“Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.” Alexandra Alter interviews Salman Rushdie about his brand-new novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights.
Sacred Literature
People of the Opposite Sex, Am I Right?
The Atlantic has launched a new section -- The Sexes -- that deals with issues of gender.
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Edgar Allen Poe’s House on The Wire
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Books and Bankruptcy
McSweeney's has a personal account of the end of an antiquarian book business. This is a bummer (the bankruptcy, not the writing of Bill Cotter, a very pleasant man to whom I once tried to sell a book). (Via).
Songs of Experience
More on Maurice Sendak's last book, My Brother's Book, and the influence of William Blake.
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Horrifying Mothers of the Year
You wouldn't think Grendel's mother would win any awards for being a great mom, but Oyster is giving accolades to literature's most horrifying mothers in honor of the holiday. The list also includes Madame Bovary's Emma Bovary as the most selfish mother and Pride and Prejudice's Mrs. Bennet as most nettlesome mother.
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Ye Olde Best Books
Of course this is always an ongoing discussion about which books will endure, and which books are the best. Such talk is fueled by annual “Best Of” lists. But what did that conversation sound like… in 1898?
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Are Book Blurbs Helpful or Harmful?
Man Booker judge Colin Thubron expressed frustration with gushing book blurbs, which he says "almost blackmail" readers: “you’re either intellectually or morally incompetent if you don’t love this book or you’ve failed if you haven’t understood it.” Our own Bill Morris tackled the age old question—”To Blurb or not Blurb”—a few years ago.
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