The author of the latest James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, has had to apologize for his bizarre suggestion that Idris Elba was not suave enough to be the next 007.
In France, the authors of a book critical of the Moroccan monarchy (originally set to come out in 2016) have been arrested and dropped by their publisher after they were caught accepting a $2.3 million bribe from one of the king’s representatives. “It’s human, no?” one of the writers, Catherine Graciet, told a French newspaper about her decision to take the money. “Everyone wonders what one could do with their life with two million euros. Try to imagine the situation. And it was to forgo publication of a book, not to kill someone.”
Cash for poets (for once): $25,800 fellowships were handed out yesterday by the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine to five young US poets.
Apple apparently plans to start producing original programming, and if the idea of that company taking even more of your time and attention than it already does strikes you as a little threatening, Variety seems to agree it’s an aggressive move: It “would sharpen a double-edged sword” that Netflix and Amazon are “already swinging at Hollywood.”
Tomorrow night at Greenlight, Amitav Ghosh will launchFlood of Fire, the last book in his Opium War trilogy, which Eric Banks reviews in Bookforum's Fall issue, on the stands now.
