Superagent Andrew (“The Jackal”) Wylie disses the e-book and modern publishing’s “wild weekend in Las Vegas approach” to book acquisition in the Wall Street Journal Magazine. But the best part is an online slide show depicting Wylie’s journey from a wild-eyed hippie cabbie in 1971 to the uberwasp wheeler-dealer that he is today.
The Jackal Speaks
The Hype Cycle
Elif Batuman entertainingly muses on “hype” and resolves to “write five 5-star Amazon reviews this month of books I love by living authors.”
Not at All Exaggerated
In 1913, Ambrose Bierce, at the age of seventy-one, rode a horse from California to Mexico, where he planned to cover the ongoing Revolutionary War. At some point, he disappeared and died, though accounts vary as to what exactly killed him. At The Paris Review Daily, Forrest Gander recounts the many deaths of the Devil’s Dictionary author, which include a public burning, death by disease and executions at the hands of Mexican soldiers.
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The Lost Female Beat Poet
The Beat Generation was such a largely male-dominated literary movement that its few female writers have mostly been forgotten. At The Toast, Megan Keeling remembers Beat poet Elise Cowen, who is mostly known as Allen Ginsberg’s paramour but also wrote poetry of her own. “Her surviving poetry shows a unique perspective on the rigid cultural conformity of the 1950s and also the fringe artistic community of the Beat Generation.” A collection of her poetry, Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments, was just published.
Her surviving poetry shows a unique perspective on the rigid cultural conformity of the 1950s and also the fringe artistic community of the Beat Generation.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/24/elise-cowen-and-the-female-beat-poets/#W1BLwQlomazyFTiH.99
Her surviving poetry shows a unique perspective on the rigid cultural conformity of the 1950s and also the fringe artistic community of the Beat Generation.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/24/elise-cowen-and-the-female-beat-poets/#W1BLwQlomazyFTiH.99
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Virginia in Vogue
Look back on an article Virginia Woolf wrote for Vogue in 1924. Staff writer emeritus Emily Colette Wilkinson tackles Woolf’s difficult text, To the Lighthouse.
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Tochi Onyebuchi on Writing to Abate the Terror
Tochi Onyebuchi reflects on his role as a black writer during the protests against police brutality and the killing of black men and women.
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Early Years
Renowned children’s author Lois Lowry talks to The Days of Yore about writing as a mother, living in Japan as a child, and early receptions to Number the Stars and The Giver.
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Meant to Look Pretty
Are books on the way to becoming luxury objects? At Salon, Daniel D’Addario makes a case that they are, explaining how a new aestheticism in book design points to a future in which books function mainly as art objects. (While we’re on the subject of book design, it’s a good time to look back on our U.S.-U.K. book cover battle.)
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The Purpose of Punctuation
Recommended Reading: Artist Nicholas Rougeux removes all the letters in a text and meditates on the punctuation that is left on the page.