Booklicious: Friday Bookmarks

October 08, 2010

| 2 comments]

*Alright, prepare yourselves for a slew of Nobel-related newsiness. First up, the obvious: Mario Vargas Llosa won this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. (He's said to be currently working on a pornographic novel, which I think is a first for a Nobel winner.)  "It was a big, big surprise," he said. "For a moment, I thought this could be a joke." 

*You know what's not a joke, though? The 30-year feud between Llosa and his son's former godfather, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Yes, that Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The feud began when Vargas Llosa socked Garcia Marquez in the eye in a Mexican cinema back in 1976 - the two have never explained what was behind the punch, nor have they ever patched things up. And with Vargas Llosa 70 years old and Garcia Marquez turning 80 this month, time is running out. 

*HuffPo has a photo gallery of 10 insane Nobel snubs that you must read about - isn't it wild to think legends like Tolstoy, Twain and Proust never received the prize? It's absolutely reprehensible.  

*Speaking of literary giants, Jonathan Franzen is fast on his way to becoming one of this century's. The Corrections, Freedom, blah blah blah, we've all heard the hype. The only Franzen story I'm interested in right now, though, is the one in which his glasses were stolen and held to ransom. Here's the story from the thief's mouth

*Last week I mentioned that in 11 seasons of Dancing with the Stars, not a single author has shaken their groove thang on the show. Clearly, the producers need to remedy this glaring omission. GalleyCat wants to help, so they're asking you to vote for one of the 10 authors on their list. They'll create a Facebook page for the winning author in an attempt to get him or her on the show, à la Betty White. 

*Oxford's Bodleian Library is a book lover's dream. It has historic entitlement to a copy of every book published in the UK. Obviously, that amounts to a heck of a lot of volumes - and shelving. And I thought I had book-storage problems. The library's newest storage solution is a £26 million facility with a mind-blowing 153 miles of storage space. But even that will be completely filled in just 20 years.

2 comments

Steph said... @ October 9, 2010 at 6:17 PM

Apparently Marquez called up Llosa when he heard the Nobel news and said to him, "Now we're even."

:)

Evangeline said... @ October 9, 2010 at 9:22 PM

Seriously?! That's absolutely brilliant.

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