Emma Straub, whose Year in Reading piece ran this week, has written a great article on the perils of “showrooming.”
The Perils of “Showrooming”
Between The Covers
Looking for a new literary podcast to fill your downtime? David Naimon’s “Between the Covers” author interview series may do the trick. The series, which appears regularly on Portland, Oregon’s KBOO 90.7 FM, is available for free on iTunes. Past guests have included Karen Russell, George Saunders, China Miéville and Junot Díaz. Forthcoming episodes will feature the likes of NoViolet Bulawayo and Jami Attenberg.
●
●
Colum McCann’s Optimism
Let the Great World Spin author (and one of today's YiR2011 writers!) Colum McCann had some inspiring words for this year's crop of Boston College freshmen. "There’s a degraded discourse around the notion of optimism these days that says there is something soft about being an optimist—something wrong," he said. "It claims that optimism has no edge, as if it’s less than complete, less than the full deck of knowledge. The optimist is cartooned into the corner with an idiotic grin. I submit to you that none of that is true."
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Doctorow; Joyce; Cantor; Creeley; Urquhart; Russell; Vonnegut; Kushner
Out this week: Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow; Perfect by Rachel Joyce; A Highly Unlikely Scenario by Rachel Cantor; Selected Letters of Robert Creeley; The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart; and new paperback editions of Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Kurt Vonnegut’s Letters and Year in Reading favorite Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers.
●
●
Equal Rites
Discworld author and "professional morbid bastard" Terry Pratchett has announced that his daughter will in the future take over the long-running fantasy series due to his battle with Alzheimer's.
●
●
Avoiding Unnecessary Punctuation
Over at The Washington Post, Jeff Guo makes a case against periods. As he puts it, “When we get excited, the pauses between our sentences shrink. We speak in run-ons. [...] A period feels too weighty.” Also check out this Millions piece on the benefits of excising quotation marks.
On Sexism in Literature
How do you feel about claims that men avoid reading women? Before you answer, consider this piece, which argues that sexism in the lit world is more complicated than it may appear. (For more, go check out our own piece on sexism on the internet, or else take a look at this Harvard Divinity School study on how sexism shapes responses to women’s writing.)
●
●
On Road Trips and Book Hoarding
"Driving hundreds of miles at a time... uncorked the forgotten joys of my undergraduate years—chief among them the fantasy that simply buying a book guarantees that it will get read." Ted Trautman on going on a book-buying binge during a cross-country road-trip.
Haute Bayou
Just in time for crawfish season (and ruined outfits as a result of crawfish season), The Oxford American's launched its newest column, Parish Chic, brought to you by L. Kasimu Harris. It's meant to prominently showcase the beaucoup styles on display in New Orleans, Harris' hometown. You can read about the project's background and inspiration over at Gambit: The Best of New Orleans.
●
●