The more you know! In Victorian times, sitting for a photograph could last hours due to primitive camera technology and the need for long, long exposures. This, predictably, didn’t jibe with kids, and so parents had to adopt an ingenious workaround: disguising themselves in the picture so they could physically restrain the youngsters. (Don’t miss Part 2, either.)
How They Did It Before Sears
Delphi for booklovers
John Warner, your personal Biblioracle, is taking his column to the Chicago Tribune‘s Printers Row. Tell him the last five books you’ve read and he’ll recommend something delicious, nourishing, or just plain good for your next great read. Visit the Biblioracle by sending him an email at: [email protected].
Nouvella Press Launches First Author
This week Nouvella Books launches their first novella, The Last Repatriate by Matthew Salesses. You have five more days to get a copy of the limited first edition. Get it while you can, folks!
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A Cartoon Quixote
Well, Cervantes‘s body was just found, and there are some varying opinions about whether or not that’s a great thing for Spain and Spanish literature. What is almost definitely not a great thing for either: the pornographic Spanish Don Quixote cartoon from the seventies.
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“Our job is to analyse data, not to love words.”
The Telegraph catches up with John Simpson as he prepares to retire from his role as chief editor for the Oxford English Dictionary. “I used to keep a notebook in my pocket in case I came across new words,” Simpson says at one point. “That worked until I put my trousers in the washing machine.”
Cultural Commentator
“I think people always expect artists to have a larger understanding of the issues they write about. People have looked to writers and artists forever and asked them to be cultural commentators or political commentators, which can be very scary because I can only speak to my own perspective, and I’m figuring this out along with everybody else. I’m not even sure I’m the best person to talk about it, whatever it is, but I’m someone who can and does.” Electric Literature talks with Sarah Gerard about her debut novel Binary Star, which we reviewed here.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Patchett, Stein, Brandon
The big literary new release this week is Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. Also recently out is Gertrude Stein’s long-lost oddity for children, To Do: A Book of Alphabets and Birthdays. New in paperback is John Brandon’s Citrus County.
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