The New York Times looks at new technological efforts to make book signings work in the age of the ebook. One idea is an e-reader add-on that lets the reader snap a photo with the author, which the author can then sign with a “digital stylus.” The photo is meant to make its way to Twitter and Facebook, of course. “Bragging potential? Endless,” says the Times. Authors: get ready to say “cheese”?
Book Signings in the Digital Age
Can’t-Do Spirit
“America has always been able to countenance beggars, short-con men, and nine-to-fivers who just can’t get ahead, but we’ve never known what to do with the type of person who could have been really big but chose not to make the concessions required.” The Believer takes a look at the paradox of Nelson Algren.
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“That’s some catch, that Catch-22”
Vanity Fair takes a closer look at Joseph Heller's tragicomic novel Catch-22. If you're in NYC this August, you can supplement this reading with McNally Jackson's "Ask Me About..." series.
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Sturm und Drang
“For Germany, the Wagners are what the Atreidai are in Greek mythology. One of them, Atreus, committed a grave sin, casting a curse over all subsequent generations, beginning with Agamemnon and Menelaus, followed by Iphigenia, Orestes and Electra. The family is marked by enmity, as is the Wagner family.” On a certain influential composer.
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I created an internet buzz when I smiled
The Amherst College Archives have discovered what could be the second photograph in existence of Emily Dickinson.
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Blue Nights
An "extended short film excerpt" of Joan Didion reading from her memoir Blue Nights, which our own Michael Bourne reviewed yesterday.
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