When you read silently, are you really reading silently? Or, as some researchers hypothesized in a recent study, are you “making ‘sound’ in your head?”
“Silent” Reading
All the Sad Young Literary Women
Are New York Times book reviewers biased toward writers who are “white and male and live in Brooklyn”? Chris Jackson at The Atlantic laments all the sad young literary women.
Your Local Unpaid Librarian
“They would have closed, if the community hadn’t stepped forward.” The Guardian reports on the rapidly growing number of British libraries being run by volunteers, a trend driven by austerity cuts (which Corinne Purtill wrote about in these very pages just a few weeks ago).
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Bookshelf of the Masses
From Jared Fanning, a charming graphic of the world’s 10 most read books.
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Wimmer Discusses Forthcoming Bolaño
Scott Esposito interviews Natasha Wimmer, translator of 2666 and The Savage Detectives. They discuss some forthcoming additions to the ever expanding Bolaño oeuvre (which will be potential additions to a future edition of our Bolaño syllabus.)
A Very Long Conversation
“A good marriage is, I think, a very long conversation.” National Book Award finalist Lauren Groff discusses Fates and Furies at Lit Hub. We have an interview with the author to complement it.
Picture Books
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has just released almost 400,000 high-resolution digital images of its collections. Among them are thousands of illustrations from bygone days when “picture books” were not for children alone. Pair with Buzz Poole‘s reviews of contemporary works of visual literature in The Millions archives, from hand-drawn self-help quotes to politically-charged images of transit in Tehran.
Asymptote’s Third Birthday
Celebrate literary journal Asymptote’s third anniversary in New York City later this month. The event will feature Eliot Weinberger, Jeffrey Yang (translator of Liu Xiaobo), Paris Review poetry editor Robyn Creswell, Idra Novey (translator of Clarice Lispector), and Daniella Gitlin (translator of Rodolfo Walsh). They will come together for a panel discussion on translation and readings. The event starts at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21 at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.
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