This week in book-related infographics: a chart of just how long it takes kids to finish popular books. Where the Wild Things Are? 4 minutes. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? 24 hours.
How Long?
Debt and David Graeber
Anthropologist and Melville House author David Graeber‘s Debt: The First 5,000 Years should be required reading for anyone hoping to understand economic trends. The author’s book is so great and topical that it’s earned a profile in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Self Publishing Textbooks
A Minnesota high school is saving money on textbooks… by writing its own.
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Haruki Murakami: Master of Blandness
Over at Threepenny Review, Jess Row expounds on “blandness” in the work of Haruki Murakami, and particularly in his 2.8 lb. tome 1Q84—a book tabbed by Charles Baxter in last year’s Year in Reading as the best he’d read all year. Row contemplates the way Murakami’s characters and sentences “almost never lose this placid, observant neutrality,” or “continuous monotone.”
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Mark Twain’s Autobiography
Mark Twain left instructions not to publish his autobiography until 100 years after his death, which is now. Volume I will hit shelves in November.
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Roald Dahl’s Salty Advice
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Broadcasting the Atocha Station
An A+ radio interview with Leaving the Atocha Station author Ben Lerner, you say? Why, yes, I think that’s right up my alley.
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