« older | Main Largehearted Boy Page | newer »
September 2, 2006
Shorties
Author Laura Zigman talks to the Washington Post about the "chick lit" label.
In truth, she is quite willing to accept the label. "In the end, I don't care what they call my books," she admits eventually. "As long as people read them. As long as the books sell. Yes, I write thinly disguised autobiographical fiction. I figure what happens to me happens to a lot of people. Everyone has a story about being dumped."
The Sun interviews singer-songwriter (and Mercury prize nominee) Lou Rhodes.
And what do you make of the British folk music revival? Seems to be loads of vibrant young performers out there.
Yeah, it’s a great time for acoustic music. I do get a little worried, though, when the Press announce a “revival” or a “scene”.Most musicians just care about the music they love — it’s not about scenes or whether beards are “in”!
Singer-songwriter M. Ward talks to the Village Voice.
"All of the records for me are living in this naive fantasia where people care about each other's well-being," he says. Ward speaks with the kind of slow, reflective grace that you just obviously figure he would, and he treats every question like it's the most thoughtful thing anyone's ever asked him. He's just a really sweet dude. "It's a crazy, absurd fantasy that is the best place to write these songs in."
Author Colm Toibin talks to the Scotsman about his collection of short stories, Mothers and Sons.
"There are times when you feel that Foucault, not Freud, is the presiding spirit!" Tóibín laughs. "The search for power and space is dramatised between the two, and I wanted to 'de-Freudianise' the relationship between mothers and sons - the son is created by the mother but now he wants to wrestle power from her and she tries to keep it, and so on. Even in the first story, the son warns the mother, actually says to her, 'I'll take action against you'. I thought about taking that line out, but I'm glad I kept it in."
Members of Tapes 'N Tapes talk to the Guardian.
"For us mostly it's been about doing as much as we can with what we've got," explains singer Josh Grier before a gig in London. "The internet has helped so much because it allows us to be a band with no resources. It goes to show that if you have music that people like, you can succeed - you don't have to have a mass marketing campaign or millions of dollars thrown at you."
JamBase reviews the 2006 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival.
The AskMetafilter community recommends "books for people who can't cope good" (books that aren't overly sad).
The Times Online examines the newest tourism boom: literary festivals.
According to VisitBritain, the UK tourist board, 57 per cent of overseas visitors are now “influenced to choose a holiday because of something they have read in a book”.
