Best Whisky Pinterest

best whisky board on pinterest by greg clayman. Perhaps this is the answer to my rhetorical question on Twitter:

So which of you will be the first to publish their Pinterest as a book?

Author of Anonymous Novel May Not Be Anonymous

NY Post says the anonymous author of the new political novel O is probably Mark Salter, the former aide to John McCain. NYT looks at the evidence. Maybe he should've tried harder to be anonymous: Kakutani hates the book, calling it "a thoroughly lackadaisical performance: trite, implausible and decidedly unfunny."

Nabokov Correct about Butterflies

In 1945, Nabokov floated a theory about the evolution of butterflies that was not taken seriously at the time. But, he's just been proven correct.

Long Books

Speaking of long sentences, how long would a sentence (or book) have to be to protect you from a bullet? Apparently longer than Freedom. (And even longer than The Instructions, believe it or not.) So, if you're in a bad neighborhood, leave the Kindle at home and maybe bring along Musil's two-volume The Man Without Qualities.

Long Sentences

Writer and editor Ed Park, who is himself the author of a 16,000 word sentence, assembles (with the help of his readers) a list of other very long sentences, many of which are novel-length. Some whoppers there, sure, but it's a bit of wanking, isn't it?

Judging a Book by its Cover

Biblioklept's Best Book Covers of 2010. Suitable for the List of Lists. See also this years' Penguin/RED project, which used snippets from the books' texts as design elements for the covers. T-shirts, please!

Imperial Bedrooms

Brett Easton Ellis' sequel to Less Than Zero comes out today: Imperial Bedrooms.

Deep Focus

Soft Skull is doing a series of books called Deep Focus, which is similar to the awesome 33 1/3 series, except about films instead of albums. Jonathan Lethem is writing about John Carpenter's They Live and Christopher Sorrentino is writing on Death Wish.

Reality Matters

This new book is full of spectacular writers, and me. A few of us will be reading from it tonight and Thursday. More details.

Great Dismal Answers Questions

William Gibson has been using his blog recently for an extended Q&A. Yesterday's question was: "Do you think any influence from "The Wire" has leaked into your (this) writing? Would you necessarily [be] aware of it, if it had?". [via] -NA

But not totally invisible

Christopher Hitchens in The Atlantic on J.G. Ballard. -NA

Sci-Fi The Invisible Genre

"The finalists for this year's best SF novel have one thing in common: mainstream invisibility". The Guardian on this year's Hugo nominees. -NA

Tough Guys Don't Memoir

Things you will learn in two recently published memoirs about Norman Mailer by his widow and former research assistant: he would eat teriyaki oatmeal and once insisted that cheating on his wife was research for his novel about the CIA. - JM

Dhalgren on Stage

Sam Anderson goes behind the scenes of the theaterical adaptation of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren playing this week at The Kitchen (via.) Director Jay Scheib says, "It took me roughly a year to read Dhalgren for the first time. I would read the same ten pages over and over and over again. You get the feeling that the story has been going on like a fugue for millennia. The second time you read it, its thrilling. The third time, it makes you high. After that its like reading philosophy." -JM

DFW Material Goes to UT

David Foster Wallace's papers are all going to the University of Texas, including some "juvenilia" like 200 books from his own library, poems, and college/graduate papers. Why Pomona didn't get these is sort of head-scratching, but UT is building up quite the collection. In case you wanted to hear what Chuck Klosterman thinks about this:

"He definitely is the writer I've ripped off the most," said Klosterman, author of "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs," on Monday. "Wallace showed me that you could present ideas that were insightful and complex, but the presentation could still be as entertaining as any sort of writing whose sole purpose was to entertain. Considering how dense his work could be, it was almost never confusing."

Unlike say, having a quote from Chuck Klosterman in your article that has nothing to do with the subject matter of where DFW's materials are ending up. --DG

Penguin and (RED)

Penguin Classics and AIDS-awareness marketeers (RED) have teamed up to re-issue 8 classics with some striking new designs. Each cover features a quotation from the book as the key design element. --ADM

Costs of books vs eBooks

NYT's Motoko Rich breaks down the costs and profits associated with creating and distributing eBooks vs. regular books.

If I'm reading it right, for each hardcover sold, publishers are left with revenue of $4.05 before overhead. For an eBook, they end up with "$4.56 to $5.54, before paying overhead costs or writing off unearned advances." Hence their reluctance to continue with the $9.99 pricing so favored by Amazon.

Related: Did you see that author Douglas Preston got into all kinds of trouble with his fans for suggesting they had a "sense of entitlement" for wanting cheap eBooks? He eventually apologized and reframed his comments after an outcry. --adm

Zach Galifianakis Interviews John Wray

Zach Galifianakis interviews John Wray, author of the excellent Lowboy, now out in paperback. If you haven't read it yet, I bet this clip won't discourage you, unless you hate Brooklyn and/or laughter. [Here's John Wray's "The Making of Zach Galifianakis" in the Times magazine last year, and here's a Q&A with Wray by yours truly.] --FD

Lists of Lists of Rules for Writing Fiction

Haven't gotten around to reading The Guardian's collection of great authors' "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction" yet? Here are two good best-of lists: NYMag // Flavorwire. The second one even has the quotes Photoshopped onto their respective writers' photographs, ready for some insta-Tumbling, as well as some excerpts so you can judge the authors' words against their own advice. --FD

Thomas Goetz 5QQ

My pal Thomas has a new book out today: The Decision Tree. I'm only through the first chapter so far, but it's fantastic. Mediaite has a 5QQ with him. -RX

My Greatest Novel

P.S. I swear, Scott, this is shaping up to be the greatest novel ever written. Or at least the greatest novel I've ever written, anyhow.

That's Philip K. Dick. Which novel do you think he was talking about? The answer.

Godel, Escher, Bach

Godel, Escher, Bach, Tumblr.

The Fucking Word of the Day

He was impervious to my flirtations until I grabbed his crotch and showed him my tramp stamp.

-- The Fucking Word of the Day, your new favorite site for the next five minutes.

SarcMark

The only problem with a sarcasm punctuation mark is that it would be only used sarcastically.

Books We Lost to History

7 Books We Lost to History That Would Have Changed the World. This is interesting because it makes you wonder how things would have been different if the Library of Alexandria had survived. Also, I wonder why no one has jumped on this Gospel of Eve thing.

Historical Thesaurus

Here's that new Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary ($364.68) that you many have seen lauded in the New York Times Magazine. Check out the video "How to Call Someone Stupid In Old English Using The Historical Thesaurus of the OED":

Great Male Novelists

I've often wondered why NYTBR doesn't do more contemplative, thematic essays like this: The Naked and the Conflicted. It's about how "the Great Male Novelists of the last century" portray sex.

My Year As...

There are now 35 books in my Amazon list "My year as..." which collects all the books in which people do one thing for a year. THIS. TREND. WILL. NOT. DIE.

20 Best Science Fiction Books Of The Decade

We interrupt the yearly listmaking to bring you io9's 20 Best Science Fiction Books Of The Decade.

Choose Your Adventure

I maybe get a Kindle just so I can see how all these Choose Your Adventure titles for the Kindle work on it.

Surely Mr. Baker

NYTBR: Nicholson Baker on Google. I hope he's collecting these for a series of essays?

We Feel Bookish

Sweet. We Feel Fine is becoming a book.

Stephen King Pens Poem for Playboy

Stephen King, poet.

Interactive Museum for Book

Some people make book trailers. Orhan Pamuk? He builds a museum.

Gladwell For Dummies

Mark as "to read later": Gladwell for Dummies, by Maureen Tkacik in The Nation.

You Can Laugh Now

Klosterman talks to WSJ about laugh tracks. His new book, Eating the Dinosaur, which contains an essay about laugh tracks, is out

Blog To Books

At a party recently I was talking to Michael Malice, who co-founded Overheard in New York, about the history of the blog-to-book trend. We were trying to recall the first instance of a blog becoming a book, but couldn't think of it. Coincidentally, Urlesque has published a timeline (and story) of the meme, which credits Tucker Max as the founding occurrence (30 days before Overheard). This somehow seems wrong.

On Internet

Observer: Heffernan pitching book to do for the internet what Sontag did for photography.

Bukowski's Computer

Whoasky. Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, and the Computer. Bukowski used a computer; Burroughs did not! Not only that, but this story credits Bukowski's creative explosion in 1991 to the Macintosh IIsi. [via]

Await Your Reply

This reads a little bit too much like a glowing book jacket cover blurb, but it also looks enticing:

It's the first great novel about the Internet; it's one of the best books of any kind I've ever read about identity on any level. It is brilliant and it is essential; it should be required reading not only for anyone who uses the Internet, but for anyone who cares about contemporary American fiction.

[via]

HuffPo Books

HuffPo launched its books section. [via]

Google Books Settlement

Two nuanced (and somewhat opposing) views of the upcoming Google book settlement: Lewis Hyde in NYTBR (Advantage Google) and Tim Wu in Slate (Save the Google Book Search Deal!).

Maddening Men

Good comments in The Awl's post about The Footnotes of Mad Men getting a book deal.

People Who Died: Remembering Jim Carroll

The first time I met a writer was the first time it occurred to me that one could be a writer.

I was a college sophomore who, through a random set of instances, walked into a very large auditorium containing a very small audience. Jim Carroll was on a dark stage reading from a collection of stories, Praying Mantis, that he had just put out. His crackling, stuttery, affected voice filled the room as he said, "This is 'Tiny Tortures' (mp3)." I actually counted the number of people in the audience: eight.

Carroll had survived modest success in the '70s as a rock singer. "Catholic Boy," which sounded a little like The Clash meets the Stones, and "People Who Died" (mp3) were small hits in 1980. But after that he lived in relative obscurity for over a decade, until Leonardo DiCaprio came along to play him in The Basketball Diaries.

When I walked into that dark room, Carroll was reading something called "A Day at the Races" (mp3). I grew up in a town about the size of your apartment building, so this was the first time that I ever heard someone read their own work. And I was mesmerized.

I happened to know the student council person who booked him at this random midwest college, so I asked her if I could take Carroll out for the night. Frightened by his stories of heroin abuse, she was relieved that I would entertain him. So at a bar called Whitey's on a cold winter night in North Dakota, Jim Carroll drank with me. He told me a hundred stories about people and places I had never heard of. And he frequently snuck in the bathroom to do I-don't-know-what.

I had never met someone like Jim Carroll, but his writing eventually led me to people like William Burroughs and Patti Smith. I never talked to him again after that night, but every time I walked down St. Mark's -- 10, 15, nearly 20 years later -- I thought of him. It was one of those incalculably small events that probably changed me forever.

Update: NYT obit.

Snark Supermarket

I told Robin the other day that I'm jealous of all his ideas lately. There was that Kindle short story collection, preceded by the New Liberal Arts book. Then he ingeniously decided to use Kickstarter to fund a book, and now he's using Google Adwords to name a character. So much smartness so fast!

Book of Ages

From the author of Book of Ages, a list of interesting ages in cultural history. Includes such items as "AGE 3: Sigmund Freud sees his mother naked, 1859" and "AGE 15: Susan Sontag buys her first copy of Partisan Review at a newsstand on Hollywood Boulevard, 1948."

Naked Lunch Turns 50

Naked Lunch turned 50 last week. Update: Day of the Locust turned 70. I just reread it, because I remember not being amazed by it the first time. And second time through, I'm still unsure why it's so revered.

Twitter Wit

Nick's new book, Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less, went on sale today. I'm sure some will think it's frivolous, and in some context maybe it is, but it's also a spectacular illustration of how the internet bustles with brief and spontaneous moments of creativity. And contrary to how the supposed controversy was perceived, I'm super happy that someone made this book, because I probably never would have. And the bonus: someone finally cut Nick a check so that he could move to NYC. Welcome to the idiocy.

The President Has More Reading Time Than You

Obama's Summer Reading List.

7 Truths About Viral Culture

Dumenco inteviews Wasik, devises 7 Truths About Viral Culture. "5. The Attention Economy is (mostly) a sorry excuse for a (predictable, rational) economy."

Inherent Vice, The Trailer

Oh look, Pynchon has a book trailer too. There's some debate about whether he did the voice-over.

Inherent Vice

The reviews for Inherent Vice are rolling in: NY Mag | Slate | Entertainment Weekly | Financial Times | Guardian | Boston Globe | Time | LA Times | New Yorker | The Stranger. As usual, the New York Times remains the last to drop their canonical opinion. Update: And there's Michiko.

Zizek Speaks

Zizek is on Twitter. And it's decent.

Cosmopolis

Cronenberg to direct a DeLillo novel! I was hoping for Mao II, but it's Cosmopolis. [via]

Jay Murray

A DeLillo character reviews a David Foster Wallace book in a literary journal. (It's the same character who's in that most-photographed barn passage.) [via]

Will Shortz

This will likely be good: Will Shortz, the NY Times crossword puzzle editor, is answering questions this week. Update:

For my major in enigmatology at Indiana University, I took courses on "Word Puzzles of the 20th Century," "Construction of Crossword Puzzles," "Popular Mathematical Puzzles," "Logic Puzzles," "The Psychology of Puzzles," "Crossword Magazines," and related subjects. Not surprisingly Indiana had no existing courses on puzzles, so I made them all up myself. In each case I'd find a professor willing to work with me one on one on the topic I proposed. For my course on crossword construction, for example, every two or three weeks I'd take a new puzzle I'd created to my professor's office and sit at his side while he solved and critiqued it. This was my first experience creating professional quality crosswords. For my course on the psychology of puzzles, I studied how the brain works as well as why people feel driven to solve puzzles. My thesis was on "The History of American Word Puzzles Before 1860," in which I traced original American puzzles back to 1647 -- almost the beginning of printing history in the colonies.

First Twitter Novel

The first Twitter novel: The French Revolution. Okay, now we've done it, let's never do it again. [via]

Kindle Kills Kool

Vanity Fair: James Walcott cries that no one will see him reading Anna Karenina on the subway, or something like that.

[Books] help brand our identities. At the rate technology is progressing, however, we may eventually be traipsing around culturally nude in an urban rain forest, androids seamlessly integrated with our devices.

Eating the Dinosaur

Klosterman's new book has a cover and release date: Eating the Dinosaur. The format will be similar to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

New Liberal Arts

The New Liberal Arts book is out (background). I have an essay type thing on "Reality Engineering."

Contretemps!

Ooooo! Anil fires back at Gladwell's criticism of Anderson. See also: Chris Anderson Is Worse Than Wal-Mart. I'm conflicted!

Accidental Kjillionaires

I don't know if I've ever seen anyone so excited with a book as when I ran into Caroline last night toting around an advance copy of Accidental Billionaires. Her review.

Text From Last Night

Since we're tracking this meme at Fimoc HQ, Texts From Last Night got a book deal.

The Death of Writing, The Rebirth of Words

I've been thinking a lot about a comment that Rick Webb made in my post last week about unpaid writing gigs. "Just accept it's like photography, and that you'll never make a living off of it." I have a instinctual desire to say, "No, writing is different." But I'm unable to come up with any intelligible way in which it is. Will writing just democratize itself into ubiquity, leaving only a scant few people who can call themselves writers by profession? And would that be a bad thing?

Everything Is Free

Who thinks Chris Anderson is wrong about the future of free? None other than that other guy whose books you buy at the airport, Malcolm Gladwell!

Kindle Sticks

Fast Company's 4,400-word story on The Kindle is actually worth it, because it wanders into scenarios about how publishing might play out.

Early Blogging

Quick review of the new blogging history book, Say Everything, which comes out in early July.

Look At This Fucking Book Deal

Least surprising news of the week: Look At This Fucking Hipster got a book deal.

And Then There's This

I was expecting Bill Wasik's And Then There's This to be the most-discussed book of the summer, but so far there's only this Vulture Reading Room, with your favorite viralogists like Anil Dash, David Rees, and Virginia Heffernan.

Phlogiston

50 most looked-up works on NYTimes.com. Which just caused me to look up phlogiston (#46). Huh. [via]

Smell Of Books

The smell of books in an aerosol can: SmellOfBooks.com. "Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there's something missing from your reading experience?" [via]

He's Reading Infinite Jest

As JJ Abrams recently pointed out in Wired, it's easy to forget that J. D. Salinger is still alive. The nonagenarian (that's 90!) popped up in the news last week when he filed a lawsuit against some moron writing a "follow-up" book called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye ("moron" because he's doing it; I suspect it might actually be legal). Anyway, Rosenbaum at Slate runs through the conspiracy theories about just what the hell J.D. has been up to all these years. He hasn't published a story since 1965, in The New Yorker.

Wordnik

Might end up being cool: Wordnik, a living dictionary.

Inventory

The Onion just announced it will be releasing an "obsessively specific pop-culture list book" called Inventory.

Who Was The First Blogger?

Scott Rosenberg asks Who Was The First Blogger? His new book, Say Everything, chronicles the birth of blogging.

Banned Books

Finally, something decent on Yahoo Answers: Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school? [via]

Omnivoracious

Amazon has a book blog? They do! Omnivoracious. And it's decent. [via]

So Real, It's Non-Fiction

Can anyone explain why Watchmen is categorized as "non-fiction" by BookScan?

Book Scanning Magic

The Secret Of Google's Book Scanning Machine Revealed. "Turns out, Google created some seriously nifty infrared camera technology that detects the three-dimensional shape and angle of book pages when the book is placed in the scanner."

Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era

Wait, I was actually going to pitch teaching this class at NYU! Except this part is broken: "Is Amazon's wireless reading device the Segway of handheld gadgets? Should it be smaller, come with headphones, and play MP3s instead of display book text? Students will discuss." Kindle already plays MP3s, silly.

The Informer

In addition to that Talk of the Town piece, Brett Easton Ellis is also this week's A/V Club interview. He disses his own movie: "Less Than Zero is obviously bad, and we don't need to talk about why that didn't work. And American Psycho -- that is, I think, an impossible book to adapt. But whatever, it was the greatest hits from the book, more or less. Mary did a very good job of keeping that movie together, as did Christian Bale, and I think Roger did a terrific job. And with The Informers, I think there is really an outstanding movie floating out there somewhere, and I hope one day people might be able to see it. I am not comparing The Informers to The Godfather on any level, but there's that famous story where Paramount asked Coppola to cut like an hour out of the movie, because they didn't want to release a three-hour movie. And Coppola did, and showed it to the executive, and it was terrible. It moved very slowly at two hours. And then when he put the other hour back in, it moved very quickly. And that's all I want to say about The Informers."

Inherent Vice

Pynchon's newest, Inherent Vice, is on Amazon with a release date: August 4. [via]

Crash

JG Ballard died today. Just a couple days ago Joanne (who has a great obit) gave me Super-Cannes as a gift. Also recommended: Crash, The Atrocity Exhibition, Concrete Island, and Cocaine Nights.

Tumblr Books

From Jenna's NYT story about blog books: "But the latest frenzy is over books that take the lazy, Tom Sawyer approach to authorship. The creators come up with a goofy or witty idea, put it up on a simple platform like Twitter and Tumblr, and wait for contributors to provide all of the content. The authors put their energy into publicizing the sites and compiling the best material."

Words That Came From SciFi

Nine Words You Might Think Came from Science but Which Are Really from Science Fiction. [via]

Digested Classics

Digested Classics. The Guardian's series in which classics are reduced to 700 words. Includes Generation X, Lolita, Bright Lights, Big City, The Crying of Lot 49....[via]

Wag's Revue

Here's a relatively new something in lit land: Wag's Revue. It's an online literary magazine (a portmanteau of "web" and "mag," it says). The format sucks (scanned pages, no printing), but the interviews with Dave Eggers and n+1's Mark Greif are good. And there's also On Douchebags. [via]

Pun Intended

I missed this one: there's a controversy about Britney Spears' song "If U Seek Amy" because it actually sounds like she's saying "F.U.C.K. me" when she sings it. (Slate explore similar uses, which apparently go back to Joyce!) See also: a peculiar NYT op-ed rant, Pun for the Ages. So... pro-pun or anti-pun?

Last Kindle Review

Matt Haughey's thorough Kindle review.

Up Next, The Communist Manifest as Porn Movie?

Das Kapital turned into Japanese manga and then Chinese musical.

Choire Sicha To Write Really Long Blog Post

After teasing us with this idea for a while, Choire is finally going to write a book.

Twitter Books

I joked to Nick that rather that submit my tweets to his book, I'd rather he just made a chapbook of all my tweets. Some people take jokes seriously.

O.M.G.

O.M.G.!" Woody Allen, The New Yorker, March 23, 2009. [via]

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath's Son Dies

I'm sorry to say this, but the first thing I thought upon reading that Sylvia Plath's son killed himself was "I hope he didn't have any kids."

The Kindle

The Atlantic does pro/con side-by-sides: Resisting the Kindle | In Defense of the Kindle.

Kindle Kindle Kindle Kindle

Just downloaded the Kindle for iPhone app. Product comparison with Kindle forthcoming....

ESPN Book Project

Quick announcement: I've been working with Jim Miller and Tom Shales, the authors of the legendary oral history of Saturday Night Live, Live From New York, on a new project: the website for The Untitled ESPN Book. Similar to the SNL book, this will tell the inside story of ESPN, from launch to present. They've got a Tumblr, which will feature regular updates on the book's progress. (Press release with more info inside.)

Dumby

Not that I like to admit it, but I was kinda sorta maybe rooting for Denby in some vaguely subconscious way. As with Gessen, there is a subtle point to be made here, but perhaps it's too nuanced to ever really find its voice. Or at least this clearly seems the case from his blundering appearance on Charlie Rose last night. He sounded so completely out of touch that I somehow ended up sympathizing with Maureen Dowd by the end of it.

Beast Books

Daily Beast added a books section.

More Video Previews

Video preview of Jarvis' new book, What Would Google Do? Update: Actually, this is part of a 23-minute "video book" available for $10 on Amazon.

Fictional

Wikipedia: List of fictional diseases, List of fictional medicines and drugs, List of fictional toxins, List of fictional super metals, List of fictional computers, List of fictional currencies, List of fictional newspapers.... fuck it, list of list of everything fictional.

The New Liberal Arts

Snarkmarket proposes: a book introducing the new liberal arts. It proposes we live in an age where there should be a new liberal arts curriculum: "Is design a liberal art now? How about photography? Food? Personal branding?"

Party More

Among Nassim Nicholas Taleb's 10 life tips: "2) Go to parties." Unfortunately, there's also: "7) Avoid losers." Always with the contradictions!

Anti-Heroes

Are anti-heroes taking over literature? Why Do Young Male Writers Love Icky, Tough Guy Deadbeats? "It does seem like every other literary novel that comes out these days has at its center some variation on the classic antihero -- a character whose flaws are worn plainly if not proudly, and who inspires in readers scorn and affection in equal amounts. One strain in particular -- characterized by a self-loathing impulse to confession, a kinetic demeanor and a claim to authenticity expressed through vitriolic social critique -- has emerged as a dominant model." It's a decent argument, and if you spread the idea across culture, you'll see the archetype played out on the internet too.

See the Web Site, Buy the Book

NYTBR: See the Web Site, Buy the Book. "But do book sites really help sell books? As in so much of publishing, no one quite knows."

n1br

n+1 has released an online-only book review: n1br. Included: luminous Molly reviewing Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds. "The first thing that strike the casual reader is the anatomical variety among bunnies. Nipples, for one thing. Some are as big as cupcakes, others are the size of a penny. They are occasionally erect and come in a range of colors as varied as drugstore lipsticks. Pubic hair is another delight to behold, appearing first in 1971 and thriving until 1997. Gauzy coronas of pubic hair, technicolor dreampubes of every shade. You forget how assertive a healthy growth of hair can look. It comes as a pleasant shock in the midst of a creamy-smooth expanse."

Google Books

NYRB (unexpectedly): Google & the Future of Books.

No Lulz For Denby

Continuing my admitted over-interest in the reactions to Denby's Snark, here's a Flavorwire interview with him, where he takes up the Sternbergh review: "He says snark is an appropriate response to a corrupt and dishonorable world in which lies have been passed out to us in the past eight years in particular. I wouldn't quarrel with his description of the world. But the idea that snark is the appropriate response to that is just inane. The appropriate response to it is criticism, analysis and best of all, satire." Update: everyone in the fray here.

Vice Magazine Fiction Issue

Decent: Vice Magazine Fiction Issue. Includes interviews with Harold Bloom, Ursula Le Guin, Frederik Pohl, Harry Crews, Martin Amis

Snark

Daily Beast: interview and excerpts from Denby's Snark.

Gladwell Speaks

Gladwell speaking at the 92nd Street Y.

Hunter Motivation

Hunter S. Thompson Motivational Posters. [via]

Blog Books

"Why would anyone pay a dime to read professionals' advice on breaking into an amateur medium that rewards people who make up their own rules?" Good question.

On Snark

If you missed it, Adam Sternbergh reviewed David Denby's new book, Snark, in NY Mag. "Denby's book invites -- even begs masochistically to receive -- a snarky response, but he won't get one here. I enjoy snark. I practice snark. And I hope herein to defend snark."

Yes, You're Old

Bright Lights, Big City turns 25 this year. McInerney discusses it, calling the film version "terrible." [via]

Relationships Between 10 Classic Authors

Relationships Between 10 Classic Authors. "Fitzgerald was notoriously insecure about himself in almost every aspect, and when his wife once insulted the size of his manhood, Fitz actually dropped trou and asked Hemingway if everything looked normal to him. Hemingway assured his friend that things appeared to be up to par." Whoa, Lock and I had the exact same competition last night.

Glamour and SF

Q&A with Joanne about sexy sci-fi. "I would love to see more hybrid sci-fi 'chick lit' -- and penned by women! -- like Bridget Jones's Diary only set 500 years in the future. What will we be wearing then? The Stepford Wives, although it was written by a man, is a good example. Philip K Dick wrote about a post-apocalyptic society with lives so wretched, the adults spend their days living out their memories using Barbie-inspired dolls and accessories. It shows how in desperate times we still seek out glamour and fantasy."

Snark

Snark.

Inherent Vice

New Pynchon forthcoming: Inherent Vice.

Year In Reading

The book blog The Millions is doing their annual Year in Reading list where they ask people to write about their favorite book of the year. My submission attempts to go to bat for Hot Chicks With Douchebags (seriously! read it!) but eventually meanders its way to Live From New York.

Kindle 2

Photo of Kindle 2, which will be available next year. I suspect I'll get one.

Drugs in Lit

Drugs in literature: a brief history. Stephen King was addicted to coke for eight years?

PKD Biopic

On YouTube: a 1994 BBC biopic on Philip K. Dick. [via]

Outliers

The [mostly positive] reviews are rolling in for Gladwell's Outliers, but here's a long excerpt for you to judge yourself. (See also: one of the email discussion things from Slate.)

A Facebook Short Story

"A Totally True Love Story, as witnessed from my Facebook page." [via]

Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases

To the list of the Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases, I'd like to add "The fact of the matter is...." Obama, I'm looking at you.

Being Malcolm Gladwell

Since I'll never actually take the time to write down all my thoughts about the complex entity that is Malcolm Gladwell, being quoted about some of them will have to suffice. Quoting myself: "I think he should be filed under self-help. Read his work closely and there's something about it that is supposed to make you, the reader, feel better about yourself. You may seem insignificant -- but you're actually an influencer! You might make rash decisions -- but this is good!" (For the record, I think Gladwell is a magnificent stylist, but also find his rhetoric occasionally problematic.)

Aporia

I sure wasn't expecting to see Derrida invoked in the financial crisis debacle in this week's New Yorker!

For anyone who studied literature in college in the past few decades, there is a weird familiarity about the current crisis: value, in the realm of finance capital, evokes the elusive nature of meaning in deconstructionism. According to Jacques Derrida, the doyen of the school, meaning can never be precisely located; instead, it is always "deferred," moved elsewhere, located in other meanings, which refer and defer to other meanings -- a snake permanently and necessarily eating its own tail. This process is fluid and constant, but at moments the perpetual process of deferral stalls and collapses in on itself. Derrida called this moment an "aporia," from a Greek term meaning "impasse." There is something both amusing and appalling about seeing his theories acted out in the world markets to such cataclysmic effect.

Judge A Book By Its Cover

The Hot-or-Not of books: JudgeBy.com, where you judge a book by its cover and then see what its Amazon rating is.

The Final Days Of DFW

Rolling Stone still hasn't posted their Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace story in its entirety, but for the grim-minded Smoking Gun has his autopsy.

Best Unreal Books

The best books that never existed.

Gladwell Rises

Details of Gladwell's new uber-meme are being pieced together. Also, he blogged yesterday -- well, sorta. [if it's gladwell, it's gotta be via kottke]

Lolita at 50

Lolita is 50 years old, and people still debate whether it is lust or love. Anecdote I had never heard: "Adolf Eichmann, in Jerusalem for his trial, returned Lolita to a guard who had presented it to him, denouncing it as 'very unwholesome'."

Pitchfork 500

If you're into that kinda thing, the Pitchfork 500 book has its own website and is available for pre-order.

Why Are Literary Readings So Bad?

Why Are Literary Readings So Bad? [via]

Owl

There are a hundred Klosterman interviews out there right now, but Steve's is the best. I'm going to grab this quote, even though only five people will know these North Dakota towns, including the one I grew up in: "[Owl] is sort of a synthesis of the cities that we talked about the most -- towns like Napoleon, Langdon, Munich, Thompson, Cando, Larimore, cities like that." Update: an unexpected rave from This Recording.

Spine Novels

Spine novels should be the new six-word memoir. Clever.

DFW's Last Days

Salon: The last days of David Foster Wallace.

Homage to Mister Berryman

From an email from my friend Steve:

My story on John Berryman is out this month, the U of M professor/poet who jumped off the Washington Bridge in '72. All the indie bands are writing songs about him these days (Okkervil River, Hold Steady, Nick Cave). I spent a lot of time with his third wife Kate, who lives in Prospect Park in the same fucking house they bought together with Dream Song money back in '68. Coincidentally, this writer out east, Janet Groth, wrote a story on John that was published this month in The New England Review. She actually knew the man, took classes from him, was proposed to by him, etc. Loved her account -- she talks about partying with Berryman and Robert Giroux. Anyway, we both titled our pieces, "Homage to Mister Berryman." (Cheap play on the title of his famous long poem, "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet.")

American Psycho: The Musical

American Psycho, the musical. Oy. [via]

CK in Salon

Pretty good profile of Chuck in Salon.

DFW as Teacher

DFW's class syllabus. He's also on RateMyProfessor.com.

AO on DF

A.O. Scott on D.F.W. in N.Y.T. "Again and again, he returned to a basic, perhaps the basic, philosophical question facing anyone with a blank screen and a story to tell. What am I going to say? How am I going to say it?"

Stuff For Bigots

The Atlantic looks at Stuff White People Like as high-minded sociology, which is exactly what a... nevermind.

Mary Sue

Mary Sue, sometimes shortened simply to Sue, is a pejorative term used to describe a fictional character who plays a major role in the plot and is particularly characterized by overly idealized and clichéd mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors.

DFW on McSweeney's

McSweeney's is posting DFW memories and n+1 has a Kunkel remembrance.

Infinite Jest: The Movie

Rumor that's hard to believe, but the world is an infinite jest: DFW was working on a film adaption of his 1000+ page masterpiece. UPDATE: Adam reminds me via email: "Curtis Armstrong ('Booger' in the Nerds movies and 'Charles' in Better Off Dead) sold his adapted screenplay of Infinite Jest to HBO in the '90s." And Marco says in the comments: "I read a draft of the script by Keith Bunin several years ago."

The Depressed Person

Harper's made available 12 of its DFW articles (as PDFs), including The Depressed Person. [via]

Remembering With a Comment

Emily notes the comments on LAT's story about DFW's death. It reminds me of the peculiar mainstream media impulse -- the "leave your remembrances in our forum" impulse. After a decade of seeing this (and even sometimes encouraging it), I shouldn't be surprised -- except to note that the idea hasn't really evolved in that time.

DFW

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008). Some links: Jay McInerney reviews Infinite Jest (1996), DFW on Charlie Rose (1997), NYT Mag profile (1996), DFW profiles David Lynch in Premiere (1996), DFW on John Updike in the New York Observer (1997), first chapter of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997), interviewed by Gus Van Sant in Dazed & Confused (1998), "Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20" in The Onion (2003), "Consider the Lobster" in Gourmet (2004), Where to go after Infinite Jest? in n+1 (2005), Kenyon Commencement Address (2005), profile of John Ziegler in The Atlantic (2005), Profile of Roger Federer in Play (2006), interview with John Krasinksi about Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2008), Michiko Kakutani remembers (2008).

Kindle for Students

Since first hearing about electronic books in the early '90s, I've always thought the place to break through with an actual digital book reader would be with text books. Lugged around the 50-pound organic chemistry book? Yep. Been annoyed with the highlighting of the previous owners? Yep. Wished you could markup a book with searchable notes? Yep. Amazon has confirmed they are working on a version of the Kindle for students.

He Blurbed, She Blurbed

NYTBR: He Blurbed, She Blurbed.

McInerney

The only McInerney novel that I haven't read is moving up the sales charts because of the Edwards scandal. Anyone else notice that McInerney has been silent about this? I bet he's working on a story for someone -- my guess is NY Mag

Genre

io9: 20 Things That Should Be Their Own Genres (But Aren't). "10) My clone plagiarized my memoir!"

Unicorns in the Bible

Psst, unicorns are in the bible.

Kindling

Noticing that sales are up, some people are saying that the Kindle might actually end up being a big deal after all. Up next: The Segway.

Lit Mob

New potentially good book blog: Lit Mob. GalleyCat gives the staff pedigree.

Orwell's Diary

Orwell's Diary. A day-by-day account from 70 years ago today. First post is about his dog, Marx, being scared of a snake.

Zizek

Q&A w/ Slavoj Zizek. Q: What does love feel like? A: Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures. Q: Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it? A: All the time. When I really love someone, I can only show it by making aggressive and bad-taste remarks. Q: Tell us a secret. A: Communism will win.

Andy Warhol for Familiar Quotations

"Andy Warhol for Familiar Quotations"
by Peter Oresick

Andy Warhol said, Always leave them wanting less.
Being born, Warhol said, is like being kidnapped.
Everyone will be famous, Andy said, for 15 minutes.
I thought everyone was just kidding, said Andy.

Being born, Andy Warhol said, is like being kidnapped.
Think rich, said Warhol, look poor.
I thought everyone was just kidding, said Andy.
Dying, Andy said, is the most embarrassing thing.

Think rich, said Andy Warhol, look poor.
I am a deeply superficial man, said Warhol.
Dying, Andy said, is the most embarrassing thing.
Andy said, I'd like my tombstone to be blank.

I am a deeply superficial man, said Andy Warhol.
Fashions fade, Warhol said, but style is eternal.
Andy said, I'd like my tombstone to be blank.
Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?

Fashions fade, Andy Warhol said, but style is eternal.
Everyone will be famous, Warhol said, for 15 minutes.
Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?
Andy said, Always leave them wanting less.

Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?
Isn't life, said Andy, a series of images that repeat?

Always leave them wanting less, Andy said.


— "Andy Warhol for Familiar Quotations" by Peter Oresick from Warhol-O-Rama

Hamlet: Facebook News Feed Edition

Hamlet: Facebook News Feed Edition. Maybe this is the future of CliffsNotes.

If You Have Wondered...

Why do we capitalize the word "I"?

Another Carr Profile

NYMag's long profile of David Carr.

Reading the OED

New book: Reading the OED, about a guy who spends a year reading that big-ass dictionary. I've added it to My Year As..., my (probably not definitive but still long) list of books about people doing something for one year. Nicholson Baker reviews it in NYTBR.

Influencers

Mary-Kate and Ashley's book is available for pre-order -- and look at that cover! Get it? You see, they're twins, but their handwriting... it's DIFFERENT.

Blog Books Gone Wild

Zoinks. Ballantine is turning Garfield Minus Garfield into a book. Jim Davis even approved of it. See also: what happens if you translate Garfield from English to Chinese to English using Google Translate. Perhaps this will be a book too!

Neyfakh Reviews Carr

The Observer: Leon Neyfakh reviews David Carr's memoir, saying the book "turns the traditional memoir on its head, assuming as it does that its author knows nothing about his own life and must research it as though it were someone else's."

Douchebags

Radar: On Douchebags. Origin: Henry Miller? Huh. Also: "The 'douche' part is feminine, and the 'bag' part is masculine. Someone who is 'douchey' has taken on the feminizing aspects of the taste culture -- hair gel, spray-on tan -- but the 'bag' part implies a masculine creepiness, a 'perv' factor that is about posturing and sticking tongues toward or into unwanted locations."

Twice You're Lucky

NYTBR trashes Sarah Lacy's book.

Internet Reading

Irony alert: 3,500-word NYT story on how kids don't read anymore because of the internet. "Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author's vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends."

Draper's Books

Don Draper's Mad Men Bookshelf.

SF Book Trailers

io9 round-up on sci-fi book trailers. [via]

The Night of the Gun

NYT Mag just published a huge excerpt from David Carr's new memoir, The Night of the Gun. As I hoped, it's set in Minneapolis with lots of drugs. This is fucking better than a Hold Steady record!

Stuff White People Like - Best-Seller

Put this in your blog book backlash pipe and toke it.

The Night of the Gun

Of course I'm eager to read David Carr's new [oversharey!] book, The Night of the Gun. I'm very curious how much of it is set in Minneapolis...

Hot Chicks With Douchebags

Marina (this dumb site's best commenter!) is in the Hot Chicks With Douchebags book.

Science Fiction as a Literary Genre

Video: Neal Stephenson, "Science Fiction as a Literary Genre."

Atmospheric Disturbances

NYTBR's lead review this week is for Atmospheric Disturbances, a novel that begins "Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife." It gets a rave, but I was intrigued that the reviewer (an acquaintance) didn't mention the disorder that serves as the inspiration, Capgras Delusion, which I've been obsessed with lately, and am a little disappointed to discover has now been fictionalized by someone else before I could get to it.

Thsrs

People seem to use the thesaurus to turn their lame vocabulary into multi-syllabic nonsense. But then there's Thsrs, a thesaurus for when you want a shorter word. It's useful in character-limiting environments like Twitter.

The Dumbest Generation

Review of the dumb book The Dumbest Generation. Take that, millennials!

Tom Disch

Thomas M. Disch, the Sci-Fi writer who penned Camp Concentration and 334, committed suicide over the weekend. He left behind an eerie LiveJournal.

Blog Books

Book blog update! Stuff White People Like and Hot Chicks with Douchebags are both out. Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle hits stores in a month.

Zoomii

Zoomii tries to recreate Amazon with an interface that looks like an actual bookstore.

And The Heart Says...

Emily Gould's book has sold.

Downtown Owl

The Amazon page for Chuck's new novel, Downtown Owl, now has a description. Release: mid-September.

Keith Gessen

Keith Gessen has a Tumblr? The 10 of you who know him, know this; the rest of who don't, don't care; this post was worthless. (Oh, but I finally read All The Sad Young Literary Men, so if you wanna debate it in the comments...)

Cory Doctorow Interview

Onion A/V Club interview: Cory Doctorow.

Blog Books

Doree rants about Newsweek's "Blog Books" story.

Who killed the literary critic?

Salon: Who killed the literary critic? It meanders through several reasons why criticism is dying (economic, cultural, technological, academic), ultimately becoming a satisfying read because much of it is wrong and you'll know it.

Your Medium Is Dying (No, Not That One)

Easiest way to get me talking bullshit: start a conversation about the economics of book publishing. This isn't the place to give my speech about the demise of the industry (YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE), but it's worth pointing to this random Forbes essay, How Amazon Could Change Publishing. I disagree with the conclusion -- I don't think Amazon is going to knock out the book publisher any more than iTunes knocked out the record label. But it does lay out some of the broken economics. (Short version of my rant: the internet age will catch up with book publishing, not in a technological sense, as this essay suggests, but in a philosophical sense. Publishing will be forced to adopt a more egalitarian meritocracy. Too many books lose money; authors aren't accurately rewarded on sales; this model can't continue.)

New Gladwell

Kottke: deets on the new Gladwell book, Outliers.

Book Launch 2.0

The funniest thing on the internet today: Book Launch 2.0. The bit about Twitter and Second Life is awesome. (Also, he's a Minneapolite, like everyone of import.) [via]

Little Pieces

Janet Maslin, who hated Augusten Burroughs' new memoir, loves James Frey's new novel. This is getting complex.

Snuffed

Chuck Palahniuk book trailer for Snuff. [via]

Stephenson's Anthem

First description of the new Neal Stephenson book, Anathem, previously characterized by some as a "space opera." [via]

Frey Returns

James Frey gave only one interview for his most recent novel... to Vanity Fair.

Oh My God, Liz Phair Is Writing A Novel

Oh My God, Liz Phair Is Writing A Novel.

The Diablo Cody Effect

Nicky thinks the problem with contemporary fiction is the pile of pop culture references. He calls this The Diablo Cody Effect. He's sorta right and sorta wrong.

Bret Easton Ellis, 44

Missed this, from a few days ago: long Bret Easton Ellis profile in LAT. [via]

When They Were Young Writers

Random 12-year-old thing I accidentally found: David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Mark Leyner on Charlie Rose, from 1996.

The 21 Steps

We Tell Stories reworks six classics from the Penguin catalog into digital narratives. The first one -- The 21 Steps -- reconfigures The 39 Steps through Google Maps.

Women's World

Women's World is a novel constructed entirely from words cut out of 1960s women's magazines. Nerve has an interview with the author.

Dave Eggers' TED Talk

Dave Eggers: 2008 TED Prize Wish: Once Upon a School.

20 Sci-Fi Novels

io9: The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life.

New Diablo Memoir

Next up from Diablo: another memoir. (Also noted: Books from the Olsen Twins and Eminem also announced.)

New Books

Two recommended books that come out later this week: Jessica Hagy's Indexed (a collection of notecard graphics from her site) and Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody (which will be the book that gives Web 2.0 the articulation it needs).

Downtown Owl

Even though it won't be in bookstores for seven months, Chuck's new book, Downtown Owl (cover), is now available for pre-order on Amazon. His first novel, it is set in North Dakota in 1983, a time and place I know quite well!

For Sale. Baby's Shoes. Never Used.

In case you missed it: Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.

Nietzsche Video

Wait, there was video of Nietzsche? Shocking! [via]

Kanye Publishing Book

Kanye, why must you be like this? A book? For real? [via]

Why It Takes So Long To Publish a Book

NYTBR on why it takes so long to publish a book. (Answer: forget the lawyers; kill the marketers.)

More on Cellphone Books

You saw the NYT story last weekend about the success of cellphone novels in Japan, but The Millions revisits it with a translation and some context that illustrates how the format is uniquely Japanese.

My Tiny Life

Julian Dibbell's "seminal and out-of-print" My Tiny Life now available through Lulu.

Books That Make You Dumb

Download from Facebook the ten most popular books at every college, and then cross-reference that with the average SAT score for students attending those colleges. The results are Books That Make You Dumb. Finally a brilliant use of Facebook! [via]

Godel + Escher + Bach = Humor

Toward the bottom of this eBay thread about recent book deals, it says the Demetri Martin has sold his first book which he pitched as "the Godel, Escher, Bach of humor books." (Because of that damn book, I actually turned in papers in college that were written in platonic dialog form. Seriously!)

Poor Richard

Favorite founding father? Glad you asked! Doy, of course it's that rascal polymath Bennie Franklin! Poor Richard's Almanac gets taken up in the New Yorker.

Snuff

"Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room." -- New Palahniuk novel, due in May. [via]

Japan's Mobile Cell Novels

NYT Sunday front page story on Japan's best-selling cellphone novels, mentioned here a while back.

Kindle

So Steve Jobs thinks the Kindle is doomed, but not necessarily because it's a bad product -- but because "people don't read anymore." Now, c'mon, that's pretty dumb.

DeLillo and Auster

Don DeLillo and Paul Auster watching a Yankees game. [via]

Borges

Seeing Borges portrayed in the Times (via the book Borges 2.0: From Text to Virtual Worlds -- gimme!) as an oracular visionary who predicted the internet is one thing... but, whoa, it's a completely different game to see him show up in Vanity Fair as an answer in Karl Rove's Proust Questionnaire to the "favorite writers?" query.

Future Stuff

In 1989, a book called Future Stuff predicted consumer productions that "should be in your supermarket, hardware store, pharmacy, department store, or otherwise available by the year 2000." They were pretty bad predictions.

Acker

Huh, there's a Kathy Acker biopic? Hey, college kids: does anyone still read Acker? I mean, you can't even buy her books at Kim's Video anymore!

Hot For Words

Hot for Words! Virginia thinks that Marina talks like a robot, but doesn't she sound more like the backwards-speak in Twin Peaks?

Starbucked

Good NYTBR: P.J. O'Rourke's review of Starbucked.

Gladwell

So at the Gladwell lecture the other night (attended with Robin and Andrew), it was pretty easy to determine the topic of his Next Big Book: genius. Or rather, learning. Or education. Or nature vs. nurture. Or some combination of those. Anyway, here's a clip from the exchange.

Gladwell at 92Y

New Yorkers: Shout out if you're going to the Malcolm Gladwell lecture on Monday.

Mobile Phone Novels

Mobile Phone Novels. Japan fucking rulz.

Badass Bible Verses

The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses. Ezekiel 23:19-20: "Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." And that's only #7!

Books

On The Media this week was dedicated completely to the future of books.

Umberto Eco

This week's NYT Mag interview: Umberto Eco. On Da Vinci Code: "I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, Foucault's Pendulum."

Fake Steve Reviewed

The NYTBR review of the Fake Steve Jobs parody novel is pretty positive.

Bezos

Big fat Newsweek story on Jeff Bezos' new digital book project, which sorta seems like it could have been written in 1997.

Mailer v. McLuhan

I actually linked to it almost a year ago, but Robin reminded me to drag out this video of a Mailer v. McLuhan debate.

Norman Mailer is Dead

NYT's Norman Mailer obit. Also weighing in: Kakutani, Hitchens, Sicha, Kimball, and a collection of literary remembrances at Salon.

Gladwell Returns

OMG, first Ze, and now.... Malcolm Gladwell is back too! (Absence blamed on writing a new book? Pft, yeah, me too, dude.)

The Wealth of Networks

I've been telling anyone who will listen to read Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks, so I'm glad the new guy at Kottke.org interviewed him. (Btw, since a few people have asked, the new guy at Kottke.org is Joel Turnipseed, the author of Baghdad Express and a resident of Minneapolis -- but no, I've never met him.)

Gawker Book

That Gawker book? Not selling so well.

Kottke Interviews

The new guy over at Kottke.org has a couple interviews: Douglas Wolk (author of Reading Comics) and Jessica Hagy (creator of Indexed).

Digitization and its Discontents

A New Yorker article on the digitization of books, which I could have sworn has been covered a few times in the magazine, but is still full of good context.

NYTBR

This week's NYTBR is a special issue about music books, including a review of The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross' analysis of 20th century classical music (Kottke interviewed him last week). Also of note is Reading Room, a new blog subtitled "conversations about great books," which comes in addition to the other book blog, Paper Cuts. And finally, Joe Queenan has an excellent little rant about, of all things, Henry Petroski's The Toothpick. Key quote: "Petroski has mistakenly assumed that merely because he could assemble a huge amount of information about the rise and fall of the toothpick industry, such data was worth compiling in a 443-page book."

Eggers

EW: Decent Dave Eggers interview with update on What Is the What. [via]

Harry Potter Ignorance

Kottke and Buzzfeed and everyone else have been all over this gay Dumbledore thing, but I'm with Chuck on this one: ignorance may be death, but I don't care this time around.

Ursula's Non-Fiction

Cory Doctorow and Ursula Le Guin have strange battle over copyright, fair use, and excerpts. (Ursula accepts apology.)

Crowd-Sourcing Book Publishing

Penguin is creating a contest with Amazon.com called the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in which people submit their novel manuscripts for review and the community (that's us) votes on which should get published. [via]

Frey

Today is the last day to file for a refund for buying James Frey's "memoir," A Million Little Pieces.

Ghetto Fabulous

The O.E.D. adds some new words -- including buzzkill, monobrow, rockism, and ghetto fabulous. [via]

Gawker Book

Convergence happens to everyone -- even Gawker. Book available for pre-order on Amazon. Oh, and the requisite dumb viral video.

Hyphens

The hyphen is dying -- BBC mag investigates.

Reconstructing Frey

The Observer has more on the new James Frey novel.

Doctorow Shorts

I've noticed that Cory Doctorow has been selling his short fiction to magazines that might not otherwise run fiction. Early this year, "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" appeared in The Rake and now "Scroogled" is in Radar. With the market for fiction in magazines in jeopardy, maybe there's something in the way that Doctorow writes that makes short fiction suddenly more relevant to media types.

Frey Returns

Huh, HarperCollins will publish the new James Frey novel.

Glut

In one of those moments where you're so glad he's back, Kottke digs up the bibliography to Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages.

New Google Book Features

This is pretty cool: Google Book Search Library. Add books to your library to create a personalized search source that you can then annotate, review, and share it. Other new features: embed book snippets and meme pools.

Dungeons and Dragons

I don't know why, but this seems like something you should know: the fourth edition of the D&D Manual is coming out in May 2008. (And if you've never read it, The Believer's year-old story on the history of D&D is a must-find.)

Blogs and Books

Finally, Kruc made the Styles section -- for a boring story about blogs and authors because he made the Frank Portman video.

William Gibson Interview

You'll find this hard to believe, but I've actually been holding back on William Gibson (and, for that matter, M.I.A.) links. But his interview in Onion A/V is just too good.

PK Dick

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik on Philip K. Dick.

Another Gibson Interview

Salon: interview with W. Gibson.

The First Word

The NYTBR review for The First Word makes the field of evolutionary linguistics sound rife with intrigue -- with Chomsky as the foil!

Haruki Murakami

Proving that it can be almost as useful as Wikipedia, Time magazine has a short little guide to the books of Haruki Murakami.

Gibson Reads In Second LIfe

William Gibson reading from his new novel Spook Country inside Second Life. Um, not exactly packed.

More Gibson

Amazon.com interview with William Gibson: part 1, part 2, part 3. Spook Country is out in a couple weeks.

Bukowski Peanuts

If Peanuts were written by Charles Bukowski. Brilliant.

Jane Austin Today

Some dude spoofs the book world by sending parts of Jane Austin novels to 18 publishers. Only one noticed it was Austin's writing -- and all the were rest sent rejections. [via]

FSJ Book

Fake Steve Jobs' book is on Amazon: Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody. October 8 release date.

Open Library

New Aaron Swartz / Brewster Kahle project: Open Library. It wants to catalog every book in existence.

McSweeney's Top 10

List: Top 10 issues of McSweeney's.

DFW

David Foster Wallace speaking at an Italian conference and looking like Axl Rose. [via]

Punctuation Mark Origins

The Origin of Everyday Punctuation Marks.

Spook Country

William Gibson has posted a lengthy video in which he talks about his new book, Spook Country, which hits stores early next month. Also interesting: Amazon has the original proposal for the novel, which sounds nothing like how the novel actually turned out. [via]

Bookforum

Bookforum has relaunched itself as a blog. I suspect this will be quite good.

Napkin Fiction

Esquire: The Napkin Fiction Project.

Cult of the Amateur

Strange that NYTBR brought out Michiko to review Cult of the Amateur. Also strange that she doesn't really even review the book, and just recites Keen's argument.

Gothic and Lolita

Browsing the bookstore last weekend, I saw a copy of this Gothic and Lolita book -- and it totally freaked me out, even more than Phaidon's other similar releases Fruits and Fresh Fruits. For a sample, check out the slideshow on Radar. Update: Wikipedia entry for "Gothic Lolita" (thx Gavin).

Reading Comics

It looks like Douglas Wolk's new book Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean is making an impression. Salon has an excerpt and the Star-Tribune has a review.

Weinberger at Google

Google TechTalk with Everything is Miscellaneous author David Weinberger.

Greg Bear

Sci-fi author Greg Bear on last night's Daily Show.

Black Swan

I haven't read Nassim Taleb's new book Black Swan yet, but today Jim pointed me to the Wikipedia entry for Ludic fallacy, which is "the misuse of games to model real-life situations." Taleb was on The Colbert Report a few weeks ago, and his book is getting some buzz lately.

Fake Movies For Fake Novelists

The movie production company that optioned faux-author JT Leroy's movie rights is suing. As Vulture says: "Liberal-arts grads of the world, this trial has it all! Fake novelists, indie moviemakers, Terry Gross, deep issues, pitiful stakes (that Sarah option deal? $15,000 a year)!"

Book Inscriptions

BookInscriptions.com. Sorta like Found magazine for book inscriptions.

Palahniuk

Onion A/V asks Chuck Palahniuk your questions.

Brin

Since we're already all sci-fi this week, two interviews popped up today with David Brin: Wired and Discover.

Dick in The Times

Somewhat strangely, the New York Times Op-Ed page has decided it needs to chime in on Philip K. Dick as a genius sage, too. See also: Wired interviews Lethem on the Library of America series.

Get With The Program

NYTBR: Pretty great overview of novelists who use Excel, Mindjet MindManager, Microsoft Project, Dramatica Pro, and other programs to assist their writing.

Porno For Book Geeks

Porno For Book Geeks. (It's just a picture of Verso's Radical Thinkers series.)

It's Fark

That book from the Fark guy came out today: It's Not News, It's Fark.

Twitterlit

Twitterlit. Twittering the first lines of books so you don't have to.

Last DeLillo Link

NYTBR: Frank Rich reviews the new DeLillo.

After Dark

Over the weekend, I finished the new Murakami novel, which somehow manages to be both tremendously cinematic and wildly unfilmable at the same time. (One of the main characters is actually a camera, which is a proxy for us, the audience. This causes parts of the plot to be told in first-person plural -- "point of view" is a prevailing phrase.) A few reviews: L.A. Times | San Fran Chron | Wash Post.

Fark

I'm not sure what to make this: the dude from Fark has written a book (out in couple weeks) subtitled "How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News." Isn't that the definition of Fark?

Where's My Jetpack?

This book looks interesting: Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived.

Fiction Science Fiction

Metafilter thread on the fiction of science fiction.

Kakutani on DeLillo

Michiko Kakutani doesn't like the new DeLillo.

PKD

NYTBR takes notice of the four Philip K. Dick reissues from Library of America.

DeLillo Review

NY Sun is, I believe, the first to review the new 9/11 DeLillo book.

New Gibson

William Gibson's new book. Not out until August. [via]

Everything Is Miscellaneous

There has been surprisingly scant buzz about David Weinberger's new book, Everything Is Miscellaneous, which is out next week.

Dick Movies

In addition to nine released film adaptations, there are currently five additional Philip K. Dick stories being optioned for movies: Valis, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, Radio Free Albemuth, Adjustment Team, and Time Out of Joint. [via]

Words

Say goodbye to your afternoon: A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia.

The Cult of the Amateur

Let the Web 2.0 backlash begin! An upcoming book found cruising around Amazon: The Cult of the Amateur. Subtitle: "How today's Internet is killing our culture." Ouch! [See also: Secrets of Online Persuasion.]

David Sedaris: Fact or Fiction?

I've been intending to write about The New Republic's dissection of the factuality of David Sedaris' non-fiction essays, but Daniel Radosh beat me to it (after Jack Shafer beat him to it). In general, I'm fascinated by this sliding scale of acceptable and unacceptable deceit we've seemingly agreed upon as a culture.

Gladwell Death Watch

Gladwell's blog? Yep, still dead.

Kurt Vonnegut has died

Kurt Vonnegut has died.

Church Signs Across America

NYTBR review of Church Signs Across America.

No One Belongs Here More than You

A great thing: The website for Miranda July's new book, No One Belongs Here More than You (out May 15).

Philip K. Dick book covers

Holy crap! A gigantic gallery of Philip K. Dick book covers. (Too bad it's such horrible UI.)

Future of Books

The Economist on the future of books. [via]

New DeLillo

The new DeLillo novel is called Falling Man (out May 15), a reference to the World Trade Center falling man from 9/11. [via]

Lethem

Salon: Jonathan Lethem on why copyright laws stifle creativity.

Border and Amazon

Borders is dropping Amazon as its e-commerce solution in favor of doing their own site.

Waldenbooks

Waldenbooks -- one of those stores you're always surprised to see still exists -- is closing half its stores.

The Meaning of Life

Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton has a surprising new book coming out that looks like a bit of pop philosophy: The Meaning of Life. The Guardian reviews it.

Baudrillard

One of my heroes, Jean Baudrillard, died yesterday: NYT | Guardian | Times UK | NY Sun | Le Figaro| Le Monde | BBC | Reuters | AP.

Bracketology

Bracketology is the most recent addition to the growing list of books that use a graphic schema to organize the world. (More? I just got David Byrne's Arboretum, for instance.) The subtitle says it all: The Final Four of Everything. Bracketed concepts include memorable lines in speeches, jock films, and mondegreens, or misheard lyrics. [via]

J.G. Ballard

An amazing collection of J.G. Ballard book covers, plus a long interview with the curator of the collection. I want framed versions of several of these.

On Stereotypes

Lately I've been thinking about how writers enjoy making declarations like "We live in an age in which..." or "New Yorkers are the kinds of people who..." or "Paris Hilton is representative of our time because...." Statements like these are addictive in their simplicity, creating the appearance of aphoristic profundity. And I'm more ridiculously guilty of this form of generalization than anyone. (I recently looked back at the columns I wrote in my college newspaper. Nearly every screed declares how we live in a new era of [whatever].) And that's why I really enjoyed Chuck's Esquire column this month about stereotypes.

Comedy Central And Books

Mildly interesting: in the online version of the NYT story on what an author appearance on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report does for book sales, they have embedded video clips from ComedyCentral.com.

Loose Lips

Slate.com: In Defense of "Loose" Women.

Joe Hill

Am I the last to know that Stephen King has a son named Joe Hill who just wrote a novel named after a Nirvana album (Heart-Shaped Box, which was positively reviewed in NYTBR) that is apparently about a man who bought a haunted suit over the internet?

Lethem on Plagiarism

Jonathan Lethem's sorta brilliant essay in Harper's on plagiarism that liberally steals other peoples' words: The Ecstasy of Influence. [via]

Books and Networking

A long list of book-oriented web 2.0 sites. Interesting that I've never heard of these, and also interesting that I have no interest to sign up for any of them. Not sure why that is...

Joyce and Beckett

Joyce 'n' Beckett play golf, a short film. [via]

Google's Universal Library

The New Yorker on Google's quest for the universal library.

Being Digital

When I moved to Seattle, I revisited the 12-year-ago publication of Microserfs, Douglas Coupland's take on software culture. Published right around the same time was Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital, which The Laboratorium revisits to reveal some amazing predictions and blunders. [via]

Love is a Mix Tape

Man, my friend Keith's review of Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape is wonderful. Just one snippet: "As with Pavement's Steven Malkmus, Sheffield's quick quips have long been mistaken by dumb people for straight-up glibness. Make no mistake -- those people are our enemies. They would have us deny that there was a time sincerity and irony were not mutually exclusive options, before the gaping chasm between snark and emo swallowed up any ambiguity of emotion. That time was the '90s, a decade whose flimsy promises were always already broken. We could only afford to approach our future with such irreverence, after all, because our dreams were so pathetically limited."

Google Map Books

In the realm of possible products that Google could mashup, books and maps isn't exactly one of that immediately comes to mind -- until they did it.

Garfunkel

You want random? I've got random: every book Art Garfunkel has read in the past 30 years. [via]

I Am Plastic

NYTBR: review of I Am Plastic, the new book about the designer toy explosion.

Dreaming In Code

For nerds and nerd-lovers: brand new book, Dreaming In Code, follows an open-source programming project in order to understand just why it's so hard to write software. Also, sometimes programmer and former McSweeney's online editor Kevin Shay has a new novel: The End As I Know It: A Novel of Millennial Anxiety, which looks sorta Couplandesque.

wiki adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure wiki. [via]

Gangsta Rap Coloring Book

On Amazon: Gangsta Rap Coloring Book. Contains portraits of Ice-T, 50 Cent, Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and more. [via]

Crichton

In NYTBR, Itzkoff reviews the new Michael Crichton book, Next, which "completes the author's metamorphosis from steely-eyed augur of the not-too-distant future to unabashed demagogue." Last month, it was revealed that Crichton turned one of his real-world critics into a fictional character who just happens to be a child rapist. Which is, well, despicable, but also pretty fucking funny.

Pynchon Blog

For anyone reading the new Pynchon, my friend Kevin is blogging the book at Ten-to-One Against The Day.

Ali Rap

George Lois (the guy who practically invented the magazine cover at Esquire, including this famous one) has a new book out called Ali Rap, which is a "biography" consisting entirely of quotes from Muhammad Ali. There's also a DVD. [via]

Books in the Internet Age

Forbes has a large collection of stories on the book industry in the internet age. It include Cory Doctorow on giving his books away, a piece on the networked book, and some requisite Dave Eggers fan boy material.

Eggars Changes His Mind?

Did Eggers change his mind about David Foster Wallace?

The Lonely Planet Guide to Micronations

The other day at the office, I noticed someone carrying a copy of The Lonely Planet Guide to Micronations, the idea of which completely infatuated me. It's basically a guidebook to teeny-tiny nations with self-declared sovereignty, oftentimes established in someone's backyard. The Empire of Atlantium, The Principality of Sealand, and The Republic of Molossia are such example. NPR has an interview and BLDG BLOG has another. (One of the authors of the book, Simon Sellars, is interviewed in the latter. He also runs one of my favorite blogs, Ballardian, which is its own micronation of sorts).

My Penguin

Penguin is publishing six books without cover art, with the notion that you'll draw your own cover, which can be added to an online gallery. The books: Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Brothers Grimm's Magic Tales, Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Jane Austen's Emma.

Aristotle Makes It

Discover: 25 Greatest Science Books of All-Time. #6 is from 330 B.C.!

Michiko on Pynchon

Michiko! Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day, reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author's might have written on quaaludes. It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.

Eggers on Wallace

Dave Eggers' introduction to the new edition of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

Against The Day

I believe the New York Sun is actually the first to publish a review of Pynchon's newest, Against the Day. Wait, did he say lists? I happen to like lists.

Klosterman in Onion

Chuck is an Onion A/V Club interviewee. Also: new Esquire column on YouTube.

Cyber-Neologoliferation

NYT Mag looks at the process of choosing words for the new OED. My favorite addition is wonky, but no mention is made on whether a word I swear I invented will make it: arm candy.

Own Your Own Words

In NYTBR, Steven Johnson has a little ditty on keywords, mashing together Raymond Williams and Google: "Own Your Own Words."

The Perfect Thing

Slate has a great review of The Perfect Thing, Steven Levy's new book about the iPod. "Here's the rub: After reading Levy's book, I'm not convinced that the iPod has changed anything at all. Levy, a senior editor at Newsweek, is a prime example of the boomers who think the iPod is revolutionary. But really, they're grateful, because it's made them feel cool again." I totally agree with this.

Designing Pornotopia

Damn, there are too many interesting books lately. Designing Pornotopia (subtitle: "Travels in Visual Culture") looks like it's worth checking out.

The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived

Potentially interesting book: The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived. The corresponding website lists 50 of them.

Six Words

Wired snags the six words meme (previously mentioned back here). [via]

Snow Crash on Second Life

Everyone is running to Second Life, why not novelists? The Guardian reports that, no surprise, Snow Crash is the first to arrive.

Klosterman

Pretty great Chuck interview. "The single unifying characteristic in everything I write about is that I'm always more interested in the audience than the actual artifice."

Hodgman Video

Video of John Hodgman reading at Cody's in San Fran.

The Novel, 2.0

Slate's roundtable on the state of the novel in the digital world, featuring Walter Kirn and Gary Shteyngart: The Novel, 2.0. Example of the goodness: "I read somewhere once that in the 1960s fiction writers were troubled by the notion that life was becoming stranger and more sensational than made-up stories could ever hope to be. Our new problem -- more profound, I think -- is that life no longer resembles a story. Events intersect but don't progress. People interact but don't make contact. Settings shift but don't necessarily change."

Pynchon's Son

Another update on Thomas Pynchon's relatives: His son is on Facebook. Includes pics of what appears to be daddy.

For Sale. Baby's Shoes. Never Used.

"For sale: baby shoes, never used." (More attempts.)

Klosterman Storms Boston

Long Chuck profile in the Boston Phoenix.

Tipped Point

NY Observer: Semi-take-down piece on Malcolm Gladwell.

Chuck Klosterman IV

Chuck's new book is doing well. Some reviews: New York Times Book Review, L.A. Times, Onion A/V Club, Slam, Akron Beacon Journal, and Portland Mercury.

the crying of lot 69?

Thomas Pynchon's niece is a porn star. Just thought you'd like to know.

Ghost Map

Steven Johnson's new book, The Ghost Map, has a trailer -- yes, a trailer -- on YouTube. [via]

Hippies Invented the Internet

I fucking hate the thesis that hippies are the progenitors of internet culture, even if it's a little true.

John Hodgman

Radar has an interview with the funniest man alive right now, John Hodgman. I didn't realize that he edited the "True Life Tales" section of the NYT Mag.

Dune

NYTBR: Dave Itzkoff has some good observations about Dune.

Danielewski

L.A. Times: Profile of Mark Z. Danielewski. "Some people are going to really hate this book."

Freygate

The Guardian: First interview with James Frey since he became invisible. Again, he's somehow a victim, additcted to something new, this time lying.

JT LeRoy

Paris Review: interview with Laura Albert (JT LeRoy). Cover is a photo of her as a child.

Only Revolutions

The website to Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions is pretty messed up.

Arboretum

David Byrne describes his strange new book (published by McSweeney's) as "Faux science, automatic writing, self-analysis, satire and maybe even a serious attempt at finding connections where none were thought to exist."

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

New Murakami out today: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

Beautiful Evidence reviewed on NPR

NPR reviews Tufte's new book, Beautiful Evidence.

Jeans

Michiko reviews a new cultural history of jeans.

Future Nerve

The second set of short stories in the Nerve Future Issue is out. Includes Douglas Rushkoff, Jay McInerney, and Walter Kirn.

Gladwell

Gladwell returns to his blog to talk about The Long Tail and bloggers. There's a strange tone in this blogger vs. msm stuff lately.

Pynchon's Against the Day

Thomas Pynchon's next novel, Against the Day, will be out in December. It will also be 992 pages long. Slate thinks he's shown up on Amazon.

Trailers for books

Trailers for books. For real.

The Long Tail

Even before reading Chris Anderson's new book, The Long Tail, you and I -- we, the people on the internet -- are of two minds about it. Part of us has been waiting with zeal, with a virtual palpitating heart, for a new "big idea" book to debate for the rest of the year -- and also, a treatise that will elucidate for our workplace parents (i.e., bosses) why small is the new big, why this niche economy is different than anything ever before, and why this wisdom-of-the-crowds gibberish actually has some evidential support. The other part of us -- the part that has waited so long for this seemingly-eternal-work-in-progress, which, by now, we've already heard our boss, and our boss' boss, and our boss' boss' secretary, repeat the title of so many times (usually, as an inaccurate reference) that we want to retreat to Second Life for the rest of the summer -- yes, this part of us has already deduced this blogged book will be repetitive and cloying and, well, long in the mouth.

Ah, the fragmented public.

For those of you who haven't been gripped by every nuance of the internet economy over the past few years, perhaps some rewinding is in order. Stating the thesis of The Long Tail requires merely a few words: the mass market economy is turning into a niche economy. That's it? Yep, that's it. I suspect those of us who fall in the middle of Gen X will smirk at this proposition. Since approximately the day I left high school, I've been told I'm part of a new micro-marketing culture, that the difference between me and my parents is choice, that fame will be doled out to my friends in tidy 15 minute portions. I've been walking and breathing niche for so long, it's probably time somebody stopped and asked: is all this true?

One thing is true: just the introduction of The Long Tail will zap you with enough aphorisms to instantly transform you into the hottest internet bon vivant at the next Valleywag-crashed party. Simply toss out these maxims over Web 2.0 martinis: "Scarcity requires hits." "The mass market is turning into a market of niches." "The era of one-size-fits-all is ending, and in its place is something new, a market of multitudes." "If the twentieth-century entertainment industry was about hits, the twenty-first century will be equally about niches." Are you writing these down?

But you realize an odd thing about 50 pages into this book: you're not bored. You suspect you should be bored by either the pop economics or the glib utopianism or perhaps, alas, the hash tables. But, somehow, you enjoy the stories that illustrate the overall economic theories. And, most of all, the data points are simply delicious. You want to memorize them for the next time you argue with your friends about topics that feel true but which you don't actually know are true. Did you know...

+ A quarter of Amazon's book sales come from outside its top 100,000 titles.

+ 74 percent of tv households in 1954 watched I Love Lucy; CSI now, 15 percent.

+ Toll-free calling was invented in 1967 by AT&T. By 1992, 40 percent of all long-distance calls on its network were toll-free.

+ Online shopping accounts for 5 percent of American retail spending. It's increasing 25% per year.

+ In the 1960s, the Chevy Impala sedan accounted for 13 percent of the U.S. car market.

+ Yahoo's music video viewership lands somewhere between MTV and VH1 in audience share.

+ 724,000 Americans report eBay as their primary or secondary source of income.

+ 20% of the population lives 8+ miles from a bookstore.

And so on.

You might think that Anderson's purpose in using the bevy of data would be to whip up some evidence to push the overall narrative, but the data actually becomes the story. Anderson (who, we somehow haven't mentioned yet, is the editor of Wired) nicely weaves it all together in a way that makes you realize that he's one of the few people who actually gets the holy triumvirate: culture, media, and economics.

The question that nagged me -- and perhaps it will you, too -- is whether all this fragmentation of culture is actually good for us. It would have been wise to close the book on this topic, but Anderson gets to it a couple chapters before the end (he reserves the final pages for an annoying "how to make a long tail company" list, probably to justify placement in B&N's business section). I'm someone who has previously ranted about the infuriating bullshit of Republic.com, which purported that personalized technologies (i.e., those that expose the long tail) would hurt the spread of information. Nonetheless, I've become worried recently about the loss of salient and persistent talking points even within my little clique of media-savvy culturati. Lately, I've been hearing conversation-enders like this with more frequency: "No, I didn't hear that [too-obscure-for-Pitchfork] record" or "No, I didn't see that [famous-to-hundreds Web 2.0] website" or "No, I haven't rented that [Japanese anime import] DVD." Without getting mealy-mouthed, Anderson scrubs away my apprehension, revealing a world in which you and me -- we, the people on the internet -- are "not so much fragmenting as we are re-forming along different dimensions."

I feel defragged now.

Rex, who is currently working on a book very tentatively titled "Everything You Know Is the Wisdom of the Long Tail Tipping Point," was nominated for a Wired Rave Award in 2004 but has never met Chris Anderson, even though he totally stalked him at the awards party.

MySpace Book Project

MySpace Book Project. Yeah, I don't get it either.

The Long Tail

New Yorker review of The Long Tail, which is finally out. I wonder if it'll end up on the short or long end of the tail?

55 Ways To Have Fun With Google

New book: 55 Ways To Have Fun With Google.

Thus Ate Zarathrustra

Classic '70s-style Woody Allen in the New Yorker: "Thus At Zarathrustra".

Updike on Google Books

Updike jumps up and down like a baby (an eloquent baby, I suppose) over Kevin Kelly's NYT Mag book story from a several weeks ago.

Nerve Future Issue

The Nerve.com Future Issue, which will feature writing from Joel Stein, Walter Kirn, Jay McInerney, Douglas Rushkoff, Rick Moody, Ana Marie Cox, and others.