Today's Meal
Hilary Mantel won her second Booker Prize
in three years for BRINGING UP THE BODIES. On accepting the prize, she said,
"Well, I don't know. You wait 20 years for a Booker Prize; two come along
at once." She is both the first woman and the first British person to win
the award twice (and just the third two-time winner, joining Peter Carey
and J.M. Coetzee). "I have to do something very difficult right now,"
Mantel said. "I have to go away and write the third part of the trilogy. I
assure you I have no expectations that I will be standing here again."
In his remarks ahead of naming the winner,
chair of judges Times Literary Supplement editor Peter Stothard complimented
his "courageous colleagues" on the judging panel and offered
"praise to the publishers; most of all the small publishers, who this year
brought us great things." But Mantel was the primary contender from
"big publishing," issued by Holt in the US and Fourth Estate in the
UK.
Holt says they have sold
200,000 combined print and ebooks since the book's publication in early
May. Wednesday morning they ordered a "sizable" reprint (they don't
provide press runs as a matter of policy) and they are maintaining the planned
trade paperback publication date of March 26, 2013. In the UK, Fourth Estate
tells the Bookseller they are reprinting 100,000 copies.
Our standard rule of thumb for the Booker
in recent vintages has been, "the favorite rarely wins," to which one
adds the codicil, "except when it's Hilary Mantel." At the last
minute, however, Will Self's UMBRELLA passed Mantel at some British oddsmakers
to be listed as the final favorite. In 2009, Mantel's WOLF HALL was such an
overwhelming favorite that it led in both bets and expectations from start to
finish.
JK Rowling in NYC
JK Rowling
appeared before thousands of screaming--yes, screaming--fans at Lincoln Center
last night, for an interview with Ann Patchett, a brief reading from The Casual
Vacancy, and a book-signing for the sizable crowd.
When Rowling first came on
stage, Patchett said, "I thought I understood--and I didn't understand.
It's like being at a Rolling Stones concert." She added, "I feel like
I'm going to have to hand out sedatives to the audience." More seriously,
Patchett noted, "You have done more for reading than anyone alive. You've
raised up a generation of readers around the world and made it safe for the
rest of us to write and to sell books."
Of her new novel, Rowling observed,
"so much of this book is about what is hidden and stripping things
away." She noted "we are ruthless as writers" in having to cut
material while refining a manuscript. For parents with kids who want to read
The Casual Vacancy even though it's for adults, she suggested that as a parent
herself, "I personally would be comfortable with a fourteen or
fifteen-year-old reading this book. Younger than that, I wouldn't be
comfortable with my child reading this book." In discussing what
"adult books" means today in Patchett's Nashville bookstore as 50
Shades tops the charts, Rowling quipped, "People have sex in this book but
no one really enjoys it--that's the distinction."
While the first reader of The Casual
Vacancy besides her husband texted her with an expletive and the conclusion
"it's very dark," Rowling was pleased with Patchett's conclusion that
"it goes between evil and funny, not evil and good." Overall, Rowling
noted, "it was very satisfying to conclude a story in one volume."
As you would expect, Rowling reiterated her
intention to keep writing and the probability that her next book will be for
children, without providing any details. She and Patchett discussed how
describing something before it's written is often disappointing. "I find
that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead,"
adding, "they all sound rubbish." Rowling noted "we are
thin-skinned people." In a rare product endorsement, Rowling proclaimed,
"The MacBook Air changed my life." She added, "I've written
everywhere, including some very strange places."
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