Colson Whitehead’s zombie thriller Zone One hits shelves today, as does Ha Jin’s Nanjing Requiem. Also out is The Journals of Spalding Gray.
Tuesday New Release Day: Whitehead, Jin, Gray
The S Monster
ICYMI, J.J. Abrams (of Lost and Star Trek fame) will release a novel — conceived by Abrams and written by Doug Dorst — in October with the enigmatic title of S. Last month, he released the first half of a teaser trailer; this week, he released the second half.
Getting Out with a Minimum of Hassle
Calling all stir-crazy New Yorkers! If you want to move to a smaller, less competitive locale, consult this handy-dandy guide to other cities at The Morning News.
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Byliner takes a book off of Amazon
Byliner, the experimental e-publisher of novella length nonfiction, had to take Buzz Bissinger’s “After Friday Night Lights” off of Amazon when the mega-seller’s price-matching algorithm tried to sell the book for nothing.
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Chinese Publishing
The Guardian profiles the proliferation of Chinese self-publishing websites. Could this be the future of publishing?
iMortality
What would happen if you had a clock to countdown the exact number of days until you died? Our own Mark O’Connell discovers the paranoia of having the Days of Life app measure his mortality at The New Yorker. “Days of Life functions like a reductio ad absurdum of the logic of personal productivity. The pie chart becomes a special way of being afraid: an image of the self as a micro-economy of numbered days.” For a more uplifting version of O’Connell, check out his 2013 Year in Reading post.