paper trail

Nov 24, 2010 @ 9:00:00 am

Tom Waits

The Guardian reports that the sublimely gruff-voiced singer Tom Waits is publishing his first book of poetry, Hard Ground, a collaboration with photographer Michael O'Brien. In a 1975 interview Waits said, "I don't like the stigma that comes with being called a poet . . . So I call what I'm doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue."

The tired thesis that poetry is on the decline is being posited again by Joseph Epstein in Commentary magazine. Why does that sound so familiar?

Rand Paul has scored a book deal with Hachette Book Group’s Center Street division. The tome, The Tea Party Goes to Washington, will appear in February, just as Paul begins his senatorial debut.

Journalist Johann Hari had never met a fried food he didn’t like—until he converted to the Church of Exercise. We will keep his inspiring example in mind as we overindulge in food and drink during our Thanksgiving break.

Next month, the University of Chicago will publish e-book editions of all twelve volumes of Anthony Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time,” a series of books beloved by tweedy, genteel eccentrics such as the narrator of Jonathan Ames’s Wake Up, Sir!. In December, the U of Chicago will give away the first volume, A Question of Upbringing, for free—call it a gateway drug for Anglophilia.