Feel like something’s off with a person you follow on Twitter? They could be time travelers from the future. In The Atlantic, Robinson Meyer writes about a new study, conducted by two physicists, that sought to find social media users with an uncanny knowledge of future events. “It’s not crazy, and yet it feels crazy when you think about it,” says The Hidden Reality author and Columbia professor Brian Greene. You could also take a look at our own journey to the early days of literary Twitter.
Early Edition
Google Enters the eBookstore Ring
Google took the wraps off its long-awaited ebookstore today. Google ebooks can be bought at Google Books and are also available at Powells and indie bookstore portal IndieBound (both of which are missing out on some serious publicity by not having info about this on their front page today). The ebooks are readable on a variety of platforms, but not on the Kindle (at least not without some tweaking).
A Consolation Prize
In the wake of her 2016 Presidential loss, Hillary Clinton's best-selling book What Happened sparked the question: "Would you rather be president of the United States or a No. 1 best-selling author?" The Washington Post asked several authors including Cheryl Strayed, Erik Larson, and Joyce Carol Oates for their thoughts. See also our interview with Strayed from our archives.
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You Do the Math
This week we learned Gary Shteyngart is at work on a memoir. This week is also when the annual Dachshund Spring Fiesta takes place in Washington Square Park. Has viral marketing reached its nadir?
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Failure
"I’ve learned that people—writers and non-writers alike—don’t like that word. Failure.... I take a bizarre pleasure, now, in using that word. Maybe because during my decade as a failed writer, the one thing that took the edge off was wallowing in that failure—carefully, in a proscribed fashion, like having a drink when you’re still hungover." Stephanie Feldman writes for Vol. 1 Brooklyn about being a literary failure, about the two books she wrote and never published, and about the one she finally did. Pair with the stories of these 5 writers and their failed "novels in drawers."
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