“Most of us can’t write like our heroes, but nearly every one of us can try to drink like them.” Ian Crouch examines the myth of the great alcoholic writer and Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend in The New Yorker‘s “The Book That Will Make You Never Want to Drink Again.”
Drinking Fitzgerald Under the Table
In Defense of Distraction
“Utter devotion to the principle that distraction is Satan and writing is paramount can be just as poisonous as an excess of diversion,” writes Benjamin Nugent.
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Teaching in Translation
Over at Words Without Borders, Marguerite Feitlowitz writes on teaching the art of literary translation. As she puts it, “Bringing texts from one place to another, from one tongue, context, history, and human body to another, is itself a political act. We can tell the history of the world through the history of when major texts have been translated—and where, why, and by whom.” Pair with this Millions piece on literary translators at work.
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Such a Disappointment
Among the better tidbits from Gary Shteyngart’s diary of his book tour for Little Failure is the fact that he’s apparently had fellow Russian immigrants ask him to sign books for “a failed paralegal” and “a worse failure than even you.” If, after reading that, you'd like another dose of Shteyngart, you could do worse than his Year in Reading entry.
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Why Words Matter
"The hijacking of public language, as is happening now, is a way to shift perception—to bend and control thought—and must be resisted." Summer Brennan pens a powerful first entry for her twice-monthly column about language and power at The Literary Hub. Read also our own Lydia Kiesling, who tells us, "I have to believe that literature can be a weapon of a sort — it explodes comfort even while it delivers comfort; it reveals hypocrisy in a way that the mere presentation of facts often cannot."
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Whoreallyknows?
“There are two extreme views about punctuation … the first is that you don’t actually need it because it’s perfectly possible to write down what you want to say without any punctuation marks or capital letters and people can still read it youdontevenneedspacesbetweenwordsreally. The second view is that punctuation is essential, not only to avoid ambiguity but also because it ‘shows our identity as educated people.’” Here is Adrienne Raphel from The New Yorker with a history of punctuation in the internet age.
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New Kindles
Amazon announced a new crop of digital reading devices today - bringing their lineup to seven in total. The new $119 Kindle Paperwhite features an "ambient light" display, an eight-week battery life, and adjustable fonts; the 3G version will retail for $179. A new Kindle Fire HD starts at $199 -- and one with an 8.9" display starts at $299. Meanwhile the standard Kindle has dropped in price to $69, and the standard Kindle Fire is down to $159. Additionally, Jeff Bezos announced the debut of a new $1.99 Kindle Serials program: customers can buy a serial once, and seamlessly receive all future installments as they come out. The full rundown of announcements (including this mind-blowing chart) can be found on The Verge's liveblog.
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Book Titles, If They Were Written Today
The wonders of modern book packaging applied to some classic tomes. For example, 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss. (via)
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