News from four big authors

Posted on April 12, 2012 by christinasr

So four of the big authors have some interesting news in the media at the moment.

Salman Rushdie

Rushdie is coming out with his memoirs later this year. We all know about Salman Rushdie because of the fatwa put on him back in 1989. This is his story. This is his version of living with a death sentence over his head for nine years. Even though Rushdie really intimidates me, this is a book I’m really looking forward to.

The book is called Joseph Anton – a memoir and is published on September 18, 2012.

Read more here.

And here’s a link to Rowling’s new website which also has a lot of information about the new book.

Stephen King. (and Neil Gaiman).

Neil Gaiman recently talked to Stephen King and out of that came a very interesting interview. Two great authors hanging out together, talking about the trade and about King’s works. There were several interesting points in the interview. First of, King is currently writing a new novel about a serial killer in an amusement park – the novel is called Joyland. Now, he scared me of clowns with It. Now he’s going to take amusement parks from me? I can’t wait!

Also, Dr. Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, is done and just waiting to be published. He also says that his son, Joe Hill, writes almost indistinguishable from King himself – but has better ideas. I think I need to check out a book by Joe Hill!

You can read the entire interview here.

EDIT: Neil Gaiman put his entire interview with Stephen King up on his blog – it’s longer that what was in the paper and very interesting.

Joyce Carol Oates

I have Joyce Carol Oates’ new novel Mudwoman just waiting for me finding time for it. This was the novel who JCO wrote while loosing her husband and writing her memoir A Widow’s Story. JCO’s next novel will be related to Mudwoman – fascinating. Here’s what JCO has to say herself about the forthcoming novel: ”Carthage” is in a way a companion novel to “Mudwoman” – it is set in a nearby small city in upstate New York & is about the return of a severely wounded Iraqi War veteran & his effect upon his fiancee & her family. As M.R. is an “intellectual” presence, so in this novel is the father of the young man’s fiancee, a lawyer. The novel is constructed as a mystery – but it is a mystery that is finally “solved.” (In this, it is not a teasing post-Modernist work that eludes meaning.) War is always a tragedy for a society – but especially for those who participate in it, & must return home to their old, now outgrown lives.

Now I’m wondering if I should wait and read all three together…

Carthage will be published on January 8, 2012.

Read the entire interview here.

In the mail today …

Posted on April 2, 2012 by christinasr

So in the mail today, two new books. Both newly published, both some of the books I’ve been most looking forward to this year.

Joyce Carol Oates: Mudwoman

Well, JCO is one of my favorite authors – I just love her books. This one is about a girl abandoned by her mother and is lucky to survive. She is adopted and everything seems to be going perfectly for her – she becomes the first female president of an Ivy League university. But as the USA is nearing war with Iraq, she is challenged at work and she starts to fall apart. JCO writes women so well, she writes women with issues even better and this sounds like a classic JCO novel, touching upon her most known themes. This was the novel JCO was writing when she also was writing A Widow’s Story about loosing her husband. I’m thinking about reading the two together – or at least right after one another. I think that could be an interesting way of attacking this novel.

Gail Carriger: Timeless (The Parasol Protectorate #5)

So this is one of my favorite fluff series. I love reading about Alexia Tarabotti and her adventures with her werewolf hubby, her favorite vampire friend and all the rest of the assorted company she keeps around. In this one, Alexia is trying to cope with having a toddler – which we all know can be really challenging! On top of that, something is happening in Egupt and the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive wants something from her. These are usually a great romp, a very fun light read. I’ve enjoyed the first four in the series, so I’m looking forward to reading this fifth installment.

Something to be excited about in 2012

Posted on December 28, 2011 by christinasr

Edited December 30th – because I find out something HUUUUUGE. John Irving is publishing a new novel already! YAY! So that’s definitely something to look forward in 2012! And – the next one is coming in 2015 so we don’t have to wait too long for the next one either!!! The new novel is called ‘In One Person’. It’s about a 60-year-old man and is written in first person – Irving’s first novel in first person since Owen Meany. I can’t wait… Bu tI have to wait till June 2012…

This also means that my list now contains 12 books I’m looking forward to in 2012 – very fitting!!

So I’ve been doing a bit of research and I’ve realized that there’s a lot of really interesting books scheduled for publishing in 2012. I’ve compiled a list here of some of these – the ones, I’m most interested in reading.

Donna Tartt. I don’t know the title of this book yet but I’m so excited. Donna Tartt has so far written two books, I’ve read and loved one of these. I plan on reading her first novel next year and hopefully also the new one. The Little Friend, her second novel, was really a great book so I have high hopes for both these reads.
Joyce Carol Oates: Mudwoman. I love Joyce Carol Oates. She’s an amazing writer and I hope to make it through all her novels one day – a pretty hard task since she has written so many and keeps writing at least one a year. This one has been compared to Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier so how can it be anything but great?
Stephen King: The Wind Through the Keyhole. King is one of my favorite authors – he’s a master story teller. This book is an installment in his Dark Tower series, a series that I unfortunately haven’t started yet but I’m looking forward to it. I hope to start reading Dark Tower next year – just as soon as I’ve finished 11.22.63 …
Hilary Mantel: Bring up the Bodies. I’ve read Mantel’s Booker Prize winning novel Wolf Hall and liked it. I felt like my knowledge of English history was seriously lacking and that got a bit in the way of my enjoyment. Mantel is an excellent author, the writing is superb – but just as with The Satanic Verses and War and Peace, it helps if you know something about the subject before reading the novel.
China Mieville: Railsea. Mieville is one of those authors who has the potential to be one of my favorite authors. I’ve only read UnLundun which I really liked, but it’s a ya novel so it’s not necessarily a good one to compare the rest of his work to. So next year, I plan on reading at least one other Mieville novel (The City and The City) and maybe this one as well. Or Kraken. I’ve been meaning to read that one for a while.
Terry Pratchett: The Long Earth. This is a sci-fi series from Pratchett that he had written a lot of before Discworld took off – and because of that, The Long Earth was abandoned. So this is something completely different. I’m definitely looking forward to this!
Michael Chabon: Telegraph Avenue. Chabon is another author who has the potential to become a favorite (btw – a third author who has this potential is Jonathan Franzen!). Anyway, I’ve read a couple of novels by Chabon (Wonder Boys and The Final Solution) and I’ve liked them but they haven’t lived completely up to my expectations. Still, I definitely want to read more by Chabon so this one made the list as well.
Anne Rice: The Wolf Gift. It’s Anne Rice. It’s werewolves. What’s not to like??? Actually, I’m not that big a fan of werewolves and I haven’t read that much by Rice but still – it has potential!
Freda Warrington: Grail of the Summer Stars. This is the third novel in the Aetherial Tales series. I’ve read the first and loved it. It was new and refreshing so of course this one made it on the list.
Carlos Ruis Zafon: The Prisoner of Heaven. I’ve read The Shadow of the Wind and it was amazing. This is the third in that series so really looking forward to moving on to the second and third installment in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series.
Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Air War. This is the 8th installment in the Shadows of the Apt series. I’ve made it through the fourth first novels and they are really interesting and fascinating so until I finish this entire series, I’m looking forward to each new novel.

Hm – I think this list really shows that I need to get a lot of reading done in 2012. There’s a lot of books and series that I want to read and books I look forward to but where I need to read some other books before I can read them… I need to organize my reading better in 2012! More on that later!