Franzen on HBO’s The Corrections
Vocal Harmony
At the LARB, Len Gutkin interviews Year in Reading alumnus William H. Gass, whose new novel, Middle C, incorporates techniques of twelve-tone composition. (In case you missed it, I wrote about the book a few weeks ago.)
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The Birth of the Novel
Recommended Reading: On Herman Melville and his reputation for “being sexually dangerous, and even depraved.”
Why Reading
“Unlike, say, skimming a page of headlines, reading a book (of any genre) forces your brain to think critically and make connections from one chapter to another, and to the outside world. When you make connections, so does your brain, literally forging new pathways between regions in all four lobes and both hemispheres. Over time, these neural networks can promote quicker thinking and may provide a greater defense against the worst effects of cognitive decay.” Readers Digest compiles the latest research about why you should read (via Book Riot).
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Party/Animals
For San Francisco readers: There’s a new show of huge, surreal paper mache animal sculptures up at The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (December 4-17th). These paper beasts, featured in the San Francisco Symphony’s performance of Camille Saint-Saens “Carnival of the Animals” and created by local artist Colette Crutcher and her students, will be auctioned off to benefit the MCCLA at a party open to the public on December 17th.
Chinese Publishing
The Guardian profiles the proliferation of Chinese self-publishing websites. Could this be the future of publishing?
Science Fictions and Realities.
What 2012 looks like, viewed from the perspective of science fiction. Where we are going, viewed from the perspective of science fiction. Where we have been, viewed from the perspective of science reality: Mars.
Scrabble Shake-up
We’ve all had that annoying moment of finding the perfect word to win Scrabble with, except that word doesn’t count. Now, Scrabble is letting players nominate a new word to enter its dictionary. You can submit on Facebook. Just do us a favor, and nominate something better than “hashtag” or “selfie.”
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