Powell’s Books announces their Puddly Awards. Vote for your favorite book of the last decade.
The Puddlies
Book Pirates
The American author is dead, long live the American author! At the New York Times, a eulogy.
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Olive Kitteridge on HBO
Soon HBO will have another show based on an acclaimed book in its lineup. Olive Kitteridge, a show based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Elizabeth Strout, will premiere on November 2nd. You can see the trailer (along with a brief analysis) over at Slate. FYI, Strout wrote a Year in Reading entry for us.
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Quote for the Ages
While doing some work for his publisher, Jesse Browner discovered something odd about a book he published twelve years ago. One sentence — one he thought of at the time as mostly unremarkable — went viral after the book came out, eventually reaching over two thousand hits on Google. What was it like to find this out? At The Paris Review Daily, he writes about the experience. You could also read our interview with our own Mark O’Connell on viral celebrity and his e-book Epic Fail.
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Put on Your Thinking/Dunce Cap
At Slate, David Wolf reviews a new biography of Rene Descartes, who he claims has developed a reputation as the philosophy world’s favorite punching bag.
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Werewolves Etc.
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The 12th Caine Prize
NoViolet Bulawayo has won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story “Hitting Budapest” (pdf).
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A Proper Analysis
“All this is by way of saying that in the United States we haven’t got any actual royals, and yet almost the very first stories we hear are about princes and princesses, kings and queens. When a little American kid first learns that there is such a thing as real, live princes and princesses, who live in actual palaces, this is liable to come as a terrific shock, though in general a pleasing one. One would like it to be true; it’s a very nice idea, that there is such a thing as an incorruptible person for whom everything will — everything must — come right in the end.” Maria Bustillos on America’s fascination with royalty.
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