“As a rare book collector and head of the English department at Ayer-Shirley Regional High School, Eleanor Capasso said that being sent what she believes could be a first edition of a Jane Austen novel felt a lot like winning the golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.” Find out more about how a teacher received a two-hundred-year-old copy of Persuasion. If you’re looking for rare books, our guide has got you covered.
The Golden Ticket
Talking Covers with Jonathen Lethem
Sean Manning (of Talking Covers) hosted a discussion with Jonathan Lethem last week at LA’s Last Bookstore. You can check out video and audio of the event over here, and the post also features an exclusive glimpse at the cover art for Lethem’s forthcoming novel Dissident Gardens. (Bonus: a look at Dissident Gardens in our Great 2013 Book Preview.)
Animals!
Today in things you might like to read about animals: Some birds, apparently, not only mourn their dead but even hold funeral services. And while it’s widely known that the internet is made of cats, Wired dug a little deeper and tried to uncover the root of our collective feline fixation.
The Humanity of Hobbits
Are hobbits human? Matthew Yglesias asks this question at Slate and mines J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to find out. The answer is yes; they are just shorter.
●
●
Neomysterativity
The term “academic writing” is controversial, not least because it implies that academics have an odd and persnickety way of writing. In a blog post for The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman examines the genre, looking back on his time in grad school to argue that academic writing is a “fraught and mysterious thing.”
●
●
Zone One Excerpt
As stated on his website, you can now read the first section of Colson Whitehead‘s forthcoming Zone One. (Scribd). The book will release this October, and it was tapped in our “Great Second Half of 2011 Book Preview.”
●
●
A Dialect, A Language, A Struggle
Over at Slate, Mike Vuolo speaks with Bob Garfield about “African-American English,” or, as some might say, “Ebonics.” The two of them explore its history, misconceptions, and whether or not it’s possible or even appropriate for a white writer (such as The Help author Kathryn Stockett) to attempt to write in the dialect of certain African-Americans.
Poetry Is Politics, Politics Is Poetry
Citizen author Claudia Rankine spoke about racial tokenism in MFA workshops in her AWP keynote speech last week. As she puts it, “The white students aren’t being challenged to think harder about the assumptions they are making in workshop.”
●
●