With the erosion of the 175-year-old Times-Picayune, New Orleans will soon be one of the largest metro areas without its own major newspaper publishing every day. Over at The Atlantic, Emily Badger explains the sad saga of its demise as well as the complexities and uncertainties yet to come.
The Paper New Orleans Needs
“…invisible worlds, unspeakable intuitions…”
At Salonica, Monica Carter interviews Muriel Barbery, author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, about her new novel, Gourmet Rhapsody.
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The Peculiar Art of Rare Books Catalogues
“Our catalogues cost £5,000 to print and distribute (in envelopes! with stamps!) to the 800 people on my mailing list, 790 of whom will not order from it.” Rick Gekoski at Guardian looks at the peculiar art (and commerce) of rare books catalogues.
Margaret Atwood and Philipp Meyer Headed to the TV Screen
Here’s a double-shot of television news: Darren Aronofsky is said to be developing Margaret Atwood’s MaddAdam for HBO, and AMC has ordered an adaptation of Philipp Meyer’s The Son (which has been holding steady on our Top Ten).
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“I feel very honoured, even if I can’t help thinking I must be a fraud”
If Nicholas Wroe’s profile of Javier Marías doesn’t get you excited to read the Spanish novelist’s work, then maybe Hari Kunzru’s Year In Reading entry from this past year will do the trick.
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David Shields on the Colbert Report
Watch David Shields on the Colbert Report last week — Colbert: “Are you the Vanilla Ice of novels?” Shields: “Precisely.”
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Let the Wild Rumpus Begin
Dave Eggers shares the skinny on his forthcoming Where the Wild Things Are project – including an excerpt of the novel and the killer trailer for the movie version – with The New Yorker.
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Rich Reading
At a loss for what to read? Goldman Sachs has released their reading list. “We’re talking about people who incurred $550 million in fines for schemes to turn a profit on the civilization-threatening financial crisis they themselves had helped create, and the line between genius and chutzpah is notoriously hard to draw, so, yeah, I’d like to know what’s on these folks’ bedside tables.” Our own Hannah Gersen wrote about Occupy Wall Street and Bartleby, the Scrivener.