This week in book-related infographics: Waterstones has put together an illustrated formula for the ultimate bestseller, “a thriller tale of crime, bondage and wizardry.”
The Ultimate Bestseller
RIP Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison, outdoorsman and author of Legends of the Fall, has passed away at 78. Harrison was a prolific writer whose lust for life was evident in the scores of essay and poetry collections he published during the course of his career. Our own Bill Morris has some thoughts on why Harrison never managed to garner the audience that a writer of his caliber deserved.
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NYRB in the NYPL
Exciting news — the New York Public Library has acquired the archives of The New York Review of Books. You could also check out Sam Allingham’s piece about his experience working in a library.
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We at The Millions Now Trademark “Zuckerberg”
Sorry, everyone who works in publishing. Looks like it’s time to call it quits. Per Facebook’s new user agreement, the firm asserts trademark on the word “book.”
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“Still full of ideas”
“Although comfortable with solitude, he admits: ‘I couldn’t write all the time. As a writer, you have to come out into the world. I don’t have a Salinger or a Pynchon impulse. There are so many things to do that are interesting.’” Talking with Ian McEwan.
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Much Ado About Burgers
Exhibit A: Joseph R Worthen’s ongoing series investigating the state of “Fast Food Hamburgers in the Southeastern United States.” (Parts Two and Three, too.) Exhibit B: Blake Butler’s nauseating (yet hypnotic) “Review of the New Wendy’s Pretzel Burger.”
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Conquest of Panic
Irving Howe asks how Hemingway commanded the attention of a generation. Howe writes, “His great subject, I think, was panic.” Our own Michael Bourne recently answered this question, recognizing Hemingway as a middlebrow revolutionary.
The Inmates Have Taken Over
“Summer morning is risen / and to even it wends / and still I’m in prison / without any friends.” Start your Monday off right with this piece from The Paris Review on John Clare, Christopher Smart, and the poetry of the asylum. Speaking of the madhouse, here’s a piece on Anne Sexton and her book Transformations.
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Rough Starts
“I struggled, quite a bit, writing this review. Reviewing books, while easy in certain ways — you have certain aspects of form to follow, there are certain features of books that cannot go unremarked: one must write about character, about language, about technique — and really a rather simple process (much simpler, it would seem, than writing books), can also be a pain. Especially, frustratingly enough, when the book is really good.” On Lola Lafon’s We Are the Birds of the Coming Storm.