Is there a difference between journalism and advertising? Buzzfeed doesn’t seem to think so.
Mad Content
Out-of-print Favorites
Used-book search aggregator BookFinder.com has published its annual report on the most sought-after out-of-print books. As always, the lists are eclectic, spanning everything from stock market conspiracy theories to a lost work by Edward Gorey. (Thanks, Laurie)
Small Fish
Over at The Guardian, Kevin Duffy argues that small presses do the heavy lifting in the publishing world. Pair with Edan Lepucki’s Millions interview with her agent about publishing a first book.
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Reading Under the Influence
In general, it’s not much fun to read a book you don’t feel like reading — especially if that book is Antigone, you’re on Dexedrine, and you are Marilyn Monroe.
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James Frey’s Fiction Factory
From New York Magazine, a harrowing piece on “Full Fathom Five,” the young adult fiction factory spearheaded by James Frey, and the controversial contracts young writers are asked to sign.
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Would a softer sort of blackmail be called graymail?
Over at Melville House, editor Ellie Robbins has discovered an App that might help you finish your novel: it involves your Facebook friends, one compromising picture, and some, um, lighthearted blackmail.
The James Salter Diet
James Salter’s women are “described over and over again as meals for the male protagonists to enjoy and then leave behind in various western European countries,” Lidia Jean Kott argues. Read Sonya Chung’s take in our review of All That Is.
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A Literary Wake
In Austin, the Harry Ransom Center and American Short Fiction are hosting a tribute event for J.D. Salinger that will include readings by Elizabeth Crane, Nick Flynn, Amelia Gray, Elizabeth McCracken, ZZ Packer, and John Pipkin.
The New Vintage
Is hardcover the new vinyl? Over at The Literary Hub, Yahdon Israel argues for the irreplaceable magic of tactility and print books: “There’s something gratifying about being able to underline a sentence or write a response in the margin of a book, knowing with certainty that it will be there later. I can’t get that guarantee from a phone. My data could be hacked, a new upgrade could wipe its memory, my battery could die mid-sentence and cause me to lose everything I’ve typed. They say that what goes up into the Cloud must come down, but ‘they’ can’t always be trusted—least of all with the things I value most, my books.”