In the palm of your hand
Book Notes finally had a look at the Sony Reader, the electronic hand-held device that the company is gambling on taking the world by storm, similar to the iPod.
It is the same size as those previously desirable palm pilots which once looked like they might just take over the world until the "crackberry" arrived. Major selling point here is the E Ink technology which makes the text look just like the paper page of a normal book. It is surprisingly aesthetically pleasing and quite a relief for anyone who has struggled with MS formats or the clunky and unfriendly Adobe Reader. The toughest part of convincing people they could use these machines was always going to be how attractive the book looks on screen and this has been passed with honours. The slimness of the machine will be appealing to anyone thinking of taking 1,000 pages of Robert Fisk on holidays with them this summer – how the screen stands up to sunlight and outdoor use remains to be seen.
Great expectations are bound to be disappointed
We realise that we have been dwelling on the size and depth of the memoir market recently – but have you seen what people are finding interesting these days? How about the (non) life story of Chantelle Houghton, the vacuous non-celebrity winner of 2006's Celebrity Big Brother? Previously, the world's largest book advance of $12m was paid to Bill Clinton for his 1,000-page My Life. Its sales didn't disappoint expectations but you have to assume a commissioning editor will get it awfully wrong at some point in the future. Clinton was never going to fail, but even Blair or Annan might find it hard to earn back huge advances if they continue to inflate at current rates. A prime candidate for sleepless nights might just be Alan Greenspan's life story which was advanced $8m. Both of these record offers were outstripped this week by a payment in excess of $12m for the secrets of Oprah Winfrey's diet. They don't even seem to get access to the teenage dalliances or to the recent marriage for the colossal sum on offer.
Marching on through the awards season
The prize-giving season continues unabated. The Orange Prize for Fiction declared their shortlist, which was predictable since they chose the most famous and celebrated books written by women this year. Any of the six books will be deserving and readers will have their own favourites by the announcement on 6 June. The Smiths, Ali and Zadie, were already on the Man Booker list for The Accidental and On Beauty while Sarah Walters' The Night Watch and Hilary Mantel's Black had already recorded strong sales in advance of their nominations. The list is rounded out by Australian Carrie Tiffany's Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living and Book Notes' own favourite, Nicole Krauss's The History of Love. The Pulitzer prize was awarded last month in the US to Geraldine Brooks' Civil War novel March. This will be of interest to readers who hold Louisa May Alcott's Little Women dear. The "March" in question is the March girls' father and Brooks spends her book considering what he was doing – he spends the first half of Little Women at war.
Bright young things
Nicole Krauss's partner, Jonathan Safran Foer, sees his second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close published in paperback this week. Like in his hilarious and harrowing debut, Everything is Illuminated, he moves through time and narrators with ease, although his new work can appear a little cute and gimmicky. Focusing on the search by 9-year-old Oscar Black for the truth about his father and family, it sharply divided critics on release, partly for its confrontation of the effects of 9/11. He and Krauss are part of a young and fashionable East Coast set of writers for whom credibility, experimentation and the tag of "bright young things" is setting them apart.