December 3, 2012 | by Sadie Stein
These photos of Amazon’s warehouses are awe-inspiring and terrifying.
Sign a petition to bring filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s work to a wider audience.
The influence of Samuel Greenberg.
The debate over porn in U.S. libraries.
Qatari poet Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami has been sentenced to life in prison for writing in support of the Arab Spring.
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TAGS Amazon, Frederick Wiseman, Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami., poet, poetry, Samuel Greenberg
April 18, 2012 | by Sadie Stein
How to write a best seller?
“If you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.”
Meet identical-twin writers.
Amazon to reissue James Bond.
“Is it taboo to write about baking and Sylvia Plath?” Paper and Salt proves that whatever else, the results can be delicious.
In a Roald Dahl image come to life, meet the world’s first lickable wallpaper.
Building a library of jokes, hoaxes, and literary frauds.
Libraries jump through hoops (and hire book robots) to stay alive.
Dwight MacDonald and the art of the essay.
TAGS Amazon, Dwight Macdonald, James Bond, libraries, sylvia plath
February 22, 2012 | by Meredith Blake
Let it be known that Lady Fiona Herbert, the eighth Countess of Carnarvon, occasionally answers her own phone. When I call the Countess’s office to discuss her new book, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, I am unusually anxious; it’s not every day I speak to a member of the British aristocracy. “Hello?” answers a startled-sounding voice. I nervously ask if Lady Carnarvon is available. “This is Lady Carnarvon,” the voice replies, erupting into hearty laughter—which, happily, is not directed at me. The Countess had been reaching for the phone just as it rang and was caught off guard. “I’m completely useless as a receptionist,” she says.
For a woman who lives at Highclere Castle, one of Britain’s most impressive “family piles,” as well as the primary setting of the spectacularly popular PBS costume drama Downton Abbey, Lady Carnarvon is surprisingly warm and unpretentious.
She projects an image of slightly disheveled glamour: her household is not a well-oiled machine, but something more akin to a living archaeological site, where one might just discover a decades-old scrapbook while foraging through an out-of-use desk drawer. “We found a staircase recently. That was quite exciting,” she tells me.
Downton Abbey isn’t Highclere’s first brush with fame—parts of Eyes Wide Shut were filmed there, and British tabloid curiosity Jordan celebrated her 2005 wedding at the castle, arriving via a pumpkin-shaped carriage—but the phenomenal success of the series has thrust the Carnarvon family’s ancestral home into the spotlight like never before. It’s also spawned a cottage industry of Downton Abbey tie-in books, including two competing biographies about Almina, the colorful and controversial fifth Countess of Carnarvon. Read More »
TAGS Alan Herbert, Albania, Alfred de Rothschild, Alfred House, Amazon, aristocracy, Aubrey Herbert, Bristol, Britain, Colonel Ian Dennistoun, Countess of Carnarvon, Downton Abbey, Earl of Carnarvon, England, Evelyn Waugh, Eyes Wide Shut, George Hebert, Highclere Castle, James Stocking, Jordan, Julian Fellowes, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, Lady Cora Crawley, Lady Fiona Herbert, Marie Wombwell, Pharoah's curse, Prince of Wales, Prince Victor Duleep Singh, T. E. Lawrence, The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon, The Pocket Venus, Tutankhamun, William Cross, World War II
November 16, 2011 | by Sadie Stein
A cultural news roundup.
Winners of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards.
Stephen King helps heat Maine.
The real Tintin!
The X-Men archive goes to Columbia.
Penguin takes the self-publishing leap.
The LA Times pubs its first e-book.
Meanwhile, authors charge that the Kindle library is “boldly breaching its contracts.”
In brick-and-mortar news, Ann Patchett opens a bookstore.
Wordsworth House (#4) opens in the Lake District.
Salman Rushdie fights Facebook, and wins.
Writers restock the OWS Library.
Speaking of public libraries ...
RIP legendary publisher Morris Philipson.
“We’ve just lost the Norman Rockwell of comic strips.”
Jane Austen ... murdered?
TAGS Amazon, Ann Patchett, Bil Keane, Chris Claremont, Facebook, Hurston/Wright Legacy Lit Awards, Jane Austen, Kindle, Los Angeles Times, Morris Philipson, Penguin, Salman Rushdie, self-publishing, Stephen King, University of Chicago Press, Wordsworth, X-Men
September 14, 2011 | by Sadie Stein
Portrait of Roald Dahl, 1954, by Carl Van Vechten.
A cultural news roundup.
William Sleator, a well-loved author of young-adult science fiction and fantasy, has died at sixty-six.
“Of course, buzzwords come and go. But it’s striking that 9/11 and its aftereffects have left almost no traces in the language of everyday life.”
Walk a mile in J. K. Rowling’s boots.
“Rowling, who famously guards her privacy, is one of a number of prominent public figures expected to give evidence to Lord Justice Leveson’s judicial inquiry into phone hacking and media ethics and practices.”
In response to the BBC’s plans to cut short fiction, prominent authors embark on a tweetathon.
Not to be confused with the ambitious Sixty-Six Books Twitter project.
Chinua Achebe vs. 50 Cent.
A single Salinger sentence sells for $50,000.
The Amazon digital-book library marches on.
Happy ninety-fifth birthday, Roald Dahl.
A birthday appeal to save the late author’s writing hut is controversial.
The college experience, sans tuition.
Remembering comics author Del Connell.
TAGS 50 Cent, 9/11, Amazon, BBC, Chinua Achebe, Del Connell, J. D. Salinger, J. K. Rowling, Roald Dahl, Tweetathon, William Sleator
August 17, 2011 | by Sadie Stein
A cultural news roundup.
Just Kids gets the big-screen treatment.
So does Tolkien.
Kathryn Stockett triumphs in court (as well as at the movies).
Need an alternative to The Help? Try Welty.
“As a kid I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays and I would walk home at night. For several years I read the children’s library until I finished the children’s library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them. With the kids’ library I did it alphabetically but I discovered I couldn't do that with the adult one because there were too many big boring books to read, so I did it by interesting covers.”
A tribute to Wendy Wasserstein.
Amazon moves in on publishing with first “major” deal.
The next best thing to a vacation? Reading about a vacation.
The movies may be complete, and the books long finished, but Harry Potter fans need not despair: Pottermore launches in October.
The case for spoilers!
Who’s your favorite deliciously awful fictional character?
Bookstores clear a “Rick Perry” section.
“Ah ha! I’ve finally put my finger on a concrete reason for my lingering, irrational, doubtless soon-to-be-jettisoned prejudice against e-readers.”
TAGS Amazon, e-reader, Eudora Welty, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkein, Just Kids, Kathryn Stockett, library, Neil Gaiman, Patti Smith, Pottermore, Rick Perry, spoilers, The Help, Tolkein, Wendy and the Lost Boys, Wendy Wasserstein
