Two journals started the week by showing off their fancy new faces. Gigantic launched a new web site for the magazine, featuring a chapter from Shya Scanlon‘s Forecast 42 and new fiction by J.A. Tyler. The Barnes & Noble Review debuted a toothsome redesign along with a sobering essay on book publishing by former Executive Editor-in-Chief of Random House, Daniel Menaker.
The Debut of Two Fancy New Faces
The One I Love
Recommended Reading: Sarah Sansolo on her childhood obsession with Britney Spears.
Ulin on King
David Ulin offers a brief consideration of Stephen King. King's work, Ulin writes, "exposes, with real acuity, a lot about who we are."
Lincoln vs. Hitler
“Adolf Hitler loved books—that nasty bent for book burning notwithstanding—and the book industry loves him back. Type his name into Amazon, and while he doesn't trigger the English-language numbers of Jesus (186,740) or Lincoln (70,710), he registers a solid 18,597—a stunning figure for someone who died less than 70 years ago.” On the Fuhrer’s paradoxical relationship with literature.
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Weekend Links
The Oscar Blog: Ed has recruited Scott, YPTR, Elizabeth Crane, Jeff, Gwenda, Mark and several others to "live blog" the Oscars on Sunday. I'm convinced that no good can come of this... but you can bet I'll be reading along.I'll read what ever Malcolm Gladwell writes, but his 2-part conversation with ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons on sports (and many other topics) is particularly entertaining.I'm a huge fan of the Comics Curmudgeon blog, which hilariously skewers the newspaper funnies. Now Josh has hit the big time. He'll be skewering political cartoons for Wonkette.The winners of the 2005 Book Critics Cirle Award will be announced tonight. Here are the finalists.Brokeback Mountain (video link) in Bun-O-Vision.
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Choose Your Own Apocalypse: Skynet or Stingrays
With the help of Our Final Hour author Martin Rees, Cambridge will soon open a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. The Centre will investigate the threats posed by “artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology.” To my ears, this sounds an awful lot like Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, which was memorably depicted in John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “Violence of the Lambs.”
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