“Shouldn’t we all feel a little embarrassed about the fuss we made over 50 Shades of Grey?” Jessa Crispin writes for the Los Angeles Review of Books about E.L. James’ trilogy and some of the longer responses, including Hard-Core Romance, which we briefly covered a few months ago.
Fifty Shades of Regret
Very Short Film Contest
UK students have until December 31, 2012 to record a 60-second Very Short Film on any topic of their choosing so long as it can “fire up an audience’s curiosity.” The winner will earn £9,000 (~$14,465.70) for their education, and top submissions will be featured on the Guardian website.
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The Rise of the Insta-Poet
How do I love thee? Let me turn the contrast down and put a Valencia filter on it. Instagram poets like Lang Leav and Tyler Knott Gregson may be the future of poetry–but is their work deserving of their massive followings?
Our Massive, Shared, Ubiquitous Digital Brain
Michael Seidlinger writes on how consciousness occurs online. As he puts it, “We have all become Sisyphus, pushing our rocks up a hill littered with hyperlinks and tweets, perpetually, futilely, refreshing the page of existence.” Pair with this Millions piece on the best of literary Twitter.
The Novel’s Topography
For at Blunderbuss Magazine, What Belongs to You author Garth Greenwell goes through his old notebooks and describes his creative process. Also check out Jameson Fitzpatrick’s review of the novel.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Marías; Nao; Lawson; Murray; Luce; Hoffman; Ashbery
Out this week: Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías; Fish in Exile by Vi Khi Nao; Virgin and Other Stories by April Ayers Lawson; Valiant Gentleman by Sabina Murray; Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce; Faithful by Alice Hoffman; and Commotion of the Birds by John Ashbery. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.
Russian Slapstick
“Russian humor is to ordinary humor what backwoods fundamentalist poisonous snake handling is to a petting zoo. Russian humor is slapstick, only you actually die.” Ian Frazier writes about the strange humor of Daniil Kharms for the New York Review of Books.
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Eat Your Heart Out, James Patterson
Meet Philip M. Parker, a marketing professor at INSEAD Business School and the man whose name graces the covers of over 100,000 books. Is he the most prolific author of the modern age? Well, kind of. Thanks to “a computer system that can write books about specific subjects in about 20 minutes,” Parker and his company have combined to create over 800,000 titles currently listed on Amazon – including such works as The Official Patient’s Sourcebook on Spinal Stenosis and Webster’s Icelandic – English Thesaurus Dictionary.
Ask a Grown Woman
High school girls “Ask a Grown Woman” what it’s like to date someone of the same gender. The answer is surprisingly honest.