Ben Ratliff's Coltrane: The Story of Sound is reviewed at the NY Times.

By Mary Godwin, Contributing Blogger

Travis Alber and Aaron Miller have developed a new way to share and comment on digital writing. Their site,  Bookglutton.com, launched its private beta this week. The web site is comprised of two pieces. The first, the main BookGlutton website, is a catalog and community where users can upload work or select a piece of public domain writing, create reading groups and tag literature. The second part of the site - its centerpiece - is the Unbound Reader. It has a web-based format where users can read and discuss the book right inside the text. The Unbound Reader uses "proximity chat," which allows users to discuss the book with other readers close to them in the text (thus focusing discussion, and, as an added benefit, keeping people from hearing about the end). It also has shared annotations, so people can leave a comment on any paragraph and other readers can respond. By encouraging users to talk in a context-specific way about what they're reading, Bookglutton hopes to help those who want to talk about books (or original writing) with their friends (across cities, for example), students who want to discuss classic works (perhaps for a class), or writers who want to get feedback on their own pieces. Naturally, when the conversation becomes distracting, a user can close off the discussion without exiting the Reader.

Additionally, BookGlutton is working to facilitate adoption of on-line reading. Book design is an important aspect of the reader, and it incorporates design elements, like dynamic dropcaps. Moreover, the works presented in the catalog are standards-based (BookGlutton is an early adopter of the International Digital Publishing Forum's .epub format for ebooks), and allows users to download a copy of anything they upload in this format for use elsewhere.

BookGlutton plans to open the beta to the public in the next month. This video introduction is an excellent way to "take a look around" before signing up for your beta invitation.

The shortlist for the first ever Man Asian Literary Prize was announced on October 25th.  The winner will be announced on November 10th.  This award is for the best Asian literature that has not yet been published in English.  The award carries $10,000 and is sure to boost sales.  Adrienne Clarkson, the fromer Governer General of Canada, is the chair of the judges whom also include Andre Aciman ( Call Me By Your Name) and Nicholas Jose.  $3,000 will go to the translator, if any. 

Finalists for Man Asian Literary Prize:
Jose Dalisay Jr., Soledad's Sister
Reeti Gadekar, Families at Home
Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem
Nu Nu Yi Inwa, Smile As They Bow
Xu Xi, Habit of a Foreign Sky

between Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers in Time.

I'm not sure why this is coming out now, but over the summer people began talking about all the radical cuts Gordon Lish made to Raymond Carver's work, especially with What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Now, Carver's widow, Tess Gallagher, is trying to get Knopf to publish a pre-edited version of the book. A legal battle seems to be brewing.

The article is at the Guardian here. What interests me more is the aesthetic question of early vs. late Carver. "The Bath," originally in the earlier collection, was republished as the much longer and open-hearted "A Small, Good Thing" in Cathedral. (And I've seen the argument that the older "Viewfinder" is essentially the same as "Cathedral" with a different ending.) The writer at Guardian firmly believes the question isn't about heart, but about sentimentality, bad art creeping in with Carver's later phase. I'm curious as to whether this really is a question of aesthetics ("good" art), or merely a question of preferring one Carver worldview to another.

Maybe sales are starting to fall. JK Rowling explained last week that she intended the books to have Christian parallels, and then she announced over the weekend that Dumbledore was gay.

By Erin Blakeslee, Editorial Assistant

If you've made it to SXSW or other independent film festivals these past few years - or have added the films of said ilk to your Netflix queue - you may have witnessed the emergence of a new cinema movement, dubbed "mumblecore" by reviewers and critics.

Chapman University, The Iranica Institute, Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, UCI, Iranian Studies, UCLA and Pacifica Institute will present an event entitled, Rumi:Song of the Reed, in honor of Rumi's lasting poetry and his 800th birthday (celebrated on the 20th of September). The conference will be held on October 20th and includes lectures, film screenings, dance, and musical performances. While the morning and afternoon sessions are free and open to the public, the evening session is ticketed. So for those of you lucky people on the west coast, check out the full details here.

Just a reminder that the deadline for the Wabash Prize in Poetry is only four days away (October 15th). This year's judge is Eavan Boland. The prize is $1000 and publication. We will announce the finalists and winner of the prize here on the website sometime in mid-November. Hurry and mail in your masterpieces. Complete guidelines are on the website.

By Erin Blakeslee, Contributing Blogger

I may be a latecomer to the show (after all, the magazine in question has been in publication since 1974), but I read through my first sample copy of The Sun today. Cover to cover. I couldn't put it down.

For those who, like me just hours before, are uninitated, The Sun is an advertisement-free mag that publishes essays, interviews, fiction, and poetry that are politically challenging and philosophically provocative. It's clean, intimate layout is seductive: there's no fat on this baby, and no distracting margin ads listing MFA-program faculty, seminar dates, or book blurbs.

The October 2007 issue of The Sun features a moving, in-depth interview with poet and translator Coleman Barks, who discusses the enduring influence of Rumi, the 13th century Persian mystic poet. Part of the interview can be read here.

If you're hooked, you can order a free sample of The Sun (new reading material with nothing to lose!).

By Patrick Nevins, Managing Editor

From Guardian Unlimited, Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature.  At 87, she's the oldest author ever to take the prize.  And, according to the Yahoo News story, her agent said she was out shopping when the announcement was made!

I was on the Missouri Review website this morning and noticed, at the top of the page, a banner that reads, "Befriend us on Myspace." I suppose it makes sense that a literary journal would be on Myspace, but still. It caught me off guard. You can check out their Myspace page here. From there, you might also notice Crazyhorse is also out there.

Just watched Badlands this evening, Terrence Malick's 1973 film with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. It's loosely based on the Charles Starkweather/Caril Ann Fugate murders. I highly recommend it, mainly because Sheen is so charismatic that he makes the killer likeable. It's truly a model for how to create sympathetic characters, by convincing the audience to like the character, even if he's despicable.

Along with this movie, I'd also recommend Liza Ward's 2004 novel, Outside Valentine, which is fictionalized account of the same murder spree, set in three time periods and told in three alternating voices--the voice of Caril Ann, which is definitely the most haunting, the voice of two of the victims' son, and the voice of his future wife. An eerie and utterly convincing read. More information about the novel is at Henry Holt, here. A good interview with Liza Ward is here.

His new novel, Work Shirts for Madmen, is now avaible. You can read about it and Singleton here. I've been following Singleton's stories since he began popping up in the New Stories from the South anthology--they're funnier 'n hell local color pieces about odd characters in small South Carolina towns (Forty-Five, Gig, Gruel), and there's a generosity in them that can be downright heartbreaking. I guess his second collection, The Half Mammals of Dixie, is his breakout book, and at readings he always swore up and down he would never write a novel. Now he's published two.