Farhad Manjoo thinks corner bookstores are simply comfy and quaint. According to a response by The Christian Science Monitor, he couldn’t be more wrong.
Why America Needs Indies
Mister Orhanium’s Wonder Emporium
Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence (named after his most recent novel of the same name) will open this week in Istanbul’s Çukurcuma neighborhood. The museum consists of hundreds of objects “collected” by a fictional character in the eponymous book.
●
●
Top 20 Short Stories of 2010
Chris Flynn of Australian Book Review runs down the top 20 short stories of 2010 (many of them American) at his blog, Fly the Falcon.
●
●
The Politics of Naming
Things you can learn about Teddy Wayne from his essay in the New York Times Book Review: one, his first name is Derek; two, he believes the modern lit world is crazy for guys named Jonathan; and three, he once considered using the pen name D.T. Wayne. (For more, you could go read our interview, or else check out our review of his latest novel.)
“In matters like writing[…], a man does what he has to do—if he has to write, why then, he writes”
Rebecca Davis O’Brien unearths a letter in which Malcolm Cowley tackles the timeless question, “Should I get an MFA?” Just as poignant as Cowley’s letter is novelist Helen DeWitt’s pointed dismissal of Cowley’s advice in the comments section.
●
●
Scientology Revealed
Janet Reitman, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, spent five years researching Inside Scientology, which is reviewed here by Brook Wilensky-Lanford for The San Francisco Chronicle. Earlier this year, ‘Million Dollar Baby‘-screenwriter Paul Haggis spoke with Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker about L. Ron Hubbard‘s religion.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Yuknavitch; Keyes; Rich; Pierpont; Hobbs; Johncock; Hall; Taseer; Waclawiak; Mitchell; Markovits; Bai; Keating; Lepucki
Out this week: The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch; The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes; The Hand that Feeds You by A.J. Rich; Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont; Vanishing Games by Roger Hobbs; The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock; Speak by Louisa Hall; The Way Things Were by Aatish Taseer; The Invaders by Karolina Waclawiak; Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell; You Don’t Have to Live Like This by Benjamin Markovits; French Concession by Xiao Bai; The Captive Condition by Kevin P. Keating; and the paperback edition of our own Edan Lepucki’s California. For more on these and other new titles, check out our latest book preview.
●
●
DOJ, Sixteen US States Sue Over E-Book Pricing
The Justice Department is suing Apple and five major US publishers for colluding to inflate e-book prices. Following the DOJ’s lead, 16 states have filed similar lawsuits.
●
●