paper trail

Feb 14, 2012 @ 4:00:00 am

Introducing Warscapes, a new literary magazine featuring poetry, fiction, and art about war.

New York reports that Amy Adams is angling to star in the movie adaptation of An Object of Beauty, Steve Martin’s 2010 novel about a young woman’s ascent through the New York art world.

In the hierarchy of literary street cred, bragging about listening to audiobooks ranks somewhere near the bottom. At n+1, Maggie Gram dissects the bias against audiobooks, and the implications of having “a whole set of unrelated and real (if only partially attended) experiences while simultaneously experiencing a book.”

Humbert Humbert “was... despite mes malheurs, an exceptionally handsome male,” while Emma Bovary’s “eyelids seemed chiseled expressly for her long amorous looks.” Meet The Composite, a blog dedicated to composite sketches of literary figures.

Slate’s new language podcast, Lexicon Valley, investigates the history of “the other f-word,” and wonders if there’s “a way to defang and repurpose” the word faggot. In other Slate news, tech columnist Farhad Manjoo has sold a book, Masters of the Universe, about “Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, as they expand beyond their traditional services and move aggressively into each other’s territory, battling for dominance of our lives.”

Genre trouble: In an interview with Eminent Outlaws author Christopher Bram, Salon asks: “Is gay literature over?” Meanwhile, The San Diego Union-Tribune wonders: “Is chick lit dead?” (Not according to The Guardian, which just published a new profile of “quintessential chick-lit writer” Sophie Kinsella.)