This week in book-related internet graphics: Penguin has created an interactive map of literary genres, complete with some very creatively shaped “countries”. As Electric Literature points out, “the fact that the map is aimed at current self-publishing authors explains why YA is it’s own continent while genres like Gothic fiction don’t exist.”
Genre: A Map
“Inspiration and Obsession”
Recommended reading: Joyce Carol Oates writes about “Inspiration and Obsession in Life and Literature” for the New York Review of Books.
Writerly Relations
In an interview with Big Think back in 2008, David Remnick said of Philip Roth that the writer “would have been my father had Philip Roth not been a literary intellectual but rather an orthodontist in North Jersey.” At The New Yorker’s website, Remnick eulogizes Roth’s work upon his retirement. (Keith Meatto did the same thing for us.)
Beastie Boys Books and Beastie Boys Parks
Michael Diamond (aka Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) have signed on to write a Beastie Boys memoir for Spiegel & Grau. The book is scheduled to publish in 2015. However if you need your Beastie fix now, you can head on over to Brooklyn’s Palmetto Playground tomorrow for its renaming ceremony. Its new name? Why, Adam Yauch (MCA) Park, of course.
Magical Atmospheres
At The Rumpus, Sean Carman interviews Year in Reading alum Laura van den Berg, whose new novel, The Isle of Youth, came out last week. (ICYMI, Nathan Huffstutter reviewed The Isle of Youth for The Millions).
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The End of Marcus Books
The novel might not be dead, but some independent bookstores are struggling to stay alive. Last week, we reported that America’s oldest LGBT bookstore, Giovanni’s Room, is closing soon. Now, America’s oldest black bookstore, Marcus Books, has received an eviction notice. The 54-year-old bookstore is a mainstay of San Francisco’s African American Fillmore District but hasn’t been able to pay its rent for a while.
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The Toast & The Butter
The Toast announced their first vertical this week, and even better than its name (The Butter, of course) is its editor – Roxane Gay, darling of the literary internet and author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State. In answer to the question “What will this particular vertical be like?” Toast editor Mallory Ortberg said “WHATEVER ROXANE WANTS IT TO BE,” so we have a lot to look forward to. Pair with The Millions’s review of An Untamed State and Gay’s 2013 “A Year in Reading.”
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