surviving the wallpaper

The editor of a new collection of notes on Beckett's early lectures at Trinity College, Dublin, Brigitte Le Juez, introduces his youthful approach to Balzac and Flaubert to the 21st century for the Guardian.

HarperCollins is trying to change the publishing model for novels. Good luck with that - I agree with Rosemary Sorensen of The Australian's weekend Review that the model they are considering does sound quite mysterious. This article also mentions that the Weidenfeld & Nicolson imprint of Orion Books has written off advances to some writers rather than incur the full costs of producing their books, in an effort to save money when the fiction list was slashed by half:

One agent who has had clients affected by the Weidenfeld & Nicolson cuts told the Bookseller magazine: "My conservative estimate is that they are writing off contracts in the multiples of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Partly, I suspect it is because books were bought and now they do not have the editors in house to champion them."

Is he hip to the now or what? Stephen Fry has sent us a podgram called Wallpaper, on Oscar Wilde's thoughts on American violence and you-know-what. Fry is all for Web 2.0 neologisms - he has already invented the 'blessay', which I take to mean an essay from the Guardian that he has republished on his blog.

Do take the time to visit Nicki Greenberg, illustrator of a stunning graphic novel version of The Great Gatsby, and see how her illustrated Hamlet is coming along.

A private equity firm in New York called Quadrangle Capital has announced that newspapers need to work out how to connect with younger readers if they are to survive.

And finally, the Guggenheim fellowships for this year include a clutch of interesting literary projects, according to The Complete Review. They also report that the April issue of Poetry Magazine has translation as its theme, and is worth a look.