What happens when a grown woman wears a ton of Axe body spray? The question is nightmare fuel, but Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick — in what can only be described as a heroic act of journalism — doused herself in America’s most notorious fragrance for a week to see how it felt.
Scent of a Woman
Franzen and Oprah: Together at Last?
If Moby Lives is right, the literary beef that erupted when Oprah selected Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections for her book club and he rejected the (in his mind, dubious) honor is about to get a curious denouement. Speculation is that Freedom is poised to become another Oprah selection. And your author suspects that Franzen will be more welcoming this time around. (Oprah sticker haters should probably buy their copies of Freedom now, just to be safe.) Update: The AP confirms and so it begins again.
Elena Ferrante on Bold Adventures, Both Near and Far
Elena Ferrante believes in bold adventures, whether you go to the other side of the world or the other side of the street.
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Moldy Links
The book bloggers are all waiting for the announcement of the National Book Award winner, and I, too, have to wonder what will happen once we know the recipient of the award in the fiction category. These women have gotten a lot of grief from folks who think they shouldn’t be there. What I’m wondering is will the NY Times and all the rest end their crusade and graciously accept the winner, or will the winner, whoever she may be, have to bear more criticism on her own. We shall see. In the meantime I have dug up some old links that are, unlike all this NBA stuff, not very timely, but they are good, so I wanted to share them with you:First, take a look at Jonathan Yardley’s fantastic discussion of the American novels that are, to his mind, the best of the last 125 years. He calls it “State of the Art.”The discussion among my fellow book bloggers about the Paris Reviews magnificent decision to put all of their interviews online has got me thinking about the recently departed George Plimpton, which is why I was happy to find this wonderful interview that he conducted with Truman Capote about In Cold BloodFinally, there are two types of people in this world… well, not really, but in this post from earlier this year, Michael at 2Blowhards explains the difference between movie people and book people and a lively discussion follows.Well, that’s enough from the old bookmarks file. Expect more timely news sometime soon.
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The Future of Print
Here’s a lovely little documentary collecting interviews with various people of the book. Stephen Fowler, of The Moneky’s Paw antiquarian book shop, makes an appearance, though his remarks seem slightly less macabre in HD than those he gave to Kyo Maclear back in March. Joanne Saul, proprietor of Type Books (you know it from that stop motion video that lit up the bookternet a while back) also makes an appearance.
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Bracketologists: Apply Here
With the NCAA’s March Madness tournament winding down, and with The Morning News’s Tournament of Books drawn to a close, you can still indulge your bracketological yearnings by participating in Powell’s Books’s Poetry Madness or by checking out NPR’s Ides of March Madness.
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