Recommended reading: Sara Paretsky writes for The Independent on George Eliot‘s The Mill on the Floss and the sibling bond so seldom portrayed in English fiction.
George Eliot & Siblings
The Many Shades of Plagiarism
In the beginning was the word, and the word was plagiarized, and this regular old plagiarism was bad. But then Jonah Lehrer taught us about self-plagiarism, and that was bad, too, but somehow less so. And now Jane Goodall is teaching us about Wikipedia plagiarism, which seems bad as well, and you know what? It’s hard to grade these things anymore. What’s next? David Bowie cribbing lines from T.S. Eliot?
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Culture Shock
“When it comes to living in a democracy, Nato Thompson argues, nothing affects us more directly and more powerfully than culture. Culture suffuses the world we live in, from TV to music to advertising to sports. And all these things, Thompson writes in his new book, Culture as Weapon, ‘influence our emotions, our actions, and our very understanding of ourselves as citizens.'”
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Lament In The Night Excerpt
Recommended Reading: An excerpt from Japanese author Shoson Nagahara’s Lament in the Night, courtesy of AAWW.
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The Ideal Essay
“An ideal essay is hard to define, but easy to point to. An ideal essay mines the “I” in efforts of high exposition. It is driven by a need to testify or witness, and demands the same of its reader. It is a glimpse of something uncomfortably recognizable, a requiem for the quotidian, a look over the newly-gilded edge.” Samantha Tucker Iacovetto writes about “Defining the Ideal Essay” for Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog
Books on the Radio
In case you missed it the first time, Tulsa’s KWGS the week re-aired an interview with my co-editor Jeff Martin on our book that came out earlier this year, The Late American Novel.
Jason Epstein on Charlie Rose
Jason Epstein, editor of literary and culinary greats (Norman Mailer, Alice Waters), co-founder of the NYRB, and life-long food lover talks with Charlie Rose about his latest book, Eating: A Memoir, and the past and future of book publishing.