June 1, 2012 On the Shelf Cabins, Kafka, and KFC! By Sadie Stein Cabin fever. When writers paint. Kafkaesque! Israel vs. Cat Lady over Kafka papers. RIP Brain, Child. Play your (Facebook) cards right and you could be the proud owner of Colonel Sanders’s autobiography. “It was our misfortune to have sadistic and fanatical guards.” Vonnegut’s letter from the real Slaughterhouse Five.
May 29, 2012 On the Shelf Singing Babushki, Bartending Poets, Cupcakes By Sadie Stein Cupcake invasion: American terminology replaces fairy cake among British children. At 62 White, we’re a bit obsessed with the Buranovskiye Babushki. Nature lovers? Meet the weekly Bookbirder report. The Bard of McSorley’s. Saddam Hussein’s daughter seeks a publisher for her father’s memoirs.
May 25, 2012 On the Shelf Sexy Typewriters, Wodehouse Nonsense By Sadie Stein Apparently, typewriter erotica was a thing in the 1920s. (NSFW-ish.) The most influential lyricist in music? T.S. Eliot. Philip Roth writes in to the Atlantic to set the record straight on his mental health. The Wodehouse random quote generator is a glorious time-waster. The New Yorker tweets Jennifer Egan’s new story, 140 characters at a time.
May 24, 2012 On the Shelf Great Gatsby, Great Casting, Commas By Sadie Stein Electric Literature’s Required Reading kicks off with a Ben Marcus story and accompanying animation. Your new favorite time waster: I Shot the Serif. Zach Galifianakis is Ignatius J. Reilly. Most comma mistakes. Zelda draws Scott. Speaking of, the first glimpse of Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby trailer elicits … strong emotions.
May 23, 2012 On the Shelf Owls, Hatred, and Blurbese By Sadie Stein The lit-flick streak continues! The Palme d’Or is likely to go to one of several adaptations. As Harry Potter mania fades, hundreds of pet owls are being abandoned across England. How to open a new book. Quiche Lorraine, the comic. Need inspiration? Dial-a-poem! Andrew Ladd decodes Blurbese for the nonreviewer. When less is more: minimalist covers. Cineastes! Help save an endangered film before it’s too late! William Hazlitt, “On the Pleasure of Hating.”
May 22, 2012 On the Shelf Burning Books, Listening to Just Kids, Casting Fleming By Sadie Stein For those with Spotify, all the songs mentioned in Just Kids, in playlist form. (Perfect for a rainy day!) Duncan Jones has signed on to direct a biopic of Ian Fleming, based on Andrew Lycett’s The Man Behind James Bond. Everyone knows the man himself okayed Sean Connery to play 007, but who should fill the enigmatic writer-spy’s shoes? A letter from Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Josepha Hale, author of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” has sold at auction for $164,000. In it, Poe refuses an offer to publish in Hale’s magazine, explaining, “To send you a crude or hastily written article would be injurious to me, and an insult to yourself—and I fear that I could, at present, do little more.” William Peter Blatty, better known as the author of The Exorcist, is suing Georgetown University in church court, disputing his alma mater’s right to still call themselves Catholic given some of its secular policies. “Frat boys burning textbooks to celebrate graduation burn down frat house.”