Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘controversies’

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the controversy in the rye, part II

by Celeste Ng

As the Catcher in the Rye lawsuit develops, lawyers and bookworms alike have begun to air their opinions. The Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog speaks with Marc Reiner, a copyright lawyer, about the issues raised by the lawsuit and whether it has any merits: That issue — whether a fictional character is copyrightable — is a little unsettled. It’s most readily applied to characters that are graphic, like Mickey Mouse, or if the character has been in a series, like Tarzan. I’d probably lean toward thinking that Holden Caulfield is fleshed out well enough to be copyrightable. Some folks think […]


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the controversy in the rye

by Celeste Ng

Remember Holden Caulfield? Young, angst-ridden, wandering the streets of New York? In the novel 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, by Fredrik Colting, Holden is seventy-six-year-old “Mr. C,” still angst-ridden and wandering the streets once more. Holden’s sister Phoebe and prep-school roommate Stradlater also make appearances. But does Colting have the right to use these characters–and a fictionalized version of J.D. Salinger himself–in his own work? We’ll see. Salinger is suing Colting, claiming that 60 Years Later is “a rip-off pure and simple.” Colting and his lawyers insists the novel is neither plagiarism nor a sequel to Catcher in […]


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Amazon calls FAIL "ham-fisted" – but questions linger

by Anne Stameshkin

The sales figures are coming back. But I have to say I’m still very suspicious of this whole thing…call it a “glitch,” or a flipped-switch error, or the fault of the French, or an elaborate prank by a famous hacker. Whatever may have happened and whoever may be at fault, Amazon is offering explanations, not apologies, and considering the magnitude of the situation, I think the latter is sorely needed. And said explanations have more than a few holes. Whatever unfolds in the next few days, Amazon owes customers (1) a speedy and complete fix…a “flipped-switch error” really shouldn’t take […]


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AmazonFAIL and the bookseller's new "adult" (read: homophobic) policy

by Anne Stameshkin

I finally succumbed and joined Twitter‘s ranks this weekend. Shortly after joining, I learned through a topic called #AmazonFAIL — 5 million+ comments — about Amazon’s new and highly sketchy policy regarding “adult” books. Below is Amazon’s response to author Mark Probst about why his YA book’s sales figures are no longer listed, followed by excerpts from and links to protests/responses: Amazon, to Probst: In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that […]


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QueryFail Day

by Anne Stameshkin

I’m going to cave one of these days and join Twitter (rather than merely blogging about it), if just to listen in on the next QueryFail Day. Last month, a number of agents designated March 5th the first QueryFail Day, a 24-hour period devoted to Twittering 140-character summaries of the worst queries they’d recently received. The one ground rule was that no querying author could be referred to by name or any other identifying characteristic. That aside, the gloves came off! Did the day serve more to mock would-be authors (as “Positivity Week” agent Nathan Bransford claims) or to educate […]


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Jane Smiley vs New York writing scene

by Anne Stameshkin

This may be last week’s news, but the issues it raises are still worth a jaw. From The Daily Beast (via some friends who were at this event: a reception and Q&A with the Man Booker International Prize judges, who met to discuss the finalists for this prestigious biannual award): The book world is generally so polite and civilized, that it’s sort of fun when a kerfuffle breaks open as it did last night at the New York Public Library. […] Up on stage were The Daily Beast’s Tina Brown, acting as moderator, and the three judges: novelists Amit Chaudhuri, […]


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a section of one's own?

by Anne Stameshkin

Earlier this week, a friend asked me what I thought about questions raised in this article about urban fiction. To sum up: libraries’ urban fiction (mostly African-American fiction) sections are growing, as are the numbers of enthusiastic black readers who borrow from them. Some writers and readers within the African-American community find the genre (also sometimes called street lit or black literature) “embarrassing” and feel that it perpetuates stereotypes. Others worry that segregating blacks to a specific section in the library or bookstore recalls uglier times and promotes the idea of separate cultures, separate literatures. But other writers, readers, and […]




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