All My Friends Were Vampires

Anybody else noticed that vampires are suddenly everywhere? It's like the early 90s all over again. These things are always cyclical. On with the links:

• Via Kottke.org comes the thrilling news that Brad Pitt will star in the film adaptation of Moneyball.
  

• Kottke.org was full of great finds this morning, including this interesting list of books that inspired graphic designers (no design books allowed). Among them: Play It As It Lays, Infinite Jest, and Hunger.

• "In reality, The White Tiger reads like the first draft of a Bollywood screenplay (no romance or songs sadly). Every character is a cliché: the scheming servant, the corrupt politician, the alluring master's wife. The humour is bitter and unsubtle; the writing forgettable." Let's see...with no romance and no songs, I don't think you have a Bollywood screenplay (also, the hero doesn't find his mother - who he long assumed to be dead - blind and begging in a Caclutta market); the scheming servant would be the main character, a richly-drawn, multifaceted person who acts in all kinds of unpredictable ways; the corrupt politician is seen only briefly and serves as a plot point and little else; and the master's wife didn't seem alluring in the least to me. I will say that the humor is bitter (and abundant), but that would be, um, the point, I think. I disagree with Mr. Rahim -- buy The White Tiger. In fact, buy it here.

• See, I'm not a loser, I'm a late bloomer.

The White Tiger Wins the Booker!

Aravind Adiga's debut novel has won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. You may remember I interviewed Mr. Adiga a couple of weeks ago for our podcast. Congratulations to him on his tremendous novel.

Prize Week Mania Grips Vroman's!

This week marks one of the busiest weeks of the literary schedule as the winner of the Booker Prize and the nominees for the National Book Award are announced. As I've said before, I'm pulling for Aravind Adiga's excellent The White Tiger to win the Booker, while I'm hoping to see a few familiar names on the National Book Award list (Benioff? Le?). Not everyone is as eagerly awaiting the announcements as I,though. Lee Rourke, for one, isn't too excited about any of this year's Booker Shortlisters.

Vroman's Podcast 5: Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga is the author of The White Tiger, a gripping new novel about contemporary India. It has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, one of two debut novels to make the list this year. I've already made it clear that I'm pulling for him.

Mr. Adiga and I spoke over the phone a short while ago. He was in his apartment in Mumbai, and I was in my kitchen. It was early in the morning for me, which might explain why I inverted the name of a key character in the book. During our conversation, which runs about 21 minutes, we spoke about globalization, outsourcing, book sales, and how the United States is already dead to the rest of the world. You know, the usual stuff.

Click here to download the podcast to your computer.

Booker Shortlist Announced

The six finalists for the Man Booker Prize for fiction have been announced. They are:

• The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
• The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry
• Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh
• The Clothes on Their Backs, by Linda Grant
• The Northern Clemency, by Philip Hensher
• A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz

Obviously, there were a couple of surprises, namely the omission of The Enchantress of Florence and Netherland. I'm happy I have a horse in this race, as I'm pulling for Aravind Adiga's dazzling, wildly entertaining The White Tiger. Thoughts on the shortlist, anyone?