paper trail

May 14, 2010 @ 9:00:00 am

Jorge Luis Borges

Sloane Crosley, author of the hit memoir I Was Told There'd be Cake, has been promoted to deputy director of publicity at Vintage. Crosley is taking two weeks off from her new gig this summer to embark on a tour for her forthcoming essay collection How Did You Get This Number?observing first-hand the rigors of on-the-ground book promotion, and picking up tips for her clients as well as plenty of fodder for future volumes. 

Little Orphan Annie has survived many hardships, but has become the latest victim of newspapers' decline.

Novelist Rebecca Goldstein writes as Jorge Luis Borges, penning a story about how the study of literature has turned into an "amalgam of bad epistemology and worse prose," known as Theory; at the LA Times, Carolyn Kellogg imagines Borges "sneaking onto Wikipedia and seeding circular entries designed to perplex, mislead, and amaze." And in a turn of events that might delight Borges, readers can now create books from their favorite Wikipedia articles.

Lost in translation: Books are usually given completely different covers abroad, often with puzzling results—like the Everything is Illuminated cover that turned from a monochromatic scrawl in the US to a raunchy watercolor in France; The Guardian asks the designers to explain.

Bloggers love books because they still dream of the ink-on-paper deal, but whether it is in print or online, literary culture can't afford to lose long form essay.