David J. Peterson is the man responsible for creating the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the television adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Peterson, who took Martin’s 55 Dothraki names and created a 4,000 word vocabulary, is interviewed over at Flavorwire. If the Dothraki don’t have a word for it, the Germans probably do. Here’s an essay from The Millions on just that.
Community of Conlangers
The Atheist Had It Coming
Has something dreadful happened at the bus stop? Are you running late for the revival? These are a few of the many ways to tell whether or not you're actually living inside of a short story by Flannery O'Connor.
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Fame and Adoration
No less a duo than George R.R. Martin and John Hodgman think their fans are wonderful “ninety percent of the time.” As if to bolster their case, the Tin House blog asked T.C. Boyle and company to recount their best experiences as fans.
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The End of a Myth
When Hanna Rosin published The End of Men this year, the book stirred up a lot of controversy (and a number of parodies, to boot). Now Stephanie Coontz, a historian, takes issue with Rosin’s premise -- the “myth of male decline” -- in the pages of The New York Times Book Review.
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The Cultural Logic of Margaret Atwood
Fredric Jameson reviews Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood for the London Review of Books.
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Andrei Tarkovsky’s Papers Return to Russia
Following last week’s Sotheby’s auction, the archives of Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky will soon be headed back to Russia. The collection amounts to “several thousand working manuscripts, personal photographs, recordings and private documents” and it sold for a whopping £1.5 million.
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