T-Shirts I Have Known: Part Two

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To an 11-year-old desperate to inflict damage in the arms race of seventh-grade sexual obnoxiousness, “Big Johnson Erection Company” was a cotton nuclear bomb. “Big Johnson Erection Company” was more than a shirt. It was how I announced my regrettable eligibility as a viable sexual being.
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Pick a Card, Any Card: Raymond Carver’s First Short Story

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Carver's distinctive style was established surprisingly early, as this recently-discovered story -- found among the yellowing papers of his third-grade teacher at Yakima Elementary School -- will attest.
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How to Title Every Book You Ever Write

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Get out your favorite album. Rank the tracks in order of how much you like them. Take the fourth song. Print out the lyrics to that song and black out any that are well known. From the remaining lyrics, choose either the first or second half of a complete thought. Note: It must be meaningless out of context.
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No, No, Nanette: A Profile

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I asked one last question before closing my notebook, one to which every writer and agent is dying to know the answer: Will Nanette ever decide to publish a book?
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Yet Again, I Ask: Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray?

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I’ve recently discovered that the polluted river of wicked picture books has been flowing as strongly as ever. A new crop of titles has until now escaped my benevolent gaze -- and in so doing, have tainted our tots with narratives of untold madness and perfidy.
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Pansexual Free-for-All: My Time As A Writer of Kindle Erotica

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All I had to do was be willing to remorselessly pump out paranormal pornography like nobody’s business. Could I accept this challenge?
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Garnish with a Sprig of Dorothy Parker: The Literary Meet Market

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In terms of historical significance, 'The Summit’s' publication falls somewhere between the Yalta Conference and this year’s Baseball Winter Meetings, at which the Yankees shored up their bullpen by signing a pitcher, Andrew Miller, whom Brian Cashman touted as Ron Guidry meets Emily Dickinson.
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Gather Your Acolytes About You: Advice for Aspiring Writers

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Singer. Newly rich individual. Reality TV person. Naked blogger. Politician sexting victim. Politician. Tech mogul. Koch-brother style of oligarch. It is imperative, before you sit down to write, that none of these alternatives are available to you in either the short or medium term.
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First Encounter of the Worst Kind: On Reading James Patterson at 32,000 Feet

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Books like this are for people who don’t really like to read but love to be able to say they have read, much as fruity cocktails are for people who don’t really like to drink but love to get knee-walking drunk.
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The Robert Burton Diet

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Atkins, South Beach, Microbiome, Paleo: all these faddish regimens might slim you down, but can they regulate your humours? I think not.
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Bookends from the New York Times Book Review: The Rejected Questions

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Can the state of contemporary literature be used to forecast stock prices?
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Nook (Kindle) and Cranny: Literary Travel Suggestions for a 400 Square Foot Apartment

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If you can get used to my roommate, I promise it will be an incredible experience.
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Back to School: Six Strategies for Effective Close Reading

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Close reading produces knowledge, and knowledge can be painful.
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Viral Professors

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How would fictional professors, heroes of those quaint works known as campus novels, fare in the world of online education?
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Epitaphs for the Novel

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“Who would not sing for Lycidas?” asks Milton in his famous elegy. And who, indeed, would not sing for the Novel, which has once again been declared dead?
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The Worst Book Review Ever

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While professional duty compels me to deliver judgment on the work at hand, I cannot in good conscience reveal the title, author or any identifying details about its plot for fear that some perverse soul might be tempted to go out and buy it.
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There Are Two Kinds of Novelists…

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Owing to the vagaries of evolution and animal husbandry, there are lactose intolerant novelists (Dostoyevsky) and those blessed few for whom a latte does not ruin an afternoon (Marguerite Duras).
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