I’ve written before about the ouroboric development of book reviewers reviewing book reviews. In The Spectator, Sam Leith uses a new book by David Lodge as a reason to ask: where will it all end?
The Humanity
“Murakami, who is nothing if not ambitious, has created a kind of alternative world, a mirror of ours, reversed.”
Though coverage of Haruki Murakami‘s 1Q84 has been ubiquitous this month (appearing on this site as well), it is always worthwhile to read the inimitable New York Review of Books‘ take on such things.
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Featuring Jimmy Carter
Kickstarters for creative projects run the gamut from endeavors like Star Citizen to requests for food or rent money to let a writer finish a novel. In between those extremes is this, a charmingly eccentric children’s book titled Pete Peanut and the Trouble with Birthdays, which needs help covering the costs of its ambitious design. You can also buy tailor-made birthday invitations or the title character’s own furniture.
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Speaking of diaries…
Vanity Fair has published Christopher Hitchens’s introduction to George Orwell’s Diaries, which will be published for the first time next month.
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Unpredictable Prestige
In 1929 readers ventured that John Galsworthy was the author most likely to be read in 100 years. Why were they so wrong?
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Not notable?!
A Nicholson Baker essay on Wikipedia and its pleasures (and its frustrations), has resurfaced in the latest issue of Lapham’s Quarterly.
Scream for ‘The Scream’
A recent study by the American Psychological Association finds “people are more likely to be moved and intrigued by abstract paintings if they have just experienced a good scare.”
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