“The most interesting writers we know, all asking and answering the same question: why can’t we stop watching cat videos?” Coffee House Press one-ups all boring Kickstarter campaigns with Catstarter, a campaign to fund a book on cat videos and “how we decide what is good or bad art, or art at all.”
Catstarter
“Was it a vision, or a waking dream?”
Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch performed a haunting interpretation of “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats, and the actor has also recently signed on to play Hamlet on the London stage in autumn 2014. This raises the question: is Cumberbatch the British James Franco?
SF’s Thriving Libraries
Book lovers say it’s nothing to keep quiet about: San Francisco’s libraries are thriving.
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Remembering Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa, literary translator and professor at Queens College, died this past week. Rabassa helped introduce Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch, among others, to English-language readers. He was 94 years old.
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Between the Pages, Between the Sheets
Attention promiscuous literary types, the September issue of Bookslut is now online.
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Kindle Library Lending
Yesterday, Amazon announced “Kindle Library Lending,” a new feature coming later this year that will allow users to go to their local libraries and “check out” books to their Kindle. The eBooks can be kept for about the same amount of time as a normal library book. The users can take notes in the margin, which, if they decide to buy the book or check it out again, will still be there. Technology!
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“you have not thought thru clearly”
Recommended Reading (Inauguration Day edition): “Haecceity” by Joshua Clover.
Paper Trail
Edinburgh’s latest whodunnit wasn’t written by Ian Rankin. The Scottish capital’s mysterious book sculptor has struck again. Last summer, she started anonymously leaving paper sculptures at literary locations around the city to promote free access to libraries, museums, and galleries. The latest artwork arrived at the Edinburgh Unesco City of Literature Trust and includes paper feather wings, a safety helmet, and goggles “to provide some protection throughout journey.”
Goodbye, Byes
Recommended Reading: Jason Arthur’s farewell to goodbye-to-New-York essays.
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