A harrowing interview with How to Sell author Clancy Martin is up at the Torpedo blog.
In the Confessional
Has Odds, Will Bet
As previously reported, Haruki Murakami is favored to win the Nobel Prize in Literature seven-to-one. For more on the dubious practice of betting on literary awards, see this interview from last year with an employee of the London-based company responsible for calculating the odds.
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On Magna Opera
Nabokov fans, brace yourselves! Roxana Robinson makes a case against Lolita, “a brilliant book in many ways, but not a masterpiece.”
Anne Frank’s Legacy
“Nathan Englander’s characters have invented ‘the Anne Frank game’ whose major question is ‘who would hide you if there were another Holocaust.’ By making this a game, the characters demonstrate their affective distance from the event, but at the same time Englander illustrates that the Holocaust remains a touchstone for the marijuana-smoking, Orthodox Jews who bring the game to their secular Jewish friends.” On the fictional afterlife of Anne Frank.
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Alice Walker on Screen
Still deciding what to do this Friday night? Watch PBS’s new documentary on Alice Walker, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, at 9 p.m. EST. At The Daily Beast, Agunda Okeyo discusses the history of the film’s production, which took six years. “Stories about women of color told by women of color are sidelined and neglected in favor of our stories being told by white women and men,” director Pratibha Parmar says.
Get Ready for Downton Abbey’s Third Season
The third season of Downton Abbey has an official trailer, but to really gear up for the upcoming episodes, you might want to pad your reading list.
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#LitBeat: The Common Launch
In the latest installment of #LitBeat our intrepid reporter Tiffany Gibert finds herself celebrating The Common and transfixed by The Dog House Band.
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At The Table
The Table 4 Writers foundation, set up in the memory of the restauranteur Elaine Kaufman, recently chose the winners of its first round of $2,000 grants for writers. The winners will be honored March 7 at the New York Athletics Club, where Gay Talese will also be recognized with a lifetime achievement award.
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