A waxwork being billed as “the most accurate likeness of author Jane Austen” ever created has been unveiled at her museum in Bath, England.
She was the shadow of the waxwork lain
A Novel of Imposture
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Rikki Ducornet about her new novel, Brightfellow. Also check out this Millions review of the book.
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What Should Be ‘Forbid’
“On closer inspection, however, the book comes off as something more complicated than a flowering of one eccentric and filthy man’s erotic imagination. Its elaborate descriptions of pleasure given and taken start to seem like scrims for a moral argument about what sorts of sexual behaviors should be ‘forbid’ and which should be encouraged—an argument refined in prison by an author deeply occupied with thoughts of punishment, dissipation, and sin.” On John Cleland’s (very erotic) novel Fanny Hill and the importance of its having been written in prison.
The New World hits virtual shelves
Chris Adrian’s The New World, a digital-platform book we wrote about before, is now on shelves. I mean that idiomatically and not literally — as none of the editions favored by The Atavist’s young publishing arm for this lyrical love story of life after death (interactive ebook app, text-only Kindle/iBook/Google) involve paper.
150 Essential Science & Tech Reads
The team running The Electric Typewriter’s Tumblr have assembled a list of “150 Essential Science & Tech Reads.” Got any suggestions for what they might’ve missed? Add them in the comments.
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Evelyn Waugh’s Brother Invented the Cocktail Party
“Unable to replicate the success of his first novel [The Loom of Youth],” writes Philip Quarles, “[Alec Waugh] did create a lasting impact by being credited with inventing the cocktail party when he shocked guests by serving, instead of afternoon tea, rum swizzles.”
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What do Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, and Abu Ghraib have in common?
Picador’s digital marketing team put together a playful web series for Wayne Koestenbaum‘s Humiliation. John Waters has called the book “the funniest, smartest, most heartbreaking yet powerful book I’ve read in a long time.”
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