In our Second Half of 2011 Book Preview, we picked Michael Lewis‘ Boomerang: Travels in the New Thirld World. To tide you over until it’s released, check out his take on Germany’s economy.
Michael Lewis on Germany
Kindle Now Sells for $114 for Those Who Don’t Mind ‘Special Offers’
Amazon has just dropped the price on the Kindle yet again, but it comes with a big caveat. The Kindle can now be had for $114 if you select a version of the device that peppers you with special offers (Examples: $10 for $20 Amazon.com Gift Card; $6 for 6 Audible Books; etc). Before the purists out there go too crazy, it may be some consolation that these offers appear only on the home screen and screensaver; they don’t interrupt reading.
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On Turning “Perhaps” into Certainty
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Dispatch from Palestine
“Palestinian literature is a literature of exile, a quest for identity in a hostile world, a writing of fractured lives and displaced hopes, a record of a human tragedy.” In the most recent issue of Asymptote Journal, Fakhri Saleh looks at Palestinian writing since 1948. Pair with Words Without Borders’s special Palestine issue, selected and introduced by Nathalie Handal.
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How to Get Diversity in Publishing
Literary Hub has an excerpt of an essay by Chris Jackson, Editor in Chief of Random House’s One World imprint on how we can actually achieve diversity in the publishing industry. “What’s the payoff of having a more diverse workforce? Well, there’s obviously the moral case to be made—and that’s a case that I think applies to any industry. But in book publishing, I think we have a special obligation, given our central role in shaping the culture.” And he shares the origin story of how he started to work with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
King’s Critics
“It just goes to show you: it’s not just luck you need to have a successful literary career. It’s luck, piled on luck, piled on luck again, and around the corner, you need another sprinkling of it” says Michelle Dean, after investigating Stephen King’s rise in response partly to Dwight Allen’s “Snob Notes” on the author. Colin Dickey and Sarah Langan have both previously weighed on on Allen’s essay and King’s particular strengths.
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This Decadent Court
The Toast is nearing the end of its long, hilarious run. Hurry up and check out the new pieces while you still can — like this helpful guide as to whether or not you are in a Regency-era novel written after the end of the Regency, full of dead giveaways like: “There is lace at your throat and wrists and disdain in your eyes and heart.”
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More on Maxwell’s
A few weeks ago, our own Nick Moran wrote about the closing of Maxwell’s, a Hoboken landmark that doubles as a restaurant and concert space. Now, at The Paris Review Daily, Josh Lieberman goes to the venue’s last Feelies concert, pointing out that “in no way is Maxwell’s an ideal place to see a show, except that it is.”
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