Parsing the Subtext
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."
Worse than the Delaware
You may have heard that The Paris Review Daily is recapping Dante’s Inferno. This week, Alexander Aciman guides readers through Canto 8, better known as the Canto in which Dante crosses the river Styx.
●
●
NYRB Winter Sale
From now until February 28th, you can grab New York Review of Books Classics titles at a steep discount.
●
●
Alas, Poor Everyone
●
●
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Book & Beer
To kick off German Literature Month, Melville House's marketing manager picked the best beers to drink as you read Heinrich Böll. Now Dogfish Head's brewmaster Sam Calagione has paired beers with a few other literary classics.
I Want to Go to There
“[I]t’s important that people begin to understand that whiteness is not inevitable, and that white dominance is not inevitable.” Claudia Rankine talks to The Guardian about her plans for the Racial Imaginary Institute, a think-tank-cum-gallery that she's founding with all that MacArthur Genius cash. See also: why Americans love poetry, but not poetry books.
●
●
The Opposite of Homesick
“The legal protection the German government gave our American relationship is gone, now that we are back in America.” Alexander Chee on coming home from Leipzig with his partner.
●
●
Ismael? But what about Moby Dick himself? What’s he doing chasing after a ship full of guys all the time? And his NAME!? He’s a whale, for heaven’s sake. It’s probably ten feet long!