In children’s publishing, Hoban became especially famous for his Frances picture book series; he published a total of seven titles starring the temperamental badger.

According to The New York Times, Hoban preferred not to illustrate his own picture books; a majority of the Frances titles featured the drawings of his first wife Lillian Hoban. On the adult side, Hoban wrote and published the popular science fiction novel Riddley Walker. It went on to win the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel in 1982.

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Bibliophiles and film fanatics can look forward to a plethora of book-and-documentary projects. Simon & Schuster announced that rock artist Pearl Jam has signed a deal with them; the illustrated self-portrait, Pearl Jam Twenty, will be released in September.

Here’s more from the press release: “Published and in celebration of Pearl Jam’s twentieth anniversary and in conjunction with Cameron Crowe‘s definitive documentary film and soundtrack of the same name, Pearl Jam Twenty is an aesthetically stunning and definitive chronicle of their two decades as a band.”

The video embedded above features the trailer for HBO’s Bobby Fischer Against The World. We reported earlier on the books Bobby Fischer and Living in the Material World: George Harrison; the accompanying films will be available later this year.

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Howe explained in the announcement: “I’d always intended to relaunch One Book, One Twitter … It has a new name—1book140—but what hasn’t changed is the global, participatory nature of the affair: The crowd is still in charge.”

Twitter readers will choose the book to read in the online book club.  You can still vote on the following titles: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Snow by Orhan Pamuk, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, and Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead. Reading will commence on June 1st.

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Fox refused, but confessed after the party: “I was smitten with Jerry [Salinger] that evening, but I wondered what he and I would be saying to one another around Hartford.” Hartford is the halfway point between Cornish and New York City.

Jill’s husband Joe Fox would become a Random House editor, working with authors like Truman Capote and Philip Roth. If given the chance, what author would you run away with?

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Q: What role does The Catcher in the Rye play in Catcher, Caught?

A: Whether you love Holden or hate him, he engenders strong emotions. The self that’s revealed in his depressed unreliable state of reporting is a self that many of us recognize in some deep part of our younger selves, that place where we were teetering on the precipice between childhood and the adult world. Almost 16, Daniel has just read the book TCITR as required reading when he’s diagnosed with leukemia.

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Publisher’s Weekly has more details: “Colting has agreed not to publish or otherwise distribute the book, e-book, or any other editions of 60 Years Later in the U.S. or Canada until The Catcher in the Rye enters the public domain. Notably, however, Colting is free  to sell the book in other international territories without fear of interference.”

The article reports that Colting cannot include “Coming Through the Rye” as part of the book title. In addition, the author cannot refer to Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, or his legal battles in the book.

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Salinger wrote: “I appreciate and respect your ardor, but for the present I see my novel as a novel and only as a novel. Should I change my mind in the future–which is extremely doubtful–I very probably would take on any casting and directing chores myself. Thank you for your interest and please take this as absolutely final.”

Salinger, who passed away in January 2010, never made his directorial debut. He will be the subject of the two-hour Shane Salerno documentary, Salinger. Famous names involved with the project include journalist Tom Wolfe, biographer A. Scott Berg, and Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Via Flavorpill)

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Slawenski founded the Dead Caulfields website in 2004, a major resource for Salinger fans. Earlier this week, the site posted a BBC video of the reclusive author–we’ve embedded the YouTube video below.

Here’s more about the biography: “[It] provides a tremendous amount of new information, shedding light for the first time on many unknown events in Salinger’s life: his wartime romance; the inspiration behind The Catcher in the Rye; the impact of his experience fighting in the D-Day landings; the true story behind Franny and Zooey; full details on his romance with Oona O’Neill (later Mrs. Charlie Chaplin); his office intrigues with famous New Yorker editors and writers; his friendship with Ernest Hemingway; surprising evidence that he intended to continue publishing after his last story appeared in l965, and much more.”
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Yesterday, we urged GalleyCat readers to visit this handy dandy Nickname Generator for inspiration–helping the next generation of literary elites pick nicknames that will work at poetry readings and wrestling matches.

Add your nickname in the comments. Here are some of the results: Erin Downing was tickled pink with her randomly generated nickname: “I’m ‘Steamy Pink Fiend’–it’s perfect.” Nova Ren Suma ended up with a cosmic name: “Wow, I got ‘The Galaxy.’” Finally, Gretchen Stelter picked two names: “My literary elite nickname: Maxi Circus Shadow (wha?) My superhero nickname: The Strangely Neutron (I hope that one sticks).”

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Her brief sketch fills in more details about Salinger’s life than most profiles, giving a peek into Salinger’s hobbies and thoughts about unwritten books. Best of all, the portrait contains a tantalizing tidbit about an adaptation of his classic story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” that never happened.

Here’s an excerpt: “Salinger loved movies, and he was more fun than anyone to discuss them with. He enjoyed watching actors work, and he enjoyed knowing them. (He loved Anne Bancroft, hated Audrey Hepburn, and said that he had seen ‘Grand Illusion’ ten times.) Brigitte Bardot once wanted to buy the rights to ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish,’ and he said that it was uplifting news. ‘I mean it,’ he told me. ‘She’s a cute, talented, lost enfante, and I’m tempted to accommodate her, pour le sport.’”

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Here’s more about the book, a tribute to the author of The Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories. “[It] commemorates the 50th anniversary of The Catcher in the Rye and celebrates the formative influence the book and Salinger’s other works have had on many writers, scholars and readers. Letters to Salinger contains approximately 80 open letters to J. D. Salinger.

Press play on the embedded player below to listen. The episode will be archived around the network all day.

Here’s an excerpt: “For the most part it seems like people who are writing stories about Salinger aren’t looking any farther than the things they can find online. In fact, the majority of the material written about Salinger–from literary critical perspective, the interviews, reviews–are all pre-Internet. You’d have to go to an archive and read the old magazines. It’s clear to me that people aren’t really doing that. They are just getting the soundbytes and pulling things off saying, ‘Here’s a link to this, here’s a link to that.’”

You can listen to all the past podcasts archived at mediabistro.com or download episodes for free on iTunes. Click here to download the MP3 version.

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Author J.D. Salinger passed away today, generating thousands of posts around the Internet. In honor of this great writer, we’ve collected a few links to the evolving critical opinion of Salinger’s work.

In 1951, James Stern wrote one of those ‘I’ll write like a character in the novel’ book reviews that never quite work. Dig it: “This Salinger, he’s a short story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book though, it’s too long. Gets kind of monotonous. And he should’ve cut out a lot about these jerks and all at that crumby school. They depress me.”

In 1961, the great John Updike reviewed Franny and Zooey. Check it out: “His fiction, in its rather grim bravado, its humor, its morbidity, its wry but persistent hopefulness, matches the shape and tint of present American life. It pays the price, however, of becoming dangerously convoluted and static. A sense of composition is not among Salinger’s strengths, and even these two stories, so apparently complementary, distinctly jangle as components of one book.”

In 2004, Jonathan Yardley pondered The Catcher in the Rye. “What most struck me upon reading it for a second time was how sentimental — how outright squishy — it is. The novel is commonly represented as an expression of adolescent cynicism and rebellion — a James Dean movie in print — but from first page to last Salinger wants to have it both ways.”

Finally, in an engaging essay, Janet Malcolm revived the reputation of Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. Here’s an excerpt: “Today Zooey does not seem too long, and is arguably Salinger’s masterpiece. Rereading it and its companion piece Franny is no less rewarding than rereading The Great Gatsby. It remains brilliant and is in no essential sense dated. It is the contemporary criticism that has dated.”

If you want to read more, Literary History has a collection of links. As GalleyCat Reviews grows, we will feature daily links to excellent literary criticism. If you think a book review you wrote should be featured for our audience, email GalleyCat a link.

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Salinger will be immortalized for creating the character Holden Caulfield in his 1951 novel, The Catcher in the Rye. He also wrote the collection Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey. He famously avoided publicity, but his death has spread over Twitter like wildfire.

Here’s more from an AP report: “Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author’s son said in a statement from Salinger’s literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.”

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Novelist John Wray unveiled his tattoo of book reviewer Michiko Kakutani at a reading. GalleyCat went to Puerto Rico with the Hunter S. Thompson Travel Agency.

The literary blogosphere buzzed about a sequel to J.D. Salinger‘s famous novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” but GalleyCat had some doubts. Finally, Alice Munro (pictured, via) won the £60,000 Man Booker International Prize.

Welcome to GalleyCat’s annual year-end roundup of publishing headlines. It’s a chance to celebrate our good news and reflect on our bad news after a long, challenging year for the industry. Visit our Year in Review link to read all about what happened to publishing in 2009. Include your favorite headlines in the comments section…

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According to Litigation Daily, Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz partner Edward Rosenthal defended Colting and SCB Distributors Inc. in front of a three-judge panel, calling the book “highly transformative with enormous amounts of commentary and criticism.” After a hearing last month, federal judge Deborah Batts ruled that the Swedish author could not publish this book that re-examines the story of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Here’s more from the article: “Rip-off or not, the book did not fare well under the critical eye of Judge Guido Calabresi at Thursday’s hearing. He called it “a rather dismal piece of work” … Judge Calabresi said the case raised First Amendment issues and that the district court may need more evidence to decide.”

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