What color would The Little Prince be? Before you dismiss this as an inane question, artist Jaz Parkinson created color signatures based on how often books mentioned certain hues. The results look like a better Rothko painting. Pair with: Radiolab’s fascinating podcast on the science of color.
On the Spectrum
Bytegeist
This week Margaret Atwood tweeted a photo of her and Alice Munro drinking champagne in a “secret lair.” There’s no denying it — technology has changed the way we tell stories. Atwood and 16 other writers, from Victor LaValle to Lee Child, discussed how technology influences their work in The New York Times. “There’s nothing worse for plots than cellphones. Once your characters have one, there’s no reason for them to get lost or stranded,” Rainbow Rowell said.
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The Perils of Word Aversion
Moist-haters, unite: why do some people despise the sound of certain words?
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Pop-Hop Books & Curio
Coming in 2012: Pop-Hop Books & Curio. Located in the Highland Park neighborhood on the east side of Los Angeles, Pop-Hop will be “a creative retail environment merging a bookstore and project space.” More information, as well as some opportunities to support the project, are available at the shop’s Kickstarter page, and also on its Facebook page.
Unlocking the Doors
How does Karl Ove Knausgaard delve into some of the oldest parts of his memory for his writing? “I remember every single room that I have been in from the age of seven. What I did was to place myself in those rooms, and when I started to write about them it was like unlocking a thousand small doors, all leading further into childhood,” he told Cressida Leyshon at The New Yorker. Knausgaard also has a story, “Come Together” (behind the paywall), in the current issue. Pair with: Our essay on My Struggle.
Goodreads Choice Awards
The results of this year’s Goodreads Choice Awards are in, and a debut novelist took home Favorite Book of 2011 honors. Veronica Roth, author of Divergent, thanks her fans in this video. Other notable winners include Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which won the Best Fiction and Best Humor categories, respectively. (They were also reviewed on The Millions here and here, respectively.)
Facebook’s Hype
The Facebook IPO was this week’s biggest story. The social media giant, which boasts 800 million members, is seeking a $75-$100 billion market valuation. But hold your horses, investors. A lot of that optimism could be empty hype. After all, look at the site’s requested valuation as a percentage of its 2011 revenue, and compare it to other tech giants like Google and Microsoft. Also, contrary to Mark Zuckerberg’s claim, most of the world does not, in fact, “have access to the internet or mobile phones.”
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And “Crude”
Over at The Atlantic Wire, Jen Doll catalogues the many words first coined by Geoffrey Chaucer, which includes such everyday staples as “dotard,” “fattish,” “caterwaul” and “twitter.”
Margaret Atwood and Philipp Meyer Headed to the TV Screen
Here’s a double-shot of television news: Darren Aronofsky is said to be developing Margaret Atwood’s MaddAdam for HBO, and AMC has ordered an adaptation of Philipp Meyer’s The Son (which has been holding steady on our Top Ten).
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