With digital downloads of comics for various desktop and handheld devices getting more and more attention, several comics publishers are getting additional sales through iPhone downloads. One of the surprise success stories has been Red 5.
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Although Amazon.com has published prose works exclusively on the Kindle before, in a first the online retailer has teamed with graphic novel publisher Archaia to publish Tumor, an original graphic novel by writer Joshua Fialkov and artist Noel Tuazon, initially in a digital edition formatted specifically for the Kindle; Tumor will be released serially on the Kindle before a hardcover print edition is published.
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Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for this one ..
- Steve Hely needed to know how to write very well in order to write as miserably as he does in “How I Became a Famous Novelist.” In a satirical novel that is a gag-packed assault on fictitious best-selling fiction, Mr. Hely, who has been a writer for David Letterman and “American Dad,” takes aim at genre after genre and manages to savage them all. You are invited to trawl the mass-market fiction in your local bookstore if you think Mr. Hely is making much up.
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
by Kazuo Ishiguro
In this sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores love, music and the passage of time. This quintet ranges from Italian piazzas to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the “hush-hush floor” of an exclusive Hollywood hotel. Along the way we meet young dreamers, café musicians and faded stars, all at some moment of reckoning.
Gentle, intimate and witty, Nocturnes is underscored by a haunting theme: the struggle to restoke life’s romance, even as relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.
Kazuo Ishiguro
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Guys Lit Wire reports that 600 books have been sent to boys in the L.A. County juvenile justice system through their Book Fair for Boys.
Long-lost Graham Greene work to be serialized in the Strand
The first lines Graham Greene uttered in the literary universe are these, from his 1929 novel "The Man Within":
He came over the top of the down as the last light failed and could almost have cried with relief at sight of the wood below. He longed to fling himself down on the short stubbly grass and stare at it, the dark comforting shadow which he had hardly hoped to see... >>>
Lost and Found
by Carolyn Parkhurst
Here's a fast-paced novel featuring a reality TV show that is like The Amazing Race and Treasure Hunt combined. Contestants have personal secrets and have been chosen specifically because producers hope that they will spill their guts for ratings. The action focuses on four characters. Justin and Abby are a married couple, a lesbian and a gay man who have renounced their lifestyles and proudly carry the banner of their newfound faith while they both struggle to remain straight. Although described as young, these two seem much older than their years in their pursuit of a traditional marriage. Meanwhile, the mother-daughter team of Laura and Cassie deals with the fact that the girl gave birth without anyone even noticing that she was pregnant. When she is given the chance to choose a different teammate–and does–emotions and rivalry ratchet up exponentially. Teens may well relate to Cassie, who feels alienated from her mother and unable to communicate about the most basic parts of her personality (most notably, that she is attracted to women). Lauras reaction is that of love and guilt. Despite being rejected, she keeps trying to find a way to connect to her daughter. An over-the-top, dramatic ending leaves some loose ends, but there is satisfaction in the resolution for a couple of the characters. Older teens may find that this book presses just the right buttons.–Charlotte Bradshaw, San Mateo County Library, CA
Christina Bell, of Mitcham's Central Book Services, browses her e-reader over coffee.Photo: Pat Scala
For more than 10 years, the e-book has been hyped as the "next big thing" in world publishing — a prediction usually underpinned by dire prophecies about the imminent death of the conventional "hard" book.
Now, more than a decade since the launch of the first clunky, chunky, expensive e-readers (one of which lost its stored information when the batteries were changed), the e-book era seems finally to have dawned, at least in the US. >>>
Petite model Isobella Jade has already written a memoir, Almost 5’4”, and now she's written a fictional graphic novel based on her experiences in modeling. Model Life, illustrated by Jazmin Ruotolo, will be published by Soft Skull Press in October.
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In 1986, French photographer Didier Lefevre traveled illegally into Soviet-controlled Afghanistan with a medical team from Doctors Without Borders who were on a mission to set up a field hospital. Lefevre's assignment was to document the difficulties of providing humanitarian aid — along the way, he captured 4,000 images.
At the time, only six of Lefevre's photographs were published in newspapers. For two decades, his contact sheets languished in boxes. And they might have remained there had it not been for graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert.
Guibert collaborated with Lefevre to produce The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders, an unusual graphic novel that combines Lefevre's photos and Guibert's illustrations with a comic-book style narrative. >>>