Mark your calendars. Thrill Murray, a Bill Murray-inspired coloring book, goes on sale this August.
“Smudge between the lines, fill the sexy man up.”
Wood on the Missing Bits of HHhH
James Wood’s New Yorker review of Laurent Binet’s HHhH, makes note of the sections of the book that were cut by editors (and name-checks The Millions). Here they are if you want to read them and learn more about the context behind the cuts.
The Publishing World of Tomorrow
“Porn, Cyberterrorism, The Russian Mob and the Future of Literature” A piece exploring the coming insurrection: digitization – and thus democratization – of books.
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Burroughs’s curse, Capote’s burden
“Enjoy your dirty money. You will never have anything else.” And other things William Burroughs’s wrote to Truman Capote. There’s a bit more backstory over at RealityStudio, though the letter stands on its fearsome and indignant own.
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A Symmetrical but Opposite Study of Darkness and Light
“I was also deeply protective of my father, who at the time of my reading was struggling with illness and other demons. Yet I saw painfully how he could also be a figure of fun. It dawned on me that Cal, supposedly a great friend, might be mocking him—even just by writing about his mockery by others. I registered the first stirrings of an uncertain dislike.” Diantha Parker considers her father’s long friendship with Robert Lowell, immortalized in Lowell’s poem “To Frank Parker.”
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Something Pagan In Me
What is the greatest crime in literary history? Depending on who you ask, it was probably the burning of Byron’s memoirs. Shortly after his death, three of Byron’s closest friends, along with a few attorneys representing family interests, decided that the memoirs were too scandalous to publish and thus tossed them bit by bit into a fireplace. They claim to have been acting in his best interest, and, as Byron himself said, “There is no instinct like that of the heart.”
The Library of the Future
If you’re looking forward to the next Margaret Atwood novel, you’ll have to wait a century. Atwood is the first author to participate in the Future Library project, in which 100 authors will write 100 original manuscripts to be published 100 years from now. We’re envious of our grandchildren. If you’d like an Atwood fix sooner, her short story collection Stone Mattress: Nine Tales comes out next week.
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