Inspired by the so-called “standing man” of Istanbul’s Taksim Square protests, a number of Turkish activists have formed the Taksim Square Book Club, a movement in which members stand motionless in the square reading books. According to an Al Jazeera slideshow, Orwell, Kafka, and Camus seem to be the movement’s favored authors.

In other Taksim Square news, Can Oz—the head of Turkey’s biggest publishing house, Can Yayinlari—has come out against the government and is now receiving death threats. Though Oz has “long criticized the policies of the Erdogan government... he had never voiced his

When Shirley Jackson published her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948, the magazine received more mail than it ever had before about a work of fiction. The story, about an unnamed American town that would select one of its residents to be stoned to death each year, also resulted in hundreds of angry letters to Jackson herself, most of which fell into one of three categories: “bewilderment, speculation, and plain old-fashioned abuse.” Was the story meant to be pure fiction, or scathing political critique? To get to the bottom of Jackson’s intentions, her biographer (and Bookforum

Big news from the Supreme Court today: In back-to-back rulings on same-sex marriage, judges refused to rule on Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage, clearing the way for gay marriages to resume in the state; and more important, judges ruled 5-4 in favor of extending federal benefits to same-sex couples. That case, which overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, concerned a married gay couple from New York, Edith Windsor and Thea Clara Spyer. After Spyer died in 2008, Windsor inherited both Spyer's property and a $360,000 tax bill that Windsor would not have had to pay had the couple

The Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona has mounted the first-ever retrospective of Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, “Bolaño Archive. 1977–2003,” an exhibition focusing on his time in Barcelona and his final years in the Catalan city of Girona and town of Blanes. The CCCB organized the exhibition in conjunction with Bolaño’s widow, Carolina López, in part to sweep aside the myths that have arisen around Bolaño since his death in 2003 of liver failure (that he was a junkie, an alcoholic, chronically depressed—none of which are true) and to showcase the wealth of manuscripts, letters, and

Newly released intelligence documents reveal that the FBI and State Department monitored renowned Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes for more than two decades because of his friendship with Fidel Castro, and denied him entry to the U.S. on at least two occasions.

To help support local bookstores, French culture minister Aurelie Filippetti has proposed banning Amazon from offering free shipping and large discounts in France. While Amazon makes enough to be able to afford to lose money on free shipping, competitors have complained that because of their deals, “the competition is unfair.... No other

Despite interest from the likes of Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis, British video artist and filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood has been selected to direct the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Gray. Though Taylor-Wood—who, since her marriage, has gone by Taylor-Johnson—has only directed one feature-length film, a biopic about the early years of John Lennon, she is well-known for her photography and video art, which focus on themes of sexuality, death, and madness.

In an essay for the New York Times Book Review, Chloe Schama wonders why there are so many exposed female backs on the covers of new

Sopranos creator David Chase once told one of his assistant producers that “I’ll never be truly happy in life . . . until I kill a man . . . not just kill a man, but with my bare hands.” Ken Tucker reviews Brett Martin's Difficult Men—about the producers of Mad Men, The Wire, and other TV series—in the latest issue of Bookforum.

Brazilian academics have applied techniques of analysis devised for studying online social networks to Homer’s Odyssey and found “good evidence that the Odyssey is based, at least in part, on a real social network and so must be a mixture of myth and fact.” To conduct

New York mayoral candidate Christine Quinn's new memoir, With Patience and Fortitude, has sold only about 100 copies in bookstores since it was released on June 11.

Palestinian writers Ali Abukhattab and Samah al-Sheikh have been refused Visas to the UK to participate in a two-week festival celebrating contemporary Arabic art. As part of the second annual Shubbak Festival, the couple were supposed to discuss their writing and literature "in the besieged Gaza Strip" at the ICA in London. Palestinian authorities were vague about the reasons for refusing the visas, telling organizers that the

In National Geographic, Jonathan Franzen covers the slaughter of migrating songbirds in the Mediterranean.

Vice magazine has a reputation for being shameless about their content, but yesterday, the magazine made the rare move of pulling a photo-essay after it inspired a series of outraged responses. The feature, a fashion spread called “Last Words,” re-created the suicides of seven female literary icons: Virginia Woolf, Iris Chang, Dorothy Parker, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sylvia Plath, Sanmao, and Elise Cowen. After being roundly berated, the magazine released a sheepish apology and pulled

Ira Silverberg, the director of literature programs for the National Endowment for the Arts, has announced that he’ll be leaving his position on July 11. Silverberg, who has been an influential publisher (at Grove Press) and a literary agent (at Sterling Lord), says he plans to return to New York. He’ll be temporarily replaced by NEA literature program officer Amy Stolls.

Details about Shane Salerno's forthcoming J.D. Salinger documentary, which has been eight years in the making, have been shrouded in secrecy. The Weinstein Company has now released of the film’s trailer, but don't watch it

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Barton Gellman has signed a deal with Penguin Press to write a book about the expansion of government surveillance programs in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Gellman recently co-authored an article for the Washington Post about the NSA security leak and the existence of a massive internet surveillance program called Prism.

Marie Calloway sits down for the Nervous Breakdown’s Six Question Sex Interview and talks about Silvia Federici, childhood masturbation, and the relationship between social anxiety and unfulfilling sex.

Neil Gaiman is taking

After going broke on a previous book tour, Colombian poet Raffael Medina Brochero has offered to sell his testicles for $20,000 to fund a “Poetry for Peace” tour through Europe.

Bookforum contributor and newly-minted YA book publisher Lizzie Skurnick has announced the fall list for Lizzie Skurnick Books, which includes re-releases by “Y.A. greats Lois Duncan, M.E. Kerr, Ellen Conford, Lila Perl, Sandra Scoppettone and Berthe Amoss, and MacArthur 'genius' award-winner Ernest J. Gaines."

To celebrate the release of Tao Lin’s latest novel—which landed him a five-figure book deal—New York Magazine’