Gladwell becomes non-fiction Goliath

After making the phrase "the tipping point" ubiquitous and teaching the world that 10,000 hours of practice are necessary to achieve greatness, Ontario-born journalist Malcolm Gladwell has become the Goliath of the non-fiction world.

He'll likely return to the bestseller lists in 2013 with his fifth book, entitled David and Goliath. The book, to be published by Little, Brown, will focus on "revolutionaries and dictators, the privileged and the poor, misfits and straight arrows," according to a company press release, while exploring what happens when underdogs confront the powerful.

A staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, Gladwell will be speaking on Oct. 10 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre as the keynote speaker at the Centrallia 2012 global business conference.

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A former Winnipegger who was a regular guest on local children's television shows comes to town today to talk about the secret at the heart of her family.

Carol K. Murray will read from her self-published book All These Years: a Remarkable True Story of Love, Devotion and Courage.

The book follows Murray's life from her teen and early adult years, through her time in the 1970s on the Winnipeg television shows Archie and His Friends and S'kiddle Bits, to the day when her husband of 30 years told her he was gay, and to the commitment to family she maintained in the following years.

Murray will read at 2 p.m. at McNally Robinson.

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Edmonton writer Jason Lee Norman has a clever theme for his first collection of short stories, titled Americas.

The book, self-published by the University of Manchester creative writing graduate, contains one story each for the 22 countries in North, South and Central America.

He will be signing copies at McNally Robinson July 28 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

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Two teenagers featured in the TV series Keeping Up With the Kardashians -- half-sisters of the tabloid-ruling Kim, Khloe and Kourtney -- have announced a plan to write a young adult science-fiction novel.

Kendall and Kylie Jenner say their book will be inspired by The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins's bestseller about a degraded society awash in inequality and reality television. So it's a case of "write what you know."

Simon & Schuster has been named as the publisher of the sisters' book.

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The controversy over the refusal of the board of the Pulitzer Prize to award a fiction prize this year is being rekindled on the website of The New Yorker by Michael Cunningham, author of Pulitzer-winning novel The Hours.

Cunningham was one of the three jurors who, in accordance with the Pulitzer's rules, recommended three books for consideration by the 18-member Pulitzer board: David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and Karen Russell's Swamplandia! The board has yet to explain its decision to refuse to issue a fiction award this year.

Cunningham wrote last week that all three of the jurors were shocked by the board's decision.

Now he describes how he and his fellow jurors came up with three finalists out of the 300 submitted titles and speculates that future readers will be shocked that the board chose to snub all three finalists.

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Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 14, 2012 J8