November 14, 2013 On the Shelf Conversing with Brodsky, and Other News By Sadie Stein Amazon has launched a juggernaut of a Kindle store in Australia. The Joseph Brodsky reading list for facilitating intelligent conversation. Alison Bechdel on heading to Broadway. Writing for good health
November 13, 2013 On the Shelf Writers Sell Out, and Other News By Sadie Stein A pretty amazing slideshow of authors shilling for products through the ages. Jonathan Franzen loves Harriet the Spy. Now really want to know his views on the even odder The Long Secret and frankly bizarre Sport. Herewith: a scratch and sniff wine book. “The very foundation of Judaeo-Christian ethics is presented as a list.” On listicles.
November 12, 2013 On the Shelf Cinematic Librarians, and Other News By Sadie Stein The Brooklyn Quarterly publishes a roundtable with five writers on the purpose and state of argumentative fiction. Compelling, unique, and poignant get 86’d from PW reviews. Party Girl, Bunny Watson, and other amazing pop-culture librarians. The family of Malcolm X is suing to prevent the publication of the diary he kept in the year prior to his death.
November 8, 2013 On the Shelf Mad Money, and Other News By Sadie Stein “It will be fun to give some to prostitutes.” William T. Vollmann on hypothetically winning the Nobel. BuzzFeed Books is full steam ahead. In other behemoth news, Amazon reaches out to indie bookstores about carrying Nooks. “Nah. Here I’m surrounded by people, but I’m also pretty anonymous. Not having to bullshit—even with a roommate who’s a friend—is a plus.” On living in the NYU library.
November 7, 2013 On the Shelf One Man’s Trash, and Other News By Sadie Stein Discarded books from the Birmingham Public Library become the basis for a series of pieces by local artists. P. D. James claims to have solved a 1931 cold case in the course of researching a mystery. In 1841, Edgar Allan Poe’s literary gumshoeing was less successful. The rise of Denglisch—and the introduction of words like shitstorm and cashcow into the German lexicon—is understandably controversial. Here are some bookish wedding cakes. We feel like that last one is really the cake of a match made in heaven. Mazel tov!
November 6, 2013 On the Shelf Margaret Atwood Will Not Blurb Your Book, and Other News By Sadie Stein “I blurb only for the dead, these days.” Margaret Atwood’s form rejection poem. For centuries, Beowulf scholars have translated the epic’s opening line as, “Listen!” But now, Dr. George Walkden argues that “the use of the interrogative pronoun ‘hwæt’ (rhymes with cat) means the first line is not a standalone command but informs the wider exclamatory nature of the sentence which was written by an unknown poet between 1,200 and 1,300 years ago.” In the past year, ninety-eight small UK publishers went under, a 42 percent rise from the year prior. We wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but here is a guide to how to drink like Dorothy Parker.