Héctor Tobar’s The Barbarian Nurseries is being developed into a movie, reports Edward Douglas for ComingSoon. (You can read an excerpt of the book over here.) Elsewhere, you can read Tobar’s take on how “the writer is a revered figure in France.”
The Barbarian Nurseries to be a Film?
Monday Linkday
My mom pointed out this article in the Washington Post about a bookstore in Baltimore that primarily gives away books rather than selling them. It’s called the Book Thing:”That’s the whole thing with the Book Thing,” Wattenberg says. “All I am is a middleman. The people have books…. They give them to me, they’re happy to have a place to see them go somewhere, and the people that get the books are happy to get the books.”Also, file under conspicuous consumption: Anyone looking for an extravagant gift for the film buff in their life should look no further.Spotted on the el: The Travels of Marco Polo… sure the red line doesn’t go all the way to China, but we can dream.
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Different Times
Last week, I wrote about Josh Weil and Mike Harvkey’s joint book tour, which sees the two driving a Prius across America to promote their latest novels. Now, in their latest dispatch, they reflect on the differences between writers like themselves and midcentury writers like Andre Dubus and Norman Mailer.
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The Future of Work
Can Google help translate a novel? Over at Publishers Weekly, Esther Allen explores Google Translates’ linguistic abilities. Also check out this Millions essay about translators at work.
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Excerpted
From the book I’m reading right now: “My mother’s output, starred and pseudonymous, appeared regularly in one of those little, irregular periodicals so limited in readership that they might be called incestuous. Subscription was by invitation only, and contributors would go into a rage over a misplaced comma and brood for days if their poems were understood.”
Deft, Masterful
Passionate, intense, fearless … this essay on the history of book blurbs will have you positively clawing yourself with pleasure. We’ve blurbed about blurbs a couple of times here at The Millions.
A DeLillo Retrospective
In its recently released third issue, The Point – a terrific Chicago-based journal of ideas – takes up the vexed question of Don DeLillo‘s literary significance.
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The New Kid
As of last night, the UK has a brand new literary prize, the Folio, which its founders describe as “a Booker without the bow ties.” The Independent chronicles the short history of the prize, which owes its existence to a controversy among Man Booker judges two years ago.
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