Helen DeWitt talks to Bookforum about the origins of her long (as in really long!)-awaited second novel, Lightning Rods.
An Interview With Helen DeWitt
Billionaire Book Critic
If you thought Bill Gates was content donating millions of dollars to charities around the world and hiding out in his exorbitantly expensive mansion compound, think again! The Microsoft founder and tech mogul reviews books on his personal blog, Gates Notes–and those reviews actually drive sales. Move over “Colbert Bump,” the Gates Bump is here to stay.
The Tumblr Times
A while back, we noted that Tumblr had begun hiring editors and reporters to cover and curate the site’s social stories and original content. Recently, that (vaguely Soviet sounding) Department of Editorial launched the first iteration of its work: Storyboard. Details on participation can be read here.
“The town was called Dayton.”
Recommended Reading: Rachael Maddux’s “Hail Dayton,” which features one of the finest opening paragraphs ever printed.
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Hatchet Job Prize
Turns out Americans aren’t the only ones who adore snark. The novelist and critic Adam Mars-Jones has won the first Hatchet Job prize from the British website Omnivore for his blistering takedown of Michael Cunningham’s latest novel, By Nightfall. Mars-Jones beat out Geoff Dyer’s slam of Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. “It isn’t terrible,” Dyer wrote, “it’s just so…average.”
Boston Writers
Recommended Reading: Tim Ellison writes for Ploughshares on Boston’s founding literary figures. Pair with Adam Kelly’s Millions essay on Boston’s geography in Infinite Jest.
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The Right Kind of Ambivalence
In the latest entry in By Heart, which I’ve written about before, Thirty Girls author Susan Minot explains why she prefers to read multiple books at once instead of reading through single books from start to finish. Her reasoning? Books are “worlds to dip in and out of, and my relationship to them is continually deepening and evolving.”
More on Reading Rainbow
My mom reacts to Reading Rainbow’s demise and points out that the show didn’t have to go and other less edifying programming is eluding the funding crunch.