Today is St. Crispin’s Day, a day immortalized in Shakespeare’s Henry V when the title character rallied his British “band of brothers” to face their French adversaries. And according to Guy Patrick Cunningham, “there are lots of ways we can celebrate it.”
St. Crispin’s Day is Here Again
Lebowski Achiever
At The New York Times, A.O. Scott names The Big Lebowski a "Critics' Pick."
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Make Believe
Who are literature's best imaginary friends?
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Data-Mining, The Trial, and America
"Joseph K., that icon of single-lettered anonymity from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial," writes Tom Engelhardt for Guernica, "would undoubtedly have felt right at home in [James] Clapper’s Washington."
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Amazon’s Numbers Are In
The Digital Reader rounded up a list based on Amazon's end of year book sales. Some interesting factoids: Dan Brown's Origin: A Novel was the most read and gifted book this holiday season, and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was the year's most borrowed book from Prime Reading. Pair with: our cheat sheet for Kindle (and other e-reader) owners.
Tuesday New Release Day: Ogawa, Iyer, Irving
New this week: Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa and Exodus by Lars Iyer (both were covered in our big book preview). John Irving's In One Person is out in paperback.
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“Pointless and trivial.”
“Where, more importantly, is the story? David simply is. He does nothing, desires nothing. He exists, if that, and nothing more.” Shalom Auslander judges the prestigious Three Under Three prize.
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