Zombies Work in Latest Jane Austen Spinoff

An editor was likely the one to polish her prose, says professor

(NEWSER) - Jane Austen is known as a “perfect stylist,” but those perfectly crafted sentences may not actually be hers. After studying 1,100 pages of Austen’s handwritten, unpublished manuscripts, an Oxford professor concluded that “the polished punctuation and epigrammatic style … is simply not there,” she tells the BBC . In its place is a more free-flowing, somewhat untidy style, featuring limited punctuation. More»

Howard Jacobson's comic novel is 'profound,' 'wise'

(NEWSER) - The writer who once called the Man Booker Prize an "absolute abomination" was last night awarded the prize for his 11th novel, The Finkler Question. Howard Jacobson, who calls himself "the Jewish Jane Austen," was “truly flabbergasted” by the honor, reports the Telegraph . “I was beginning to look like I was the novelist that never, ever won the Booker Prize,” he says. "I’ve been around for nearly 30 years, but at least they’re discovering me." More»

Lincoln-vampire mashup offers lively metaphor for slavery

(NEWSER) - Writer Seth Grahame-Smith landed a six-figure deal for a book called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Does it suck? Surprisingly, no, says Time 's Lev Grossman. This mashup of history and horror may lack "richness and subtlety," but does not want for color. Grahame-Smith's writing is "lively" and "fluent" with "a sharp sense of tone and pace." And the vampire theme is not completely arbitrary: it serves as a metaphor for slavery. More»

Biography, story collection provide 'necessary corrective'

(NEWSER) - Two new books on Raymond Carver—a biography and a collection of stories—bring a "welcome and necessary corrective" to what we know of the short story master, writes Stephen King. Carol Sklenicka's A Writer's Life cuts Carver too much slack for his personal life—he was a "sometimes dangerous" drunk who treated his first wife shabbily, after all—but it's "invaluable" as "a chronicle of Carver’s growth as a writer," King writes in the New York Times Book Review . More»

Author shifts gears, has fun with a stoner detective in the '60s

(NEWSER) - Thomas Pynchon's back with what appears to be his most accessible novel yet, in the unlikely category of detective fiction. Critics reviewing Inherent Vice say he pulled it off:

• Laura Miller, Salon: It's "a sun-struck, pot-addled shaggy dog story that fuses the sulky skepticism of Raymond Chandler with the good-natured scrappiness of The Big Lebowski." The minimal structure and the genre itself provide "ample cover for Pynchon's literary weaknesses."
• Andy Martin, Independent: "Sun-kissed, psychedelic, and sexually enhanced, Pynchon has re-embodied, re-grooved the soul of the '60s."