Year in Reading alum Victor LaValle’s just-released novel The Devil in Silver was shouted out in our first Great 2012 Book Preview, and Nathan Huffstutter says it’s “exceptional.”
Victor LaValle’s Exceptional Latest
The Death of the Camera
"Camera-equipped smartphones are now in spitting distance of outnumbering traditional cameras in the percentage of photos and videos taken with them," according to analyst NPD Group.
Hanging On
After visiting more than 2,000 of America’s independent bookstores, Kate Brittain found herself thinking their demise might not be so inevitable. The cards, she writes, remain stacked against them, but they nonetheless offer a few things that may well keep them in demand. Pair with: our tribute to e-book pioneer Michael Hartt.
Les Mosquees
Recommended Reading: Adam Shatz on Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission.
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Summer Poems
Clear your schedule for today, if you have one. The Poetry Foundation rounded up a whole heap of “Summer Poems” intended to “make you one with the sun.”
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Deceitful Above All Things
Are you familiar with JT LeRoy (or rather, Savannah Knoop ... or wait, Laura Albert), perpetrator of one of the greatest literary hoaxes in recent memory? Author: The JT LeRoy Story is a new documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig that asks questions about whether or not existence is predicated on real-world physicality -- LeRoy's books exist, so doesn't LeRoy exist by association?
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Shock and Auden
A lost journal of W. H. Auden, one of three that the poet is known to have kept, has recently been discovered.
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