A belated welcome to the newest Millions staff writer Janet Potter. Janet is a Chicago writer and indie bookstore vet who’s already written several pieces for us on a number of books, most notably her controversial takedown of Stieg Larsson.
A Belated Welcome
Lincoln vs. Hitler
“Adolf Hitler loved books—that nasty bent for book burning notwithstanding—and the book industry loves him back. Type his name into Amazon, and while he doesn’t trigger the English-language numbers of Jesus (186,740) or Lincoln (70,710), he registers a solid 18,597—a stunning figure for someone who died less than 70 years ago.” On the Fuhrer’s paradoxical relationship with literature.
●
●
Alexandre Dumas in the Kitchen
Most people know Alexandre Dumas for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, but fewer people are aware of what he considered his masterwork: Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine.
●
●
●
Too Many Nevers
A new study out of Stony Brook University employs a complex statistical model to figure out what makes a book successful. Judging books on the basis of Amazon sales, awards won and Project Gutenberg downloads, the scientists determined that successful books have a higher-than-average ratio of self-references, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions. Unsuccessful books, on the other hand? A high ratio of adverbs and location markers.
●
●
TimesMachine
New York Times has a cool feature I was unaware of, letting you browse issues from 1851-1922 in all their original grandeur. Articles are also available for download as PDFs.
The Real Housewives of Yoknapatawpha County
All of Faulkner’s characters exist in the same county, so they probably ran into each other. What if there were a Real Housewives of Yoknapatawpha County? Nathan Pensky humorously imagines the feuds between As I Lay Dying’s Addie Bundren and the protagonist of “A Rose for Emily” among others at McSweeney’s.
●
●
What We Owe
Recommended reading: In a piece for the LA Times David Ulin ponders the ethics of writing. “What do we owe our subjects? Do we have the right to tell their stories at all?”
A Deliberate Strategy
At The Rumpus, Catherine Brady interviews Daniel Alarcón, who recently came out with a new novel. Alarcón talks about his love of Roberto Bolaño and the paradox of writing about prison, among other things. (You could also read Jeff Peer’s review of the author’s new book.)