Not sure why Harry Potter shares the fruits of his heroism? Upset that Hermione doesn’t end up with tons of cash? Well, then you should sit down with Ayn Rand’s version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, helpfully published at The Toast by Mallory Ortberg.
The Boy Who Mattered
FSG’s New Online Literary Periodical
FSG just launched their new online literary periodical, Work in Progress. Check out their debut issue, where you’ll find Jeffrey Eugenides chatting about his latest book with Jonathan Galassi, fiction by Lydia Davis, summer book giveaways and photos from the FSG archives. Look for the clip from an FSG letter introducing Susan Sontag’s first book in 1963: “It is difficult, as you know, to create interest in new writers.”
A Film of Common Prayer
Looks like Joan Didion’s 1977 novel A Book of Common Prayer will now be adapted for the screen.
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Faulkner’s Films
Even though William Faulkner once described Hollywood as the “plastic asshole of the world,” he spent two decades writing screenplays there. At Garden & Gun, John Meroney examines Faulkner’s film career, including writing for Howard Hawks and having an affair with his secretary. Pair with: Our essay on Cormac McCarthy’s attempt at screenwriting.
The Tournament of Books is Underway!
Yesterday, Searching for John Hughes author Jason Diamond kicked off this year’s Tournament of Books by judging the “play-in round.” Today, our own Kirstin Butler is deliberating between The Underground Railroad and Black Wave.
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Dispatch from Kolkata
Over at Electric Literature, Megha Majumdar writes about the changing architecture in Kolkata, the quest for authenticity, and nostalgia. Pair with Olena Jennings’s Millions essay on nostalgia for a life never lived.
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Just Give Me a Minute
Is Karl Ove Kanusgaard’s seven-volume, 3,600-page, vaugely-autobiographical epic possible to pitch over the course of an elevator ride? The good people over at n+1 are willing to give it a shot! Have you ever wondered about the view outside of Knausgaard’s window? I bet you have now.
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Amazon responds to Hachette furor
Amazon, whose tense negotiations with Hachette in the past months have led them to slow ship-times for its books, offered last night “to fund 50% of an author pool—to be allocated by Hachette—to mitigate the impact of this dispute on author royalties, if Hachette funds the other 50%.” Of course, Hachette may find calculating and allocating damages awkward so soon after authors flexed their social-media muscle. Sidebar: Amazon claimed “989 of 1000” items sold would be unaffected by this continuing “business interruption,” which might mean a full 1.1 percent of their business comes from just one mid-sized traditional publisher—heartening news from an unlikely source.
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