Half of all restaurants that open close,” WORD owner Christine Onorati says. On the other hand, Red Lemonade publisher Richard Nash hopes former Borders employees can find ways to continue “operating as the matchmakers of the book ecosystem.”
Booksellers React to Borders’ Bankruptcy
Strolling Story
Recommended Reading: Lydia Davis’s new short story, “Old Men Around Town,” in the New Statesman. “He stops to tell us that he must be up early in the morning – to get down to the factory. The factory is gone, his men are gone, but he still seems to be in charge of something.” For more Davis, check out her new collection.
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Insult to Insult
“Who was Bret Easton Ellis describing when he tweeted: ‘The best example of a contemporary male writer lusting for a kind of awful greatness that he simply wasn’t able to achieve’?” The Guardian has a delicious quiz of literary putdowns. And speaking of fighting, let’s talk about books about violence.
A Poor Man’s Jaron Lanier?
I recently sat down for a long and wide-ranging interview with The Faster Times. Topics covered include technology, Taco Bell, technology, Richard Yates, technology, Friday Night Lights, and…er…Internet self-promotion.
Bulgaria Week
It’s “Bulgaria Week” at Granta, and you can celebrate by reading two of Ivan Landzhev‘s poems, a short story by Rayko Baychev, a piece by Georgi Tenev, and many more. In case that isn’t enough, however, FiveChapters has posted Miroslav Penkov‘s “Makedonija,” and he has a short essay on the FSG Work in Progress site.
No Wonder They Spend More Time, Then
Are these two statistics linked? According to a Pew Internet Libraries study, 30% of those “who read e-content say they now spend more time reading,” and according to studies cited on CreativePro, people can read printed text read “25% faster than on-screen text.”
“Gaza, Timna, my Valley girl / who spilled me in broad daylight.”
James Lasdun, whose forthcoming memoir was covered by yours truly in our Great Second-Half 2012 Book Preview, has a new poem in Poetry Magazine. Read it if you like cool things.