March 9: Extra Edition

The London Theatre Blog brought my attention to the work of a new playwright, Stefan Golaszewski, who performs his own monologue-plays and is also a member of the four-man comedy troupe Cowards:

http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/the-stefan-golaszewski-plays/

http://www.thecowards.co.uk/

Golaszewski is co-creator of a new BBC sitcom called Young, Unemployed and Lazy, a title-of-the-Zeitgeist if ever there was one. It sounds quite akin to Zachary German's new novel, Eat When You Feel Sad, which James Yeh reviews at The Rumpus under the title "Twenty and Bored and Alive":

http://therumpus.net/2010/03/twenty-and-bored-and-alive/

Chris Michael at the Guardian Books Blog is exceptionally enthusiastic about Hideki Owada's manga The Legend of Koizumi:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/mar/01/best-contemporary-japanese-novel-manga

Levi Asher at Literary Kicks thinks the "e-book revolution" is over-rated:

As long I can slip a well-designed paperback novel into my pocket, e-books don't solve any actual problem that I have.

http://www.litkicks.com/EBookRevolution

This may seem obvious, but it bears repeating: Aspiring writers ought to read a lot!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/mar/02/best-advice-writers-read

And while they're at it, they should do at least some of their reading randomly, based on their intuitions as they float past library or bookstore shelves or click around on Amazon:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/mar/05/lucky-dip-reading-book

The blog Diversify Your Reading is making it easier to make literary discoveries from every point on the globe:

Diversify Your Reading is meant to be a clearinghouse of blog reviews of books by authors underrepresented in English-language publishing today.

http://diversereading.wordpress.com/

While you're searching for books, maybe you will be so lucky as to be able to browse in libraries as striking as these:

http://www.archdaily.com/51939/ad-round-up-libraries-part-iii/