Some chewy bits and pieces to offer you this week. First, kudos to David Finkel, whose book The Good Soldiers was just named the recipient of the Anthony Lukas prize. I’ve long been an admirer of Finkel’s narrative journalism, which came to my attention when I edited the Nieman Foundation’s Narrative Digest. The Good Soldiers offers an interesting counterpoint to The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins.

Both books are examples of masterful war reporting, but they also make a study in contrasts about the role of the narrator in nonfiction storytelling. Finkel choses the third person, zooming on his soldier protagonists. (See this Washington Post excerpt.) Filkins, on the other hand, uses his book to write in a way that is impossible in his New York Times stories, as he explains in “Up Close and Personal in Iraq,” an article by Ankush Khardori in The American Prospect. Just read the first few pages of each, and you’ll notice the difference in point of view.

How will books like these fare in the future, as traditional publishing adapts to new technology? You may have seen the host of recent news articles about e-books, and you may even be considering buying a brand-new iPad. In the Sin and Syntax Salon, Sarah Baker gives you the lowdown on what she calls the “chaotic bazaar” of book publishing.

Motoko Rich also had an interesting (if oddly written—did anyone else think it went in circles?) article about how e-readers kill the fun of looking at what others are reading. Is the Kindle a conversation killer? I once sat next to a handsome guy on a plane who was reading The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. My asking how he liked the book kicked off a conversation that took us to Frankfurt. And it gave me a cool connection in Washington, D.C. (He was a staffer for Congressman John Conyers.)

OK, now back to our conversation about writing. I wanted to share some suggestions from my California colleague Nora Isaacs, who is a terrific journalist as well as a freelance editor.

Nora is good on tips. I appreciated the ones in her book Women in Overdrive. And taking some of those tips to heart, I will stop writing and start assembling some literal bits and pieces for a dinner party tonight.

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