Book links roundup: Largehearted Boy celebrates 10 years, the greatest books of all time, and more

• Largehearted Boy celebrates 10 years of book and music blogging at Brooklyn’s Word Bookstore
• The Atlantic lists greatest books of all time as voted by 125 famous authors
• J.D. Salinger’s Franny, Graham Greene’s Maurice Bendrix, and Zadie Smith’s Samad Iqbal named top literary believers
• Trillium Award celebrates 25 years with a voting contest for readers
• League of Canadian Poets announces P.K. Page Trust Fund and benefit readings

U.K. poets band together to protest cuts

It’s National Poetry Month here in Canada, an annual initiative by the League of Canadian Poets to bring public attention to poetry. But across the Atlantic, the beginning of April more closely resembles T.S. Eliot’s characterization as “the cruellest month.” On March 30, Arts Council England (ACE) announced cuts to over 200 arts organizations, including the Poetry Book Society, which Eliot himself established in 1953. Responding to the cut in funding, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy said that it was “a national shame and a scandal” that “goes beyond shocking and touches the realms of the disgusting.”

In response to the denial of funding for the Poetry Book Society, a letter of protest has been signed by more than 100 poets. The Poetry Book Society claims it will have to shut down entirely if the proposed cuts kick in as of April 2012.

This reaction is to some extent predictable; what is less predictable is the reaction in opposition to proposed funding for British publisher Faber. In light of cuts to the Poetry Book Society and certain smaller publishers, the decision to give money to a relatively well-off publisher such as Faber has ruffled some feathers. From the Guardian:

Former Faber director Desmond Clarke, also a former chair of the board at the Poetry Book Society, said he found ACE’s decision to favour the publisher over the Poetry Book Society “extraordinary.”

“As a commercially profitable publisher, Faber is more than capable of investing in a small number of poets each year,” he said. “The reality is that Faber has made enormous amounts of money by publishing poetry, and out of the royalties of Cats which has provided it with many millions over the years.” T.S. Eliot, author of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which inspired the musical, left his literary estate to Faber.

Clarke added: “If I were still a director of Faber I would actually be embarrassed that we should take money when the Poetry Book Society has lost funding.”

The broader picture shows that literature is actually the biggest winner in ACE’s new budget, seeing a 10 per cent increase in funding, while all other cultural arenas experience a net loss. The same article quotes Rachel Feldberg, director of the Ilkley Literature Festival (one of the organizations that will benefit from ACE’s allocation of funds) as feeling “torn” between her own elation and sadness for those who lost out:

“It’s exciting for us but for our colleagues the outlook may be bleak,” she said. The increased funding will enable the festival to continue and expand projects including work with young people in Leeds and Bradford schools.

Harry Potter, Dan Brown dominate U.K. list of best-selling books

The stereotype has it that England is filled with recondite literati ensconced in mahogany-lined libraries reading leather-bound volumes of Romantic poetry and plump Victorian novels. This as compared to the beer-swilling philistines in America, gorging themselves on a diet of Dan Brown and Tom Clancy (if they read at all). Well, newly released data indicates that this conception is flawed. Readers in the U.K., it would seem, have every bit as much devotion to Dan Brown as their counterparts across the Atlantic.

As noted in the Guardian over the weekend, Brown took the number one spot on Neilsen Bookscan’s list of the U.K.’s best-selling books released since the company began collecting data in 1998. According to the service, which tracks 90 per cent of book purchases in the U.K., The Da Vinci Code moved 4,522,025 units between 1998 and 2010, which accounted for a staggering £22,857,837.53 in revenue. Angels and Demons, Brown’s prequel to The Da Vinci Code, took the fourth spot on the list, with 3,096,850 units sold, accounting for sales of £15,537,324.84.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the top 10 is devoted to Harry Potter: all seven of J.K. Rowling’s books about the boy wizard are featured, with the first in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, taking the number two spot. The only place in the top 10 not devoted to Brown or Rowling goes to Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight, which clocks in at number nine. In fact, one has to make it to number 13 before a title by an author not among the three already mentioned appears: Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.

Perhaps surprisingly, Stieg Larsson does not crop up on the list until number 17, although the three novels in the Swedish author’s Millennium Trilogy came in at numbers one, two, and three respectively on the list of U.K. bestsellers for 2010.

Christopher Hitchens talks cancer and religion

In the September issue of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens discussed his cancer diagnosis in an essay called “Topic of Cancer.” In it, he gave a more intellectual than emotional account of his illness, one that still managed to be moving.

Now, The Atlantic is following Vanity Fair’s lead. Last week, the magazine posted a video of Jeff Goldberg interviewing Hitchens at the latter’s home in Washington, D.C. Martin Amis even drops in to chat for a bit. According to the Los Angeles Times book blog, Jacket Copy, the video is one in a series “on the possibility of Hitchens having a religious conversion or awakening.”

Hitchens, for his part, does not consider such a thing likely.

The Atlantic kindles a new relationship with Amazon

Edna O’Brien, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Paul Theroux are among the writers who will be making their short fiction available exclusively to Kindle users thanks to a new deal between online retailer Amazon.com and the general interest magazine The Atlantic. The first two of these stories, O’Brien’s “Shovel Kings” and Christopher Buckley’s “Cynara,” are available today. From the press release:

As outlets publishing fiction rapidly dwindle, The Atlantic asserts its historic commitment to the form by introducing two new short stories each month via Amazon’s Kindle – becoming the first magazine to deliver fiction exclusively to Kindle readers…. These works will also be available for purchase and reading with the Kindle for iPhone and Kindle for PC apps, as well as planned Kindle platform expansions for Mac and Blackberry.

At the risk of sounding snarky, this Quillblogger would like to point out the irony in the first clause of that opening sentence, given the magazine’s decision in 2005 to cease publishing short fiction on a monthly basis and to group fiction into a kind of annual gulag in their summer issue.

Moreover, The New York Times points out that authors who have their work published as part of this agreement will have access to a rather exclusive audience:

For authors who sign with The Atlantic for the Kindle deal, their contracted work is limited to that one format, since those who don’t own a Kindle – or an iPhone, on which readers can install a Kindle app – won’t be able to read it.

Participating authors, who have been paid what the NYT refers to as “a four-figure fee,” may at some future time reprint their stories in collections or other periodicals, but they are prohibited from allowing them to appear on competing e-readers.

Authors challenge the idea of a national literature

Canadian authors Margaret Atwood and Anne Michaels, along with Britain’s Monica Ali and Ireland’s Joseph O’Neill, have contributed their thoughts on the idea of a national literature to The Atlantic‘s Fiction 2009 special issue, created in partnership with the Luminato Festival of Arts and Creativity held in Toronto last month. The four essays, grouped under the title “Border Crossings,” discuss how globalization, immigration, and the internet have affected the concept of a national literature, and question whether the notion that books and authors belong only to one place can still exist.

In her essay “Reading Faust in Korean,” Michaels argues that the idea of a national literature is created by the reader who relates to the book in his or her own way, rather thanby the writer’s place of birth. Atwood, for her part, thinks that it’s impossible to place an author or a book into a single category. In her essay “The Beetle and the Teacup,” she writes:

“Do you identify as a woman, or as a writer?” I’ve been asked. “A North American? A Torontonian? An environmentalist? A poet, or a novelist?” As if we were so divisible.

Take that, Stephenie Meyer!

It may not star the young wizard from Hogwarts, but J.K. Rowling’s latest book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, has become the fastest-selling title of 2008. According to Reuters (by way of the National Post):

Since it was released on December 4, The Tales of Beedle the Bard has also become the top selling book of 2008 on both sides of the Atlantic, topping the USA Today and Daily Telegraph charts and raising 4.2 million pounds ($6.5 million) for charity.

Proceeds from sales of the book, which has a global print run of eight million copies, will go to the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), a charity for vulnerable children in Eastern Europe co-founded by Rowling.

The book does have a Potter connection, having been mentioned briefly in the series finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Rowling is now the world’s richest author, beating out Stephen King, Danielle Steel, and Conrad Black.

Independent publisher takes BEA panelists to the ground

Working Assets editorial director Jennifer Nix used her blog Firedoglake to lay some smack on BookExpo America yesterday. Her beef? That many mainstream magazines and newspaper editors avoid political books and ignore the legions of bloggers out there who love ‘em.

“I’m just wondering how much attention you pay to what’s going on online,” asked Nix of the DC Print Media: Meet the Editors panel, composed of the deputy editor of the Washington Post Book World, a national editor of The Atlantic, and a books editor from USA Today. “Say, when a book rises up to number one on Amazon, or when the blogs are buzzing about certain books?”

“We don’t trust Amazon. Anything can rise to the top of that list,” replied the USA Today rep; he then tagged Mr. Washington Post, who entered the ring slagging blogs, writing them off as mere “amusement.”

In the end, Nix comes out a winner, able to credit the runaway Amazon success stories of Nix-marshalled Don’t Think of an Elephant and How Would a Patriot Act? to word of mouth on the web. Ha!

Related links:
Read Jennifer Nix’s blow-by-blow account here
Check out the tale of underdog stealth publisher Working Assets

The truth about non-fiction

An article by Rachel Donadio in The New York Times looks at why non-fiction writing is overshadowing fiction, and concludes that fiction writers have yet to truly capture the post-9/11 era. Magazines like The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and Esquire have cut down their fiction sections in recent years, and publishers say non-fiction is on top these days. Donadio quotes Adrienne Miller, a novelist and the literary editor of Esquire: ‘”The tragic theme here is that literary fiction has very limited cultural currency now. Fewer and fewer people seem to believe fiction is still essential for our emotional and intellectual survival.”’

Related links:
Click here for the full article on The New York Times