Stay up until 4am reading that new release? Dread your early alarm after a night spent with a book? Maybe you’re just on Flaubert‘s schedule. Or, if you find it easy to fall asleep before midnight and enjoy early mornings, perhaps you’re running on Victor Hugo time. New York Magazine has compiled an infographic of the sleeping habits of geniuses, and the good news is that no matter when you fall asleep and wake up, someone brilliant has more or less kept your same schedule. So take heart, late-night readers and early risers. We’re all in good company.
Sleeping Like a Genius
Victoria Chang on the Humor and Oddity in Obituaries
Victoria Chang discusses the art of the obituary poem, as seen in her newest collection, Obit, a memorial to the dead and a reflection on grief.
●
●
●
At Thep Moob Men’s Prison
Recommended Reading: an excerpt from Wells Tower’s short story, “The Dance Contest” which is fully available in the latest issue of McSweeney’s.
●
●
Duke University Press Goes Digital
Even though HathiTrust is currently being sued by The Authors Guild and a few others, it’s recently partnered with Google and Duke University Press to digitize “a trove of older titles.”
An Opportunity to Recant
Every book reviewer has probably, at one point or another, savaged a book a bit too savagely. But if given the opportunity, would you recant? Would you admit that you’d overstepped? Would you feel good about doing so? At an event last month, Snowball’s Chance author John Reed hosted an event at which NBCC critics did exactly that.
●
●
“Fresh” Perspective
“Just because I’m a woman, don’t assume that I automatically empathize with a brooding 20-something Elizabeth-Bennett-type protagonist. (Trust me, I don’t.) This doesn’t mean I can’t design … a biography on Susan Sontag—or, for that matter, a spy novel, a political satire, or a memoir about a Japanese game show host set in outer space. I can do all of these things. Because it’s my job to design book covers.” Over at The Literary Hub, a cover designer wonders why she’s always offered a particular type of book.
●
●