Last week, I pointed readers to an article about Michael Faber’s latest book and his decision to quit writing fiction. Now, in the Times Book Review, Marcel Theroux sizes up the novel, writing that “the reader is drawn through the book effortlessly, by the combination of incidental strangeness and the suspenseful handling of plot.”
Strange and New
Why’d They Burn the Archives?
Did mysterious bureaucrats authorize the destruction of historical documents in North Carolina in order to cover up “a paper trail associated with one or more now-prominent, politically connected NC families that found its wealth and success through theft, intimidation, and outrageous corruption?” That’s Constance Hall Jones’s suspicion. Bonus: Part two, which includes a timeline. (h/t Lydia Kiesling)
The Ethics of Illegal Downloads
None other than Randy Cohen, "The Ethicist" of the New York Times, has decided that illegally downloading an e-book version of a book for which you've already paid full price in hardcover is "not unethical... subsequent downloading is akin to buying a CD, then copying it to your iPod." He adds, "Sadly, the anachronistic conventions of bookselling and copyright law lag the technology."
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Amor Amphibii
We submit that beginning a love story with the lede “I never intended to get a tortoise” pretty much guarantees that the reader will read to the end. In Sunday's New York Times Style section, Caroline Leavitt puts our theory to the test. (If you like her essay, you might want to pre-order her new novel.)
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Who Wrote What?
Do you want to work at The Strand in New York City? Think you have what it takes? Take this famous quiz and match each work with its author to see if you have the literary chops to pick up a paycheck from one of the United States's most beloved bookstores.
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Literary Fanfiction?
Here’s an essay you don’t see every day–a fairly passionate defense of the literary merit of “fanfiction.” For a closer look at how fanfiction will go on to be taught in classrooms, here’s Millions staff writer Elizabeth Minkel with more.
“This big, tangled thing”
Recommended Reading: “Another Tuesday” by Tanya Knox.
A Foreign Body within Oneself
Over at the Masters Review, Marjorie Sandor writes about the uncanny in literature and film, the origins of the word, and psychology. “Uncanny. Look it up in a standard collegiate dictionary, and you’ll get a brief, unhelpful definition. Seemingly supernatural. Mysterious. [orig. Sc & N. Engl.]. But the slippage has already begun. Seemingly.”
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