September 4, 2013 On the Shelf Fifty Shades of Rage, and Other News By Sadie Stein Joey Ramone sings John Cage adapting Finnegans Wake. Got that? Paul Muldoon’s eulogy for Seamus Heaney. Fans of the Fifty Shades series are outraged at the casting for the upcoming film adaptations; a petition is circulating and already boasts 7,300 signatures. The producer has taken to Twitter to defend himself. The Agatha Christie estate has granted permission to author Sophie Hannah to write a new Poirot mystery.
September 3, 2013 On the Shelf William Faulkner’s Unexpected Art, and Other News By Sadie Stein William Faulkner’s drawings from his Ole Miss days are wonderfully Deco. Random House UK launches The Happy Foodie, described thusly: “Bringing cookery books to life, helping you get happy in the kitchen.” In other slogan-y UK books news, Books Are My Bag (which supports bookstores and features a tote bag bearing exactly those words) attracts celebrity adherents. Cairo’s iconic German-language bookstore, Lehnert & Landrock, faces closure amidst the nation’s turmoil. “Beckett had a lifelong interest in chess and was a keen player, following many of the big matches, says his nephew, Edward, who oversees the Beckett estate.” How chess influenced Samuel Beckett’s work.
August 30, 2013 On the Shelf RIP Seamus Heaney, and Other News By Sadie Stein Seamus Heaney has died, at the age of seventy-four. The Guardian brings us a number of his inimitable recordings. The Nuyorican Poets Café celebrates its fortieth birthday. In yet more poetry news: Alberto Rios is Arizona’s first poet laureate.
August 29, 2013 On the Shelf In Which Jane Austen Tells Your Fortune, and Other News By Sadie Stein Oxford Dictionary Online (not to be confused with older sibling OED) has added twerk, derp, and selfie. “I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones.” The Jean-Paul Sartre cookbook. The top twenty books people leave in motel rooms. (Fifty Shades Freed leads the pack.) The (inevitable?) Jane Austen tarot deck.
August 28, 2013 On the Shelf Finch Printing, and Other News By Sadie Stein Behold: an analog typewriter printer that uses ink made from zebra-finch droppings. A massive archive of Charles Bukowski’s manuscripts and letters is now available online at Bukowski.net. Anthony Bourdain, Selena Gomez, and other popular stars of celebrity fan fiction. This Japanese crime syndicate publishes its own magazine. Says the Guardian, “The front page of the magazine, a professionally produced publication featuring the gang’s familiar diamond-shaped logo, carries a piece by its boss, Kenichi Shinoda, instructing younger members to observe traditional yakuza values, including loyalty and discipline.”
August 27, 2013 On the Shelf Kafkaesque Hotels, and Other News By Sadie Stein “Want to lose a friend who’s a writer? Ask her, a month in, how it’s going. Better still, ask her to describe what she’s working on.” Mark Slouka explains the etiquette. The great affect/effect problem. Libraries across Quebec are banding together to help rebuild the branch destroyed in the July Lac-Megantic oil-train derailment. “The rise of the belles-lettres establishment, celebrating France’s literary culture, and even that of its neighbours, is the latest marketing sensation in the French capital, as hoteliers come up with ever more innovative—or desperate—ways to attract guests.” These include a Proust-themed hotel, a hostelry devoted to literary lovers, and a third containing an ominous-sounding Franz Kafka room. The latest in long-overdue library books: an alumna returns a volume to her Michigan school library thirty-three years late, from Dubai.