Dead Poets Society
Two Strangers
“Werner isn’t surprised to pass the entrance exams easily. He’s more nonplused to find his head measured with calipers and his hair whiter than any of the 60-odd shades of blond on the examiners’ charts. It goes without saying that his eyes are also rated for their shade of blue.” Janet Maslin reviews Anthony Doerr’s new novel.
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When is a Blog Not a Blog?
The New York Review of Books gets into the blog game with…well, it’s not a blog, exactly, but then I guess neither are we these days. With The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post also clamoring for the attention of bookish web-surfers, there’s more book-focused content online than ever. So why do I find most of it gives me a headache?
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“The realization that none of us can ever be free from ourselves”
Mary Ruefle wrote an outstanding essay on her development as a writer. “I remember the first time I realized the world we are born into,” she writes, “is not the one we leave.”
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Know The Rules Before You Break Them
Point: Dan Chaon believes younger writers should read more contemporary writing before attempting to be published themselves. Counterpoint: J. Robert Lennon believes most contemporary writing is a waste of would-be writers’ precious time. TL;DR Version: Nathan Elwood notes that if writers “want to change the face of literary fiction … [they should] at least know what it looks like.”
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Hercules for Millennials
Need a reprieve from the Herculean task of staying awake at work? Brooke Gamble McAdam takes on the myth of Hercules, giving him a millennial spin.
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Zbigniew Herbert on Leonardo da Vinci
With the publication of Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert’s The Collected Prose: 1948-1998 this week, the New York Review of Books Blog posts his essay on Leonardo da Vinci.
Epic Fail Gets Epic Press
We’re thrilled by the early buzz surrounding Epic Fail, our first Millions Original eBook. You can learn more about the project courtesy of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Teleread. Of course, you could learn even more about the project by purchasing a copy of the book.