You can skip the intrusive cruise ship (and please the city’s residents in the process) by taking a tour of Venice’s canal system from the comfort of your own home. Thanks, Google.
Venice by Couch
Kurkov’s Penguins
Anthony Olcott takes a look at the crime fiction — and penguins — of Andrey Kurkov.
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Unread Books
Lorin Stein, editor of The Paris Review, cops to a list of classic books he’s never read. Among them: Jane Eyre, Blood Meridian, and Millions Hall-of-Famer Stoner.
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Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys Arrives
After some initial mystery leading up to publication, Michael Lewis’s new book Flash Boys is here and its subject is high-speed trading (sometimes called “high-frequency trading) that uses supercomputers and complex trading algorithms to attempt to generate profits through brute force. Lewis has become the most popular writer on Wall Street, giving readers a look behind closed doors. The Times has an excerpt of Flash Boys, while Bloomberg has more detail.
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An Experiment In Crowdsourced Development
Palgrave Macmillan is posting sample chapters from book proposals online, inviting comment “from anyone who feels they can contribute to the development of the works in question.” The trial will continue for the next six weeks.
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All She Can Ever Know
“I am writing a book my father will never see. Not in its entirety, not out in the world.” For Longreads, Nicole Chung writes about adoption, family, writing, and finishing her upcoming memoir, All You Can Ever Know, in the wake of her father’s sudden death. Pair with: Julie Buntin‘s Year in Reading entry which feature’s Chung’s memoir.
Writing from the Self
Year in Reading alumnus Alexander Chee has a guide for writing an autobiographical novel. He writes, “The woods is your life. You are the axe.” Pair with this Millions piece in defense of autobiography.
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Death of a Reader
Now that Google Reader is nearing its official death, the people who used to depend on it are waxing nostalgic about its heyday. At Page-Turner, Joshua Rothman remembers the feeds he once relied on.
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The Lonely Sidewalk-Man
Recommended (Hilarious) Reading: Mallory Ortberg from The Toast gives you every noir story set in Los Angeles in helpful, bulleted format.