Jeff Bezos on the Daily Show
This isn’t new by a longshot, but here’s a clip from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show where he interviews Jeff Bezos to talk about Gem’s all time favourite device in the whole wide world, the Kindle 2.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Jeff Bezos | ||||
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Kim Stanley Robinson talking about Climate Change
Kim Stanley Robinson, the Hugo and Nebula award winning author has written an interesting call-to-action piece on climate change on McKinsey’s What Matters (I hadn’t known McKinsey had such a site! What a find!).
I had a discussion some time back triggered by one of Mr Robinson’s book. On that occasion, I asked what types of important sociological discussions that can be triggered by fiction, and if it can affect the views of the people who are not seriously researching the issues. I took as an example Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain, which extrapolates the effects of global warming on the world, versus Michael Crichton’s State of Fear, which famously argues the lack of irrefutable proof that global warming actually exists.
The discussion thread which was in a book forum had already been wiped out due to a server crash (sound familiar?).
So anyway, check out the article by Robinson (and if you’re interested in this kind of things, check out What Matters itself).
What a drawn out tangent, huh? 
Obama with new post-presidency book deal
There are very few things that can top the accolade of being a critically lauded author of a book that also happens to be a best-seller (actually, that depends on who you ask. There are those of the opinion that that statement is an oxymoron). Well, how about being a critically lauded author of a book that also happens to be a best-seller, oh, and he’s the President of the United States?
Obama has agreed with Crown Publishing Group to deliver a new nonfiction book after he leaves office. Already the best-selling author of Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope received $2.5 million last year in book royalties
There’s something about being a world leader with an acknowledged intellect and a couple of critically lauded books that lends him a sort of street cred. I know I’d at least pay more attention to my national leaders if they could muster a book good worth reading.
Story here (of Obama’s book deal, not my national leaders).
Read MoreMan Booker International Prize 2009 list of contenders announced
While we’re on a roll here with literary prize nominee announcements, we might as well carry it on!
This is not the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the coveted annual giveaway from Man Group plc. The International Prize, in contrast, is given once bi-yearly, and,
highlights one writer’s continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage.
The contenders are:
- Peter Carey (Australia)
- Evan S. Connell (USA)
- Mahasweta Devi (India)
- E.L. Doctorow (USA)
- James Kelman (UK)
- Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
- Arnošt Lustig (Czechoslovakia)
- Alice Munro (Canada)
- V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India)
- Joyce Carol Oates (USA)
- Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
- Ngugi Wa Thiong’O (Kenya)
- Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia)
- Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia)
Fantastic spread of authors from around the world, I must say.
Check out the announcement in the Man Booker Prize site here.
Read MoreOver 50? Writing speculative fiction? Here’s $750!
The Speculative Fiction Foundation is offering the SLF Older Writers Grant, which, as it says in the website:
The SLF Older Writers Grant is awarded annually to a writer who is fifty years of age or older at the time of grant application, and is intended to assist such writers who are just starting to work at a professional level. We are currently offering one $750 grant annually, to be used as the writer determines will best assist his or her work.
(Thanks Boingboing!)
Read MoreOrange Prize For Fiction 2009 Longlist released
The Hugos were not the only Awards citing excellence in Fiction. The Orange Prize for Fiction also recently released their longlist, and they are:
- Debra Adelaide The Household Guide to Dying
- Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress
- Lissa Evans Their Finest Hour and a Half
- Bernardine Evaristo Blonde Roots
- Ellen Feldman Scottsboro
- Laura Fish Strange Music
- V.V. Ganeshananthan Love Marriage
- Allegra Goodman Intuition
- Samantha Harvey The Wilderness
- Samantha Hunt The Invention of Everything Else
- Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog
- Deirdre Madden Molly Fox’s Birthday
- Toni Morrison A Mercy
- Gina Ochsner The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
- Marilynne Robinson Home
- Preeta Samarasan Evening is the Whole Day
- Kamila Shamsie Burnt Shadows
- Curtis Sittenfeld American Wife
- Miriam Toews The Flying Troutmans
- Ann Weisgarber The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
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