An “official” website and a “fan” site devoted to the career of an actress called Jayne Dennis are not what they seem. Jayne Dennis is not a real person: she is a character in Bret Easton Ellis’s novel Lunar Park, due out next month, which the sites are promoting. It’s clever; except, why would browsers look for sites (www.jaynedennis.com and www.jayne-dennis.com) devoted to a fictitious actress they’ve never heard of?

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Six British bloggers on literary matters have joined forces to present teasers from their work, with links, at one website. I find the home page, laid out in six vertical columns, somewhat hard to navigate, but others may disagree. If you’ve yet to discover the substantial community discussing books online, www.britlitblogs.com offers the way.

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One of the issues being aired at BritLitBlogs is the backlash against Ismail Kadaré, who last month won the £60,000 Man Booker International Prize. In a letter to The Times Literary Supplement, Professor Barry Baldwin wrote of the Albanian writer that “his resumé screams careerism and conformity”. A Romanian writer, Irina Renata Dumitrascu, claims that Kadaré’s entire career is “built on a dubious premise”. It is a charge that all artists living under repressive regimes — save jailed dissidents — have had to face.

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Richard and Judy, now the most influential promoters of books in Britain, are to offer viewers this autumn the chance to win a contract to publish their own, true stories with Random House. The winner will also receive a £25,000 advance, plus the assistance of “a world-class writer” (Ismail Kadaré?). Entrants first have to call a number and make two-minute pitches; eight of the stories will be filmed for the Channel 4 daytime programme. The public will vote for the winner.

NICHOLAS CLEE

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