Recommended reading, perfect for dreary January weekends: David Sedaris writes about “ways to have fun at the beach” for The New Yorker.
January Beaches
iPublish
Is Apple launching a self-publishing platform?
So I’m Reading with an Axe Murderer
Matt Seidel has a helpful guide for book clubs across the country: How To Tell If Someone In Your Book Club Is a Homicidal Maniac. One possible clue? He contributes to the Water for Elephants discussion by “telling anecdotes about torturing animals as a child.”
Young Eliot
There's a new biography of T.S. Eliot out, and this one concentrates on the poet's American childhood and his transition from a youthful Tom to the now-famous T.S. (just in case you needed some context for that new writer's retreat.)
The Millions at the Critical Hit Awards
Hooray! Electric Literature has declared Jesse Jarnow's Millions review of Fear of Music the winner in the category of Best Deconstruction for their occasional Critical Hit Awards.
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“Be realistic! Demand the impossible!”
Want to go to Paris but don't have the money? You can read these books instead. In the Times, a list of new books that bring you to the City of Light.
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Apparently There is a “There” There
Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland that “There’s no ‘there’ there.” If the latest novel by Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue, is any indication, not everyone agrees -- the author set the book in the Oakland of 2004. At The New Yorker's Page-Turner blog, Matt Feeney delves into the book's racial politics.
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Tidy Little Man
To date, Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie, is the only fictional character to get his own obit in the Times. At the LARB, Rumblr editor Molly McArdle looks back on Poirot, the very long-running TV series that ended on November 13th. (h/t The Rumpus)
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