Maybe the real reason I like Jennifer Egan is that there are so many freckled protagonists in her books. Patricia Zohn at the Huffington Post asks the author about her family, parenting, and her writing obsessions (like freckled faces). She even gets a photo of Egan as a teenager!
Jennifer Egan at 15
Brave New Serial
Margaret Atwood’s got a new book called Positron out, and she’s going digital: the novel is being published serially via Byliner.
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“Yeah, American, boom boom”
In a head-scratching piece of writing for the New Statesman, Dave Eggers (whose novel The Circle just cracked our Top Ten) reflects on a cross-country drive he took from Jeddah to Riyadh. The journey, and in particular a comment made by his chauffeur, caused Eggers to ponder the significance of his nationality, his ability to perceive danger, and the intentions of others. The short of it: Some people from other countries are nice. Who knew?
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The Economy of Goodwill
Recommended Reading: Against crowdfunding websites that marketize goodwill.
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Hot Air
The unwritten rules of steampunk declare that in every steampunk story, the Hindenburg never caught fire, the world never lost its desire for blimp travel and the skies are dotted with hot air balloons and zeppelins. As it happens, this element of the genre stems from old utopian narratives, many of which depicted a future of widespread balloon travel. At Salon, Kyle Minor reviews the audiobook of a new history of the hot air balloon, written by Richard Holmes, that shows how the rise of air travel changed the world’s imaginative territory.
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