Nancy Jo Sales, author of The Bling Ring, talks about her latest book, American Girls, at NPR. “In the 2 1/2 years she spent researching her book, Sales interviewed more than 200 teenage girls around the country about their social media and Internet usage. She says girls face enormous pressures to post ‘hot’ or sexualized photos of themselves online, and she adds that this pressure can make the Internet an unwelcoming environment.” You could also read Sarah Labrie’s essay on social (media) anxiety.
Social Media Anxiety
One After the Other
It’s been seventeen years since Judy Blume published a book for adult readers. Her latest, In the Unlikely Event, brings that streak to an end. In the Times, Caroline Leavitt reviews her new book, which depicts a small town in the fifties reeling in the wake of three consecutive plane crashes. FYI, our own Lydia Kiesling wrote an essay on Blume’s book Forever.
●
●
DJ Díaz
“I’ve always thought Yunior’s voice isn’t possible without hip-hop,” Junot Díaz says. He discusses how hip-hop influenced his writing, his top three albums (Immortal Technique’s Revolutionary Vol. 2., Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, and Big Daddy Kane’s Long Live the Kane), and even Miley Cyrus in an interview with Salon. Previously, we reported that he wrote his first book to the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack.
●
●
Happy 750th!
●
●
The Novel Doppelganger
Are you familiar with the concept of the novel doppelgänger? If not you should read this advice column, especially if you’re an aspiring author. What are the odds??
Hip-Hop Close Captioning for the Lyrically Impaired
“Yeah my drop sick…and my knot thick,” boasts Li’l Wayne in “A Milli.” Sounds great, but what the hell does it mean? Rap Exegesis, a hip-hop translation service, has the answer to this and other lyrical conundrums.
What Doesn’t Translate
We’ve linked to infographics about the life cycle of translated books, but that doesn’t cover the difficulties inherent in translation itself. The New Yorker‘s latest Out Loud podcast tackles this subject as Adam Gopnik talks with Ann Goldstein and Sasha Weiss about priorities in translation and how we identify with the languages we use.
●
●
Data-Mining, The Trial, and America
“Joseph K., that icon of single-lettered anonymity from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial,” writes Tom Engelhardt for Guernica, “would undoubtedly have felt right at home in [James] Clapper’s Washington.”
●
●