E-books will kill books, just as the iPod has killed music: For the moment you have to pay about the same to download a book as you do for a paperback, but it won’t be long before there are websites out their offering them for free. And no money will mean no authors. Not readable ones anyway. [Telegraph]
On John Updike: And now this masterly blasphemer, whose literary schemes and pretty conceits touched at points on the Shakespearean, is gone, and American letters, deprived in recent years of its giants, Bellow and Mailer, is a leveled plain, with one solitary peak guarded by Roth. [NYRB]
Book Of A Lifetime: In Search of Lost Time, By Marcel Proust: Proust’s capacious novel seems to have woven itself into my days and thoughts for more years than I like to remember. [Independent]
It is only bad timing that turns prophecy into comedy: A book entitled Damn, It Feels Good to be a Banker must have seemed a good idea six months ago. [Telegraph]
Outstandingly strange competition for odd book prize: Announced this morning, the titles in contention include Curbside Consultation of the Colon, a handy guide for doctors, and the compulsively-readable sounding 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais. [Guardian]
Danielle Steel joins ranks of e-book authors: Danielle Steel, the best-selling author, is joining the ranks of John Grisham and Tom Clancy by allowing 71 of her books to be downloaded digitally. [Telegraph]
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