BookOpinion

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There is a service called 123PrintFinder.com that can help self-publishers and authors find great prices on their next print job.

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Doris Lessing won the 2007 Noble Prize for Literature. When told she just won the prize, the author responded with a less-than-enthusiastic, “Oh, Christ!”

“It’s been going on now for more than 30 years,” she said. “I can’t get more excited.”

Check out the classic reaction from the newly named Nobel Laureate here:

To use BookOpinion’s price comparison shopper to find the best prices on Lessing books, click here.

Here is a biography of Lessing’s life and work:

Doris Lessing was born on 22 October 1919 to British parents in Kermanshah in what was then known as Persia (now Iran) as Doris May Taylor. Her father, Alfred Cook Taylor, formerly a captain in the British army during the First World War, was a bank official. Her mother, Emily Maude Taylor, had been a nurse. In 1925 the family moved to a farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) hoping to improve their income. Lessing described her childhood on the farm in the first part of her autobiography, Under My Skin (1994). At the age of seven, she was sent to a convent boarding school but later moved to a girls’ school in Salisbury. When 14 she independently ended her formal schooling. In the following years she worked as a young nanny, telephonist, office worker, stenographer and journalist and had several short stories published. In 1939 she married Frank Charles Wisdom with whom she had a son, John, and a daughter, Jean. The couple divorced in 1943. In 1945 Doris married Gottfried Lessing, a German-Jewish immigrant she had met in a Marxist group mainly concerned with the race issue. She became involved with the Southern Rhodesian Labour Party. She and Gottfried had a son, Peter. When the couple divorced in 1949, she took Peter and moved to London, quickly establishing herself as a writer. Between 1952 and 1956 she was a member of the British Communist Party and was active in the campaign against nuclear weapons. Because of her criticism of the South African regime, she was prohibited entry to that country between 1956 and 1995. After a brief visit to Southern Rhodesia in 1956, she was banned there as well for the same reason. In African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe (1992) she described going back in 1982 to the country where she had grown up. She now lives in London.

Doris Lessing made her debut as a novelist with The Grass is Singing (1950), which examines the relationship between a white farmer’s wife and her black servant. The book is both a tragedy based in love-hatred and a study of unbridgeable racial conflicts.

Even the semi-autobiographical Children of Violence series, usually called the Martha Quest series for its main character, is largely set in Africa. The series comprises Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965) and The Four-Gated City (1969). It describes Martha Quest’s awakening to greater awareness on every level and was pioneering in its depiction of the mind and circumstances of the emancipated woman. With these books Lessing created a modern equivalent of the Bildungsroman of women writers of the 19th century. The Children of Violence, despite its emphatic liberation theme, is characterised by an almost fatalistic outlook. The story is told with the mild despair of someone seeing her younger self from the heavens of an afterlife, unable to intervene. The masterpiece is the final volume of the series, The Four-Gated City, a period frescoe apparently enveloping all of England – indeed our entire culture – illuminated by the author’s empathy and incivility.

The Golden Notebook (1962) was Doris Lessing’s real breakthrough. The burgeoning feminist movement saw it as a pioneering work and it belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship. It used a more complex narrative technique to reveal how political and emotion conflicts are intertwined. The style levels of differing documents and experiences mix: newspaper cuttings, news items, films, dreams and diaries. Anna Wulf, the main character, has five notebooks for her thoughts about Africa, politics and the communist party, her relationship to men and sex, Jungian analysis and dream interpretation. The disjointed form reflects that of the main character’s mind. There is no single perspective from which to capture the entirety of her life experience.

Books published in the 1970s included Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), inspired by R. D. Laing. Lessing has characterised her novel from this period as “inner-space fiction”: an attempt in the spirit of Romanticism to expand human knowledge to encompass regions beyond the control of reason and the ego.

In the novel series Canopus in Argos: Archives (vol. 1–5, 1979–1984) Lessing expanded the science fiction genre. The series studies the post-atomic war development of the human species. Lessing varies thoughts about colonialism, nuclear war and ecological disaster with observations on the opposition between female and male principles. Among inspirations for the work was the Idries Shah’s school of Sufism that she discovered in the 1960s. Doris Lessing revisited her interest in Sufism in the Time Bites (2004) collection of essays.

Lessing returned to realistic narrative in The Good Terrorist (1985), providing a satirical picture of the need of the contemporary left for total control and the female protagonist’s misdirected martyrdom and subjugation. Her analysis of the greenhouse for the terrorist mind in generation hatred and an Übermensch attitude retains currency.

The autobiographical Under My Skin (1994) and Walking in the Shade (1997) represented a new peak in her writing. Lessing recalls not only her own life but the entire epoch: England in the last days of the empire. Her novel The Sweetest Dream (2001) is a stand-alone sequel in fictive form. Perhaps her unsparing view of the polical antics of friends and lovers necessitated such discretion.

Her other important novels are The Summer Before the Dark (1973) and The Fifth Child (1988). In the former, the reader at first infers a liberation motif: a woman finally about to fulfil her gift and sexual desires. After a first reading, the contours of the real novel take shape: a ruthless study of the collapse of values in middle age. The Fifth Child is a masterfully realised psychological thriller, where a woman’s repressed or denied aggression against family life is incarnated in a monstrous boy child.

The vision of global catastrophe forcing mankind to return to a more primitive life has had special appeal for Doris Lessing. It reappears in some of her books of recent years: the fantasy novel Mara and Dann (1999) and its sequel The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog (2005). From collapse and chaos emerge the elementary qualities that allow Lessing to retain hope in humanity…

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Borders along with Court TV and Gather.com has announced a crime and mystery writing contest. ”The Next Great Crime Writer” contest is open to anyone with a completed, but unpublished manuscript. First chapters will be voted up upon by the Gather.com community.

Among the panelists of judges include authors David Baldacci, Sandra Brown and Harlan Coben. Winners will receive a book publishing and distribution contract and an advance.

Complete contest details can be found here.

“Driving quality manuscript submissions is the key to any successful writing contest,” said Borders Group, Inc. Executive Vice President, Merchandising and Marketing, Rob Gruen. “By joining forces with Court TV and Gather.com, we exponentially enhance the quantity and quality of submissions. This puts Borders in a unique position to make a dream come true for an aspiring and deserving writer.”

“We are thrilled to launch yet another groundbreaking marketing initiative, which, for the first time, partners Court TV with Borders and Gather.com,” says Mary Corigliano, senior vice president of marketing for Court TV. “Taking advantage of this multiplatform environment, we are extremely well positioned to lead the search to bring national attention to an unpublished mystery writer primed for his or her big break, while at the same time ultimately driving tune-in to our hit series Murder by the Book.”

Court TV’s “Murder by the Book,” which premieres Monday, November 5, 10 p.m. ET, is a 13-episode, one-hour series featuring best-selling crime authors including David Baldacci, Sandra Brown, and Harlan Coben. Court TV’s promotion for the “Search for the Next Great Crime Writer” Contest will include on-air, Internet and guerilla marketing. Gather.com members and fans of crime fiction will have a unique opportunity to pose questions and interact with the authors via web site postings and interviews.

“Clearly, we are setting a trend here, using our base of loyal members in our strong social network to partner with two leading companies in their respective fields,” says Tom Gerace, founder and CEO of Gather.com. “The Gather.com, Borders and Court TV alliance is a powerful mix of media that delivers a multi-faceted platform to identify, vet and elevate aspiring mystery writers.”

THE COURT TV SEARCH FOR THE NEXT GREAT CRIME WRITER CONTEST TIMELINE
Round 1: October 1 - November 11, 2007
Submission period

Round 2: November 15, 2007 - December 9, 2008:
1st Chapters posted of all eligible entries on Courttv.Gather.com, where the community will help narrow the pool down to 25 semifinalists.

Round 3: December 13, 2007 - January 2, 2008:
The 25 semifinalists will post their second chapters on Courttv.Gather.com, where the community will help narrow the pool down to
5 finalists.

Round 4: January 3, 2008 - January 22, 2008:
The judging panel will select one talented mystery novelist as the Grand Prize Winner.

Winner Announced: February 4, 2008:
The judging panel will announce the mystery novelist as the Grand Prize Winner, the Next Great Crime Writer.

BOOKOPINION REVIEW: I thoroughly enjoyed reading the third novel in the Restoration Series by Terri Blackstock. ”True Light” is a fast read…it took me about 90 minutes to devour it, but it is honest, well honed and packed with characters that are easy to relate to. This semi science fiction, Christian book has easily become one of my favorites.

Imagine that you are living your life, everything is normal, usual ups and downs and you wake up one morning to find that you have no electricity, no phone, no plumbing and have no clue when any of these facilities will be restored. You cannot even walk to the supermarket to purchase your groceries…there are no supermarkets. And your car is useless…bicycles or horses have become the new normal. Then you hear that a supernova named SN-1999 is emitting electromagnetic pulses every few seconds…which basically renders everything operational on the earth, useless. And no one can predict when this star might burn itself out. Your very survival is threatened. And the best and the worst in human nature are revealed…and the worst seems to have the upper hand.

“True Light” opens with a scene, in Crockett, Alabama, of exultation as Zach Emory shoots a ten point buck, which is necessary to feed his family. Hearing footsteps, the teenager turns, expecting his brother to help him lift the deer into their rickshaw. Unfortunately, the man approaching is not Zach’s brother…the stranger raises his rifle and shoots Zach, and then the shooter and the deer disappear.

The Branning family is initially drawn into this mystery because of Jeff Branning, a close friend of Zach’s. But Deni Branning, a reporter for the Crocket Times, takes a personal interest in finding the shooter when Mark Green, the man she hopes to marry, is arrested for the attempted murder of Zach. Intent upon proving Mark innocent, the entire Branning family becomes involved in this rather complex plot.

During Mark’s time in jail, he struggles not just to survive but to maintain his core of Christian conviction. But incarcerated in a tiny cell with murderers and out of control maniacal convicts, Mark’s situation is not just dire, but desperate. So, what does he do in these circumstances? How is he supposed to react? What would you do? Will Zach survive to identify his assailant and clear Mark’s name?

What I have described is a miniscule outline of a well written novel, filled with intrigue, conflicting relationships and revealing insights into human nature. What I liked best about Blackstock’s ”True Light” is that it makes you really think…not just about how you would react in such a situation but how you would relate to other people…and what role you would play because conforming roles are no longer the norm.

I wholeheartedly give “True Light” a thumbs up approval. If you enjoy light science fiction or Christian situational conflict, then you are going to love the Terri Blackstock books. I cannot wait to read the many other novels that she has penned and look forward to Book Four in the Restoration series.

– Elizabeth Channery

An excerpt Stephen Colbert’s hotly anticipated debut of “I Am America (And So Can You!)” can be heard on a podcast at Amazon. Colbert, of course, is known as the host of The Colbert Report, which follows The Daily Show nightly.

The book is already atop bestseller charts based on pre-orders (and the nightly stumping that Colbert does on his show).

Publishers Weekly writes: “Realizing that it takes more than thirty minutes a night to fix everything that’s destroying America, Colbert bravely takes on the forces aligned to destroy our country—whether they be terrorists, environmentalists, or Kashi brand breakfast cereals. His various targets include nature (I’ve never trusted the sea. What’s it hiding under there?), the Hollywood Blacklist (I would have named enough names to fill the Moscow phone book), and atheists (Imagine going through life completely duped into thinking that there’s no invisible, omniscient higher power guiding every action on Earth. It’s just so arbitrary!). Colbert also provides helpful illustrations and charts (Things That Are Trying to Turn Me Gay), a complete transcript of his infamous speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and a special Holiday DVD, all of which add up to a book that is sure to be a bestseller and match the success of Colbert’s former Daily Show boss Jon Stewart’s America (The Book).”

Click here to listen to the free podcast on Amazon.

As her next book club selection, Oprah Winfrey has chosen “Love in the Time of Cholera,” a love story by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. “He’s truly one of our greatest living literary giants,” Winfrey said.

“If you love ‘love,’ this book is the best love story ever,” Winfrey said on her show.

Published in 1985, the novel will now certainly skyrocket up the bestseller lists. Garcia Marquez, 80, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. “Love in the Time of Cholera” is set on the Caribbean coast of South America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It tells the tale of a woman and two men, and an unrequited love that spans 50 years.

“It is so beautifully written that it really takes you to another place in time and will make you ask yourself how long could you or would you wait for love,” Winfrey said.

This is the second time he has been selected for Oprah’s book club. “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” was a selection in 2004

A film adaptation of “Love in the Time of Cholera” is scheduled for November release. “If you’re like me, you’ll want to read the book before you see the movie,” Winfrey said.