If you’re an enthusiast of Spanish-language literature and haven’t been following the serialization of Jorge Volpi‘s essay on “The Future of Latin American Fiction” at Three Percent, you should be.
The Future of Latin American Fiction
The Dan Brown Hype Machine
Amazon has given its entire front page over to a “letter” from CEO Jeff Bezos touting Dan Brown’s forthcoming gnostic thriller The Lost Symbol. It’s a mix of hyperbole and “thrilling” intrigue. My favorite excerpts: “This is one of the most anticipated publishing events of all time.” “The book remains so deeply under wraps that we’ve agreed to keep our stockpile under 24-hour guard in its own chain-link enclosure, with two locks requiring two separate people for entry.” Bezos goes on to promise that Amazon will deliver Kindle owners the book “wirelessly while [they] sleep.”
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Walt Whitman Documents Now Available
A scholar who has uncovered Walt Whitman‘s handwritten documents announced his findings Tuesday at the National Archives. These documents are from Whitman‘s time as a government worker, concerning civil rights, war crimes, treason, and western expansion. View the documents here.
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I’ll Take “Enjambments” for a Thousand, Alex
A writer at this blog watched a night of literary Jeopardy. (Here’s a hint: what is The Outlet?)
If I Were President
What would Geoffrey Canada, Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Jennifer Egan do in America’s highest office?
Choose Your Own Adventure with Junot Díaz
Let’s play a game: a “lazy Sunday” version of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Ready? Good. Imagine you’re hanging out with Junot Díaz today. What do you want to do? Select Option A to go barhopping. Select Option B to go comic book shopping. Select Option C to read an excerpt from his new book, This Is How You Lose Her. Or Select Option D to read Leah Hager Cohen’s review of the collection. There is no wrong answer.
One More New Release
Just in time for Mother’s Day: whiz-kid chef (and friend of The Millions) Barton Seaver has just published his first book, For Cod and Country: Simple, Delicious, Sustainable Cooking. Bon appetit, Mom!
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Beautiful Malaysia
The latest short by James W. Griffiths, We Were Wanderers On a Prehistoric Earth, is an “ode to the incredible flora and fauna of Malaysia.” The film is accompanied by a passage from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and it’s clear that the author’s description of the Congo applies to Southeast Asia quite easily.
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