Over at Electric Literature, Tara Isabella Burton likens the experience of reading her ex’s favorite book – in this case Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity – to “rifling through someone’s letters after a death.”
“To do so, I felt, would be too dangerous”
Is there anything Teju Cole can’t do?
Teju Cole, author of Open City (which John Knight reviewed for us), is quite the photographer. You can get a glimpse of his Flickr stream over here.
Appearing Elsewhere: The Pale King and the DFW Legacy
You can read my take on The Pale King – and what it says about Wallace’s legacy – at New York Magazine.
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(Not So) Great Expectations
According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, Americans are reading fewer books than they were back in 2014. A whopping twenty-eight percent of those surveyed reported not having finished even a single book in the past year, though the average number of books read per person last year remained at fourteen. For a little more in moderation lit, here’s an essay from The Millions on reading fewer books.
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5-Star Pepper Spray
“Accept no substitutes when casually repressing students” “Perfect for Starting Your Own Little Police State!” and other 5-star reviews of pepper spray on Amazon.
Such a Disappointment
Among the better tidbits from Gary Shteyngart’s diary of his book tour for Little Failure is the fact that he’s apparently had fellow Russian immigrants ask him to sign books for “a failed paralegal” and “a worse failure than even you.” If, after reading that, you’d like another dose of Shteyngart, you could do worse than his Year in Reading entry.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Rash, Evenson, Sontag, Wallace
New this week are Ron Rash’s The Cove, Brian Evenson’s Immobility, and Volume Two of Susan Sontag’s Journals (all books highlighted in our January preview). Out in paperback this week is David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, from which we recently ran a previously unpublished excerpt.
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The Numbers
Some will find Publishers Weekly’s list of top selling books in 2009 endlessly fascinating. The name I was most surprised to see on the list? R. Crumb, whose The Book of Genesis Illustrated apparently sold 119,914 copies last year. (via)
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