In lieu of writing a legitimately popular book, or having Barack Obama photographed while being “given” your book, it appears that you can get onto the New York Times bestsellers list for about $200,000.
Gaming the Bestsellers List
The Future of Work
Can Google help translate a novel? Over at Publishers Weekly, Esther Allen explores Google Translates’ linguistic abilities. Also check out this Millions essay about translators at work.
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Cary Fukunaga to Direct WWII Flick
An unpublished novel by ESPN the Magazine editor Paul Kix will be adapted into a movie by True Detective director Cary Fukunaga. The project is known as Noble Assassin, and it will concern a French aristocrat who trains with British Special Operations in hopes of one day returning to his native country to lead the World War II resistance.
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Review of Per Petterson’s “I Curse the River of Time”
Charles McGrath at The New York Times reviews Per Petterson’s new novel I Curse the River of Time: “…at moments when a lot of American prose seems fizzy and over-rich, the sentences in I Curse the River of Time go down like an eye-watering shot of aquavit.”
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Exit, Pursued by a Bear
It turns out even a museum exhibit of Shakespeare’s works can make for a dramatic experience. At The Daily Beast, Helen Anders demonstrates that there’s a little bit for everybody at the “Shakespeare in Print and Performance” exhibition at the University of Texas. We’ve brought you a bit on the Bard before.
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OWS and the Press
How do you spell t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n? Our recent stories about the spreading Occupy Wall Street protests seem to be part of a trend. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that the protests accounted for only 7% of coverage in all news media nationwide in the past week — but that’s a four-fold increase from the week before.
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The Whale Arrives
The work of Elvio Gandolfo, whose novel Cada vez más cerca (“Each Time Closer”) won Argentina’s equivalent of the Pulitzer in 2013, is rarely published in English. So it’s a special treat to find his magical story about a whale falling out of the sky, newly translated for the anthology A Thousand Forests in One Acorn, available free at Ninth Letter.
Sensitive Issues
You may have heard that Jess Row has a new book on shelves. The plot follows a man who undergoes a surgical procedure to change his race. In an interview at Guernica, the author talks to Grace Bello about writing and race, teaching in Hong Kong and what it means to grow up in Baltimore. You could also read the author’s Year in Reading entry.
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Wicked Lovely
Variety reports that Universal Pictures has purchased the film rights to Melissa Marr‘s YA fantasy novel Wicked Lovely. Edward Scissorhands screenwriter Caroline Thompson is to adapt the book about a young girl pursued by the king of the fairies. As far as king-of-the-fairies movies go, I’m more interested in what’s happened to the film adaption of Susanna Clarke‘s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, whose film rights were purchased in 2004.
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PASTOR DRISCOLL! GET OFF THAT HEATHEN NEWSPAPER’S BESTSELLER LIST IMMEDIATELY!
Signed, GOD.
PS I’m using this Shea guy’s email because my own was hacked by the Devil, again.