I wonder if Garth speaks Hungarian?

Did Patrick Modiano deserve the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature?  Wrong question, our own Bill Morris writes in The Daily Beast.  The right question is: Why is foreign fiction in translation still such a tough sell for American publishers?

Nicholson Baker talks about why he does so much writing at Friendly's, a fast food chain that soon may exist only in its descriptions.

Do you like listening to music, but often struggle with an appropriate drink order? Enter Drinkify, a website which suggests cocktails based on the tunes you’re playing. (I tested it out with The Wu-Tang Clan. It told me to drink “1 bottle of gin.” Do with this information what you must.)

When your first name is interesting or just plain weird, you learn how not to get sick of explaining what your parents were thinking. Fortunately for Brevity editor Dinty Moore, his name is “more a gift than a burden.”