Congratulations to Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation edited by Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson II for winning the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Scholarly/Academic Work over the weekend at San Diego Comic-Con! The Eisner awards, according the website are “considered the ‘Oscars’ of the comic book industry.” More information and the full listing of winners are here.
Check out more information on Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation.
Continuing a mulit-year streak, two Literary Studies books have been named Choice Outstanding Academic Titles for 2013. Congratulations to On Modern Poetry by Robert Rowland Smith and Writing the Self by Peter Heehs.
More about Choice Outstanding Academic Titles:
Every year, Choice subject editors single out for recognition the most significant print and electronic works reviewed in Choice during the previous calendar year. Appearing annually in Choice’s January issue, this prestigious list of publications reflects the best in scholarly titles and attracts extraordinary attention from the academic library community. The 2013 feature includes 663 titles in 54 disciplines and subsections. In awarding Outstanding Academic Title status, the editors apply several criteria to reviewed titles:
- Overall excellence in presentation and scholarship
- Importance relative to other literature in the field
- Distinction as a first treatment of a given subject in book or electronic form
- Originality or uniqueness of treatment
- Value to undergraduate students
- Importance in building undergraduate library collections
Writing the Self: Diaries, Memoirs, and the History of the Self traces the history of the idea of the self, in diaries, memoirs and other first-person writings, from the Iron Age to the age of the Internet.
Start reading it here:
More information
On Modern Poetry: From Theory to Total Criticism explores the divide between practical criticism and theory in 20th century criticism to propose a new way of reading poetry.
Start reading it here:
2012 was another great year for Literary Studies publishing. Two of our titles The Comic Mode in English Literature and The Nine Lives of William Shakespeare (which is now under The Arden Shakespeare brand) were named Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice. Here is more about the award:
Every year, Choice subject editors single out for recognition the most significant print and electronic works reviewed in Choice during the previous calendar year…this prestigious list of publications reflects the best in scholarly titles and attracts extraordinary attention from the academic library community.
Congratulations to both authors, Murray Roston and Graham Holderness, and as the fantastic 2013 reviews come in, we are sure that we will be seeing more Bloomsbury Literary Studies winners next year!
It’s Movember and we love a good literary moustache. So much so, we’ve put together a collection of our all-time favourites! From the Walrus to the Mexican, and the Handlebar to the Horseshoe, it seems there is no end to the amount of creative facial topiary in the literary world… Something tells me Shakespeare set a trend.
Mark Twain
‘There has been nothing as good since’ said Ernest Hemingway about Mark Twain’s legendary book Huckleberry Finn. But, he could just as well have been talking about Twain’s famous moustache.
Mark Twain wasn’t without opinion when it came to facial hair, directing the following vitriol towards the beard: ‘it performs no useful function; it is a nuisance and a discomfort; all nations hate it; all nations persecute it with the razor’. Must have been why he plumped for this rather impressive looking moustache. And with matching eyebrows too.
Read our Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair guide to Mark Twain. It reveals all sorts of fantastic facts about this intriguing writer... did you know that he started smoking at 7 and often smoked 40 cigars a day? Nope, me neither. Pretty impressive shocking.
Rudyard Kipling
‘Being kissed by a man who didn’t wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt’. We couldn't agree more Rudyard Kipling.
This 'tash is so impressive that we've opted for a side portrait shot so you can really see the full depth of this impressive literary bush. Look out for our new book on Rudyard Kipling and Japan - no other leading English literary figure of his day spent so long in that country or wrote so fully about it.
George Orwell
George Orwell said, in his famous 6 Rules for Writing, ‘Never use a long word where a short one will do’. It would seem he had the same approach to moustaches. I’m calling this one... modest yet confident.
George Orwell also wrote an essay in the Evening Standard in 1946 about his rules for drinking tea. Whilst not related in any way to moustaches, I still think it deserves a special mention. Orwell employed the essay as a tool to entertain, illuminate and provoke readers as well as help him fashion his distinctive 'literary' voice. George Orwell the Essayist by Peter Marks gives these compelling pieces the critical attention they merit.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
What can we say about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s moustache? It’s a wonder he had any time to write considering the hours he must have put in taming and trimming this sublime example of facial topiary. I know what you must be thinking, ‘I WISH I could get my hands on some of his moustache trimmings’. Well, I’m afraid the opportunity has been and passed, with one moustache & ACD fan purchasing his moustache trimmings. They came neatly packaged up in the original envelope they were kept in for so many years with the following inscription: ‘My beloved moustache hairs’. I'm sure the new owner feels the same.
Is it a moustache or a beard? Are there side-burns in there? We can't quite figure it out. And that's what makes Walt Whitman's contributions to facial topiary so impressive.
In Whitman’s Queer Children, Catherine Davies looks at 'the anxious relationship between the homosexual and his American home' in the work of four gay twentieth-century poets - Hart Crane, Allen Ginsberg, James Merrill and John Ashbery. Dwelling on the nurturing adaptable heritage of Walt Whitman, she considers Whitman’s renegotiation of the dialectic between the public and the private as a context for the project of the homosexual epic.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche sports the unique looking walrus-handlebar moustache. Otherwise known as the moustache that launched a thousand philosophical arguments (and its own facebook page).
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche posits the Übermensch as a goal that humanity can set for itself. Did he set this goal for his own facial hair? There is one thing we can be sure of – he set the philosophical world alight with this revolutionary 'tash.
Still a bit confused? Nietzsche: A Guide for the Perplexed will tell you everything you need to know.
Edgar
Allen Poe
It's fair to say that EAP employed his moustache in a rather gothic manner. An article in Scribner’s Magazine in 1878 reveals that 'He wore a dark mustache, scrupulously kept, but not entirely concealing a slightly contracted expression of the mouth and an occasional twitching of the upper lip, resembling a sneer. This sneer, indeed, was easily excited — a motion of the lip, scarcely perceptible, and yet intensely expressive. There was in it nothing of ill-nature, but much of sarcasm … '
So impressive was his moustache that is spawned this imaginative looking t-shirt. If anyone could let me know where to buy it, I’d
really appreciate it.
An inescapable black pit, an innocent buried alive, and the deranged hallucinations of a murderer all haunt Tales of Mystery and Imagination - a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated chilling stories.
Ernest Hemingway
All hail Ernest Hemingway's contribution to the moustache world! We know that he loved hunting in Africa, bullfighting in Spain, deep-sea fishing in Florida and this is the perfect moustache to match. Hemingway married four times, often falling for one woman while still married to another. With this dashing moustache I think we can see why he was so irresistible to women.
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez once characterised common European perceptions of Latin America as ‘a man with a moustache and a guitar and a revolver’. He might have kept the moustache, but he certainly broke other pre-existing stereotypes by putting Latin American writing on the literary map.
If a moustache could ever be described as ‘friendly’ then this is certainly it. You can find out more about this compelling man by reading our biography by Gerald Martin and literary guide to Love in the Time of Cholera by Tom Fahy.
Stefan Zweig
Born in Vienna in 1881, Stefan Zweig was one of the most respected authors of his time. And not just for his epic looking moustache. The Economist hailed him as a 'Secret Superstar' and the New Yorker called him an 'Escape Artist' earlier this year.
Foreseeing Nazi Germany's domination of Europe, Zweig and his wife left Austria in 1933. Despairing at Europe's future and feeling increasingly isolated, they committed suicide together in 1942. As Zweig's correspondence all but ceased with the outbreak of World War II, little is known about his final years. Stefan and Lotte Zweig's South American Letters, edited by Darién J. Davis and Oliver Marshall, reproduces personal letters written by the couple during this time and creates a fascinating picture of the last years of this famed author, cast adrift by the rise of Nazism and enforced exile.
Joseph Conrad
Some critics have commented that Joseph Conrad was known for his pessimistic writing style and stark presentation of the human condition. I don’t think he helped matters with this harsh looking moustache. There is one thing that the critics certainly agree upon - Heart of Darkness is a landmark text of 20th century literature that continues to resonate to this day. We certainly love it. One of our latest books, Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Contemporary Thought by Nidesh Lawtoo brings this book into philosophical dialogue and includes the first publication in English of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's essay, 'The Horror of the West', described by J. Hillis Miller as 'a major essay on Conrad's novel, one of the best ever written'.
That's it for our literary moustache round up! Of course we couldn't include everyone - Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Gustave Flaubert... the list could go on and on. It would also be impossible to choose a favourite. But we want to hear from you - who would get your vote for the most impressive literary moustache? Who can't you believe that we have left out? Is there any obscure Russian writer with a more impressive offering than Nietzsche (probably)? Let us know so we can add it to our literary moustache hall of fame.
In the meantime, good luck to anyone still plugging away at their Movember efforts. The crowd above would be very proud.
Jenny Tighe
Congratulations to Louise Erdrich for winning the National Book Award for Fiction with her novel The Round House. The National Book Awards ceremony was held last night a few blocks away from our New York office. The complete list of winners and finalists can be found here.
Last year, Bloomsbury published a collection of stellar critical essays by noted scholars on Louise Erdrich as a part of our Bloomsbury Studies in Contemporary North American Fiction series.
Louise Erdrich: Tracks, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, The Plague of Doves luminates Erdrich’s multiperspectival representation of Native American culture and history. Focusing on such topics as humor, religion, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality, trauma, history, and narrative form, the essays collected here offer fresh readings of Erdrich’s explorations of Native American identities through her innovative fictions.
Next up in the series is Toni Morrisson: Paradise, Love, A Mercy coming quite soon in the UK and January in the US!
Congratulations to Madeline Miller and all our Bloomsbury colleagues for their success at the Orange Prize 2012 last night! Madeline won the coveted prize for her fantastic debut novel The Song of Achilles - a gripping and touching love story between exiled princeling Patroclus and Achilles, strong, beautiful and the son of a goddess.
The novelist Joanna Trollope, chair of this year's judging panel, said of the novel that "It was in some ways a surprise to us.. But it fulfils [the award's] criteria of inventiveness and originality. For my generation this might be a familiar story but I don't think it is so familiar for a lot of younger readers. Miller handles it with extraordinary lightness – and it is fresh." You can watch Joanna announcing the winner here.
Miller is the 4th consecutive US novelist to win the prize, beating bookies' favourite Foreign Bodies by 84-year-old Cynthia Ozick, State of Wonder by former Orange winner Ann Patchett, The Forgotten Waltz by Man Booker winner Anne Enright, Esi Edugyan's Booker-shortlisted Half Blood Blues and British novelist Georgina Harding's highly praised novel of postwar Romania, Painter of Silence. Congratulations to all the authors shortlisted - 2 of whom are also Bloomsbury authors.
Having read The Song of Achilles, and attended the Orange Prize readings on Tuesday night, I can definitely say that Madeline is a deserved winner! You can read an extract from her brilliant book here.
And here is a picture of the delighted Madeline Miller - appropriately dressed in an orange dress (on loan from Ann Patchett believe it or not!) - with Editor-in-Chief at Bloomsbury Alexandra Pringle!
Jenny Tighe
I am delighted to report that Bloomsbury has been shortlisted for Academic, Education and Professional Publisher of the Year by the Bookseller Industry Awards. Exciting times!
The judges for this award will be looking for companies specialising in academic, educational or professional publishing, which demonstrate consistent high-quality publishing within its chosen field, outstanding commercial success, and excellence throughout all areas of the business including digital innovation, sales, marketing, publicity, editorial and all operational areas.
The awards are being held tonight so best of luck to everyone who has been nominated!
You can read the full list of nominees and find more information here.
"Something has happened - Julian Barnes has won the Booker Prize at the fourth attempt.
That 'Something happened' is all one can say of any historical event according to Adrian Finn, the lost link in the chain of responsibility running through Barnes's winning novella, The Sense of an Ending.
This is a twisting, tricksy, remorseful but reader-friendly narrative in which it transpires that there is 'great unrest' where the first-person narrator Tony Webster thought there had only been an uneventful life.
'We need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us', Finn also notes, observing that the fine line between objective and subjective history is the key to historiographical questioning. It is also the key to Barnes's saddest story.
Echoing his previous novels' interest in history and life-writing, Barnes's latest fiction argues that the past is written in the present at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.
Tony Webster's story itself thus unfolds and then unravels when recollection and the written record collide in a regretter's tragedy. This is surely a worthy Booker winner that underlines how, following the equally impressive Arthur & George, Barnes has produced in the twenty-first century work of equal stature to his feted 1980s novels Flaubert's Parrot and A History of the World in 10½ Chapters."
Peter Childs is Professor of English Literature at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. He is co-editor, with Sebastian Groes of Julian Barnes: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (see here for a free preview).
What do you think of Julian Barnes's Booker win and this year's controversial shortlist? Leave a comment and let us know!
Happy UK National Poetry Day! We're all poetry fans here at Continuum and if you are too, you’ll be keen to check out the official website which lists poetry-themed events going on up and down the country, including a National Poetry Live event happening right across the road from our London office at Waterloo’s South Bank Centre.
National Poetry Day has also seen the announcement of the winner of the 2011 Forward Prize, one of the most high profile poetry prizes in the country. The winner this year was Scottish writer John Burnside, who took the £10,000 prize for his collection Black Cat Bone in the face of stiff competition from the likes of Geoffrey Hill and Sean O'Brien.
For anyone interested in brushing up on their poetry (either for study or personal pleasure), you might be interested in taking a look at one of our most popular books here at Continuum, The Poetry Toolkit by Rhian Williams of the University of Glasgow. It’s a really accessible (and easy to reference) guide to how to get the most out of reading poetry. As usual, I’ve posted a free preview so you can judge for yourself!
And here’s another sneak preview: I’ve just received the manuscript for a new book we’re publishing next year, On Modern Poetry: From Theory to 'Total Criticism'. From what I’ve read so far, it’s shaping up to be a fantastic book that offers us a new holistic approach to reading poetry that transcends traditional academic divides between theory and close reading. Robert’s book is out in May, so keep your eyes peeled on this blog for more details in the very near future.
Happy reading!
David
Senior Editor
Continuum Literary Studies
"After winning the David Cohen Prize earlier this year, Julian Barnes may finally add the Booker to his list of awards. Previously shortlisted in 1984 for Flaubert's Parrot, in 1998 for England, England and in 2005 for Arthur and George, Barnes has now made the 2011 shortlist of six for his recent novel(la) The Sense of an Ending. A meditation on remorse and 'damage' affecting a retired arts administrator suddenly prompted to look back on past relationships, Barnes's existentialist study of causation in personal history echoes previous novels' dominant themes, especially the unreliability of memory. If worried that it will not be fourth time lucky for Barnes with The Sense of an Ending, admirers of his fiction may be reassured to know that Bookmakers have made Barnes the out-and out favourite for the £50,000 prize."
Peter Childs is Professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. He is a Consultant Editor on Continuum's Contemporary Critical Perspectives series and author of the Julian Barnes volume in the series, amongst many other publications.
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