Nabokov looks up from his reading he points to a tree outside his office window. ‘What kind of tree is that?’ he asks the student. ‘What?’ ‘What is the name of that tree?’ asks Nabokov. ‘The one outside my window.’ ‘I don’t know,’says the student. ‘You’ll never be a writer.’ says Nabokov.”

Debut novelist Brian Kimberling published Snapper this week, a novel drawn from his own experience as  a bird researcher. His book is filled with careful and unexpected descriptions of nature, so we caught up with Kimberling for some nature writing advice…

continued…

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The winner edited six photos for the contest. The pictures feature highly prolific writers such as George Orwell, Sir Salman Rushdie and Vladimir Nabokov.

Here’s more from the announcement: “The entries were truly staggering in their creativity and execution … Like I said, this wasn’t easy—but we were not going to argue with a man pointing a gun at us.”

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Some of the simpler ways include using color, adding illustrations, and playing with typeface. Ten titles that Hallberg lists which employ these methods include The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

The fourth step recommends that you “run with scissors.” Here’s more from Hallberg’s piece: “The opening story of John Barth‘s Lost in the Funhouse, famously invites readers to take scissors to it and create a Mobius strip. This cut-up aesthetic is more literal in Jonathan Safran Foer‘s Tree of Codes, which slices and dices the pages of Bruno Schulz‘s Street of Crocodiles to create pages like lace. It’s a piece of found prose-poetry whose sentences change as you turn the page. Except on the Kindle, where it doesn’t – and couldn’t – exist.”

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The drawings ranged from insect portraits to nightmare images. Wallace drew one of the funnier pieces, doodling glasses and fangs on a photo of Cormac McCarthy.

Vonnegut (pictured with his artwork, via) incorporated many of his drawings into his books. He even had his own art gallery exhibitions. What author should illustrate their next book?

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Last week, Jacket Copy spotted actress Natalie Portman carrying a purse that looked like Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Why let the movie stars have all the fun–turn your favorite book into a handbag.

If you want to make a purse out of your favorite book, just follow the directions in the video embedded above from the artsy-craftsy Curbly Video Podcast.

Here’s more from our sibling blog, Social Times: “I came across the Curbly Video Podcast on YouTube while doing research for my post on Gift-Giving YouTube Style over the holiday season.  The Curbly Podcast has got all sorts of great DIY videos.  Learn how to make a picture frame from a circuit board, how to hand-paint fleece and, my favorite, how to make a handbag out of an old book.”

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Novelist Vladimir Nabokov sent his wife Vera Nabokov hundreds of love letters throughout their 52-year marriage. 300 of those letters will be published in Letters to Vera next year. UPDATE: Alfred A. Knopf will publish the letters.

A Thaindian News article quoted the couple’s son, Dimitry Nabokov: “I’ve been planning to release these notes for a long time, not only because they are written beautifully and are a pre-eminent epitome of Nabokov’s prose, but also because they allow us to take a closer look at the relationship between two remarkably fine and talented people.”

The RT.com video embedded above provides a glimpse of the letters. Dimitry explained that his mother’s letters will not be included in the book out of respect to her private nature.  (Via Huffington Post)

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McGraw began his career at his grandfather’s company as a sales rep. During his tenure at the helm of the company, McGraw-Hill published authors that included Vladimir Nabokov and Marshall McLuhan. At Princeton University (his his alma mater) McGraw endowed the The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Center for Teaching and Learning , funded the editing of Albert Einstein‘s papers, and established the McGraw Distinguished Visiting Professors writing course.

Here’s more from the company: “As CEO of McGraw-Hill, he was always closely connected with employees, sending them hand-written notes, walking the corridors, and eating lunch in the company cafeteria. He advised employees to ‘make sure you get in a job you really enjoy, for doing worthwhile work for a worthwhile mission ought to be exciting and fun.’”

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To celebrate the event, the Vintage site is sponsoring a small contest. Readers can pick a favorite cover and explain why in the comments section. The winner takes home a copy of their favorite book.

Here’s more from the site: “As an homage to the author’s love for collecting butterflies, each cover was created using pins, paper, and butterfly boxes. Below, see them in all their glory. Click through for larger images. And just for fun, tell us which is your favorite! Then leave a comment with your reasons why–the most original argument will win a copy of the book they’ve chosen.”

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If you want to read an excerpt, you won’t find the book on the Oprah Winfrey Show or at the multiplex. You need to go to Playboy, the magazine that everybody reads for the literary excerpts. The magazine gave GalleyCat that image from the print magazine excerpt–showing the choice the great writer’s son had between burning or publishing the unfinished book.

Here’s an excerpt that seems fairly safe for work: “[Nabokov] started writing it in 1975 and persisted while hospitalized the few months before his death in 1977. He relied on his signature creative approach (the note cards included here are testament to that), but the book was never finished. In this event, he asked that the draft be destroyed. That we are able to publish a portion of it today is a privilege and a relief to admirers, biographers and readers of every stripe, but that it would survive was never a certainty.”

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Daily Finance analyzes a a $20 million breach-of-contract lawsuit filed against Houghton Mifflin Harcourt by Cengage over textbook sales.

NY Daily News excerpted Sarah Palin‘s taped interview with Oprah Winfrey, an interview that will open her book tour next week: “We don’t have to keep going down this road of controversy and drama all the time,” she said, when asked about Levi Johnston‘s frayed relationship with her family.

Worried about publishers printing unfinished copies of Vladimir Nabokov‘s last novel? Flavorpill reminds us of a rich history of unfinished literary works.

MobyLives notes that the man who invented the AK-47 assault rifle really wanted to be a poet.

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The review reminds readers not to expect a novel, or anything resembling a final product. The author left behind the manuscript on a series of 138 notecards, and ordered his family to destroy them when he died in 1977. The hardcover book will feature photos of each card, matched with transcripts of the notecard text on the facing page. His son decided to publish after a spooky encounter.

Here’s a brief sample from the review: “Nabokov’s handwritten index cards are reproduced with a transcription below of each card’s contents, generally less than a paragraph. The scanned index cards (perforated so they can be removed from the book) are what make this book an amazing document; they reveal Nabokov’s neat handwriting (a mix of cursive and print) and his own edits to the text: some lines are blacked out with scribbles, others simply crossed out.”

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Over at Slate, the author trots out some old conspiracy theories, speculates about the mysterious lawsuit over “60 Years Later Coming Through the Rye,” and finally plugs a new novel published on for the Amazon Kindle called “J.D. The Plot to Steal J.D. Salinger’s Manuscripts.” The essay reminds us all that it’s not about the gossip, the mystery, or the lawsuit–it’s about the writing.

Here’s more from the story: “I’ve heard unofficial reports that he’s produced several novels whose manuscripts–like [Vladimir Nabokov's] “Laura”–have been stashed in a bank’s safe-deposit vault. Or that there are manuscript pages stacked to the ceiling in his house but no certainty about their state of completion. Other reports make him seem so strange that it’s possible he could be typing out the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit over and over again.”

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According to Bookseller, Nabokov’s son decided to publish, and literary agent Andrew Wylie negotiated a six-figure deal for the notecards.

Penguin Classics editor Alexis Kirschbaum explained in the article: “I’m an avid, obsessed fan of Nabokov and for other fans it’s incredibly interesting to see his handwriting and read his prose–not necessarily extremely polished, but you can still see kernels of genius in everything he wrote.” (Via MobyLives)

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