Joe Allstons Literary Diary

By Joe Allston 407PM GMT eighteen March 2010

* "Theres not been majority quick mind and not majority joy, theres a lot of grimness out there," Daisy Goodwin, the authority of the Orange Prize judges, remarkable of the submissions. (The longlist, voiced this week, includes novels by Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters and Lorrie Moore.) More bizarrely, she pronounced that "there are a lot of books about Asian sisters". Lets goal nothing of them were released on those drift alone.

* Amazon is beneficial when tracking thwarted books. According to the website, Bloomsbury will tell Suzie Mackenzies Gordon Brown the First Year in Power in Sep subsequent year. Her Gordon Brown a Portrait of the Man is due this August, and is billed as "a formidable mural of a formidable man a man able of greatness, eventually in the on all sides indeed to realize it". Yet the stipulate has been cancelled. Bloomsbury has a gloomy lane jot down with domestic books David Blunketts discourse sole subsequent to nothing, as did the Prime Ministers book on Britains Everyday Heroes. Perhaps theyre quitting whilst theyre ahead.

Orange Prize for Fiction Full prolonged list of nominations Quote Interesting Sam Mendes and Oprah Winfrey plan Hollywood diagnosis for cricketing novel Netherland Childrens books for Summer examination Books for the beach

* Critics crop up to write any old thing about Ian McEwan when he has a new book published. This years esteem for the majority unfortunate McEwan story goes to John Dugdale in The Guardian. "Ian McEwan enters a new proviso in his fiction," he declared, observant that McEwans "1978 debut, The Cement Garden, plumped for 3 words" in the title. True enough, solely McEwans initial book was, actually, First Love, Last Rites (1975). Dugdale referred to that McEwans preference to give his new novel the pretension Solar "is a serve minimalist move, from 3 syllables [Atonement] to two; stability an superb settlement that creates Samuel Becketts 50-year swell in novella crop up not in in cold and discipline".

* The Bookseller this week carried a front page announcement for Justin Cronins The Passage. "The majority startling novel of the decade," burbled Waterstones Janine Cook, putting those still to tell their books in the subsequent 9 years and 9 months really majority in the shade.