Implicit in a lot of the discussions about how negative a book reviewer can be is a question of utility: is a book review an act of public service or a work of art in itself? In the Times, James Parker and Anna Holmes debate the purpose of the review. Sample quote: “I’d argue that a majority of the reading public doesn’t necessarily benefit from the sorts of reviews for which artistry is the point.” You could also read our own Matt Seidel’s hypothetical worst review ever.
Civil Servants
Life on Mars
Just another sign of the apocalypse: Sydney, Australia goes red.
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Getting Graphic
Hyperallergic has excerpts from Rokudenashiko’s graphic memoir What Is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and Her Pussy, which Michael Melgaard recently reviewed at The Millions.
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They’re Out There. (Ellos están ahí fuera.)
“Peru’s air force is reopening an office responsible for investigating UFOs due to ‘increased sightings of anomalous aerial phenomena’ in the country’s skies.”
Considering the Bittersweet End of Susan Falls
Summer Book Sale
New York Review Books is having a Summer Sale, featuring heavily discounted works by Mavis Gallant (who we’ve reviewed and whose books appear in several of our articles), Balzac and many others. There’s even a Bird Lovers’ collection, for anyone wanting to read all about falcons and something called a goshawk.
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The Morning News Hosts Klimontovich
The Morning News continues its Reading Roulette series with Nikolai Klimontovich’s “How to Crow Your Head Off,” which “recalls 1957, when another anticipated influx of foreigners into the heart of the Soviet Union prompted ‘municipal cleansing’ measures of the human sort.”
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The Book Depository Map
For book voyeurs, the Book Depository has a live, real-time map of people actually buying books from them across the world. (via Guardian’s Book Blog)
“Time is the substance from which I am made.”
Yesterday was Jorge Luis Borges‘ 112th birthday, and you can celebrate belatedly by reading his Paris Review interview and his treatment in The New York Review of Books.
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