Literary & Media Indulgences - 2/8/2011

--Beryl Bainbridge (pictured above) made the Man Booker shortlist five times -- but never won the big prize. Now, the Booker is establishing a posthumous award in her name. "The Man Booker Best of Beryl" award asks the public to pick which of her five shortlisted novels deserves the honor via an online poll. The winner will be announced in April. While this feels like a rather strained effort here, it's nice to see Bainbridge--author of seventeen novels, two travel books, and plays for screen and stage--be championed. Hilary Mantel has a short essay on the Booker site on why Bainbridge deserves all the attention she gets: "These books are in energetic motion, a state of self-creation; the reader is chasing a whirlwind."

--"You Have No Idea How Big Africa Really Is, But This Map Does."

--In a rare bit of journalism-in-translation, Nawal al Saadawi has an article up at the Women's Media Center about Egypt, liberation, and generations.

--"New Yorker Fiction By the Numbers." I'm a little late to the game on this piece in The Millions, but it's plain old fascinating and worth attention. It breaks down fiction that appears in the most influential of influentail culture mags in terms of byline frequency, nationality, and gender.

--Following up on the VIDA report (and beautiful graphs) on book reviews, culture-makers, and the gender gap, there is Bookslut's "Twenty-three Short Thoughts on Women and Criticism," Slate's "Women at Work," The New Republic's "A Literary Glass Ceiling?," and The Literary Saloon's "Sexism Update."

--Nancy Goldstein writes on "Counting the Transgender Community" in light of a major, unprecedented new national report on civil right access and discrimination for transgender people.

--Dzanc Day is coming up, and I sure as hell wish I could be there for it. Don't any of you who are able to go miss out on it; you've no excuse.

--Speaking of Dzanc, the deadline for submissions to the wonderful Dzanc Prize is extended until March. There is no application fee. The $5,000 Dzanc Prize goes annually to writers of literary fiction who are engaged with U.S.-based community service program related to writing and literacy.

--A charming interview with Ursula LeGuin via the BBC touches on science fiction, anthropology, and Taoism.

--"Stirring up 'The Feminine Mystique' 47 Years Later." Courtesy of Terry Gross and the "Fresh Air" crew.

--"Science Faltering?" From the Columbia Journalism Review.

--Does autobiography make good poetry? That's what Stephen Burt asks over at The Boston Review. Discussed: poetry collections by Erika Meitner and John Beer.

Comments

[Andy]

Hey Anna, just a note that the "science faltering" article looks at the crude and, to my mind, useless metric of the total number of articles published per dollar of funding. It's much harder but much more useful to consider actual advancement of scientific knowledge. I'd love to see that study!

[Anna Clark]

Point well taken. Thanks Andy!