“My mum is Jerry Hall and my father’s Mick Jagger. People say I have great genes,” says the youngest of Mick Jagger’s children, Georgia May Jagger, in a new Hudson Jeans television ad. See the jeans and genes of this “neo-Bardot” at The Daily Beast.
Great Genes
STEM for Dogs
Even dogs are learning STEM now. Check out this rigorous program from Rollover Academy at McSweeney’s.
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Mo Yan, Euphemism, and Translated Prose
Anna Sun profiles the work of Mo Yan, the latest winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. While Sun acknowledges Yan’s popularity and prolific output, she also notes that what the Nobel committee referred to as “hallucinatory prose” is more often than not “repetitive, predictable, coarse, and mostly devoid of aesthetic value.” Indeed, Sun writes, “the English translations of Mo Yan’s novels … are in fact superior to the original.” [Ed. Note: It appears the Kenyon Review link was briefly not working; this Google cache may work better -- h/t Dan Farrely]
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Little, Brown in the News
U.S. publishing house Little, Brown had a rough day in the news yesterday. Its coy marketing tactics have rubbed some booksellers the wrong way, reports Julie Bosman for The New York Times. Later on, The New York Post's Keith J. Kelly noted that the publisher has dropped one of its bigger titles. Jason Bennett raises some additional questions.
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Final Round of the Tournament of Books
This year's Tournament of Books comes to an end today, after nearly a month of analyses, debates and thoughtful arguments. In the final round, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life squares off with James McBride's The Good Lord Bird, both of which are, in Héctor Tobar's words, "unorthodox, historical novels." Now that the verdicts are in, the only question is: who won? (You could also read the quarterfinal judged by our own Lydia Kiesling.)
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Hello, Shalom.
Shalom Auslander believes. He can't really seem to help it.
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Optical Illusions
When Steven Millhauser calls your work "astonishing," it's safe to say you've done a pretty good job. Here is book designer Janet Hansen at The Literary Hub on falling in love with a book and taking a risk with its design.
Kofi Awoonor Memorial Reading
Iowa City, which is one of six UNESCO Cities of Literature, will honor renowned Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor with a memorial reading this Monday, October 14. Awoonor was among those killed in the attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The reading, which will be hosted by Awoonor’s nephew, Kwame Dawes, will take place on the University of Iowa campus, but it will also be open to anybody with an internet connection. People are invited to tune in to the event’s streaming webcast, and also to submit questions for Dawes online to the @UIIWP Twitter account by utilizing the #Awoonor hashtag.
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