“I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.” Jonathan Safran Foer believes that technology is making us more detached. Pair with The New Yorker’s essay on netiquette.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Far
Death and Taxes
Souvankham Thammavongsa's new fiction is required reading for anyone who's ever had a meltdown in an accountant's office.
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The Renowned Dan Brown
“Renowned author Dan Brown got out of his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house and paced the bedroom, using the feet located at the ends of his two legs to propel him forwards.”
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What’s Blendle?
Twenty U.S. publishers have teamed up with Netherlands-based platform Blendle to launch a beta version of the app in the U.S., which allows users to purchase individual articles instead of subscriptions to magazines and newspapers. Many are questioning what the future of journalism may hold in light of this new user model. If you’re wondering about the future of the book, check out our column on it.
Mutual Self-Interest in Bad Decline
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, America needs George Saunders. Fortunately, the editors at The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs blog appear to understand this.
An Animated Bradbury
“You write to please yourself. You write for the joy of writing. … The enthusiasm, the joy itself draws me. So that means every day of my life I’ve written. When the joy stops, I’ll stop writing.” Recommended viewing: an animated interview with Ray Bradbury.
One Translation To Rule Them All
“Despite a glut of English translations (well over a hundred, by my count),” writes Dante scholar Robert Pogue Harrison, “New versions of the entire [Divine Comedy] poem or individual canticles continue to appear in rapid succession—six in the last decade alone.” Over at the New York Review of Books, he investigates three of the latest: Dan Brown’s Inferno, Mary Jo Bang’s Inferno, and Clive James’s Divine Comedy.
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I wonder if Garth speaks Hungarian?
László Krasznahorkai is giving a reading in NYC, and our own Garth Risk Hallberg is acting as host. You might also enjoy this: Paul Morton interviewed Krasznahorkai for The Millions just last month.
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