How to write a book behind bars – The Guardian has posted, a rather upbeat extract from an upcoming episode of Amnesty TV, which looks at some of the extraordinary ways in which prisoners of conscience have smuggled their writings out of prisons. My favourite? Sami al-Hajj scratching poetry onto Styrofoam cups. Ingenious. Go check the clip out.

Can short stories be skimmed? – An interesting article by Mike Smith over at the Thresholds short story forum website, in which he asks whether short stories can be skimmed i.e. consumed quickly without careful reading and consideration. Fundamentally he says yes they can (when read as entertainment), and I agree with him up to a point. Thing is, there is so much depth and minute detail in some short stories that one can only truly appreciate them when one reads them slowly, or multiple times. Go back to a Carver, Wolff or Trevor short story a second or third time, and one discovers meaning and detail that one never knew existed on one’s first reading. Anyway Mr. Smith goes into a lot more detail, including observations from a number of famous writers. Well worth checking out, if only to get your brain cogs whirring.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

Of course with this shortlist announcement comes a whole bunch of controversy. Why didn’t Sebastian Barry or Alan Hollinghurst make it through? Why are two debut novelists on the shortlist? Oh dear, here we go again. I like to steer well clear. If you want to get embroiled then get yourself and your boxing gloves along to the Man Booker website, for all of the details on this year’s shortlist.

Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist unveiled – Not to be outdone by its neighbours across the Atlantic, The Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada’s most prestigious literary award), had an announcement of its own to make today too – a longlist announcement. Now this one interests me a whole lot more than The Man Booker does, not least because three of books in the sixteen title selection this year, are short story collections. It’s a fact which certainly tickled Joe Melia of the Bristol Short Story Prize earlier on Twitter too, when he bravely told the Man Booker, that they should take note (he wasn’t that brave though because he didn’t use the @ManBookerPrize Twitter handle ). Seriously though, it’s a wide-ranging longlist, and it’s interesting to note that two of the books on this longlist – Patrick DeWitt with The Sisters Brothers and Esi Edugyan With Half-Blood Blues – have made it on to the shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize. Aren’t Canadian authors doing rather well just now? Anyway, head on over to the Scotiabank Giller Prize website for all of the details on today’s longlist announcement.

Shortlist revealed for this year’s Dundee International Book Prize – I thought I’d stick with the whole book award announcement thing today, because up here in Bonny Scotland (that’s where RobAroundBooks is based if you didn’t know already) the shortlists were also announced today for this year’s Dundee International Book Prize. Coming with a a publishing deal and a £10,000 cheque, the Dundee International Book Prize focuses solely on emerging novelists i.e. those writers who are so far unpublished. Therefore the shortlist contains ten novelists who you’ll most likely of never heard of. Don’t worry though, if you head on over to the Literary Dundee website, you can download and read extracts from the novels of all ten finalists. From this shortlist of ten, the list will be whittled down to three from which an eventual winner will be selected for publication by Glasgow-based Cargo Publishing. For further details, head on over to the Dundee International Book Prize website.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

New Yorker gives a taste of 1Q84 – Talking of Haruki Murakami, The New Yorker is being very kind this week in offering us a big chunk of a sampler of Murakami’s hotly anticipated latest novel, 1Q84 which is published in the US and the UK this coming October. Read this extract and you’ll see why there is such a buzz surrounding this novel. It’s beautiful, profound and odd, all in equal measure i.e typical Haruki Murakami ::via Galleycat

Only the Lonely: Teju Cole picks 10 novels of solitude – I was quite fascinated by Teju Cole’s recent selection for The Guardian of novels which feature solitude as a primary theme. Cole, the author of Open City (Faber Books), has chosen a wide selection ranging from Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn to Tóibín’s The Master, VS Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival to Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August. Why, the cheeky scamp has even thrown in Lydia Davis’ collected short stories. What a rebel . Go check.

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‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

France 24 on a three-stop tour of Paris’s literary hotspots – It may only be twelve minutes in length, but France 24′s video tour of Paris’s literary hotspots is unmissable. First stop is the writerly-famous Café de Flore, followed by the iconic Shakespeare & Company Bookshop (yep, George Whitman is still going strong), and ending with Victor Hugo’s former home. Also, keep an eye out for the brief interview with Dinaw Mengestu in the Shakespeare & Company Bookshop, who’s at EdBookFest on the 22nd of this month with his debut novel, How To Read The Air (Jonathan Cape)

The Outlet launches ‘Literary Artifacts’ column with Kristopher Jansma – The Outlet, blog of quarterly anthology Electric Literature, has just launched a new column with writer Kristopher Jansma, speaking about his encounters with “rare books, writerly memorabilia, and other treasures in New York City and around the world” in the hope that he will discover “how the internet age is changing the face of literature as we know it”. Harbouring the first seeds of suggestion, that digital is the way he should go with books, Jansma’s series kicks off with his visit to the Morgan Library in Midtown Manhattan, New York, where he spends some quality time with The Gutenburg Bible. Does Jansma’s one-on-one with the oldest book in the world reaffirm his love for the book in its traditional form? Well, you’re just going to have to get yourself along to The Outlet website , to find out.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

A minute with Andrey Kurkov – Fans of Andrey Kurkov might want to get themselves over to the Telegraph website, where the indomitable Boyd Tonkin is in a one minute conversation with the Ukrainian novelist. During the interview, Kurkov declares Knut Hamsun to be his favourite author. What can I say, the man has exquisite taste .

How to get your kid to read? – Over at the Publishing Perspective website, Edward Nawotka asks the question that everyone seems to be scratching their heads to at the moment – how do you inspire your children to read? Personally, I don’t have an answer. I think having at least one parent in the house who’s passionate about reading, helps. But even at that – in my experience at least – it’s like drawing teeth. Maybe you have better advice for Edward (and maybe I will too when I think on it for a bit)

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

The Hybridbook project launches with the five titles in the Duel series, which feature the authors, Anton Chekhov, Joseph Conrad, Giacomo Casanova, Heinrich von Kleist, and Alexander Kuprin. Speaking of the new innovation and what could be expected from the Hybridbook format, publisher Dennis Johnson had the following to say:

It’s a treasure trove for readers and a selling point for booksellers. For example, The Illumination for the HybridBook version of Anton Chekhov’s The Duel contains an essay on dueling by Thomas Paine, poems by Lord Byron, philosophy by Nietzsche, an anti-dueling church sermon, an argument in favor of dueling by a U.S. Senator, and the rules to the game of vint—a game that plays a role in the plot. In the Illumination for Giacomo Casanova’s The Duel you’ll find a comic essay by Mark Twain on French dueling and an account of a famous duel fought from hot air balloons. And there’s so much more—maps, cartoons, recipes, photographs, paintings—to enhance the reader’s experience.

For further details, please visit the Hybridbook page on the Melville House website.

Self-published writer scores major deal with publishing giant – We all know that the journey of the self-published writer is a tough and arduous one, and that the rewards are often always minimal, but Louise Voss shows that hard work, determination and a little ingenuity can sometimes pay off. Tired of continual rejection, Voss, a former student of creative writing at Kingston University, decided to take her writing destiny into her own hands by offering her book as an electronic download on Amazon, for the measly sum of 96p. Voss’s gamble paid off and her novel, Catch Your Death, rocketed to the No.1 spot on the Amazon Kindle charts, where it remained throughout the month of June, selling 50,000 copies. Now, Voss and her writing partner, Mark Edwards, have been snapped up by publishing giant HarperFiction, in a six-figure deal to publish four novels. See, who says that dreams can’t come true?

New book prize awards German self-publishers – Talking of self publishing – as I was just in that last Book Bite there – it seems that the act of self publishing is all the rage in Germany right now. So much so that a new book prize has been launched in order to award those in Germany who choose to self publish. The Der neue Buchpreis (dnbp) or New Book Prize for Publishing Innovation, will award a total of €20,000 euros to books published in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, science and book design. Finalists will be decided upon by an online community, with the winners ultimately being decided upon by a panel of industry experts, which include author, Cora Stephan. ::via Publishing Perspectives.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

JG Ballard’s former home gets a ‘For Sale’ sign – Fans of literary legend JG Ballard may be interested to know that the semi-detached three-bedroom house in which he penned most of his novels, is up for sale. However, unlike the multi millions that some literary residences get put on the market for i.e. Truman Capote’s Brooklyn Heights residence, Ballard’s former home is on the market for a very modest £319,995. To find out more please visit The Independent or the estate agent’s page for the property.

First Google eBooks reader goes on sale in US this week – The landscape of the ebook world is set to alter a little this week when iriver launch their anticipated Story HD ebook reader in Target stores around the US (July 17th). Retailing at $139.99, the Story HD is the world’s first ereader to use Google eBooks as its primary platform. No word as yet on when and if the Story HD will be available outside the US, or indeed whether Google eBooks will be available to read offline (the onus on the Story HD appears to be on reading ‘in the cloud’). Further details on the Google Blog.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

Kafkacotton do Vonnugut – You may remember, not so long ago, that I featured the cockroach jaywalking Brain Crabtree, and his literary t-shirt company, Kafkacotton. Well it pains me to say that Brian is no longer masquerading around as a giant cockroach scaring everyone in sight. Instead he has been nobly volunteering around farms in Malaysia, learning about organic farming.

Rest easy though t-shirt fans because Brian has now swapped back from tillage to t-shirts and he’s just been in touch to let me know that their latest t-shirt (designed by Kafkacotton fan, Whitney Nunn) has been made available for purchase. It’s a design based around the theme of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House Five, and I think you’ll agree that it’s rather splendid (that’s not Brian in the shot by the way, it’s a model. Brian’s not that good looking ).

Now, you know I’m vehemently against any form of advertising anything on RobAroundBooks, but with 5% of Kafkacotton’s sales going to help fight illiteracy, I’m willing to make an exception. Regardless, I’m a big fan of the Kafkacotton’s literary tees anyway – if only because their subtlety in design makes them a bit less geekish than most other bookish—themed apparel (although thinking about Kafkacotton’s latest design, parading around with a flying bomber on one’s chest, is about as geekish as one can get ) – so it’s a personal pleasure to share news of their existence with my wonderful readers. I hope I’ve done the right thing. Just don’t forget to check out ALL of the t-shirt designs in the Kafkacotton range.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

This is a seriously magnificent gift from the Paris Review folks, and it’s one that brought tears to my eyes earlier this evening. And if you’re looking for one more reason to go and pick up an ereader, then the opening of these archives might well give you that reason. Can you imagine how empowering it’s going to be to have the writerly wisdom of all of these authors at your fingertips, at any and all times? I may well have the four published volumes of the Paris Review Interviews on my bookshelves already (which only constitute a fraction of the entire archive), but you can bet that I’ve gone and saved off all of the interviews to my Sony Reader and iPad already. Thank you Paris Review for making my decade ( and it’s only 2010 ), and for giving us all such a precious and wonderful gift .

Journalist set to follow in Steinbeck’s road-tripping footsteps – I was also delighted to discover today that a very special road trip is about to kick off in the US later this week. On Thursday (23rd September), journalist Bill Steigerwald sets off on a journey to retrace the legendary steps that John Steinbeck made 50 years ago, as he wound his road-tripping away around America.

Steinbeck’s journey was of course immortalised in Travels With Charley, and Bill is using the book as his ‘map, timeline and guide’ for his own journey. Bill tells you all about the prep and planning etc. over at his own place; a blog specially set up on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website to document his journey. So best you head on over there.

Needless to say as a MASSIVE John Steinbeck fan I’m hugely excited to see Bill set off on this journey, and I aim to follow him every step of the way. In fact now would probably be a good time for me (us) to crack the spine on my (our) own copy of Travels With Charley once again, just so I (we) can follow Bill’s pilgrimage on a more ‘spiritual’, deeper level (and yes I do consider Steinbeck to be something of a God ). If nothing else though it’s going to be incredibly interesting finding out how much has changed from Steinbeck’s day (I’m imagining plenty).

So good luck Bill, and may the spirit of Steinbeck (and that crazy dog Charley), protect you and guide you over the next few weeks. But Bill, no dog to accompany you? I’m so disappointed! If I lived closer i.e. not in Scotland, then you could have borrowed my Golden Lab, who incidentally is called, Steinbeck .

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

In other words I’m a huge fan of Sarah Bakewell, and the essay-penning hero she champions, so it was real delight to discover that Sarah is currently writing a weekly Montaigne-flavoured column for Guardian Online. At the time of writing Bakewell has produced three of her seven part series on Montaigne, and I highly recommend that you go read them.

Remembering Richmal Crompton – When I was a lad (not so long ago), there were two main ‘literary’ staples which kept my reading hunger sated. The first was Enid Blyton and her Famous Five, and the second – the one that I always seemed to gorge the most on – was none other than the Just William books from Richmal Crompton. I adored Just William and I remember always reading about his rebellious exploits with unconstrained glee. I say I remember but I’d kind of forgotten until I read this short yet fine article on Richmal Crompton, produced by Christopher Fowler as part of the Forgotten Authors series for The Independent.

I don’t know about Violet Elizabeth ‘thcreaming and thcreaming until she’s thick’ but I know that I read the Just William books with so much passion and energy that I almost made myself ill. Ahhh…..great memories brought flooding back. Thank you Christopher!

The New Yorker’s ‘Agreeable’ short story offering – Fans of short stories and of novelist Jonathan Franzen are going to be doubly delighted with the fiction offering served up by The New Yorker this week; a rather sprawling short story called Agreeable.

And while we’re on the subject of FREE short story offerings, Harper Perennial’s Fifty-Two Stories website – an old favourite here at RobAroundBooks – has a put up a double helping of James Thurber. Do you get the impression that the big boys are spoiling us? Me too.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.