Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘book previews’

Essays |

The Age of Binary Bookmaking

Today’s technological delights are well on their way to becoming tomorrow’s demands, entrenching themselves in ways that will do more than force bookbinding as a business model to adapt, but allow writing, as an art form, to expand and thrive. These are good things. Welcome to the age of Binary Bookmaking.


Reviews |

Stealing Pleasure: Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief Series

I’ve come a bit late (only 14 years or so) to the wonder that is Megan Whalen Turner, author of the young adult fantasy series The Queen’s Thief. Of all the books I’ve read in recent memory, not many compare to this series, which is serial narrative of the best kind—the kind that gets richer and more complex as it develops. Before this month, there were three novels: The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia. A fourth, A Conspiracy of Kings, has just been released. I can’t wait to read it.


Shop Talk |

(Even) more on book trailers…

We’ve talked about book trailers on FWR before (see below)–and it seems they’re gaining an even larger (and more interesting) presence…one aspiring to an adaptation genre of its own. GalleyCat reports that the trailer for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will be shown in movie theatres around the country. That’s the book trailer, people. On the big screen. Meanwhile, the 1993 novel Going West by Maurice Gee inspired the New Zealand Book Council to create this absolutely jaw-dropping short film. Part book trailer, part adaptation, it’s a bona fide work of art in its own right. The council’s website […]


Shop Talk |

More on book trailers…

Okay, so “vook” may not enter the common parlance–but the combination of video plus books may be here to stay. Faced with little official promotion, writer Kelly Corrigan whipped up a trailer for her memoir The Middle Place, using her home computer and iMovie, and posted a video of herself reading one of her essays on YouTube. A recent profile of Corrigan in the Washington Post describes the results: A year later, the book has sold about 80,000 copies in hardcover and another 260,000 in paperback, according to Nielsen BookScan data. It sat on the New York Times bestseller list […]


Shop Talk |

The Lonely Cupcake

South African writer Bridget McNulty will make a (virtual) stop at FWR during her blog tour later this month when Strange Nervous Laughter (St. Martin’s), her debut novel, publishes. In the meantime, Bridget offers this lovely, wacky little film to get you in the mood for it. As she says: How can you resist watching a video with a name as intriguing as ‘The Lonely Cupcake‘? Especially when it’s only 1 minute long! And it’s only vaguely related to Strange Nervous Laughter. And it has cupcakes in it. With funny faces.


Shop Talk |

trailers for books

In the workshop I’m teaching we’ve been talking a lot about the difference between writing for the screen and writing for the page — the advantages of each medium and how to “translate” scenes from one to the other. Tangentially, we wondered if a lion roared or a castle illuminated or a fanfare erupted just before we opened a book, would that make us even more thrilled to begin reading? No wonder sitting in a theater feels more exciting — to most — than turning to page 1. (Caveat: I think if you have the memory of opening many rewarding […]


Shop Talk |

extended previews available on Google Book Search

From PW Daily: Yesterday, Google announced a new feature tied to its Book Search program, a widget-like tool called Google Previews. By adding simple code to their Web sites, publishers, retailers or anyone with sufficient technical knowledge can embed a Google-hosted preview of up to 20% of any book that has been included in the Google Book Search database. Fabulous! Excerpts are gateway drugs. I’ll see if we can add this “simple code” and include samplings from books reviewed on FWR.