There are reality TV shows for aspiring designers, singers, and chefs, so what about writers? The Italian reality show Masterpiece will pit writers against each other in competition for a book deal. As judge Giancarlo De Cataldo said, “The book is dying, and we must do everything we can to save it. Even a talent show.” We expect a lot of dramatic crying at typewriters.
Project Book Deal
Master Palindromist
Today’s long read begins like this: “In March 2010, Barry Duncan, master palindromist, was locked in an epic struggle with the alphabet.”
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From Flesh to Wafer to Cash
Here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the communion wafer’s place in free-market capitalism.
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J.M. Coetzee on Philip Roth
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“Strings unleashing”
“I have tried them all,
The cotton, the nylon,
absorbing water, rolling in sand,
sticky flakes of broken glass.
We all drown in the end.”
Anne Sexton’s summer bikini tips.
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Nice Wall
In August of 1911, Franz Kafka and his future literary executor Max Brod paid a visit to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. It was, all told, a weird time to make such a trip, because a week before the two arrived in Paris, crafty thieves abducted the famous painting. So why did they go if there wasn’t a painting to see? To look at the absence, of course. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
It Can Happen Here
“It was astonishing. Utterly astonishing. Everyone of them seemed . . . entranced by him.” Sometimes older books get a second life given contemporary contexts; such is the case with Sinclair Lewis‘s 1935 It Can’t Happen Here, reports Time. The book, which was written as Hitler came to power, has sold out online. See also this New Yorker piece about a recent stage adaptation of Lewis’s semi-satirical novel.
The Graveyard Movie
Neil Gaiman’s 2009 Newbery medal winner, The Graveyard Book, was originally supposed to be adapted into an animated film. Now, however, it looks like Ron Howard might take the project’s reins and shoot it in live action.
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