{"id":29878,"date":"2012-04-18T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=29878"},"modified":"2019-01-14T15:50:41","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T20:50:41","slug":"sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/04\/13\/150582219\/on-writing-a-bestseller-theres-a-formula-shhh?ft=1&amp;f\u00e5=1032\">How to write a best seller?<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf you are like me,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/blogs\/nyrblog\/2012\/apr\/17\/bathroom-reading\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nybooks+%28The+New+York+Review+of+Books%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\"> you must always have something to read in the bathroom<\/a>. Anything will do.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Meet<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/robert-kalich\/identical-twin-writer-kalich-brothers_b_1429974.html?ref=books\"> identical-twin writers<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Amazon <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediabistro.com\/galleycat\/amazon-to-reissue-james-bond-backlist_b50284\">to reissue James Bond<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIs it taboo to write about baking and Sylvia Plath?\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/paperandsalt.org\/\">Paper and Salt<\/a> proves that whatever else, the results can be delicious.<\/li>\n<li>In a Roald Dahl image come to life, meet the world\u2019s first <a href=\"http:\/\/thestir.cafemom.com\/food_party\/136213\/lickable_wallpaper_tastes_like_our\">lickable wallpaper<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Building a library of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abebooks.com\/books\/jokes-hoaxes-thomas-chatterton\/literary-fraud.shtml\">jokes, hoaxes, and literary frauds<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Libraries <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesmartset.com\/article\/article03271201.aspx\">jump through hoops<\/a> (and hire book robots) to stay alive.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2012\/05\/style-is-the-man\/8944\/\">Dwight MacDonald<\/a> and the art of the essay.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin writers. Amazon to reissue James Bond. \u201cIs it taboo to write about baking and Sylvia Plath?\u201d Paper and Salt proves that whatever else, the results can be delicious. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2512],"tags":[564,7147,1455,7148,2704],"class_list":["post-29878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-shelf","tag-amazon","tag-dwight-macdonald","tag-james-bond","tag-libraries","tag-sylvia-plath"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 18, 2012 \u2013 &nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 18, 2012 \u2013 &nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-18T12:00:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-01-14T20:50:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-18T12:00:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-01-14T20:50:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\"},\"wordCount\":105,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Amazon\",\"Dwight Macdonald\",\"James Bond\",\"libraries\",\"sylvia plath\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On the Shelf\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\",\"name\":\"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper by Sadie Stein\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-18T12:00:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-01-14T20:50:41+00:00\",\"description\":\"April 18, 2012 \u2013 &nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper by Sadie Stein","description":"April 18, 2012 \u2013 &nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper by Sadie Stein","og_description":"April 18, 2012 \u2013 &nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2012-04-18T12:00:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-01-14T20:50:41+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper","datePublished":"2012-04-18T12:00:15+00:00","dateModified":"2019-01-14T20:50:41+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/"},"wordCount":105,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["Amazon","Dwight Macdonald","James Bond","libraries","sylvia plath"],"articleSection":["On the Shelf"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/","name":"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper by Sadie Stein","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-04-18T12:00:15+00:00","dateModified":"2019-01-14T20:50:41+00:00","description":"April 18, 2012 \u2013 &nbsp; How to write a best seller? \u201cIf you are like me, you must always have something to read in the bathroom. Anything will do.\u201d Meet identical-twin","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/18\/sylvia-plath-robot-librarians-and-lickable-wallpaper\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sylvia Plath, Robot Librarians, and Lickable Wallpaper"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29878"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132703,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29878\/revisions\/132703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}