Amazon created an “Election Heat Map” to tally the number of “red” and “blue” books sold across the nation, and the count is updated hourly. The results are somewhat surprising to those who believe liberals read more than conservatives. (Perhaps liberals frequent more independent bookstores?) At the time of this writing, “red” books are favored by a margin of 7%.
Election Heat Map: Book Edition
Electric Literature v2.0
Electric Literature—first established as a cross-platform digital publisher, but best known for its popular “Recommended Reading” tumblog—has just relaunched itself as a literary advocate built around a strong website and social channels. C0-founder Andy Hunter tells the Washington Post, “Posting a cool photo on social media gets a much greater response than text alone, even in our audience of book lovers. While at first that might seem at odds with literary content, we’ve always felt that changes in the way we communicate create opportunities to reach more people.”
Julie Powell at Powell’s
The Julie Powell interview at Powell’s — on butchery and infidelity and self-disclosure.
Early Years
Renowned children’s author Lois Lowry talks to The Days of Yore about writing as a mother, living in Japan as a child, and early receptions to Number the Stars and The Giver.
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Oscar Wilde: An Infographic
The Guardian broke down Oscar Wilde’s most enduring and quotable aphorisms, and presented the entire thing as an infographic. For serious fans of the Irish wit, perhaps the effect of this chart may lead to an “infogasm.”
Can You Learn to Love the Adverb?
The saying goes that “the road to hell is paved with adverbs,” but at Beyond the Margins Robin Black makes the opposite argument. “I want you to love adverbs,” she begins, but “more than that, I want you to believe, as I do, that adverbs are the part of speech that best captures the human condition.”
On Road Trips and Book Hoarding
“Driving hundreds of miles at a time… uncorked the forgotten joys of my undergraduate years—chief among them the fantasy that simply buying a book guarantees that it will get read.” Ted Trautman on going on a book-buying binge during a cross-country road-trip.
Explore the Real NW
Explore four of the spots mentioned in Zadie Smith’s NW courtesy of this interactive Penguin Press feature. Listen to Zadie’s own voice and read some of her prose as you explore the streets and buildings. You can also read the book’s first lines over here.
I don’t think this means conservatives read more than liberals. I think it just means conservatives read more propaganda than liberals. Liberals like their fiction written by Zadie Smith, Junot Diaz, Michael Chabon, or other people usually found in the actual fiction and literature section, while conservatives like their fiction written by Fox News journalists and Republicans.
(That’s maybe the harshest thing I’ve ever said politically, but it’s also completely true.)
That’s interesting, Kati. I would have said liberals get their fiction from CNN.