If you’ve ever wondered how old your favorite authors were when they hit their creative peaks, you’ll enjoy this graphic, which charts the ages at which well-known writers published their most famous works.
Early Birds
Harper Lee’s Hullabaloo
There’s been an incredible amount of both excitement and controversy ever since Harper Lee‘s publisher announced the upcoming publication of Go Set a Watchman, the reclusive author’s second novel. But in a piece for Ploughshares Cathe Shubert wonders “Why not marvel at what all this hullabaloo in the news really signifies: that books still matter, deeply, to the American public–especially books that spark dialogue about interracial relations, justice, and, as Atticus would say, walking in another person’s shoes.”
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NEA’s new literary director
Meet Ira Silverberg, the National Endowment for the Arts’s new literary director.
Curated Book Lists
New York City’s iconic Strand bookstore features prominent authors’ curated book collections on their website. Here’s Jennifer Egan‘s. Here’s Art Spiegelman‘s.
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Norway to Digitize Its Entire Library
In 2006, the National Library of Norway enacted an ambitious plan to digitize every book in its holdings by 2020. The idea is that all of the content (even works under copyright) will be accessible to people logging into the system with a Norwegian IP address.
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Steal This Record
Elvis Costello is calling the hefty price tag on his new box set “either a misprint or a satire” and advising fans to buy a Louis Armstrong box set or to wait until the discs included in his own box set are availble at a cheaper price “assuming that you have not already obtained them by more unconventional means.”