Still a Contender: Katherine Dunn has a new story in the summer Paris Review, her first fiction since her Geek Love was nominated for a 1989 National Book Award. (There is also an interview at the blog.) Dunn has spent the past two decades immersed in the boxing world, researching for a follow-up book called Cut Man and reporting on the sweet science for various boxing magazines (collected in the volume One Ring Circus). When she's isn't slugging would-be purse snatchers or reviewing boxing books, Dunn is still at work on her follow-up novel, which she reports will soon be finished.
Stieg Larsson once sent two stories to the small Swedish magazine Jules Verne that have recently been rediscovered. Though the magazine rejected the stories at the time, they have since become hot property.
Literary scouts do not get merit badges for dealing with prickly publishers, exacting editors, or the tricky task of predicting which American book will be a bestseller abroad.
Grumbling about textbook prices—a longstanding campus tradition—may soon become history; for companies that rent textbooks to students, business is booming. And Inside Higher Ed reports that while traditional textbooks are still the norm on college campuses, e-books are often used in online education programs—perhaps a harbinger of things to come.
