According to the New York Daily News, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has written dozens of Amazon user reviews over the past eight years—enough to earn a “Top Reviewer” rating. And what do the reviews teach us about his tastes? “For one, he really hates the Clintons,” the Daily News says. “He loves a good mystery. He's fascinated with World War II, as well as the Civil War, with a special appreciation for the ‘automatic aggressiveness’ of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.”
German author Bernard Schlink is taking the Weinstein Company to court for not paying him royalties from the film adaptation of his novel, The Reader. Schlink, it is worth noting, has been a judge and a professor of law.
In other magazines: Triple Canopy has released a new Occupy Wall Street issue. Also, new issues of Open Letters Monthly and Words Without Borders are now up online.
We’re looking forward to the new New Inquiry. The magazine relaunching its website (it’ll go live on February 6), and for $2 a month, subscribers will receive a “e-reader-compatible PDF on the first Monday of every month.” And though we can’t tell if it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, the theme of their next issue is precarity.
“Blurbs, like bullshit, existed long before the term coined to describe them,” Alan Levinovitz writes in a brief history of the book blurb, which traces its origin back to at least 1516.
