To celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death in 2016, he’s getting a makeover. Jeanette Winterson is writing a cover of The Winter’s Tale, and Anne Tyler will be revamping The Taming of the Shrew for a 21st century audience. While you wait, watch Joss Whedon’s update of Much Ado About Nothing.
The Bard 2.0
“The old songs are so easily lost.”
Pulphead author John Jeremiah Sullivan discusses Don Wahle's Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard box set for The Paris Review in a quick piece that makes you sad he ever left The Oxford American.
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Wells Tower on Your TV Screen
Talk about burying the lede. This article about Alec Baldwin’s return to television acting, and how he’ll be playing “a Rob Ford-type mayor of New York,” doesn’t make a big deal out of the show’s pilot writer. But it should. Because his name is Wells Tower.
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Some Thoughts on Celebrity Book Clubs
"A few weeks ago, I texted my writing group, 'All I really want is to be just famous enough to have my own celebrity book club.' I was kind of kidding. But I kind of wasn’t. Because, like portion-packaged organic snacks delivered to your door, isn’t book club ownership one step closer to having it all?" Laura Briskman on the faux intimacy of celebrity book clubs, as more and more celebrities start their own post Oprah.
Ersatz Intellectualism
My favorite part of my apartment is my wall-length bookshelf. When I look at it, I think of all the time I spent reading and accumulating its contents. I feel I’ve earned it, which is why I’m slightly insulted by Juniper Books’ $3,000-$100,000 “collection-development service,” a program designed for “people who want a library but haven't had the time or inclination to amass a collection of books.”
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Frankenstein Survives
The Bodleian Library has digitized Mary Shelley’s notebooks containing Frankenstein.
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The Duty of Storytelling
“I don’t try to deliver a message, teach, inform or ‘give back’ in my books. I simply want to tell a story. My writing is totally separated from my activism and social service, which are channeled through my Foundation.” Megan Bradshaw interviews Isabel Allende for Asymptote Journal.
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Camus’ Web
Have you ever wondered what Charlotte’s Web would be like if Albert Camus joined the farm creatures? Well, someone wrote it for you at McSweeney’s. Pair with our review of Camus’ American Journals.
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