Using the only known painting of Jane Austen to try to find out what killed her.
What killed Jane Austen?
Kindle’s “Public Notes”
Amazon’s “Public Notes” feature kindle.amazon.com isn’t as new as some are saying, but it might be creepier than you think. In other Kindle news, GalleyCat‘s put together a “how-to” guide to copy and pasting text selections from one device to another.
●
●
Writing the Suburban Wild
In a longform piece for The Atlantic Diane Saverin writes about Annie Dillard‘s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the predominantly male tradition of wilderness-writing, and how Dillard found and wrote about the wild while living in suburbia. She also wrestles with the question: “if the author conveys a resonant truth, does it matter what experiences led to the realizations?”
●
●
Allies Respond
Writers John Keene, Dawn Martin Lundy, and others respond to the mass shooting in Orlando. “Homophobia, transphobia, and ideologically-nurtured hatreds of all kinds, coupled with semi-automatic weapons, provide the fuel for terror, in this case literally,” says Keene.
●
●
When Five Years Pass
“New houses get built, and new songs are sung … and I am the same, in the same trembling state.” Things are not going very well at the newly built Federico García Lorca center in Granada, Spain. Patience is wearing thin as members of the García Lorca Foundation continue tangling with government officials over control of the center, which is intended to house nearly 20,000 items — manuscripts, drawings, musical compositions and artworks valued at more than 20 million euros.
●
●
No Guarantees At All
The Paris Review once referred to Roberto Calasso as “a literary institution of one.” Calasso stopped by The New York Times to answer a few questions about publication and Italy in anticipation of his forthcoming memoir, The Art of the Publisher.
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.
The 2017 Rooster
There’s a new Tournament of Books winner in town, and it’s also being adapted for the screen by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, so it truly does rain when it pours.
●
●