After wasting three hours on Facebook looking at memes, you might be tempted to cut yourself off from the Internet. Unfortunately, as Paul Miller learned after spending a year offline, the world off the grid isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be.
Cut Off
“The real subject of his book is scale”
Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to take Kathryn Schulz’s book recommendations. However when she refers to something – in this case J.M. Ledgard’s Submergence – as “the best novel I’ve read so far this year,” you really ought to listen up. By the time she invokes Philip Gourevitch, Anne Carson, W. G. Sebald, and John Le Carré in her review of that book, you ought to be reaching for your wallet.
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The Future of Work
Can Google help translate a novel? Over at Publishers Weekly, Esther Allen explores Google Translates’ linguistic abilities. Also check out this Millions essay about translators at work.
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Citation, Please
Fun Fact: British radio and television presenter Alan Partridge (a fictional character played by Steve Coogan) is referenced in not one, not two, but seven entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. Oh, you cheeky Brits.
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Stephen King Next Week and Next Year
With Stephen King’s latest, 11/22/63, a week away, his new Dark Tower novel The Wind Through the Keyhole, now has a publication date: April 24, 2012.
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Bulbous Salutation
Morrisey, Lauren Groff, and Erica Jong are among the finalists for the 2015 Bad Sex in Fiction award. The award is presented annually by the British magazine Literary Review in an attempt to “draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction, and to discourage them.” Past winners include Norman Mailer and John Updike (the sole recipient of a prestigious lifetime achievement award).
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New Joan Didion Memoir
Joan Didion has finished work on a new memoir about aging. It is to be titled Blue Nights and will be published by Knopf in 2011.
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