What happens to your Facebook account when you die? (Via.)
The Final Status Update
Wordless Novels
“There is a saying that has become a cliché: ‘Pictures speak louder than words.’ But sometimes, a picture can speak louder than words because it contains a profound silence. It’s what a picture does not say that can often make it loud. What is, after all, a wordless novel but a novel devoted to the message of silence?” On Frans Masereel‘s My Book of Hours, a wordless novel in woodcuts. For another, lighter perspective on the power of picture books, pair with Jacob Lambert‘s “Yet Again, I Ask: Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray?“
The new Brooklyn novel
“Like characters in a somewhat less swashbuckling Jack London novel, these are all characters, and writers, who are grappling with their environments.” Our own Lydia Kiesling writes for Salon about the “caucasian, Ivy-educated writers of literary fiction set in Brooklyn” and the novels they’re producing, particularly the just-released-yesterday Friendship by Emily Gould.
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Vote Knope
The most important news of 2013 so far: Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler is currently writing a memoir, to be published in fall of 2014.
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Redesigning Infinite Jest
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of David Foster Wallace‘s Infinite Jest. To celebrate, Little, Brown is holding a cover design contest, with a $1,000 grand prize. Also, you know, the pride of seeing Infinite Jest published in your cover. Whatever, no big deal.
On Dr. Seuss and Pluto, Etc.
It may not surprise you to learn that Neil deGrasse Tyson wishes he’d met Oscar Wilde. As part of the By the Book series in the Times, the astronomer talks about his favorite writers, including Carl Sagan, Bill Bryson and Jonathan Swift.
Whatever I choose is cool because I am cool.
The Rumpus has an interview up with Ann Friedman, executive editor at GOOD, and curator of the beloved tumblogs Lady Journos and #realtalk From Your Editor.