The New York Times issues a correction note for something they’ve been messing up for 25 years.
Perennial Errata
An Act of Creation and Destruction
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Year in Reading alumnus Jesse Ball about his latest book, How to Set a Fire and Why—one of the most anticipated books of 2016.
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Many Unusual Deaths
Wikipedia Find of the Week: List of unusual deaths. For example, "Draco, Athenian law-maker, was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina."
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Discovering Ice
Recommended Reading: On the secret history of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Writing from the Self
Year in Reading alumnus Alexander Chee has a guide for writing an autobiographical novel. He writes, “The woods is your life. You are the axe.” Pair with this Millions piece in defense of autobiography.
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Curiosities: 8x Buffalo
Appearing Elsewhere: VQR Young Reviewers Contest winner and Millions contributor Emily drops by the NBCC blog to tell them what she's been reading.The NY Times fleshes out some of the details of Google's digitizing agreement with publishers and authors, including getting into some of the numbers involved. We explained the importance of the deal last year.At Jacket Copy Carolyn Kellogg gets Sarah Weinman to discuss the secrets behind her incredible speed-reading ability. (462 books in 2008!)Carolyn also recently highlighted all the great literary magazines that supplied the featured stories in last year's "best of" fiction anthologies, as well as the runners up.80 years after the last one, a new Winnie the Pooh book is on its way.A timely and topical list: the Top 10 green books of 2008For the multi-tasker (or perhaps the really lazy): the book holder bracelet."Had I an atheist friend who asked, 'Can you tell me please what this religion business is all about, not as some metaphysical hypothesis or historical phenomenon, but what it really means to be religious?' I might hand him or her a copy of Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead. 'Read this,' I'd say, 'and it will give you a pretty good idea.'"For sports fans: Bill James on why statisticians should boycott the BCS.That perilous question: why blog?Vice did a fiction issue.David Brooks discusses some of the best long-form journalism of 2008 (with links!)The outgoing president's surprising reading list.The Hype Machine's impressive top albums of 2008 project.Wikipedia find of the week: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffaloA consideration of poet Jack Spicer.With apologies to William Carlos Williams, A poem for Blago.New short fiction from Horacio Castellanos Moya, author of Senselessness (via Scott)Jonathan Franzen on the Social Novel (via OUP blog)
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