Amazon has finished unveiling its top-100 books for 2010. At the top of the big list: Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Amazon’s Top 100
North Carolina Literary Festival Sets Its Lineup
The North Carolina Literary Festival just announced its lineup for the 2014 engagement, and it’s stocked with Millions favorites. Among others: Junot Díaz, Scott McClanahan, Richard Ford, Ben Fountain, and William T. Vollmann. The festival will take place in Raleigh from April 3rd through April 6th.
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Toni Morrison and Junot Díaz in Conversation
Recommended Viewing: Toni Morrison spoke with Junot Díaz at the New York Public Library last week, and the organizers were good enough to record the entire conversation and put it online. The talk begins at the 40:09 mark, so you can either fast forward or click this link right here.
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Goodbye, Byes
Recommended Reading: Jason Arthur’s farewell to goodbye-to-New-York essays.
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Eat Your Heart Out, Fyre
Planning to attend this Saturday's National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.? The Washington Post has provided five sample itineraries. And for an entirely different, vicarious trip, revisit Mythili G. Rao's account of visiting the Jaipur Literature Festival a few years back: “To voice their disapproval of the circumstances of Salman Rushdie’s absence, four writers read from The Satanic Verses — a book that has been banned in India. They were advised to leave. What kind of real intellectual discussion could go on in a setting that had proved itself so hospitable to self-censorship?”
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Spotlight on Matt Dojny
Year In Reading contributor Matt Dojny has his comics work highlighted by the good folks at The Rumpus.
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Dial G
“Genius” is a loaded term. Its application usually says more about the person making the judgment than it does about the genius in question. In The Guardian, Sophie Hannah argues that the term isn’t used enough to describe one writer in particular: Agatha Christie. You could also read Daniel Friedman on the terrible secret of all crime fiction.
Can We Keep “Making It New”?
Recommended reading: Pankaj Mishra and Benjamin Moser debate the continued possibility and relevance of Ezra Pound's "Make it New" for The New York Times Books Bookends.
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