First came the reviews. Naturally, reviews of these reviews followed. Then, in furtherance of a pattern that was getting pretty weird at this point, somebody wrote a review of review reviews.
A Bit Much
Oxford to the Rescue!
Ready to have your mind blown? There is an English word that rhymes with “orange.”
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Barnes & Noble to Go the Way of Borders
According to a report for The Wall Street Journal (paywall), Barnes & Noble will be lessening its floor space allotted to traditional books in order to make way for more Nook displays. Over at Melville House’s blog, MobyLives, publisher Dennis Johnson speculates that this move could signify the end of the road for Barnes & Noble as a bookseller.
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A Brilliant Loner
“Neither for the first nor last time in his life, Orwell was the brilliant loner who saw what others around him failed to notice.” Adam Hochschild writes on Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and his unique perspective on fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Vishwas Gaitonde takes us to Orwell’s first home in India.
Little Fiction’s Book Preview; Le Translation Preview
On their Tumblr, Little Fiction is previewing some of the books being released in 2014-2015 by authors they’ve recently worked with. Meanwhile, Chad Post put together “Le Translation Preview” to promote some international work being published this July. Think of both lists as complementary compendiums to our Great Second-Half 2014 Book Preview.
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Whatever was wrong with Hemingway
In the wake of Jonathan Franzen‘s much discussed New Yorker essay on Edith Wharton, Laura Miller defends readers who look to an author’s life to aid their understanding of a given work: ” Byron’s clubfoot, Flannery O’Connor’s lupus, Coleridge’s opium addiction and whatever was wrong with Hemingway do interest many readers because these factors shaped the life experiences from which the great work sprang.”