This week in book-related infographics, round 2: Lapham’s Quarterly takes a look at the day jobs of famous authors, among them T.S. Eliot, who was responsible for processing reports on German debt, and Charlotte Bronte, who had laundry fees deducted from her pay. Pair with our own Emily St. John Mandel‘s essay on “Working the Double Shift” and “all the strangely varied occupations that a person accumulates when the primary objective is not to establish a career, per se, but just to pay the rent while they’re working on a novel.”
Day Jobs
Appearing Elsewhere
My piece in memory of novelist and rapier-tongued pundit Gore Vidal, who died Tuesday, appears on Prospero, the online arts & culture publication of The Economist.
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Wimmer Discusses Forthcoming Bolaño
Scott Esposito interviews Natasha Wimmer, translator of 2666 and The Savage Detectives. They discuss some forthcoming additions to the ever expanding Bolaño oeuvre (which will be potential additions to a future edition of our Bolaño syllabus.)
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Sentenced to Death
Brace yourself for disgusting, convoluted metaphors and run-on sentences. The winners of the 2012 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel have been announced.