Jennie Erdal asks, “What is the modern equivalent of the philosophical novel?”
Is it just a Russian thing?
Cover to Cover
Here at The Millions, we know the importance of a book's cover (for evidence see here, here, here and here), so Margaret Sullivan's new project, Jane Austen Cover to Cover, has our attention. A sample of covers for Emma, available on The Paris Review's blog, "provides a fascinating glimpse into a variety of publishing cultures, and it reminds that even our classics are mutable, pitched to appeal to any number of sensibilities, their literary status in constant flux per the dictates of the market."
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Gaiman TV
We thought we had a better chance of seeing Odin than Neil Gaiman's American Gods on TV, but after the HBO deal fell through, the novel is finally being adapted for the small screen by FremantleMedia. Bonus: Gaiman's Anansi Boys is also being adapted into a BBC miniseries by RED. To brush up on Gaiman's interest in mythology, read our review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
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The Desert Oracle Gives You the Desert
Pacific Standards profiles Ken Layne who quietly started the popular quarterly literary magazine, Desert Oracle for a town of 8,000 people. Now it has gained far more readers than that as it highlights works related to the American desert. "The reason that the Oracle works is that it's always trying to elicit that feeling, the awe and wonder that the desert reveals to you when you listen hard enough. Layne believes it's not an accident that religious awakenings, UFO sightings, walkabouts, and other revelations occur in the desert. It's a consequence of solitude, stark beauty, and the tenacious life that only the desert has."
Read Like A Victorian
The website Victorian Serial Novels lets you experience 19th-century novels "serially and in their cultural contexts." Select your author, the timespan within which you want installments to come, and enjoy.
How to choose what to read first? Not to worry, these six Dickensian experts have you covered.
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A Proper Sociopath
Last week, I pointed readers to a recording of Benedict Cumberbatch on BBC Radio, reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Over at Slate, Rebecca Schuman explains why Cumberbatch is the story’s ideal reader, unpacking his “withering, perfectly enunciated deadpan.”
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Making It
China plans to spend millions "sprucing up" Gaomi, the hometown of recent Nobel winner Mo Yan.
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Marxman
Recommended: Max Strasser on the late Eric Hobsbawm.
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