Wine, Women, Song and the Weekend Update

Before turning to the rest of the weekend's links, the ghostwriting theme is explored in greater depth by Kerry Lengel at the Arizona Republic, who interviewed me (as well as David Montgomery and Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch, among others) for our take on whether such arrangements are more prevalent or just more open.

NYTBR: It's the Fiction in Translation issue (and no doubt someone may well be thrilled by this) and so we have Liesl Schillinger on Aharon Appelfeld; Sophie Harrison examining Natsuo Kirino's analysis of Japanese women and society; and Robert Bolano makes the front cover.
 

Also in the paper,Terrence Rafferty revisits the Robert Altman version of THE LONG GOODBYE.

WaPo Book World: Despite its heft, Jonathan Yardley would rather spend time with Kingsley Amis's books than his biography; Michael Dirda feels quite a ways differently about Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein; and I get the sense Ann Cummins wanted to read a different book than what was on offer with Sherman Alexie's FLIGHT.

LA Times: Maria Russo talks with Lionel Shriver; Diana Wagman wonders what Barbara Seranella, had she lived, would have done next with the heroine of DEADMAN'S SWITCH; Jerry Stahl is sucked into the world of AMERICAN YOUTH; and Jonathan Safran Foer writes of Petr Ginz.

G&M: Joanna Schneller talks with Michael Ondaatje about his writing ethos and his new book, DIVISADERO; Cary Fagan would have loved to dismiss Howard Jacobson's KALOOKI NIGHTS out of hand but he simply cannot; Candace Fertile is seduced by Alissa York's mastery of historical fiction from the getgo; and Lynn Crosbie explains how she turned from "hating" Joy Fielding's thrillers to loving them.

Guardian Review: Jonathan Bate asks how Shakespeare became so great; Margaret Drabble gives attention to the work of Prunella Clough; Sophie Harrison introduces more readers to Graham Swift; and James Fenton makes sense of Harlem's renaissance despite inborn prejudices.

Observer: Peter Guttridge reviews new crime fiction by Rebecca Stott, Don Winslow (who most certainly wasn't the erotic novelist Don Winslow before he turned to crime), John Macken, Scott Turow and Richard Stark; Geri Halliwell explains why having a baby makes her qualified to write children's books; Carl Wilkinson is surprised to find you don't have to be silent in libraries anymore; and it's the 100th anniversary of Daphne Du Maurier's birth - reason enough for Kate Kellaway to celebrate.

The Times: An unpublished Daphne Du Maurier manuscript might shed light on an adulterous affair; Jed Rubenfeld chats with Sigmund Freud's grandson about psychology and murder; Martin Amis takes Mark Steyn to task for his viewpoints on America; and Tom Deveson thinks the "new" JRR Tolkien novel is really rather terrible.

The Scotsman: Stuart Kelly wishes that Graham Swift could be more ambitious with his work; David Robinson has some fun revewing ON CHESIL BEACH; and another Napoleon biography shows just how crazy the would-be Emperor would end up.

The Rest:

Oline Cogdill admires Harlan Coben's ability to craft a believable thriller without gratuitous violence.

Michael Egan craves a good Hawaiian mystery, but the four he read for this Honolulu Star-Bulletin column didn't cut it.

Two interviews of Natsuo Kirino courtesy of Regis Behe and the Columbia Spectator. (Last link via.)

The Boston Globe's David Ratigan meets a professor who is obsessed with collecting pulp fiction paperbacks (Bill Crider, do you two know each other???)

The Vonnegut tributes continue, and the Philly Inquirer's Carlin Romano asks why the author's work still endures as strongly today as it did upon publication and Kevin Nance at the Chicago Sun-Times points out that Vonnegut's humor allowed his work to connect with so many.

And Jasper Rees at the Telegraph has his own moving tribute to Michael Dibdin and the Aurelio Zen novels. In the same paper, Susanna Yager reviews new crime novels by Asa Larsson and Declan Hughes.

Danuta Kean discovers why so many books never get out of development hell to become movies.

Wendy Were tells the Sydney Morning Herald why she wants "sparks to fly" at the Sydney Writers' Festival.

And finally, RIP to Jill McGown, dead at the age of 59. The Rap Sheet has lots more, as does Mystery*File, about the author's work and her premature death.

Comments

[Dave Zeltserman]

The question all of us writers are probably thinking--how do we sign up to be of Patterson's ghostwriters?

[Maxine]

Hi, you will probably find it hard to find, as I did, but I read the paper copy of the Times every day except Sunday. In Saturday's book supplement is a much more positive review of the Tolkien. The only way I could find it on the Times website was to key in "Jeremy Marshall", the name of the reviewer. It is quite a different take to Tom Deveson's review of the same book in the Sunday Times, and which is the only one you'll find on the Times website if you search for the book by author name or title.

As I am sure you know, the Sunday Times and the Times are very different papers, a bit like the Guardian and the Observer.

[Ray]

That Winslow thing is hilarious. Really, someone should've picked up on that. Or used Wikipedia or Google or something...

[ed]

I was with Martin all the way until that unfortunate final paragraph.

[Bill Crider]

No, Sarah, I don't know that guy with all the paperbacks. You'd think he'd get in touch.