Do you ever find yourself skimming novels looking for exciting words and hyperlinks? You aren’t the only one mixing up the digital and print reading worlds. Neuroscientists believe we are developing new brain circuits for skimming online information that are rewiring how we’ve approached reading for centuries. Pair with: Our essay on how writing is also changing to fit our fragmented attention span.
Short Circuit Reading
The Best Books of the Year (2013)
Amazon released their annual Best Books of the Year: Top 100 in Print list today (as well as a free and helpful Reader’s Guide), and numerous Millions favorites made the cut. Both George Saunders’s Tenth of December and Philipp Meyer’s The Son cracked the top 10. We reviewed both here and here, respectively. Other notable books boasting extensive Millions coverage include Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings (review), George Packer’s The Unwinding (review), Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries (review), Dave Eggers’s The Circle (review), James Salter’s All That Is (review), Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove (interview), Stuart Nadler’s Wise Men (review), Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic (review), and Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary (review). Meanwhile, the top spot belongs to Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch.
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Talking Covers with Jonathen Lethem
Sean Manning (of Talking Covers) hosted a discussion with Jonathan Lethem last week at LA’s Last Bookstore. You can check out video and audio of the event over here, and the post also features an exclusive glimpse at the cover art for Lethem’s forthcoming novel Dissident Gardens. (Bonus: a look at Dissident Gardens in our Great 2013 Book Preview.)
It’s not plagiarism… it’s angloglobalisation?
On the London Review of Books blog, Kaya Genç makes the case that the similarities between the successful Turkish author Elif Şafak's work and Zadie Smith's books is a fact of Turkey's shifting cultural values rather than plagiarism: "Istanbul, the city Shafak returned to after writing her book in London and the setting for many of her earlier novels, resembles London more and more." For a bit of context, here's Lydia Kiesling's rundown of the initial scandal.
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The Hip House Guest
Recommended Reading: Tyler Stoddard Smith's essay on when Allen Ginsberg stayed with his family. "The following night, after Ginsberg’s poetry reading (why would I want to go to that?) a group of students eager for him to impart morsels of omniscience were forced to wait outside my room while we played video games on my Atari 2600—I destroyed Ginsberg at Frogger, but he eviscerated me on Combat."
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Wes Being Wes
From the looks of the promotional poster and the theatrical trailer, Wes Anderson may have “out-Wes Anderson’d” himself with his new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
After years of suspecting this to be true, I realized that I was neglecting my own anecdotal evidence. I’m online as much, if not more, than anyone else I know – tons of skimming, etc. Yet, when I sit down to read a book or article, nope, I’m all focus and probably couldn’t skim even if I tried. I think they’re different skills entirely.
I had trouble reading some of those classics before I spent a lot of time on the internet for my job, but I have no problem switching my brain to print reading at home. The brain is adaptable enough to do both, it just needs practice.