Recommended Viewing: What actually happens when a book gets translated? Publishing Trendsetter has an infographic of a translated book’s life cycle complete with interviews with a foreign rights agent and a translator.
The Translation Life Cycle
The Tortoise and the Tae-Bo Routine
“As they were actual animals, rather than anthropomorphized personality traits intended to teach moral lessons, the Dog’s words were just a bunch of barking. The Goat bolted across the road, ending up on the ridge behind the Baker place. The Goat’s owner then called Animal Control, even though the Dog’s owner knew about the pot plants in the former’s greenhouse, which he had always been cool about, though that may change real soon.” Aesop’s lesser fables.
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A Shortlister in Our Midst
Big congratulations to Millions staffer Emily St. John Mandel, whose novel The Singer’s Gun was shortlisted for the Indie Booksellers Choice Award!
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No Shyster, He
Thanks to the efforts of Gerald Leonard Cohen, the world now knows where the word “jazz” came from, why certain types of sausages came to be called “hot dogs” and how New York got the nickname “The Big Apple.”
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First Draft of Infinite Jest
“Behind every great work, there is an ink-stained piece of notebook paper.” Here is the first page of a handwritten draft of Infinite Jest.
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Smuggling Ulysses
Ulysses: The one book that publishers (and Joyce himself) desperately wanted to be confiscated – all in an effort to confront censorship, of course. Mental Floss has the full story.
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Dispatches from the RNC in Tampa
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