Polish filmmaker Piotr Dumala spent three years working on his half-hour-long expressionistic adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and the result is a “destructive animation” that’s at once unnerving and beautiful. However in case you’re more pressed for time, you can also get your animated Russian literature fix by checking out Natalia Berezovaya and Svetlana Petrova’s two-minute-long animation for Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.
Animated Russian Classics
Indie Bookstores Charge for Readings
A number of indie book stores, squeezed by patrons using their shelves only for research into later online purchases, are starting to charge admission for in-store readings and events, the New York Times reports.
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Thursday Links
Google has added a Worldcat search to Google Books, allowing readers to look for books in their local libraries as well as on online bookstore sites. (via)From the Department of Clever Book Promotions: Random House is using a text-based (or interactive fiction) game to promote the release of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist.Steven Johnson’s forthcoming book The Ghost Map, “a thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London,” sounds pretty terrific. To whet the appetite, he provides a brief list of the “best” plague books to the Wall Street Journal. (via).Just in time for Banned Books Week, check out some very cool banned books jewelry.
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Kristen Arnett Seeks the Unreliable Narrator in Every Family
Kristen Arnett discusses the inspiration behind her latest novel, With Teeth, and her ongoing obsession with dysfunctional families.
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Well-Constructed
Recommended Reading: Sho Spaeth on Renata Adler’s After the Tall Timber.
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Flame Out
For whatever reason, pop music (at least in the Western world) displays an inordinate fascination with people who die at a young age. At The Atlantic, Leah Sottile takes a look at our collective fixation on the mantra “Live fast, die young.”
Better Looking than a Breakfast Burrito
Do you want to start a small press? Take advice from Spencer Madsen of Sorry House. In his article “I Made the Mistake of Starting a Small Press and So Can You” at The Toast, Madsen recommends making the book look “better than a breakfast burrito” and listening to 2 Chainz to get started. Pair with: Our article on how Curbside Splendor became a small press to watch.
Tuesday New Release Day: Erdrich; Müller; Haddon; Barnes; Null; Hurley; Abramson; Cage
Out this week: LaRose by Louise Erdrich; The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Müller; The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon; The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes; Allegheny Front by Matthew Neill Null; The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley; Just Life by Neil Abramson; and The Selected Letters of John Cage. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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What’s A Guy Got to Write to Get a Bridge Named After Him?
Frank McNally investigates the “dark forces at work somewhere” that prevent Flann O’Brien from being honored with a Dublin bridge. Perhaps we should all start a grassroots campaign to send Mark O’Connell’s O’Brien tribute to Irish civil engineers.
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