Recommended reading: Peter Hessler writes about spending a week on tour with his Chinese censor.
A Censor’s Tour
Another David Foster Wallace Book Out Soon
Yesterday we noted that The Pale King is now available for pre-order. It turns out another new David Foster Wallace book will be out before the long-awaited final novel hits shelves. In December, Columbia University Press will put out Wallace’s undergrad thesis Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will. From the publisher description: “Long before he probed the workings of time, human choice, and human frailty in Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace wrote a brilliant philosophical critique of Richard Taylor’s argument for fatalism. In 1962, Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that humans have no control over the future. Not only did Wallace take issue with Taylor’s method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but he also called out a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor’s argument.”
A Detective Meets His End
Things you can learn from this interview with Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell: there is a genre called “Scandi-noir;” the time Mankell spent as a sailor acted as “a sort of university;” and the fact that Mankell has been married four times proves that he is an optimist.
Bookish Man Bat Signal
Bookish men of New York. Are you listening? Good. On February 13th, Housing Works is hosting a “Literary Speed Dating” event… except they currently have a slight problem. There are literally too many women signed up for the event. If this isn’t enticing enough for you to buy a ticket immediately, perhaps a $4 discount will be. Simply enter the event code “TOLSTOY” when you buy online – or visit this link directly. Now, hurry. Think of which book you’ll bring with you. You know, the one you’re “just kinda, like, reading for fun at the moment.”
Curiosities: Smoldering Eyebrows
E-book pricing wars continue. Sony tries to hit the Kindle where it hurts by offering cheaper e-books. Meanwhile, $0 is becoming an important price point at the Kindle store.Sam Anderson hates Thomas Pynchon.An indie bookstore fan uses our bookstore tour as a jumping-off point for a literary day in Manhattan. You can too.