There are plenty of reading apps out there, but a company called Rooster has released another, this one designed to “allow users to consume bite-sized pieces of highly curated fiction” whenever they have a few spare moments. In an interview with BookBusiness, Yael Goldstein Love, the editorial director of the project, described Rooster as aiming “to bring immersive reading, particularly fiction reading, back into busy peoples’ lives.” It’s difficult to know how to feel about this. Of course we think busy people should read good fiction, but is this just a precursor to the inevitable change of literature in the face of growing technology and shortened attention spans?
Reading Rooster
Appearing Elsewhere
Congratulations to Millions contributor Edan Lepucki who received the 2009 James D. Phelan Award for her novel manuscript, Days of Insignificance and Evil. The award is given by the Intersection for the Arts and sponsored by the San Francisco Foundation. She’ll be reading, along with Page McBee and Youmna Chlala, at the Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco on Monday, November 16th at 7:30.
On the Spectrum
What color would The Little Prince be? Before you dismiss this as an inane question, artist Jaz Parkinson created color signatures based on how often books mentioned certain hues. The results look like a better Rothko painting. Pair with: Radiolab’s fascinating podcast on the science of color.
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Stalk Famous New York Readers
Have some fun with this New York specific feature highlighted by Atlas Obscura. The New York Society Library is private member-based library and it has some pretty famous members, going all the way back to Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Due to the library’s excellent record keeping you can trace these famous members reading histories. “In the early 20th century, Library staff switched from big, blank ledger books to index cards for record keeping. Henceforth they archived cards only for “prominent” members, discarding the rest. The gap is major, but the surviving cards offer a lifetime of book recommendations.”
Cheese!
“Should we understand a photographic document as being first and foremost an artifact of memory, a light-written ghost? Or is it more important to stress its status as a material thing created from pigment, silver, emulsion, paper, plastic, glass, silicon sensors, pulses of electricity? Or is the photograph primarily an opportunity to take or make, an arena for a special type of action?” On Polaroids, instantaneous photography, and memory over at The Nation.
‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food’ – Shaw
Lapham’s Quarterly has released their Summer 2011 issue. Its topic? Food. They’ve even compiled the issue’s entire bibliography in case you’re interested.
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