“Books: As with food and clothing, they’re a commodity that elicits status anxiety for many people, particularly the insecure. And wherever there is status anxiety, there are potential minefields. We need to tread with the lightness of meringue.” Henry Alford explains the etiquette of books for The New York Times.
The Etiquette of Books
Anything for Money
On Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading Tumblr, check out National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender’s short story “Anything for Money.”
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The Unwritten Novel
Recently, we featured five writers’ reminisces about the novels they ultimately shelved. Here a sixth, Elmo Keep, explains what led her to throw away her first novel, quite outside considerations of craft:”I could not resolve the conflict of a story that was not mine.”
New Stoppard on the Way
A new Tom Stoppard play entitled “The Hard Problem” will open next January at the UK’s Dorfman Theatre. The production will be Stoppard’s first new play since “Rock N’ Roll” in 2006.
The Most Evil Children
From the Telegraph, and only four months early for Halloween, comes a list of the most evil children in literature, from Graham Green‘s Pinkie Brown to John Steinbeck‘s Cathy Ames.
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George and Robin
Our own Elizabeth Minkel has been posting sights and quotations from a recent George R. R. Martin and Robin Hobb event in London. You can check out her coverage over on Tumblr.
The Dark Side of Google
In the near future, Google may use your surrounding sights and sounds to help advertisers target you. Over at Gizmodo, Mat Honan eloquently argues against just this type of thing, and states that “the case against Google is for the first time starting to outweigh the case for it.”