It’s a common saying among actors that the script does most of the work. Which raises an interesting question: is it possible for a great writer to make art out of a bad story? At The Kenyon Review’s blog, Amit Majmudar says it is, using Shakespeare as proof. Related: five experts on the Bard’s greatest plays.
The Contrived
Straightening Up the Files
“Mom would meet up with us in the museum, take us to study Impressionist or Modern art. It always made me want to puke, but we did it every weekend for over a year.” Smithsonian Magazine has a lovely piece about the story behind the children's classic From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, including lots of anecdotes from author E.L. Konigsburg's kids.
●
●
Why Reread?
Nabokov once claimed "there is no reading, only rereading." In an essay for the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks pursues the "key to rereading," taking The Waste Land and Mrs. Dalloway as his test cases.
●
●
Book Signings in the Digital Age
The New York Times looks at new technological efforts to make book signings work in the age of the ebook. One idea is an e-reader add-on that lets the reader snap a photo with the author, which the author can then sign with a "digital stylus." The photo is meant to make its way to Twitter and Facebook, of course. "Bragging potential? Endless," says the Times. Authors: get ready to say "cheese"?
●
●
Presidential Fan Mail
Jacket Copy gets some presidential fan mail. Plus, find out what said president has been reading lately.
●
●
The Thoreau Diet
"Thoreau did kill, cook and eat a woodchuck that was eating his beans. But he decided that was a lousy way to treat a woodchuck and he never did it again." In celebration of his bicentennial, NPR sets straight five myths about Henry David Thoreau's diet, including the pernicious canard that he stole pies from neighbor's windowsills. See also "My Summer with Henry," on reading Thoreau's Cape Cod on Cape Cod.
●
●
Hiddleston’s High Rise
●
●