Apple guru Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance to unveil the new iPad (he is currently on sick leave). Apple has also announced that Random House will begin offering titles through the iBookstore, which has sold one hundred million books since its launch.
Open City, the literary magazine run by Tom Beller, Joanna Yas, and others, is closing. The journal, which introduced us to voices such as Sam Lipsyte, and published vital work by many excellent authors for two decades, will be much missed. Luckily, the Open City Books imprint will continue.
Literary critic Terry Castle’s smart, hilarious, and occasionally brutal collection of personal essays, The Professor, was one of our favorite books last year. Scott McLemee provides a thoughtful consideration, finding that "in Terry Castle's hands, the autobiographical essay becomes both a kind of cultural history and a challenge to the reader: Here are my obsessions and the things I would forget if I could. Do you dare to confront your own?"
Scribner has announced Stephen King’s next novel, which will be published this fall. Called 11/23/63, the thousand-plus-page book features a protagonist who travels back in time to attempt to stop the JFK assassination. King is probably wishing he had a time machine so he could travel back to 2002, and undo his announcement that he was retiring—he's written at least a half-dozen books since.
More changes at the New York Times Magazine: The publication will start crediting editors at the end of features (there’s currently no masthead in the magazine). And the popular “On Language” column is now in limbo. Can Facebook save it? Hope springs eternal, as editor Hugo Lindgren sent this encouraging tweet earlier this week: “The column is not part of the mix for right now, but it is not dead. Please stay tuned.”
