Fancy yourself a trivia buff? This quiz might be your undoing. In The Guardian, you can test your knowledge of prominent bands in fiction, from real-life bands that reference books to bands in famous novels.
Rock On
New Romance
Recommended Reading: A new story by Yuri Herrera for Granta Magazine, featuring "the prayer of the overheated-horndog": "Oh please, oh please, oh please / May he, the drunken me / May he, the dumbfuck me / May he, the me who never ever ever knows where shit is / May / he have saved one / Just one /
Lubricated or corrugated / Colored or flavored / Magnum or tight-fit / Oh please / Holy Saint of horndogs / Grant me just one condom."
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“He was a sassy youngster”
“He was a sassy youngster...[A]s to burning the epistle up or not—it never occurred to me to do anything at all: what the hell did I care whether he was pertinent or impertinent? he was fresh, breezy, Irish: that was the price paid for admission—and enough: he was welcome!” Turns out Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker were pen pals.
From Augere to Author
"I've always loved that 'author' derives from the Latin augere, to increase." At The Guardian, Eleanor Catton discusses her inspiration for The Luminaries, which involved two years of research. Here's our review of the finished product.
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Unpredictable Lit
“These people may not take you seriously. And your boss might not either. Or your dentist or your best friend from middle school. But you who does take you seriously? Dictators. Dictators take you very seriously. Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and Augusto Pinochet, all rounded up writers and artists in short order. They could not afford to have the unpredictability of literature at large while they were trying to create a totalitarian state.” Wendy Willis on subversion through writing for The Rumpus.
You Faking Fakers
This quick-and-dirty Times article about a crackdown on fake reviews includes one of the best sentences to appear in the Gray Lady of late: “Faking reviews often begins with faked reviews of the company faking the reviews.”
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The 69 Rules of Punctuation
Infographic of the Week: Electric Lit presents the 69 Rules of Punctuation in one color-coded, aesthetically-pleasing chart.
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