Apologies for bringing this up, but in a WaPo review of Sorry!: The English and their Manners, Jonathan Yardley points out that your average English person says “sorry” eight times a day.
Not to be Rude
Film Critics, A Dying Breed
The new media revolution has massacred the book review sections at many national newspapers, but it's been just as unkind to movie reviewers. At his Salt Lake Tribune blog, Movie Cricket, SLT film critic Sean P. Means keeps a list of all of the movie reviewers who've gotten the axe.
Freedom Looms
Franzen fans: Freedom, the long-awaited follow-up to The Corrections is now available for pre-order. The specs: 576 pages, August 31st 2010. "Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom’s intensely realized characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time."
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Put on Your Thinking/Dunce Cap
At Slate, David Wolf reviews a new biography of Rene Descartes, who he claims has developed a reputation as the philosophy world’s favorite punching bag.
Just Like in the Movies
Belle and Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson, better known (at least to this writer) as the Sultan of Twee, sits down with Rick Moody as part of the Swinging Modern Sounds feature over at The Rumpus. Among other things, Jackson says that he thinks the John Lennon album Sometime in New York City is a “total masterpiece” and says that at one point in his life he could recite the book Trainspotting.
Spit Spat
“I can tell you that, as of today, I don’t feel any different about Mr Whitehead, or his review, or my response.” Richard Ford doubles down on his reaction to a negative 2001 review by fellow novelist Colson Whitehead. (Said response, in case you missed it, was to tell Whitehead 'you’re a kid, you should grow up,' and spit in his face.) We hope Whitehead is laughing at home with his Pulitzer Prize, recently awarded for last year's literary juggernaut The Underground Railroad. And as our own Emily St. John Mandel reminds us, there are far more gracious ways to respond to criticism.
“We call it Book”
Old but still as timely as ever: The latest and greatest in cutting-edge reading technology from Penny Arcade.
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High Book Marks
Lit Hub has created a Rotten Tomatoes for the literary world. Once a book receives three reviews, it is assigned a score on their new site, Book Marks. Alex Shephard asks if we might have a grade inflation problem.