This January, Penguin Random House, Goodreads, Mashable and the National Book Foundation are sponsoring National Readathon Day, a holiday which encourages Americans to join together for a marathon reading session. If you’d like to take part, you can start a fundraiser to help support reading education, or else enlist your friends and family to read with you on January 24th from noon to 4 p.m.
Longreads
Not a Good Influence
Why should a college student major in English? It’s a question with hundreds of answers, but one of the most common is that reading, more so than other activities, makes you a better person. It sharpens your mind and hones your sense of morality. But what if this comforting idea — as close as you can get to a conviction held by all writers — has little to no basis in reality?
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Infinite Boston
Earlier this month William Beutler, a D.C. based writer, started a blog about the landmarks in Boston that inspired the landscape of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Beutler does a great job chronicling the real-life history of different buildings and explaining how DFW altered them to fit into his novel.
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Cooking with 2 Chainz
“Put on your Versace apron,” and “if wearing a four-finger ring, carefully place it on a side table before starting to cook.” It’s time to explore the 28-page “cookbook” included in 2 Chainz’s latest album, B.O.A.T.S. 2 #Metime.
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Dmitry Samarov on Writers No One Reads
Hack author Dmitry Samarov is this week’s guest blogger at Writers No One Reads (which we’ve mentioned before). In his first post, Samarov takes a look at the work of Willard Motley, who grew up in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood in the early 1900s, and is most well-known for his 1947 bestseller, Knock On Any Door.
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“The Lennon Letters” Due Out October 2012
Yoko Ono has permitted the publication of a book of John Lennon’s personal letters “to his friends, family, strangers, newspapers, organizations, lawyers and the laundry.” The Lennon Letters is due out October 2012, and will be edited by Hunter Davies, author of the authorized biography The Beatles.
Tuesday New Release Day
Even though the new Franzen doesn’t drop for another week, for many readers, today is the biggest book release day of the summer thanks to the publication of Mockingjay, the third installment of Suzanne Collins’ blockbuster Hunger Games trilogy. For those less inclined toward young adult fare, Kevin Guilfoile’s new novel The Thousand is now out, as is The Cross of Redemption, the “uncollected writings” of James Baldwin.
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Fitzgerald’s Football
“F. Scott Fitzgerald is known as one of America’s greatest authors, but was he also responsible for one of football’s most important strategic advances? Maybe. Possibly. Probably not.” Kevin Draper writes about Fitzgerald’s love and possible genius for the game.
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