Judy Blume answered questions about life, writing, and her new book, In the Unlikely Event, on Alfred A. Knopf’s Tumblr on Wednesday. In case you haven’t checked it out, The Millions has a Tumblr, too.
Judy Blume on Tumblr
Covering Lolita
Disappointed by how few of the dozens of official book cover designs of Nabokov's Lolita "correspond thematically to the novel," blog Venus febriculosa is holding a book cover design contest (pdf) to create a new cover for Lolita and is awarding a $350 prize. (Thx, John)
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Calling All Grammar Nazis
To quote Raymond Chandler: "When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split." Or, dispelling grammar myths, like not ending sentences with prepositions.
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Hemingway Hijinks
Just in case you didn't know, Mallory Ortberg gives you ways to tell if you're in a Hemingway novel at The Toast. "Everyone you know respects you. This disgusts you."
iMortality
What would happen if you had a clock to countdown the exact number of days until you died? Our own Mark O'Connell discovers the paranoia of having the Days of Life app measure his mortality at The New Yorker. "Days of Life functions like a reductio ad absurdum of the logic of personal productivity. The pie chart becomes a special way of being afraid: an image of the self as a micro-economy of numbered days." For a more uplifting version of O'Connell, check out his 2013 Year in Reading post.
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Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law
The newest issue of Granta features some seriously captivating work, like this poem by Juliana Spahr and this story by Lorna Gibb, among many others. This “Possession” issue pairs well with an essay by our own Lydia Kiesling on possessing one’s own words and the narrative potential of leaked emails.
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