Richard Nash‘s keynote at Booknet Canada: it’s not about “getting published” it’s about “happiness,” which is about “connecting.” Chris Anderson of Wired tweeted, “Best speech on the future of books and publishing I’ve ever seen.”
“Best Speech on the Future of Books & Publishing”
The Written World
The Written World is a five part radio series put together by Melyvn Bragg as part of the In Our Time BBC radio project. The programs look at the history of written word, and how it has shaped our intellectual history.
●
●
Amis on DeLillo
Two literary titans in need of no introduction: Martin Amis reviews Don DeLillo‘s The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
“‘What I want,’ a young Luis Buñuel announced to the audience at an early screening of his first film, Un Chien Andalou (1929), ‘is for you not to like the film … I’d be sorry if it pleased you.’ The film’s opening scene, which culminates in a close-up of a straight-edge razor being drawn through a woman’s eyeball, is often taken as the epitome of cinema’s potential to do violence to its audience…Horror movies frighten us; violent thrillers agitate us; sentimental stories make us cry. Suffering is often part of our enjoyment. Within limits, however: we are not to be so displeased that we are not pleased. Buñuel deliberately went beyond the limits of permissible displeasure. And so, in his own way, does the Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke.”
●
●
Thinking and Feeling
How to read a Victorian novel. How to read in public. How to start a Tumblr for Women.
●
●
Talking Covers
What does Jonathan Franzen think of the cover for Freedom? What about Charlotte Strick, the book’s designer? Or the photographers that took photos of those trees, of that blue warbler? Talking Covers has collected their thoughts, and plays host to other cover-related conversations besides. Check out this one The Flame Alphabet.
●
●
On Creativity and Psychiatry
Good news for you! If you’re a creative person, you’re “no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders than other people.” Bad news for your family! If you’re a creative person, you’re “more likely to have a close relative with a disorder, including anorexia and, to some extent, autism.”
●
●
It’s Okay, I Guess
If your default mood hovers between melancholy and despair, you may be cheered (or at least made a bit less glum) by this argument that striving for happiness is bad for us in the long run. Mari Ruti makes the case that a “happy, balanced life” depends in large part on a kind of emotional numbness.
●
●