Interviews! The Guardian features The Citadel author Kate Mosse in their Life in Writing series this week. They also talk to T. C. Boyle, whose latest novel is San Miguel. The NY Times has a Q&A with J. K. Rowling.
- Awards! The finalists for the always excellent National Book Awards (in all categories) were announced last week. The Not the Booker Prize has been handed out, and not without controversy! The official Man Booker Prize is awarded tonight, by the way; I’ll post the winner tomorrow morning first thing. According to the Guardian’s statistics, Will Self’s Umbrella has the biggest chance of winning.
- ABC sponsored the Writing Competition for the 6th annual Week of Writing at the beginning of September. Organizer SchrijvenOnline.org announced the winners at the beginning of October – congratulations to them all! Of course, November is the worldwide Month of Writing, what with the fabulous madness that is NaNoWriMo, and SchrijvenOnline will be giving away our € 25,- EBM gift certificates on a weekly basis all that month. Check their site for details!
- In other EBM news, look at this beautiful thesis printed at our stores! Thanks Steven for the link.
Podcasts! Iain M. Banks talks about one of his classic science fiction novels Use of Weapons. And how Iain Banks inspires Iain M. Banks and vice versa.
- Quiz! Time for Em to beat me again: The Bomb in books. I scored a paltry 4/10 .
- Are you part of the legion of Arne and Carlos fans? RTL Boulevard did a lightning fast interview with them. Sadly the presenters still don’t realize knitting is neither dowdy nor unpopular. Thanks Simone for the link!
- Remember that BookStore-BookBlogger Connection our Tiemen has been working with? One of the BookBloggers is mightily chuffed her Stand on Zanzibar review is featured in our stores.
- Lists! The Huffington Post corrals the Best Books of 2012 so far. They also list 11 Things You Didn’t Know About the Booker Prize. Flavorwire lists the 10 Most Twisted Couples in Literature.
We don’t really celebrate Halloween in this country, but if you are one of the few, Flavorwire has some excellent literary costume advice.
- Bret Easton Ellis has something new to fume about: the job of adapting Fifty Shades of Grey for the movies has been given to a woman. Thank you Sigrid for the link and comment (“in my humble opinion, it’s probably better in this day and age to let female erotica be handled by a woman. Having a man do that job is soooo 20th century”).
- And finally: awesome writers hanging out together (via flavorwire.com):
Have tips for the Bookbits? Mail blog@abc.nl!
Tags: ABC Espresso Book Machine, awards, Bookbits, competition, EBM, interview, knitting rulez, lists, literary halloween costumes, podcasts, quiz, schrijvenonline, simone, Steven, Tiemen, week van het schrijven, writers chilling in each other's company
No problem at all. I am still thoroughly, as you say, chuffed.
Oops! I fixed the ‘him’ to ‘her’. Sorry about that!
I hope your reviews will grace many more bookstore shelves!
Thanks so much for the pingback! I’m all excited and stuff
Just fyi, I’m kind of a she, not a he…..