‘We dance round in a ring and suppose
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.’
The Greeks personified it as thanatos, while Freud theorised about the death instinct that appears to sit at the bottomless pit within our hearts.
After 10 hectic days the Sydney Writers Festival wound down. Our reporter at the festival, Hugo Kelly, celebrates his arrival home in Melbourne by handing out his own awards: As you sow, so shall you reap: As 20-something blogger, Antony Lowenstein, observed out loud: Why are they all so old?
There are two Time Warner Book Group warehouses on the outskirts of Indianapolis. Although separated by only an eighth of a mile, between them stretches a gulf of disappointment. One building, dubbed the "happy warehouse"... Returns are the dark side of the book world, marking not only failed expectations, but the crippling inefficiencies of an antiquated business. It's a problem that's only getting worse Quest for best seller means lots of returned books
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: In love with words
Fever and Spear is a meditative novel, with Deza (and also Wheeler) extemporising at considerable length on matters such as trust and silence and the dangers of any communication. Deza begins his account with the observation (or warning ?) ... These are the polar extremes of prose
One should never tell anyone anything or give information or pass on stories or make people remember beings who have never existed or trodden the earth or traversed the world, or who, having done so, are now almost safe in uncertain, one-eyed oblivion... Many learned to say things without really saying them, and became accustomed to that. How can I not know today your face tomorrow, the face that is there already or is being forged beneath the face you show me or beneath the mask you are wearing, and which you will only show me when I am least expecting it ...
Keeping silent, erasing, suppressing, cancelling and having, in the past, remained silent too: that is the world's great, unachievable ambition
• Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear [Death is his only future and perhaps it should come invited and soon Trauma, trolls and tragedies; We are encouraged to think about 'me', not them Memorial museums: cabinets of misery ; Tomorrow’s Youth is an Australian organisation committed to the development and achievement of young people: It has been said you can live your life one of two ways. The first is through trial & error, and the second is through other people's experiences. ]
• · Mr. and Mrs. Bezos: Jeff Bezos's wife MacKenzie's debut novel THE TESTING OF LUTHER ALBRIGHT will be published by Fourth Estate in August. Amazon's own reviewer already hails it as "a debut novel that heralds the beginning of what bodes to be a substantial writing career," though the author ID simply says: "She lives in Seattle." Amazon isn't offering used copies yet, but Alibris and AbeBooks have galleys available for about eight dollars, and Half.com has a couple for under five dollars. [via Publishers Lunch by email]
The casualties of creative coupledom are well known They're young, smart and talented - and that's just the spouses ; Sydney Browns and Blues The truth about seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness ; The Oprah Winfrey Show Tom Cruise is gaga over Katie Holmes
• · · The latest novel from Italian professor and public thinker Umberto Eco deals with memory and nostalgia, but its author is as cutting and contemporary as ever. It's a sign that people today have a need for a King ... A Resounding Eco ; The age thing is a great idea ... USA Weekend asks "six hot writers" what books they'd like to see on the big screen in Books to box office ; The most depressing part: Dick, notoriously his own worst enemy, did not, as I suggested, change his agent I am Alive and You are Dead ; Glitterati outshine literati at BookExpo There are authors who become celebrities and there are celebrities who become authors
• · · · Everywhere in the world literature is in retreat from politics and unless resisted the one will crush the other - You don't crush literature from outside by killing writers or intimidating them or not letting them publish, though as we've all seen you can make a big fuss and have a lot of fun trying. You do better to induce them to destroy it themselves by inducing them to subordinate it to political purposes, as you propose to do. When Drama Becomes Propaganda Why so much political art is so awful ; Are all words are weighted equally? The Word Crunchers
• · · · · The debate over sex-ed Facts of Life, for Their Eyes Only ; Why is a university like a sudden flash of understanding?
• · · · · · Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature: Blogger Marieke Hardy aka Ms Fits : Last Amen and Awomen Standing ; Standing her ground