Traveling with Orhan Pamuk

Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!, (who I interviewed last February) is having a very good year. She has a spot on the NYT list of the 10 Best Books of 2011, and last month HBO optioned the novel for what they describe as a “half hour comedy series.”

Millions staff writer Michael Bourne wrote a sobering piece for Canada’s Globe and Mail about the need for stricter gun control in the United States. “I can implore my new neighbours to maintain strict controls on guns,” he writes. “All our children’s lives depend upon it.”

It turns out that Amazon can have fun, too. Their web services agreement contains provisions for the zombie apocalypse. Our own Michael Bourne breaks the news that Amazon has purchased the English language.

“‘Rap is poetry,’ Jay-Z says, ‘and a good MC is a good poet.'” Over at n + 1, a look at the musician’s Decoded and the phenomenon of rappers as writers.