Hamish Hamilton News
RSS feedNews You Don't Expect, # 1 2 September 2010
Our surprise was perhaps as big as yours will be when we heard that American Playboy magazine has returned to its literary roots and and is excerpting Lydia Davis’s brilliant retranslation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary in their current issue…
Literary Peace Prize Finalist 2 September 2010
After its success at the American Book Awards, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers has been announced as a finalist for the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace.
Extremely Loud Film Incredibly Close 1 September 2010
From CinemaBlend:
Last April, as his name was being tossed around in the derby for choosing a director for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Stephen Daldry went far classier by choosing to direct an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close instead.
While the role of the lead character, a clever nine-year-old growng up in Manhattan is still up for grabs, IndieWire reports that Daldry has cast two of his leads. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock will play the boy’s parents, and though the father character is dead for much of the book, apparently he’ll be seen in a series of flashbacks.
Production is set to start in January in New York City, and as the search for the lead character is just beginning, it might be a while before we see a name finalized. Still, with Bullock and Hanks on board— it will the first film Bullock has made since she won an Oscar, got a divorce and adopted a baby in the course of a few months— the movie has been guaranteed a clear road through production. Oscar season 2012 may well have its first entry.
Under Water 1 September 2010
HH author Ali Sethi reports from Lahore on the flood in Balochistan and the urgent need for aid, in The New York Times.
An Arrangement in a Thimble for a Tea Party of Mice 31 August 2010
Book and flower lovers might enjoy this short film on the Guardian website of the inaugural flower show at the Port Eliot festival. Look out for various HH staffers in the background, Jarvis Cocker in the foreground and Grayson Perry awarding the prizes in a rather amazing green day-dress — shortly before launching our special festival issue of Five Dials. Click here to watch.
Five Dials in the Limelight 31 August 2010
On Saturday night Five Dials took to the stage at the Edinburgh Book Festival for an evening full of literary delights and unexpected treats. There were readings from Elif Shafak (all the way from Istanbul) and Richard Milward (all the way from Middlesbrough) and also – in a special sneak preview – from new Hamish Hamilton author Luke Williams, who gave a taste of what’s to come in his fantastic literary debut novel The Echo Chamber, out next May.
Some more highlights included famous pieces of dialogue from books and films being performed on stage for the audience to identify (this was harder than it sounds because one half of the dialogue was performed on a trombone), Richard Milward’s hat (see picture above) and last but by no means least, the ‘Five Dials theme song’, sung by Five Dials editor, Craig, and accompanied on trombone and keyboard. Look out for it on i-tunes, Spotify, the top 40, etc.
We hope everyone had fun!
The nominees are... 31 August 2010
Bernardine Evaristo’s wonderfully imaginative novel Blonde Roots has been nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Congratulations Bernardine!
Bomber County longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 27 August 2010
Congratulations to Daniel Swift whose extraordinary debut Bomber County is one of ten books that have been longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2010.
The affirmation we need 26 August 2010
However brilliant we think a book is, it’s always a pleasure and a relief to find that we’re not alone in our enthusiasm. So, when we published Helon Habila’s Oil on Water earlier this month, we were delighted to hear words such as ‘masterly’, ‘terrific’ and ‘illuminating’ being bandied about in the press (in these cases, in the Independent, The Sunday Times and The Times respectively). They’re the kind of adjectives that warm our editorial hearts.
One who works with words 25 August 2010
Lydia Davis had her audience enthralled yesterday evening at the London Review Bookshop, where she read a selection of published and new works. ‘Letter to a Funeral Parlour’ was the first of many stories to send waves of laughter through the packed venue. The author delivered a hearty combination of comedy, reflection and philosophy; her rich, expressive voice giving added weight and life to her epigrammatic prose. Naturally, the discussion which followed focussed on her unique style and her work as translator as well as issues of identity – a theme explored in her final piece ‘Goodbye Louise, Or Who I Am’.
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis was published by Hamish Hamilton earlier this month and has been praised by reviews in the Guardian, Independent and New Statesman.
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