Move over, Mr. Darcy and Edward Cullen: The readers of Mills & Boon romance novels (the UK’s answer to Harlequin romances) have voted Mr. Rochester of Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane Eyre the most romantic hero in literature.
Oh, Mr. Rochester!
Chris Ware’s Radical Honesty
Hannah Means-Shannon shares a dispatch from the Rocky Mountain Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels in which Building Stories author (and Year in Reading alum) Chris Ware discusses his creative processes.
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2012 Costa Award Finalists Announced
The 2012 finalists for the Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Awards have been anounced. In the “Novel” category, they are Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May, The Heart Broke In by James Meek, and Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart. The Costa site has lists of the nominees in all categories.
Ta-Nahisi Coates’ bibliography
Earlier this month, Ta-Nahisi Coates published a conversation-changing long form article on race and reparations in The Atlantic (we covered other pundits’ responses here). Now, he is blogging a brief bibliography of the sources he consulted while writing that seminal essay. Parts one and two are available now, with two more installments planned for today and tomorrow. Whether or not you agree with Coates, it’s a fantastic reading list on race relations in America.
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On Yesterday’s Earthquake
In both pizza and geological terms, the East Coast is known for its thin crust.
Monday Links
A new issue of The Quarterly Conversation has arrived, featuring an essay on Wizard of the Crow by QC creator Scott and a review of William T. Vollmann’s Poor People from Dave Munger. Lots of other good reviews in there too.Also via Scott, Political Theory Daily Review, a dense and daily collection of linksIn a Newsweek sidebar accompanying an excerpt of his book The American Religion, Harold Bloom names his “five most important books.” The most recent one to appear on the list? A tie, more or less, between Don Quixote and the complete works of Shakespeare. Bloom was also asked to admit to an important book he hadn’t read. His answer: “I cannot think of a major work I have not ingested.” That’s a lot of pages to store in one’s belly. (via Stephen)Good week for Mark Sarvas, first he announces that he’s sold his novel and now he’s off on his honeymoon. Filling in at TEV is Joshua Ferris, author of the much praised Then We Came to the End.And finally, a Baltimore Sun review had me intrigued by a new squirm-inducing non-fiction book by a former crime scene investigator for the Baltimore County police. Dana Kollmann’s book Never Suck a Dead Man’s Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI gives a real-life look at a profession recently glamorized by TV show “CSI” and its many offshoots. Krall, however, describes a job both more boring and more odious than the one described on TV, but she does so with “dark humor,” which I’d imagine the job requires. The book’s title, for example, “comes from a story that involves a dead man, his hand and her attempts to get fingerprints on a freezing cold day.” Yikes.
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“Big, though, big head”
Last week marked the release of The Heart is Strange, a new collection of John Berryman poems released to coincide with the centenary of the poet’s birth. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbring digs through the magazine’s interview archives to find Berryman’s account of meeting W.B. Yeats. Pair with: Stephen Akey on Berryman’s classic The Dream Songs.
It Might as Well Be Sentient
This is really happening: In February, an IBM-programmed computer will take on former champions (including Ken Jennings) in three games of Jeopardy. (via)
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I have read widely and I must agree that Mr Rochester is my no. 1 hero.
I’ve probably been reading too much Rhys, but there’s no way I can get around the sticking of the first wife in the attic enough to find Mr Rochester even remotely romantic.