At W, a first look at American actress Rooney Mara in character as Lisbeth Salander. The relatively unknown Mara, recently of David Fincher‘s The Social Network, has been cast as Salander to Daniel Craig‘s Mikael Blomkvist in Fincher’s American film version of Stieg Larsson‘s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The obvious question: does Mara have the chops to outshine Noomi Rapace‘s Salander?
The American Salander: Rooney Mara
Two Two-Initialed Critics Discuss Tolkien’s Work
HTMLGiant’s A. D. Jameson went and saw part one of The Hobbit in theatres so now none of us have to do the same. Instead, sit back and check out his “250 Points” about the film. Or, if you’d prefer a blast of Tolkien analysis from the past, check out W. H. Auden’s 1956 book review of The Return of the King.
●
●
Epic Pizza Delivery From Anonymous
Cole Stryker's Epic Win for Anonymous hasn't garnered him a lot of positive feedback from members of the infamous image board 4chan. It did, however, result in lots of pizzas being delivered to Housing Works' Bookstore on the night of its launch party. The author later did an "Ask Me Anything" session with Reddit and explained the pizza delivery among other things. What do you think will happen now that two authors have announced a forthcoming book on Anonymous itself?
Reclaiming the Allegory
Recommended Reading: On the literary tradition of the allegory and what it means for modern storytelling. Staff writer emeritus Emily Colette Wilkinson writes on The Dark Knight as political allegory.
●
●
“Because with Helen DeWitt, everything is physical.”
Lightning Rods author (and occasional Millions commenter) Helen DeWitt has a story entitled "Recovery" featured in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading series. Don’t miss the “single sentence animation” video for it, either.
●
●
Tragedians
As part of their Literary Ladies Cage Fight series, The Butter pitted two of Shakespeare’s most well-known characters against each other, staging contests between Hamlet’s Ophelia and Romeo and Juliet’s Juliet. Who won, you ask? Only one way to find out. You could also read Stefanie Peters on women and Shakespeare’s plays.
●
●
Indies Thriving in the Age of Amazon
"While pressure from Amazon forced Borders out of business in 2011, indie bookstores staged an unexpected comeback. Between 2009 and 2015, the ABA reported a 35% growth in the number of independent booksellers, from 1,651 stores to 2,227." Professor Ryan Raffaelli read this surprising statistic and decided to study what exactly independent bookstores were doing in order to reinvent themselves and thrive. He found it has to do with indies embracing the three Cs; community, curation and convening. The full report will be released in 2018 but you can glimpse a preview here. Three cheers for indies!
Snapchats of a Native Son
"That has always been the unsettling irony of the carefree aesthetic. Rhetorically, it denies the full unpredictability of black experiences in America. It is a stereotype, albeit one intended for benevolence and created, perhaps lovingly, by black people." Doreen St. Félix writes about the roots and ramifications of the "Carefree Black Boy" phenomenon.