Jim Romenesko’s page dedicated to humorous typos might be the best Pinterest board ever created.
A Proofreader’s Value Summed Up
Dystopian (Non)Fictions
Alexandra Alter traces how “a bleak, apocalyptic strain of post-revolutionary literature has taken root” in the Middle East following the Arab Spring.
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Electric Literature v2.0
Electric Literature—first established as a cross-platform digital publisher, but best known for its popular “Recommended Reading” tumblog—has just relaunched itself as a literary advocate built around a strong website and social channels. C0-founder Andy Hunter tells the Washington Post, “Posting a cool photo on social media gets a much greater response than text alone, even in our audience of book lovers. While at first that might seem at odds with literary content, we’ve always felt that changes in the way we communicate create opportunities to reach more people.”
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Passive Voice is for Missing Subject
“I wish all this telling women alcohol is dangerous was a manifestation of a country that loves babies so much it’s all over lead contamination from New Orleans to Baltimore to Flint and the lousy nitrate-contaminated water of Iowa and carcinogenic pesticides and the links between sugary junk food and juvenile diabetes and the need for universal access to healthcare and daycare and good and adequate food. You know it’s not. It’s just about hating on women. Hating on women requires narratives that make men vanish and make women magicians producing babies out of thin air and dissolute habits.” Rebecca Solnit on the passive voice, mysterious pregnancies, disappearing men, and the Center for Disease Control. Pair with this Millions review of Solnit’s book The Faraway Nearby.
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Music To My Ears
Oh, to have cows and restaurants named after you: the life of the unusually-named NPR reporter.
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The Other Side
“Paris had more sex than most church-laden places, and more church than most sex-laden places.” Luc Sante’s new book, The Other Paris, seeks to uncover Paris’s sedimentary layers of filth and grit. Here he is in an interview with Guernica Magazine.
Pete Campbell is Mr. Darcy
This summer, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis will put on a stage production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. As they always say: it’s all fun and games until you cast Vincent Kartheiser as Mr. Darcy.
Passive-Aggressive Presents
We fully expect all Christmas-observant Millions readers to have gifted (and received) at least one book this week. The Toast expects the same of their readers, and have provided a very handy key to choosing and/or deciphering passive-agressive literary presents.
The Author Is Not the Author
Recommended Reading: Albert Mobilio on Paul La Farge’s new novel, The Night Ocean.
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