Christopher Hitchens has a new 5,000-word piece out today on Osama bin Laden in Kindle Single form.
Hitchens on Bin Laden
Curiosities: Inside and Outside the Beltway
From one muckracker to another: Thomas Frank on Mailer and Miami.Fear and Loathing at Build-a-Bear WorkshopThe folks at n+1 on Obama and the culture war reduxSarah, the book, nibbles at the edges of Amazon's Top 10, sparking its own kind of culture war in the reviews section (scroll down)Can Palin! The Musical be far behind?A new tool for mapping bookstores, chain and indieFor Salvadoran novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya, politics are a genetic burdenFrank O'Hara...yeah, New York will do that to youJonathan Yardley on the venerable Elements of StyleDon't blame me...I voted for Kodos
A Filmmaker’s Compendium
Recommended Viewing: A complete collection of Wes Anderson video essays. If it's Anderson you're after, here's a piece of short fiction he wrote during his time in college.
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Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Writer Manjula Martin has been a stock girl, used bookseller, seamstress, waitress, retailer, Girl Friday- just to name a few of her day jobs. She questions the value of the artist’s day job in her VQR post. “Why are writers so eager to leave work behind?” she writes.
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The End of Copyright, The Death of the Novel
Would anyone write novels in a world without copyright? According to Tim Parks, they probably would not. For more on the relationship between the market and the product, see Parks's essay on whether more money leads to better writing.
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Near Deaths in Literature
Last week, JK Rowling announced that, midway through writing the Harry Potter series, she nearly killed off Ron Weasley "out of spite." Ron isn't the first supporting character to narrowly avoid death in an author's rough draft. The Awl illustrates some of literature's other close calls with death.
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Teju Cole’s Photography
Amitava Kumar writes complementary text for Open City author Teju Cole’s photography exhibit. You can check out Cole’s Flickr page over here.
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Gun Fight at the O.K. Bookstore
Stick 'em up, partner! In a confusing marriage of literature and implicit violence, a bookstore in Austin, Texas is offering a ten percent discount to any customers openly carrying a handgun in their establishment.