July 11, 2013 Look Edward Gorey Does the Classics By Sadie Stein Brain Pickings has posted a wonderful gallery of Edward Gorey’s Doubleday paperback covers, designed between 1953 and 1960. Some, like The War of the Worlds and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, feel like an obvious match for Gorey’s brand of Gothic whimsy. But the more unexpected pairings—his takes on Colette, Kierkegaard, and Chekhov—are just as amazing.
July 2, 2013 Look Who Are the Biggest Bookworms in the World? By Sadie Stein This infographic on hours spent reading per week is fascinating.
July 1, 2013 Look This Cat Is Clearly Illiterate By Sadie Stein What makes this so compelling is that the cat is really poring over the text. CORRECTION: The cat’s owner has written in to inform us that not only is Boris literate, he is reading Tennyson!
July 1, 2013 Look From the Notebooks of Jorge Luis Borges By Sadie Stein As he noted on the same page, “The tango is a brothel dance. Of this I have no doubt.”
June 27, 2013 Look A Rejection Is a Rejection Is a Rejection By Sadie Stein Behold what is either the best or worst rejection letter we have ever seen (depending on your capacity for cruelty), sent to Gertrude Stein in 1912 by publisher Arthur C. Fifield. Given that the manuscript in question became Three Lives (among other things) we suppose she had the last laugh. And as an editor, you can’t help thinking: Just how much time did this guy have on his hands? Thanks, Electric Lit!
June 21, 2013 Look Drawing Gitmo By Molly Crabapple In the eleven years since captives arrived at Guantanamo Bay, only three artists have been allowed to visit. I’m here drawing the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed hearings for VICE magazine. Artists sketch through three layers of soundproof glass. There’s a monitor for sound, but it runs on a forty-second delay. The delay is to allow for any classified information to be cut. The world in front of you does not sync with the censored world on the screen. We sit far from the accused. Our opera glasses were confiscated as “prohibited ocular amplification.” Before we take drawings into the outside world, a court security officer must approve and sticker them. Read More