Category: literary life

The Boston Globe has a very positive review of Memories of Kreisau and the German Resistance, and the article whetted my appetite.

By 1940, [Freya von Moltke’s husband, Helmut von Moltke] had begun to organize secret meetings with other prominent Germans to discuss the future of the nation after the end of the war and the collapse of the Third Reich, which they viewed as inevitable. This was high treason, and very dangerous. Three of the major meetings took place during weekends on the farm in Kreisau, where Freya served as hostess.
Members of the group were also involved in the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944. Helmuth James, in prison on another charge, was not a direct participant. Nevertheless, in January 1945, he was executed for his role. The Gestapo dubbed his cadre of resisters the “Kreisau Circle.” Of the 21 members listed in the book, seven were executed.

I’ll have to add this to my reading list.

of these articles about an author who has a big life crisis, takes a year to write a novel, which is at first rejected by short-sighted agents, but a third signs on, sells it for an obscene amount of money, etc.

The Herald Sun has an article on the new celebrity publishing phenomenon of the humanitarian playmate. The books feature designer-clad actresses trying to draw the world’s attention to the plight of the less fortunate. I think charity ought to be welcomed regardless of the source, but the Beart book does sound unwittingly cynical.

We’re dying to find out more about the cacophony over at the The Key West Literary Seminar which just took place in Florida, but this AP article offers no interesting tidbits. In fact, it reduces the sixteen panelists and three moderators to just one person: Amy Tan. If you’ve attended, send us all the details.

Finally! It looks like that little feud is picking up. Actually, maybe I shouldn’t have called it a feud, since a feud presumably involves two parties, and as far as I know Irvine Welsh has refrained from responding to Alexander McCall Smith’s inane accusations. (Plus, Smith is trying to take back what he said.) But feud or not, AL Kennedy takes a stance in this piece for the Guardian:

It has come to my attention that even more Scottish people are typing now than in former, lovelier times. This may be the result of mass hysteria and poor hygiene, or may stem from a certain linguistic facility nourished by the Scottish education system (now finally deceased) and certain misguided traditions of self-education.
Whatever the cause, Scots must face the fact that – no matter how many well-meaning publishers open branch offices North of The Border – most of the writing produced will be of quite the Wrong Sort.

She goes on like this in her inimitable style and then concludes:

And, of course, Scotland today is justly renowned as a land entirely without poverty and crime. No one who lives here is ever lonely, or upset, ill, or worried, no one loses their job, raises their voice, swears, dislikes the weather or has a mild headache for a while. Our local and national government are not inefficient and corrupt and our executive’s Holyrood premises won’t eventually cost more than building a Scottish embassy on Mars. In short, we have no reason whatsoever to write anything other than lovely, slightly dusty histories, or fables involving Africa and Nice Ladies.

Good for her, I say.

Here’s a longish article on the tortuous process of titling books. I wish Margaret Mitchell had gotten the title she wanted. Perhaps the world would have been saved from Gone With The Wind.