Where the Wild Things Are author/illustrator Maurice Sendak, 82, wistfully reflects on age, love, and mortality in this interview, after a mural he painted in New York was restored and moved to the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia. (via @BookBench)
Melancholy Maurice Sendak Speaks
Reread Nation
Why do we reread novels obsessively as children but hardly ever as adults? At The Morning News, Clay Risen discusses why rereading appeals to children so much. “It was a residual sense of wonder, left over long after I had accepted that the reality on the page and the reality beyond it are distinct.” Pair with: Our essay on the pleasures and perils of rereading.
●
●
How Do You Illustrate Footnotes?
Seven Stories Press is publishing three volumes of a Graphic Canon, which will illustrate and panel everything from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Infinite Jest. Their first volume, Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons will be released on May 22nd.
●
●
Only Humbled
From McSweeney’s: These opening remarks made by John Hodgman at a literary reading shortly after September 11, 2001. This study on the literature of 9/11 from A-J Aronstein at The Millions is a sobering, related piece.
●
●
Thursday Links
A really great, thoughtful post about independent book stores in New York from The Written Nerd. A must read if you are a bookseller or if you care about the state of independent bookstores. Read the whole thing and then see my comment on the post for my thoughts.As an antidote to all the “best of” lists, check out the post at Book World about the twelve books she wishes she hadn’t read this year.Least likely to be the next Oprah Book Club Pick: Kitty Kelley is writing an unauthorized bio of Oprah Winfrey.An esoteric obsession: Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie
Book-Related Internet Graphics
Today in book-related graphics: The Arts Shelf has created an infographic measuring famous literature by word count, and The New York Times provides a handy, illustrated guide to any writers’ retreat, complete with authors’ cloisters and an “emergency idea generator.”
●
●
One comment: