Great Regulars: A rallying cry from the author John Green

in support of traditional publishing--in which the bestselling young-adult author calls on readers to "strike down the insidious lie that a book is the creation of an individual soul labouring in isolation . . . because it threatens the overall quality and breadth of American literature"--is reverberating its way around the internet.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: John Green: why I'll never self-publish

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The "extraordinarily rich" manuscript of Samuel Beckett's first major novel Murphy, which has been glimpsed by only a very few individuals over the last half-century, is expected to fetch more than £1m when it goes up for auction next month.

Filling six notebooks, the Murphy manuscript--originally entitled Sasha Murphy--is packed with doodles and extensive corrections, including Beckett's lively sketches of his friend and mentor James Joyce, of himself, and of Charlie Chaplin, who went on to be an influence on the tramps in Waiting for Godot.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Samuel Beckett manuscript offers 'intimate' look into his mind

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Artist Karen Green's meditation on grief following the suicide of her husband, the author David Foster Wallace, is drawing laudatory reviews in America, where it has been described as "an astonishment" and an "instant classic".

Bough Down is a collection of prose poems interspersed with small collages, in which Green charts her "passage through grief", said small US publisher Siglo Press, which released the book earlier this spring.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Widow's memoir of David Foster Wallace gathers acclaim

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