We’ve covered The New York Times Bookends column before. This week, Benjamin Moser and Year in Reading alumna Rivka Galchen discuss unforgivable sins in literature.
Unforgivable Sins
Patron-Driven Acquisition
Librarians might frown on P.D.A. in the library, that is, Public Displays of Affection by canoodling college couples. But another kind of P.D.A. might bring a different, more welcome sort of disruption to the library: Patron-Driven Acquisition, a model of e-book licensing that aims to relieve library purchasing agents from spending thousands on books nobody will end up reading.
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Do You Hear A Cricket?
John Cage–renowned composer, music theorist, writer, artist, and Zen enthusiast–is a a veritable treasure trove of Curiosities. Here’s a video from 1973 of Cage performing his most famous piece, 4’33”, in Harvard Square. It’s hard for even the man himself to top the genius of this inspired performance, however.
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RIP Elmore Leonard
RIP Elmore Leonard, who passed away this morning at his home in Michigan at the age of 87. Our own Bill Morris got to the heart of what made Leonard a special writer in his 2010 piece about the prolific crime novelist.
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Book Reviewing as Blood Sport
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New Novel from David Mitchell
David Mitchell fans, good news! The author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas will publish a new novel called Slade House this coming October. Even better? It’s based on his short-story-via-Twitter, “The Right Sort,” which The Millions first collected and published.
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“Go home to your parents, you losers.”
Frank Miller, penman of renowned comics like 300 and Sin City, is the latest author to take on Occupy Wall Street. His sentiments are much less kind than Lemony Snicket‘s.