Make of this what you will, but when Lorde first read Year in Reading alum Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, it struck her as “the best collection [she’d] ever read.” Her interview with Tavi Gevinson in Rookie reveals that she also loves Raymond Carver and Claire Vaye Watkins.
Royals
Write to Win
Want to win a house? A goat farm? A country bed-and-breakfast? Write an essay.
Five Rows of Startlingly Empty Chairs
“An easel stood just inside the big glass doorway when I entered the store. On it leaned my author photo, the one from the back cover of Domestic Violets, and it was fucking enormous. It was the size of a photo you’d expect to see if Bono had been appearing at Barnes & Noble, Bill Clinton maybe, or perhaps the Reverend Desmund Tutu. For a full 30 seconds I stood there and looked at the gigantic, painstakingly airbrushed picture of myself. An elderly couple walked in and did a double take when they saw a stunned-looking me looking at me. ‘It’s too big,’ I told them.” This is what you do when no one shows up to your reading.
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Long Live Books!
Do you have an ereader but miss the look and feel of a gorgeous hardcover book? Do you want people to think you’re all about print when in fact you are riding the digital wave? Then you simply must get this incredible Book sleeve for your iPad, Macbook or Kindle. (Via Peter Knox’s tumblr blog)
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Best Book Covers of 2009
Amazon has 60 books in 10 categories up for a vote for “Best Book Covers of 2009.” There’s plenty of literary eye candy in the mix.
Appearing Elsewhere
My piece in memory of novelist and rapier-tongued pundit Gore Vidal, who died Tuesday, appears on Prospero, the online arts & culture publication of The Economist.
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Reading about Reading
Recommended Reading: Clare Beams writes for Ploughshares about the effect of reading a story in which someone reads a story.