May 2013
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J.J. Abrams’ Next Project, a Novel, to be... →
S. A NOVEL Written by Doug Dorst, based on a story by J.J. Abrams
J.J. Abrams has created, written, produced, or directed groundbreaking television shows such as the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning Lost and Alias, and Felicity and blockbuster films such as Star Trek, Cloverfield, Super 8, and Mission: Impossible. His work is renowned for its sense of wonder and invention, and for helping...
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Lucian James: Personal Ritual Object #1 - Nabil... →
lucianjames:
“So there’s this hammer that I keep on my desk. I made my first sculptures with it, I hammered the bolts into the first copy of For You The Traveller with it. I’m building my home with it now. Before I started learning how to do all these things and was getting called an artist, I never felt…
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April 2013
11 posts
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Ina Hughs: Objects are stories solidified »... →
Everything has a story. The little treasures of our lives we display in bookcases and on dresser tops means something special — and if they could talk, would tell a good tale.
That’s the premise behind a book a friend gave me for my birthday: “Significant Objects: 100 Extraordinary Stories about Ordinary Things,” edited by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn. In it are stories owners tell about...
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The Believer Logger: Ben Greenman and Darin... →
believermag:
Darin Strauss and Ben Greenman live in Brooklyn. Both have written large amounts of published fiction: Strauss’s most recent book is a memoir, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award-winning Half a Life. Greenman’s new novel, The Slippage (Harper Perennial), comes out in May, and on…
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The Independent Bookstore is Not Dead (Part II) |... →
Last November, Ann Patchett wrote a piece in The Atlantic detailing how she opened an independent bookstore in Nashville, Tenn. after the remaining two bookstores in the city shuttered its doors. Her bookstore has become a success, due in some part to Patchett’s celebrity. But as a feature about Boswell Books in this month’s issue of Milwaukee Magazine shows, you don’t need to have the celebrity...
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“I had the feeling that my children thought that I stood frozen inside the house...”
– Marisa Silver, “While I Was at Home on Business: When Writing Life Meets Family Life.” (via...
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Presentation Zen: Should we be suspicious of... →
Should we be suspicious of stories?
We are wired for stories. “Evolutionary biologists confirm that 100,000 years of reliance on stories have evolutionarily hardwired a predisposition into human brains to think in story terms,” says research scientist and engineer Kendall Haven in his book Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story. “We are programmed to prefer stories and...
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The Believer Logger: "I HADN'T YET FOUND THE FORM... →
believermag:
After about twenty-five emails back and forth, David Shields wrote to say he was flying into Los Angeles and that I should come by his hotel on Sunset to talk. We walked around the area for two hours–at one point trying to get into the Getty. (David Shields: Can we walk up to the Getty?…
Great interview with David Shields in The Believer (which of course was one of our...
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March 2013
27 posts
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For the cunning plot to lure book buyers away from... →
Anyone who buys the new Joanne Harris paperback Peaches for Monsieur le Curé from Waterstones will find it contains an extra chapter not included in copies sold elsewhere, after the book chain signed an exclusive deal with the author.
The chapter, which Harris says can be read either as an epilogue or as “the prologue to an as-yet-unwritten story”, may not be central to the plot of Peaches,...
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Out of Circulation →
Antonia Hirsch’s The Surplus Library on Affect and Economic Exchange considers the library as a unique social space in which knowledge is circulated through a system of non-monetary trade or interpersonal exchange.
The project’s website displays cover images of books on the subject along with the email addresses of their owners, and an open invitation to participate in the completely...
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American Dreams: The Essential Book of 2012 - The... →
After a year spent reading some of America’s greatest novels from 1902 to the present, Nathaniel Rich arrives at 2012 to pick Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk as the essential book of this year.
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Revolution in Resale of Digital Books and Music -... →
Amazon and Apple, the two biggest forces in electronic goods, are once again at the center of the turmoil.
In late January, Amazon received a patent to set up an exchange for all sorts of digital material. The retailer would presumably earn a commission on each transaction, and consumers would surely see lower prices.
But a shudder went through publishers and media companies. Those who produce...
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Authors Buy Their Way Onto Best-Seller Lists -... →
In the cases mentioned above, the authors hired a marketing firm that purchased books ahead of publication date, creating a spike in sales that landed titles on the lists. The marketing firm, San Diego-based ResultSource, charges thousands of dollars for its services in addition to the cost of the books, according to authors interviewed.
As ResultSource’s website points out, hitting...
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What Makes a Writer Want to Rock Out? -... →
My secret life in rock music at last collided with my literary career during a phone call in 2003. I was talking with my editor, discussing possible avenues for publicity for my coming book, a collection of 100 very short stories. This volume’s slightness was overshadowed only by its even slighter potential for earning back its advance. The situation demanded creative thinking. It was an...
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Inanimate objects brought to life: 7 intriguing... →
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A Good Fit for Small Screens, Short Stories Are... →
The Internet may be disrupting much of the book industry, but for short-story writers it has been a good thing. Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (23) » Story collections, an often underappreciated literary cousin of novels, are experiencing a resurgence, driven by a proliferation of digital options that offer not only new creative opportunities...
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Literary History, Seen Through Big Data’s Lens -... →
A recent study has found, Jane Austen, author of “Pride and Prejudice, “ and Sir Walter Scott, the creator of “Ivanhoe,” had the greatest effect on other authors, in terms of writing style and themes.
These two were “the literary equivalent of Homo erectus, or, if you prefer, Adam and Eve,” Matthew L. Jockers wrote in research published last year. He based his conclusion on an analysis of 3,592...
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A Casualty on the Battlefield of Amazon’s Partisan... →
“Books used to die by being ignored, but now they can be killed — and perhaps unjustly killed,” said Trevor Pinch, a Cornell sociologist who has studied Amazon reviews. “In theory, a very good book could be killed by a group of people for malicious reasons.”
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Quarterly Co.™: 2 New Subscriptions Launch: Poketo... →
quarterlyco:
We’re ending February on a high note at Quarterly: We just launched two great new subscriptions!
The first is Poketo, a curated collection of design objects and beautiful home items. The Poketo motto is “Art For Your Everyday”——they’ll send you artful pieces you can actually use and keep.
Speaking of Quarterly! So cool that they’ve teamed up with our friends at Poketo!
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How many book sales equal an Amazon bestseller? -... →
In an article today, Publishers Weekly tried to reverse engineer a book’s sales on Amazon by tracking its position on the bestseller list. The conclusion, which is couched in plenty of caveats, is that reaching the top of the Amazon list only requires about 300 sales through the site per day.
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February 2013
25 posts
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