The fine folks at the Vintage and Anchor Tumblr account have compiled a list of the ten oldest books known to man.
Oldest Books
Amazon or perish?
ICYMI: After Hachette writers banded together behind their publisher (piles of tweets, an author petition (pdf), a perplexing Malcolm Gladwell YouTube clip, and of course our own Edan Lepucki in Stephen Colbert's pre-order campaign), Amazon proposed giving authors "100% of proceeds" from ebooks -- that's including Hachette's share -- while they hashed things out. You gotta admire that gumption. Halfway around the world, a French court order just banned free delivery for discounted book orders--so Amazon now charges one cent. Also: they've got drones. The Times concludes that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
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Round One of the Rooster
With the preliminaries out of the way, The Morning News Tournament of books unveils its first head-to-head matchup today, Teddy Wayne's Kapitoil versus Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. Don't miss the commentary that accompanies each judgment (some say it's the best part of the whole thing.)
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Van Gogh Was Cheap
Shakespeare was an insult master, as were Churchill, Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and… Cézanne? Apparently so. In The Irish Times, Colm Tóibín reads through the painter’s letters, one of which includes a gripe that “Pissarro is an old fool [and] Monet is a wily bird.” (You could also read Claire Cameron's Millions review of Tóibín’s latest novel.)
“The void was me.”
Recommended Reading: an excerpt from Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss’s The Desert Places.
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Don’t Tell
“The gross-out factor of the last section stuck with me, but not in a way I enjoyed.” Writing workshop critiques as applied to your sex life.
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