Emily Witt checks out Melville House’s new Hybrid Books for The New York Observer. The publisher says they are “an innovative publishing program that gives print books the features of enhanced eBooks.”
Melville House’s Hybrid Books
More on Roth
The Economist digs into the stupid "debate" over Philip Roth's International Booker win.
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I Found One Job in Your Area
“Siri, I need something.” Beep. “What can I help you with?” “Siri, I want to fix you. I want to rewrite your dialogue.” Beep beep. “I can help you with that.”
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Anthony Bourdain: Publisher
As the New York Times reports, Anthony Bourdain will soon be acquiring books for Ecco, a HarperCollins imprint. When asked what types of books he'll publish, the celebrity chef turned travel host replied, "an initial list composed of chefs, enthusiasts, fighters, musicians and dead essayists."
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It Ain’t Hard To Tell
This essay by Mensah Demary for Electric Literature on Nas and the literary legitimacy of hip-hop is the best thing you'll read this morning. "Nas is a world-class storyteller and practitioner of the narrative form," Demary writes, "I don’t understand why there isn’t more discussion around hip-hop’s literary value among today’s millennial-and-boomer intelligentsia."
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Artisans of the Bardic Breath
A couple weeks back, Jonathan Callahan published a crackerjack essay here on Volume 2 of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle. Little did we know that, even as he was writing it, he was being interviewed about his own literary debut, The Consummation of Dirk, by none other than…Rick Moody.
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Imaginary Russia
David Satter's It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway gets reviewed for The Daily Beast. The book is a "sweeping study of how the former Soviet Union's bloody past continues to poison Russia's present and threatens to strangle the country's future."
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To Go Boldly? What?
There are times when it’s a bad idea to wantonly split an infinitive. But there are other times, grammar Nazis, when it’s really okay to chill out.
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Google Poetics
“There is, however, more to these poems than just the occasional chuckle. The Google autocomplete suggestions are based on previous searches by actual people all around the world. In the cold blue glow of their computer screens, they ask ‘why am I alone’ and ‘why do fat girls have high standards’. They wonder how to roll a joint and whether it is too early to say ‘I love you’. They seek information on ninjas, cannibals, and Rihanna, and sometimes they just ask ‘am I better off dead?’”
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