November 7, 2012 On the Shelf A Man Walks into a Voting Booth, and Other News By Sadie Stein This. Election-themed poetry, whatever your mood. Teams anyone can get behind: author-editor pairings. The epic Moby-Dick marathon reading is nigh. Paul Dano, who kicks it off, obviously gets the money line. As Sandy aftermath continues, a list of more ways you can help. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 6, 2012 On the Shelf The Vatican is Not a Fan of J.K. Rowling’s Adult Oeuvre, and Other News By Sadie Stein The Vatican pans J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. Or at any rate, the Holy See’s official paper does. “I read Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet, every day.” Mary Oliver on her inspirations. Enid Blyton’s “Famous Five” series is being revived for television. Help bookstores post-Sandy. And the most-read book in the world is … not a shocker. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 5, 2012 On the Shelf Did The Moviegoer Fix the NBAs? And Other News By Sadie Stein It was considered a huge upset when The Moviegoer beat out Catch-22, Revolutionary Road, and Franny and Zooey for the 1962 National Book Award. Slate asks: Was the fix in? And why? Speaking of snubbing Richard Yates: “Each time Yates shuffled into Roads that summer, I avoided making eye contact. Why didn’t he get help, join AA?” Leslie Absher recounts her interactions with the author. Books written from beyond the grave. Dead Mark Twain was especially prolific. You may be dead before you finish these: a slideshow of those books most difficult to finish. He apparently hated beards, and other trivia about Roald Dahl.
November 2, 2012 On the Shelf I Sent My Book to David Foster Wallace and All I Got Was This Lousy Postcard By Sadie Stein “Why did he choose to send me a postcard? Simply because it’s a few cents cheaper than mailing a letter in an envelope? Was it just sitting around when he was looking for something to write on? Does he buy stacks of these postcards for the express purpose of responding to random fans? And worse, does he write this same prepared response to every letter?” Frank Cassese on hearing from DFW. An unpublished Truman Capote story has come to light and will be published later this month. “Within the world of the Thurber dog there are many different specimens and varieties.” “I don’t know why Hollywood is fascinated by my book when they never care to film it as I wrote it.” Authors respond to adaptations of their work. “For Halloween, a pointy hat, fake hair and a broom [make] a witch’s outfit.” And other wisdom from Pippa Middleton’s literary debut. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 1, 2012 On the Shelf Bookstores Take a Beating, and Other News By Sadie Stein Brooklyn's Powerhouse Books, post-Sandy How did bookstores fare in the wake of Hurricane Sandy? A sad reality for many right now: how to care for water-damaged books. The (thankfully unscathed) New York Public Library has waived fines … until November 8. Many independent bookstores are refusing to stock books from the Amazon imprint. The Proper Art of Writing: a compilation of all sorts of capital or initial letters of German, Latin and Italian fonts from different masters of the noble art of writing. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
October 31, 2012 On the Shelf Boo! And Other Ways to Scare Kids By Sadie Stein The top ten books for creeping out kids: a guide for parents. “Give your ghost a life story, and other rules for writing a ghost story.” What scares Neil Gaiman? Scariest of all: “I wouldn’t have known about my Russian pirate translator had I not set a Google Alert for the title of my debut novel when it was published, in April 2011.” Peter Mountford chronicles an unlikely alliance. “It was, perhaps, inevitable that Homo floresiensis, the three-foot-tall species of primitive human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores, would come to be widely known as ‘hobbits.’ After all, like J. R. R. Tolkien’s creation, ‘they were a little people, about half our height.’ But a New Zealand scientist planning an event about the species has been banned from describing the ancient people as ‘hobbits’ by representatives of the Tolkien estate.” [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]