We catch a glimpse of the two in middle age, Kitty recognizing Mary on the street one day:

It passed through my mind, you’d need to have known her well to have known her now, you’d need to have put in the hours with her, watching her sideways. Her skin seemed swagged, loose, and there was nothing much to read in Mary’s eyes. I expected, perhaps, a pause, a hyphen, a space where a question might follow . . . Is that you Kitty? She stooped over her buggy, settled her laundry with a pat, as if to reassure it. Then she turned back to me and gave me a bare acknowledgement: a single nod, a full stop.

Or the story “Winter Break” in which a husband and wife on a winter holiday, riding through the night in a taxi to their distant hotel are disturbed when the car hits something. The driver bundles it up in a tarp and puts it in the trunk. The couple think it is a goat which they have seen running around everywhere. But they discover something else when they reach their destination.

These stories are about normal people in their everyday lives. Husbands and wives, friends, coworkers, getting on as best they can, scared, alone, confused, making mistakes, trying to figure things out. The most exotic person is a writer in the story “How Shall I Know You?” who is invited by a book group to visit and give a talk. And while the story seems to be all about the writer, like “Comma” it ends up being about something else. Something bigger, that lifts it up from the ordinary to the extraordinary, if not for the characters in the story, at least for the reader who gets to see the big picture.

I’ve only ever read Mantel’s Cromwell books so I was expecting some interesting narrative stylings in the stories. But they are all pretty straightforward. I was not disappointed by that because I don’t need stylistic dazzling in my short stories; they aren’t long enough for me to get used to something unusual and by the time I’d get my bearings I’m afraid the story would be over and I’d be wondering what just happened. This is not to say that Mantel’s style is plain. She uses various structural elements that we are all familiar with: flash backs, foreshadowing, story breaks that indicate the passage of time. What I really liked about many of these stories is that often they were about something other than I initially thought they were about. And those moments in the story when I realized there was something else going on were very pleasurable.

So don’t be put off from this collection by all the press and all the controversy over the titular story. These stories are good reading.

In first-rate style, replete with her wicked humor and merciless eye, Mantel cuts to the quick in this dazzling and diverse collection of stories. Ranging from sinister to unsettling, these sharply drawn and thrillingly unpredictable stories further demonstrate the insightful intelligence and dark brilliance of this gifted author. Books mentioned in this post The Assassination [...]

At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]

We all know that history is written by the victors, but the matter doesn't end there.  History is also written by the powerful, the educated, the privileged.  By people who toe--and sometimes the ones who shape--the party line.  People of the wrong gender, race, class, or nationality not only don't get to write history, they often don't even get to appear in it.  It's one of the tasks of

Beneath every history, another history.

What a marvelous book is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I know a lot of people didn’t like that it is written in the present tense but I found it gave an immediacy to the story it would have otherwise lacked. It is historical fiction and to write of a historical period so well known and in such fine detail in the past tense, I think that would have bogged it down. Also, I liked the interiority that calling Cromwell “he” gave the book. It made it reflective and thoughtful, it made me pay attention.

Things that surprised me. How detailed and slow moving through time the story is. We start with Cromwell as a boy getting knocked down and beaten by his blacksmith father. There is a speedy tour through Cromwell’s youth and then he is an adult working for Cardinal Wolsey. And Wolsey doesn’t die until just over a third of the way through the book. The next huge chunk is taken up with the minute details of Cromwell worming his way into the good graces of Henry and dealing with the problem of his marriage to Katherine and his desire to marry Anne Boleyn. Then the final shorter section after Henry and Anne marry, Anne becomes queen, bears a child that will become Queen Elizabeth I and then miscarries a second child. The book ends with the death of Thomas More.

For best effect, it helps to know at least a general outline of events but it is not necessary to be highly familiar with them. Knowing what is going to happen, where things are leading, creates a certain frisson. The book is dramatic irony at its best.

I did not expect the book to be funny but it was. No, I didn’t laugh my way through, but there are lots of humorous moments like this one in which Anne has sent one of her ladies off to find a Bible:

Mistress Shelton comes careering towards him. ‘My lady wants a Bible!’

‘Master Cromwell can recite the whole New Testament,’ Wyatt says helpfully.

The girl looks agonised. ‘I think she wants it to swear on.’

‘In that case I’m no use to her.’

Heh.

And there is a young man sent to work for Cromwell whom he suspects is there to spy. Cromwell takes it all in stride, he has sent his people to spy on others so it is only natural. The boy is named Wriosthesley and tells them “Call me Risely.” So Cromwell and his son and others in his house start referring to Wriosthesley as “Call Me.” That doesn’t sound so funny when I type it out, but in the book it is a hoot, you’ll have to take my word for it.

I work at a Catholic University though I myself am not Catholic. Thomas More is a saint who died for his religion. There is a statue of him by our practice courtroom. The way he is portrayed in Wolf Hall is far from saintly. A book that a student requested came in the other day about Thomas More. It was written after Wolf Hall and had a chapter in it about how Mantel is very wrong in how she characterizes More. Unfortunately I don’t remember what the title of the book was, but I thought it interesting that a work of nonfiction felt it had to address how More is portrayed in a book of fiction.

Before reading Wolf Hall my impression of Cromwell was not a positive one but as I read I quickly came to like Cromwell very much. He is not a man I would want to cross but he takes care of his own and cares deeply about them. He is a brilliant man and an opportunist. I know he meets a dreadful end but I could not help cheering him on, this son of a blacksmith who refuses to buy himself a title and an aristocratic ancestry. Towards the end of the book there is some foreshadowing of his downfall which is years away yet:

Rafe says, passionate, ‘How could I think to keep a secret from you? You see everything, sir.’

‘Ah. Only up to a point.’

And when he misses that thing it will be off with his head.

But that is for another book, Bring Up the Bodies maybe. Though according to Mantel there are three books. Since Cromwell is the star, I imagine his end won’t come until the end of the third book.

I read Wolf Hall along with Litlove and we exchanged a few emails about it. She posted about it last week so be sure to take a gander at her thoughts on the book too.

By Candy Gourlay Hilary Mantel (Photo: Harper Collins) Go, Hilary! After winning the Booker Prize a second time (with the second book of her trilogy), Hilary Mantel also grabbed the Costa Prize. £30,000 prize money. Blimey. Sally Gardner of course won the Children's Costa for Maggot Moon. Go, Sally ! Mantel's historic win brought back fond memories of the children's book industry's own

Would the sequel live up to expectations? Actually, yes. Hilary Mantel's talent for rich detail and sensuous atmosphere is still apparent, and Bring Up the Bodies is, in some ways, a much more gripping, riveting, and textured read than Wolf Hall. For one thing, the plotting is tighter. We know what's going to happen, but [...]

The ninth annual Morning News Tournament of Books (ToB) will commence in March 2013.

So far, 15 finalists have been revealed. Three titles from the “pre-tournament playoff round” are currently in the running for the sixteenth and final slot. We’ve included the two lists below.

Here’s more from the announcement: “The ToB is an annual springtime event here at the Morning News, where 16 of the year’s best works of fiction enter a March Madness-style battle royale. Today we’re announcing the judges and final books for the 2013 competition as well as the long list of books from which the contenders were selected.”
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In an excellent New Yorker profile, Booker-winning author Hilary Mantel shared two secrets from her writing life–these techniques will work for writers all year round.

Check it out: “When she’s starting a new book, she needs to feel her way inside the characters, to know what it’s like to be them. There is a trick she uses sometimes which another writer taught her. Sit quietly and withdraw your attention from the room you’re in until you’re focussed inside your mind. Imagine a chair and invite your character to come and sit in it; once he is comfortable, you may ask him questions.”

This is our third NaNoWriMo Tip of the Day. As writers around the country join the writing marathon this month, we will share one piece of advice or writing tool to help you cope with this daunting project.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The motto "Art and War," under imposing statues of Minerva and Mars, has graced a cartouche over the entrance to Stockholm's Riddarhuset — the House of Nobles — since 1647. Those words struck a powerful chord while doing research for my novel, The Stockholm Octavo. Providing a factual core for the story was Gustav III, [...]

Novelist Hilary Mantel has won the £50,000 (roughly $65,175) Man Booker Prize for Bring up the Bodies, the second time she has taken the award.

Follow the links below to read excerpts from all the authors on the longlist. “I merely wanted novels that they would not leave behind on a beach,” said judicial chair Sir Peter Stothard, leading a panel of judges that included Dinah Birch, Amanda Foreman, Dan Stevens and Bharat Tandon.

If you want more books, we made similar literary mixtapes linking to free samples of the 2012 National Book Award Finalists, 2012 Man Booker Longlist, the Best Science Fiction of the Year the Believer Book Award nominees, the 2012 Orwell Prize shortlist, the LA Times Book Prize winners, and the Best Business Books of the Year.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

What sort of person writes fiction about the past?  It is helpful to be acquainted with violence, because the past is violent.  It is necessary to know that the people who live there are not the same people now.  It is necessary to understand that the dead are real, and have power over the living.  It is helpful to have encountered the dead firsthand, in the form of ghosts.

The writer's relationship with a historical character is in some was less intimate than with a fictional one: the historical character is elusive and far away, so there is more distance between them.  But there is also more equality between them, and more longing; when he dies, real mourning is possible.

Historical fiction is a hybrid form, halfway between fiction and nonfiction.  It is a pioneer country, without fixed laws.....

I'm a big believer that books, like people, can have partners: there are pairs of books that complement each other and belong together. With some books, as soon as you mention one, someone is bound to mention the other. Obviously, this applies to sequels and prequels. If you say you like Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, [...]

Here's a recommendation: even if you've already read it, take the time to reread Wolf Hall before reading Bring Up the Bodies.  This is less in order to be reminded of details from the first volume of Hilary Mantel's projected trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell--Mantel is actually quite good about catching up readers who haven't read Wolf Hall or read it a while ago, and anyway the broad

The longlist for the 2012 Man Booker Prize has been revealed, a list that includes four debut novelists. We’ve researched these 12 finalists, finding free samples of these books scattered across the world–a number of titles aren’t even available in the U.S. yet.

Follow the links below to read excerpts from these books. The shortlist will be revealed on September 11th and the winner will be announced on October 16th.

If you want more books, we made similar literary mixtapes linking to free samples of the Believer Book Award nominees, the 2012 Orwell Prize shortlist, the LA Times Book Prize winners, the Orion Book Award Finalists, Best Mystery Books of 2011, the Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2011 and the Most Overlooked Books of 2011.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Would the sequel live up to expectations? Actually, yes. Hilary Mantel's talent for rich detail and sensuous atmosphere is still apparent, and Bring Up the Bodies is, in some ways, much more gripping and riveting than Wolf Hall. For one thing, the plotting is tighter. We know what's going to happen, but watching Cromwell plotting, [...]

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.