Looking for a last minute Valentine’s gift? Well, in the words of The Bronx Zoo, “How better to express your appreciation for that special someone than to name one of the Bronx Zoo’s 58,000 Madagascar hissing cockroaches after them?”
Roaches are Red, Violets are Blue
The Unbearable Finitude of Reading
Beginning with the same premise—one can only read so many books in a given lifetime—two authors write very different articles: Maria Bustillos lists the recommendations of George Orwell, Henry Miller, and John Waters that she’s followed in an effort to maximize her short reading life. Marc Wortman wonders if authors are being paid by the page and, given our short lives, whether we should even bother with the behemoth volumes coming out recently.
Cross-Genre
Back in April, Dreamworks announced its plans to adapt Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell for the silver screen, with the author writing the script. A few months later, Rowell published a new book, Landline, that marked a return to adult fiction. At The Rumpus, Amanda Green sits down with the author to talk about YA, her productivity and the importance (or not) of getting up early to write. FYI, our own Janet Potter reviewed Eleanor and Park and Fangirl.
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Born in New Orleans, raised in New Orleans
Recommended Reading: The Oxford American just unlocked David Ramsey’s 2008 piece on “How Lil Wayne helped me survive my first year teaching in New Orleans.”
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The Future of Print
Here’s a lovely little documentary collecting interviews with various people of the book. Stephen Fowler, of The Moneky’s Paw antiquarian book shop, makes an appearance, though his remarks seem slightly less macabre in HD than those he gave to Kyo Maclear back in March. Joanne Saul, proprietor of Type Books (you know it from that stop motion video that lit up the bookternet a while back) also makes an appearance.
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A Bookstore of Common Prayer
Common dreams, common bookstores: “I went home with…the BookWoman bumper sticker, which reads: ‘Support Your Feminist Bookstore — She Supports You.'”