The Harry Potter author JK Rowling has shared some withering rebuffs publishers sent to her alter ego Robert Galbraith, in an effort to comfort aspiring authors.
Sir Terry Pratchett fans have started a petition… asking “Death” to bring the author back.
The petition on Change.Org – called “Reinstate Terry Pratchett” – has already received thousands of signatures.
The description reads: “Because Terry Pratchett said this: ‘There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.'”
Far from being a scary figure, Sir Terry presented “Death” as a witty guy with an unpopular job to do.
In the week that Terry Pratchett sadly passed away, I thought I would scour the net to see how the various book sections of the newspapers are paying tribute to the man who taught us that the world isn’t always round.
The BBC has dug into the archives of Radio 4 and replayed a wonderful interview with Terry Pratchett. The interview is available to listen to on the iPlayer.
So popular was Terry Pratchett that I could fill so much more space on this blog with Pratchett news and views from the past week, but I think I will save some stuff for my Re-Discovering Discworld Project.
Tributes are being paid around the world for the renowned fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett, the creator of the cult Discworld books, as well as thirty other novels, who sadly died today. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease eight years ago, Sir Terry reportedly passed away surrounded by his family, peacefully on his bed with his beloved cat.
My own relationship with Terry Pratchett existed in an alternative world. A world which is flat, floating in space on the back of a giant turtle.
I discovered the Discworld back in 1997, when one of Terry’s multitude of fans, sat in a black chair and was quizzed about this strange land on the BBC quiz show Mastermind. Having never heard of the Discworld novels, nor of Terry Pratchett, I sat bewildered as a series of questions were asked about this strange flat land. So bizarre were the questions, and the answers that I knew instantly Discworld was a land I had to travel to.
Over the years since that chance discovery, I have spent countless hours travelling in Pratchett’s strange flat world, although it has been quite awhile since my last visit. So today to mark the passing of this wonderful wordsmith, I have decided to make a vow to you, and myself, to go back to Discworld and document my findings. Starting after I have completed the novel I am currently working through, I will start from the beginning and read all forty Discworld novels in order, and record them in a new section, Rediscovering Discworld .(Don’t fear this isn’t going to become a Discworld blog, I will break it up with other novels.)
I am currently reading one of Stephen King’s mammoth novel’s. And for a reader like me, that can take some time. I am not the slowest reader, but I am certainly not Usain Bolt when it comes to reading, leaving me struggling for stuff to blog about.
Luckily for me, and you as well (don’t want your trip on your cybercraft to my corner of cyberspace to be wasted) Stephen King seems to be everywhere on the World Wide Interweb at the moment. So I have decided to share some of the crumbs I have found of the supersized Stephen King sandwich currently feeding the internet’s book fans.
And I am going to begin with this fantastic interview Stephen King has done for the BBC, where he finally confirms that he didn’t like the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation of The Shining (which is a relief for me because I didn’t like it either).
They also discuss, how Stephen King has gone from being the whipping boy of literary critics, to an author who is maybe not revered by critics, but at least now accepted by them.
This year’s Man Booker shortlist features six writers from across the globe: Canada, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and, for the first time in the prize’s history, Zimbabwe.
“Global in its reach, this exceptional shortlist demonstrates the vitality and range of the contemporary novel at its finest,” said Robert Macfarlane, the chair of the judges.
“These six superb works of fiction take us from gold-rush New Zealand to revolutionary Calcutta, from modern-day Japan to the Holy Land of the Gospels, and from Zimbabwe to the deep English countryside. World-spanning in their concerns, and ambitious in their techniques, they remind us of the possibilities and power of the novel as a form.”
I love it when you pick up the morning paper and find a little treat inside to start your week. Today I found an interview with one of my favourite fantasy writers Neil Gaiman, who mentions there may be another Sandman graphic novel in the pipeline, which is fantastic news to start my week.
Neil Gaiman’s been sitting with his arm in a bowl of iced water and he’s moved our interview from morning to afternoon because, after signing for and chatting to 1,000 fans until 1am, he’s on the verge of losing his voice. Such are the pitfalls of embarking on a nine-week signing tour.
English writer Neil Gaiman. Taken at the 2007 Scream Awards. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
‘I enjoy meeting the people,’ he says. ‘They want to say thanks – it’s wonderful and touching and magic. A thousand people a night is like a marathon, though. Around hour three, you look up and the line doesn’t seem any shorter and you have to keep going.’
The promotional push is for his latest novel, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, which has spent six weeks on the top ten bestseller list.
His first adult novel since 2005, it’s the story of how a boy’s life is disrupted when a malevolent supernatural entity moves into the family home. It’s partly a gripping, unsettling portrayal of how powerless children are in a family dynamic, while the bits set in a good witch’s house down the road are a cosy, nostalgic celebration of the comforting power of jam sponge and custard.
Gaiman’s first book – if you don’t count the Duran Duran biography he wrote when he was still a journalist in the 1980s – was 1991’s Good Omens, with Terry Pratchett. However, he was well-established before then in ‘geek’ circles, thanks to his comic book series Sandman.
Stephen King more than any other author was the reason I started reading books purely for pleasure. And even though I don’t read too many of his novels any more (though I plan to) I still like to keep track of what he is up to.
Stephen King, American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Taken at the 2007 New York Comicon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So it came with great pleasure to read this short interview with the author, where he speaks about Under the Dome among other things.
The official Elmore Leonard website has sadly announced that the legendary crime writer has died just three weeks after suffering a stroke at the age of 87.
Leonard is the author of 45 novels, many of which have been turned into films (Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma and Out of Sight). He was working on his 46th novel when he passed away.
Kindle-ing 