History of the Cube Farm

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.”

VIDA, an organization that promotes gender parity in the literary arts, has tallied up the 2011 bylines and book reviews from some of the bigger magazines . Granta was the only publication to achieve parity, but they did have an issue devoted entirely to feminism, so that may be skewing the numbers.  The Atlantic, The London Review of Books, and Harper’s are not making the cut. While institutionalized  misogyny in any profession presents a problem, gender quotas are probably not the answer.

Even though the new Franzen doesn’t drop for another week, for many readers, today is the biggest book release day of the summer thanks to the publication of Mockingjay, the third installment of Suzanne Collins’ blockbuster Hunger Games trilogy. For those less inclined toward young adult fare, Kevin Guilfoile’s new novel The Thousand is now out, as is The Cross of Redemption, the “uncollected writings” of James Baldwin.

The lineup for the 2013 PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature has been announced. The festival will commence on April 29th with a reading “about the notion of bravery” from three writers – including Millions contributor A. Igoni Barrett.