Does it come as any surprise that Lost creator J.J. Abrams would write a book that his editor describes as “the most high concept novel I have ever come across“?
‘Lost’ Novel Found
“The only option is to participate.”
The Missouri Review interview with Jessa Crispin, founder of Bookslut. If you’ve yet to stumble upon the decade old literary blog, you might want to start with this recent post from Kevin Frazier on Edith Wharton and Julian Barnes. Or this treat from the archives about Monica McFawn Robinson trying to construct an undergraduate course syllabus on love.
Haruki Murakami: Master of Blandness
Over at Threepenny Review, Jess Row expounds on “blandness” in the work of Haruki Murakami, and particularly in his 2.8 lb. tome 1Q84—a book tabbed by Charles Baxter in last year’s Year in Reading as the best he’d read all year. Row contemplates the way Murakami’s characters and sentences “almost never lose this placid, observant neutrality,” or “continuous monotone.”
Payday
Recommended Reading: Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin on writing for free (or not).
How Many Palins Does It Take To Break Even?
Will HarperCollins sell 400,000 copies of Going Rogue? (My guess: you betcha.)
Katy Kelly’s New Homepage
News for young readers and their parents: Meet the charming and irrepressible Melonhead and Lucy Rose–and their author, Katy Kelly, at Kelly’s new author homepage.
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Oscar Wilde: An Infographic
The Guardian broke down Oscar Wilde’s most enduring and quotable aphorisms, and presented the entire thing as an infographic. For serious fans of the Irish wit, perhaps the effect of this chart may lead to an “infogasm.”
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