Albert Uderzo’s characters Asterix and Obelix James Franco, aka “America’s most famous poetry geek,” is not only teaching a poetry-heavy film class at NYU, but he’s asked his nine student to direct short films based on C.K. Williams poems. Found in the wonderful Lingua Franca archives: Daniel Zalewski on the advent of silent reading. Magazine publishers Hearst, Conde Nast, and Meredith have all signed on to sell digital versions of their publications (which include Esquire, The New Yorker, Vogue, and Wired) on Amazon’s new i-Pad-like e-reader. The notable absence? Time, Inc. A former handyman who stole rare manuscripts by
Orson Welles, man of letters. Arthur Conan Doyle’s first manuscript, which was lost in the mail and never published during the Sherlock Holmes author’s lifetime, will finally see the light of day. The British Library has released “The Narrative of John Smith,” “a novel from the perspective of a 50-year-old man who is confined to his room when he has an attack of gout.” Siddhartha Deb celebrates the launch of his new book, The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of New India, at KGB Bar in Manhattan on Tuesday. On the occasion of a new Library of America
John Lithgow’s memoir comes out on Tuesday. Things you may not know about Ernest Hemingway: he had a son named Bumby, he taught Ezra Pound how to box, and at the end of his life, he “had shock treatments at the Mayo Clinic and believed the FBI was following him” (which was actually true). James Salter assesses Paul Hendrickson’s new biography of Papa in the New York Review of Books. Astronomers in Texas have figured out the exact hour that Mary Shelley decided to write Frankenstein based on her description of the moonlight on Lake Geneva in June of
Ed Park, “the wizard of whimsy,” now at Amazon Publishing. Amazon Publishing has hired Believer fiction editor Ed Park (a man the Times once dubbed “the wizard of whimsy”) to acquire fiction for their new literary imprint. From Triple Canopy’s literary issue, selections from David Wojnarowicz’s archives. Rumor alert: Facebook may introduce a “read” button (that’s past tense) in addition to “listened” and “watched” buttons. Bill Clinton’s next book, Back to Work, will be published this November by Knopf. Because New York (and children) don’t produce enough smells on their own, a new Kickstarter project is fundraising for a
Amazon now lets you check out Kindle books from your local library. A first-edition dust jacket of the Great Gatsby is expected to raise more than $175,000 at auction this week. UK publisher Canongate is defying Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s wishes and tomorrow will release thousands of copies of his unauthorized autobiography that it published in secret. Columbia Journalism Review assesses the “positive news beat” and the daily media offerings for what Ode Magazine calls “intelligent optimists.” Dwight Garner is upset that many of the best living writers can’t approximate the “casually herculean pace” of a John Updike or
Recently named MacArthur genius Kay Ryan What’s it like working at Amazon.com’s Pennsylvania storage facility? “I never felt like passing out in a warehouse and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one,” said former employee Elmer Goris. “They can do that because there aren’t any jobs in the area.” At the Washington Post, Ezra Klein introduces ‘Wonk Reads’: a weekly roundup of “the five best long-form stories related to economic and domestic policy.” MacArthur Genius grants have been announced! Among this year’s winners: Former Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, New Yorker
From The Phantom Tollbooth New York, London, Los Angeles, and now Toronoto: The Toronto Review of Books releases its inaugural issue. Read Bookforum’s interview with founding editor Jessica Duffin. The Phantom Tollbooth turns fifty. The New Yorker’s Macy Halford tests Goodreads’ new recommendation algorithm by entering the books currently on her desk, including The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach, The Known World, by Edward P. Jones, Within the Context of No Context, by George W.S. Trow, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, by Michel Foucault, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, and Alison Bechdel’s The Essential Dykes to Watch Out
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner with President Obama Landing at the same time as a White House plan to trim $3 billion from the deficit is a new exposé that purports to explain why, for the past three years, passing these kinds of policy proposals has been nearly impossible. Confidence Men, Ron Suskind’s 500-plus-page look at the infighting and palace intrigue behind the Obama White House, has quickly become what Daniel Yergin in our Fall issue calls a “Washington Read”—a book adopted by the inside-the-beltway crowd that’s generally more discussed than read. Judging by the recent explosion of media attention
Sylvia Plath: now with her own postal stamp. Sylvia Plath, e.e. cummings, Joseph Brodsky, and Elizabeth Bishop are four of the nine poets who will be commemorated on a new series of US postal stamps. Christian bookstores, apparently suceptible to the same problems plaguing their secular counterparts, aren’t doing so well. Christopher Hitchens weighs in on Blue Nights, Joan Didion’s forthcoming memoir about the deaths of her husband and daughter. Remarking on the publication of Joe McGinniss’s book on Sarah Palin, New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus argues that political nonfiction, “a form of journalism that once
New York readers! If you haven’t yet figured out a plan of attack for the Brooklyn Book Festival this weekend, don’t worry: we’re here to help. With dozens of events on the roster (not to mention parties, after-parties, and other miscellaneous Bookend events) scheduling a successful Book Festival can be a literary choose-your-own-adventure. So here are a selection of our top picks for the weekend, including a few featuring Bookforum editors Michael Miller, Chris Lehmann, and Albert Mobilio. SUNDAY EVENTS At 11 A.M.: The New India. Bharati Mukherjee (Miss New India), Amitava Kumar (A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook
Polly Courtney Michel Houellebecq, French novelist, and more recently, international man of mystery, has been located after failing to show up for a book tour. Turns out, he forgot. Barry Duncan, master palindromist. Novelist Polly Courtney has decided that she’d rather self-publish her third novel than see it marketed as chick-lit. Slate explains why Poets Writers’ MFA rankings are a sham; HTML Giant explains why Slate’s article is wrong. Next week, Crown will release muckracking author Joe McGuinness’s The Rogue, his years-in-the-making Sarah Palin book that McGuinness researched by moving in next door to chez Palin in Wasilla. Not
The missing Michel Houellebecq, by Thierry Ehrmann After failing to show up for scheduled appearances in the Netherlands and Belguim, Michel Houellebecq’s publishers say that the French writer has gone missing. Two authors were told that their post-apocalpytic young adult novel would not be published unless they agreed to “straighten” out a gay character. Tao Lin cleans up his Facebook friend list: “i’m deleting some friends so i can add some friends that i want to add, in case you wonder why i have deleted you (just going to go through my wall and delete people who’ve openly shit-talked
The inside of Roald Dahl’s storied writing shed. Rapper Nas has signed a deal with HarperCollins to write a memoir, tentatively titled It Ain’t Hard to Tell. The book will be co-authored with journalist and TV host Touré, and is slated to come out next year. Meanwhile, Sean (Diddy) Combs is preparing to release his own book, Culo by Mazzucco, a 248-page “photographic coffee-table collection of women’s backsides.” Triple Canopy debuts its fourteenth issue (and first literary one!), titled Counterfactuals. A very cheesy trailer for Haruki Murakmi’s novel 1Q84. Roald Dahl’s family is trying to raise over $790,000 to
Bob Mould Anthony Bourdain, the author of Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw, has made a deal with Dan Halpern, the publisher of HarperCollins imprint Ecco Press, to start an eponymous line of books. The tough-talking chef and adventurous diner will acquire three to five books a year—and not just about food. “We look forward to publishing an unusual mix of new authors, existing works, neglected or under-appreciated masterworks, and translations of people from elsewhere who we think are just too damned brilliant not to be available in English,” says Bourdain. “We’re presently looking at an initial list composed of
Keith Richards, in his younger days. If you only read one 9/11 piece this weekend (not as if there’s a paucity to choose from) our vote is for David Rieff’s Harper’s cover story on the limits of remembrance. Linguist Ben Zimmer parses the vocabulary of 9/11; Ponyter considers how Americans’ news consumption has changed since the attacks. Keith Richards’s memoir, Life, is going to be made into a movie. But who will play Keith? An exceptional number of off-beat, off-Broadway plays have taken their inspiration from literature, as the New Yorker notes: from “Sleep No More,” a loose adaptation
Since 1977, New Yorkers have relied on indie stalwart St. Mark’s Bookshop for their zine, small press and hard-to-find theory needs; as well as for the store’s excellently curated (if somewhat cramped) reading series. But the Lower East Side institution, like many brick-and-mortar bookstores, is in dire financial straits: with book sales down, owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy are facing the threat of closure unless they can talk Cooper Union into lowering St. Mark’s rent. Last June, the Villager reported that over the past year, St. Mark’s has laid off almost all of its part-time workers and reduced
E-book founder Michael Stern Hart, courtesy of Boing Boing Michigan-based sci-fi publisher Subterranean Press is incurring Shakespearean wrath—or at least, the wrath of angry Shakespeareans—after re-releasing Orson Scott Card’s interpretation of Hamlet featuring the aging king as a child molester. Michael Stern Hart, the founder the e-book (they were invented in 1971!), died at the age of 64 at his home in Urbana, Illinois. They look like pianos, sewing machines, and medieval torture devices: Slate rounds up a slideshow of vintage typewriters. He probably won’t be helping San Franciscans decide where to eat, but Yelp reviewer Cormac M. will