What was the very first ebook? It’s hard to say with any degree of precision, but a pretty good candidate is Peter James’s Host, which was copied and stored on a floppy disk back in 1993. At The Guardian, a look back at the early life of the format. You could also read David Rothman’s tribute to the ebook pioneer Michael Hart. (h/t The Paris Review)
EPUB 1.0
When Life Gives You Rob Ford, What More Do You Require?
PSA: Little Brother is releasing a special issue entitled Everything Is Fine. The kicker? The issue is dedicated to fiction about embattled Toronto mayor Rob Ford. (P.S. If you aren’t familiar with LB, it’s the magazine run by Millions Tumblr-er emeritus Emily M. Keeler.)
●
●
Reichenbach Pilgrimage
"I am lately returned from a pilgrimage, bearing bloodied knees and a holy relic; my destination was a place of love and sacrifice that’s lived long in my heart. No Lourdes for me, though: I went to the Reichenbach Falls." Sarah Perry makes a pilgrimage to the death place of Sherlock Holmes and writes about it for the Guardian.
●
●
One More New Release
Just in time for Mother's Day: whiz-kid chef (and friend of The Millions) Barton Seaver has just published his first book, For Cod and Country: Simple, Delicious, Sustainable Cooking. Bon appetit, Mom!
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Bezmozgis, Dyer, Professor X, Pletzinger, Still
New this week is David Bezmozgis's The Free World, the new Geoff Dyer collection of criticism Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (reviewed here today), "Professor X's" higher ed expose In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, Funeral for a Dog, a German novel in translation by young author Thomas Pletzinger, which John Wray has blurbed as "ballsy," and Chinaberry, a posthumously published novel by the Appalachian author James Still.
●
●
Rock the Vote
Well, that's one way to get the youth involved in politics. According to this piece over at The Daily Beast, "Before Tinder, before shopping malls, drive-ins, or speak-easies, young people searched for a place to meet and flirt. In 19th century America, wild political rallies offered the perfect opportunity."
L’Chaim
You may have heard that X-Files star David Duchovny published a novel last week. The
book, which developed out of an idea Duchovny had in college, centers on a teenage cow named Elsie who befriends a Yiddish-speaking pig. At Salon, Anna Silman interviews the actor/author, who talks about his book's allegorical nature and his rumored beef with Vancouver.
●
●
Insult to Insult
“Who was Bret Easton Ellis describing when he tweeted: 'The best example of a contemporary male writer lusting for a kind of awful greatness that he simply wasn't able to achieve'?” The Guardian has a delicious quiz of literary putdowns. And speaking of fighting, let's talk about books about violence.
●
●