Recommended Reading: Artist Nicholas Rougeux removes all the letters in a text and meditates on the punctuation that is left on the page.
The Purpose of Punctuation
Daily Dose of Fiction
101 Words has an ongoing flash fiction series, featuring the works of four writers every Sunday. This week’s edition includes a story by our own Michael Bourne, originally published in Tin House.
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Replacement Burrito
Recommended Reading: This moving essay on secrecy, shame, and binging by Michael Sinert over at The Rumpus: “Our task is to de-son-of-a-bitch all this.”
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BTBA long list announced
The 2012 Best Translated Book Award long list has been announced. Among the contenders in the fiction category are Edouard Levé for Suicide, reviewed on The Millions here; Mathias Énard‘s Zone, which our own Garth Risk Hallberg described as “the kind of book that can tie a critic in absolute knots“; and Jean-Philippe Toussaint‘s The Truth About Marie, which The Millions Staffer Mark O’ Connell called “a strange and unsettling novel that upholds its author’s status as one of the most exciting figures in contemporary fiction.” One of Chad Harbach‘s year in reading selections, Dezso Kosztolányi‘s Kornél Esti, also made the list.
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“Comfort savagery”
“Others may prefer to will themselves into James Bond’s dinner jacket and Aston Martin DB4, but I’d rather slip into a !Kung hunter’s penis sheath and heft his hunting spear.” At The Guardian, Will Self explores his odd preference for deeply uncomfortable comfort reading.
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The Bookseller Turned Spy
Avril Haines, the new deputy director of the CIA, had an interesting career before landing in the Langley. According to a Washington Post report, Haines used to own an independent bookstore in Baltimore, where she “welcomed patrons for the occasional readings of high-toned erotica over chicken tostadas.”
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Should We Even Publish This?
Following a recent essay on the value of ambivalence, our own Mark O’Connell explores the nature of confidence in this week’s New York Times Magazine. Perhaps not surprisingly, he writes that this year’s Web Summit convinced him that tech moguls are congenitally more confident than writers.
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Must Love Books
The New York Times has a piece about niche dating websites that includes Alikewise, a matchmaking site for bibliophiles. Users can search for people based on age, sex, location, and, for instance, whether or not they like Bukowski.
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