Hip-Hop Men of Letters
Inside Litball
“Bertelsmann’s 7% decline in 2016 revenue was due entirely to a drop in sales at Penguin Random House. The lack of a big new bestseller hurt results at the company, and it divested some smaller divisions in the year.” For those interested in inside baseball, Publishers Weekly takes a look at how the world’s 50 largest publishers are faring. (TL;dr: Although their total revenue topped $50 billion, more than half of the list’s publishers reported sales declines – oh, and Harry Potter still really, really sells). As a counterpoint to all that capitalism, read our own Edan Lepucki‘s survey of self-published authors.
By Way of Beijing
After spending eight years in Beijing, The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos is leaving to work in DC. To commemorate his long period of international journalism, he wrote a farewell post on his blog, Letter from China.
“Here’s to you, old dears. You got this right, every one of you.”
Recommended Reading: Roger Angell describes life in the nineties. His nineties.
For Your Weekend
Slate offers up a treatise on “the greatness of gin.” (via my friend Derek, who wrote: “for your book blog; there is too little booze on it”)
Orlando
“I have often thought that if I were ever a drag queen, and more specifically that if I were ever a drag queen who was a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race, I would play Virginia Woolf — or rather, Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf — in the Snatch Game episode when the contestants don their very best celebrity impersonation.” Untucking RuPaul’s Drag Race at The Los Angeles Review of Books.