From Flavorwire, a look at fascinating literary rumors, from Mark Twain‘s premature death to Stephen King‘s supposed blindness.
The Literary Rumor Mill
Lonely Subjects
Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life, explores the intersection between photography and loneliness. Pair with Angela Qian’s review of Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City.
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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.”
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New Dr. Seuss Book to Be Published in July
Random House announced today that a never-before-published Dr. Seuss book titled What Pet Should I Get? will appear on bookshelves this July. The book, a spinoff of Seuss’s One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, centers on two young children attempting to choose a pet. Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, discovered the manuscript in 2013.
“I don’t remember any of these pages.”
“Audiobooks Read By You: Just like reading a book without actually reading a book, by reading a book and recording it in a studio.”
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A Short History of the Executioner
In her short history of executioners, Stassa Edwards notes that the decision to replace “the traditional punishment” of drowning people “in a sack in a local river” was actually quite pragmatic: it was “more economical” to go with a simple beheading.
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