Speakeasy

We know that we don’t go in for pumpkins and trick-or-treating so much in Australia, but a good scary book can be a great way to get into the Halloween spirit. We’ve asked around, and pulled together a fairly unorthodox, and by no means comprehensive, list of recommendations:

Firstly, don’t pass up the classics, just because they’re older than you are. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the first science-fiction novel, after all (c’mon, a construction that comes to life and attacks it’s creator? Cylons, anyone?).  We also recommend The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by RL Stevenson, and, of course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

And if you want something a bit more…melodramatic, shall we say? Earlier Gothic novels like The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, or Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, while not necessarily scary, have everything you need in the way of remote castles, foul spectres, perishing heroines and villainous uncles. For all this plus evil nuns, incest, sex outside marriage, and Faustian deals with the devil, try The Monk, by Matthew Lewis. Throw in a bit of Poe, maybe some Turn of the Screw, and you’ve got a great creepy holiday.

There’s plenty of scary books written more recently than 1901, however. For scary that’s still a bit retro, HP Lovecraft is hard to pass up. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend is a 1950s update of the vampire legend (film version coming up next year, starring Will Smith), and Something Wicked This Way Comes is a classic from the redoubtable Ray Bradury. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, isn’t strictly horror, but we found it plenty scary.

But if your scare-register only appreciates creepiness from the here-and-now, Stephen King is probably hard to pass up. IT seems to be the perennial favourite, but King’s covered practically all the monsters you can think of. The vampires of Salem’s Lot, killer dogs in Cujo, killer cars in Christine, undead things in Pet Semetary, creepy kidnappers in Misery or Desperation, etc, etc. The list goes on, and there’s lots of film adaptions to check out, as well.

In non-King horror, there’s plenty of excellent books to choose from. Alan Moore’s From Hell is a brilliant graphic novel, full of blood, gore, sex, and Jack the Ripper (the film version was complete rubbish, so don’t judge it by that). If you’re into comics, the Hellblazer series, with its protagonist John Constantine, has plenty of Halloween-style demons, vampires and other dark stuff. Back in regular fiction, Angela Carter’s collection of stories, The Bloody Chamber, re-imagines classic fairy tales like Bluebeard’s Chamber, Puss In Boots and Sleeping Beauty, with emphasis on the grim bits. Poppy Z Brite is famous for her dark, gothic novels, of which Exquisite Corpse seems to be the most twisted.

Other writers to take a look at are Chuck Palahnuik, China Mieville (especially his collection of stories, Looking for Jake), and Kelly Link. Joyce Carol Oates is also still writing plenty of creepy stuff, although the novel that was recommended to us, Childwold, is from 1976. There have also been some great horror novels published within just the last year or two. Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian reinvents the Dracula myth, and Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist, also puts a modern, emotionally-wrenching twist on the vampire. Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill (who’s actually Stephen King’s son), is about a guy who buys a ghost on the internet.

And there are a couple of Australian horror efforts to choose from. Only a few, unfortunately, and the classic Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook is hard to find, both in print and on DVD. Tim Winton’s In The Winter Dark comes highly recommended, and the very-recent Pilo Family Circus, by Will Elliot, is a great Halloween read (some of the creepiest killer clowns we’ve ever encountered).

We have, of course, chosen not to enter the realms of the horror film. Waaaaay too many to choose from, so you’re on your own with the visuals.

Announced last week is the news that British award-winning author Ian McEwan has been secured by the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts to headline their 2008 Writers’ Week.

McEwan leads an army  of international authors including Patrick McGrath, Peter Godwin and Paul Auster who will take part in the highly respected literary festival, now in its 48th year, between 2nd and 7th March 2008.  Australian writers will also be represented in abundance with ex-pat authors Germaine Greer and Peter Carey returning home for the occasion to join the likes of Nick Earls, Gideon Haigh and David Malouf.

For the full line up and to book tickets, go to Adelaide Festival.

Online social networking site MySpace is collaborating with book publisher Harper Collins to create a book on environmental issues, entitled MySpace/OurPlanet.

You can get involved by submitting your tips and ideas about how to save the planet and what you actually do to make a difference onto their website until November 7th. The best 40 will be chosen for inclusion into the text, to be written by freelance journalist Jeca Taudte.

The 160-page book will be launched on Earth Day on April 22 next year under the Harper Collins imprint with an initial print run of 200,000.

To find out more or to get involved head to MySpace/OurPlanet.

A rare first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has fetched a record £19,700 (AUS$44,500) at auction at Christie’s in London, beating it’s top price estimate by almost £8k.

The book is one of only 500 printed in the inital run of the book and has reportedly only been read once. Originally bought by a father who read a review and thought that it sounded like the sort of book his son would like, it has sat pristinely on the family bookshelf for the past 10 years. Most copies of the first edition, published by Bloomsbury in 1997, were distributed to libraries and are now tattered and torn and to find one in virtually ‘as-new’ condition is almost unheard of.

Read this and more Pottery-print facts at The Guardian UK.

The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) yesterday released a press release to ‘remind Australian authors that there is no need to register your work to have it automatically copyright protected’. 

There have been a numer of copyright registration scams doing the rounds recently and you should be aware that copyright protection is free and automatic, you do not need to send your work anywhere and there are no fees involved.

For full information or if you have any queries refer to the Australian Copyright Council.

WA has become the first state to put works by Australian authors onto a school curriculum list of mandatory titles, reports The Age. The specialist literature course will be available to Year 11 and 12 students from 2009 and forms part of the State’s overhaul of the Year 12 West Australian Certificate of Education.

Most states already have homegrown authors like Tom Keneally and Miles Franklin on their list of recommended texts but never have they been compulsory reading before now. NSW is not far behind as Education Minister John Della Bosca yesterday outlined plans to strengthen the study of Australian literature in schools. The Australia Council has welcomed the decisions from both states.

Read the story in full at The Age.

Remember all the dire predictions that the Internet would be the end of books? That instead of buying a paperback, we’d just download it straight into our frontal lobe, collectively bringing an end to the book industry?  Apparently, now that they’ve calmed down and done some research, publishers are saying the Internet and online book retailing hasn’t destroyed them.

In a recent press briefing, Penguin Chief Executive and Chairman John Makinson said that EBay reselling and e-books hadn’t made the impact they’d expected, and that the Internet had become a useful tool for marketing and market research. He says that unlike the music industry, people want the actual, physical book. And where music consumers want tracks instead of the whole album, no book consumer just wants a few chapters instead of the whole book.

We blogged recently that Penguin has just set up Spinebreakers, a book news website for and created by teenagers. Other sources indicate UK publisher Bloomsbury has just cut a deal with Microsoft. It seems publishers are getting used to the big scary internet, after all.

Source.

In the papers over the weekend comes the news that Matthew Reilly has turned his considerable talents to sitcom script-writing - with the publishing industry itself as his muse. Darren Star, the man who gave us Melrose Place and Beverley Hills 90210, is in the producer’s chair and the pilot is currently being filmed in LA. Jenna Elfman (of Dharma and Greg fame) has the lead role as a book publicist in a series dubbed a ‘Sex and the City view of the literary industry’. If the pilot goes well there could be up to 22 episodes to follow. Read the reports from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

The other seemingly big news (in case you missed it!) is that JK Rowling has outed master wizard Albus Dumbledore as gay! On a US book tour, Rowling was asked if Dumbledore ever found ‘true love’ - at which point she pushed him firmly out of the closet. The news was, apparently, met with gasps and applause and ends months (if not years) of speculation surrounding the sexuality of Hogwart’s much-loved headmaster!

If you find yourself too busy to sit down and read a book, check out this great site - Daily Lit offers members free installments of classic literature via email, allowing you to choose when and how often you receive your very own serialisation.

They already have over 400 titles in their library and most are completely free! Installments can be read in just 5 minutes, but if you want more you can instantly request that the next e-installment be sent to your inbox .

Follow this link if you would like to register.

At blog site That Which Deranges the Senses, Velour Mane has advice for short story writers struggling with their introductory letter, with some useful do’s and don’t’s and a couple of contoversial suggestions thrown in for good measure.

‘For something’ says Velour (or Californian sci fi writer Rachel Swirsky), ’ that I don’t think is very complicated, cover letters seem to cause some people an enormous amount of grief.’  But, as she concludes, ’There is a correlation between professional cover letters and quality of work, and it would be silly for any writer not to be as professional as possible in all areas of their working life.’

Read this and all the points inbetween by clicking here.