Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows (which was a favorite of Jonathan Safran Foer), floats a new idea to publishers: give away your e-books for free!
Fre-books
Not So Super Journalists
Spider-Man is one of our favorite superheroes, but he’s a terrible journalist. At The Atlantic, Daniel D. Snyder discusses how Peter Parker and Clark Kent are unethical reporters. “The media is, in theory at least, supposed to be honest. Putting on a costume, coming up with a fake name, and lying to everyone about what you really do are the opposite of that.”
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Whitman Passes Away
George Whitman, owner of the storied Parisian English-language bookstore Shakespeare & Company, died this week at the age of 98.
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Rake Studies
In the annals of Great Ladies’ Men in History, a few names stand out: Lord Byron, Don Juan, Casanova and — if a new biography by Alister McGrath is to be believed — C.S. Lewis.
Tuesday New Release Day
Lots of diet books among the new releases these days (in preparation for the post-holiday food guilt one assumes), but readers will also find a vibrant new “biography-in-collage” out this week, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss.