Was Virginia Woolf right that the Brontës were too isolated? Or were they just as housebound as their art required them to be? In the latest Atlantic, Judith Shulevitz examines the lives of the family, teasing out evidence that they all used loneliness to their benefit.
Fine By Themselves
at the utmost limits of writing itself
Christian Bök wonders about the future of conceptual poetry:"How do we write poems in a world where a spambot, like @horse_ebooks, gets to write all the great lines…?"
The Rooster Crows!
Tournament of Books fans: The official Tournament of Books bracket has been posted. Along with an introduction to this year's literary throwdown, readers can get a gorgeous bracket poster, sure to become the decorative centerpiece of any library wall.
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“I’m Waiting for the Man” to stop exploiting our logo
The Velvet Underground is suing to protect its iconic banana logo.
Two Good Women
Want to see Nobel laureate Alice Munro in conversation with Margaret Atwood? The two will take part in a Google+ hangout on Wednesday night at 7:30. (You could also read our beginner's guide to Munro's work.)
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Lost in a Book
World-building is an essential part of any story, but what about map-making? At Book Riot, two cartographers explain how they create the maps we see inside books. One cartographer’s perspective: “I really wanted to make a map that could easily be an artifact from the world of the book…. I came up with the idea that the map could be a page ripped from an atlas, and someone had written notes on it.” See also: Rob Goodman’s essay for the reader on world-building and its relationship to reality.
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Lovecraft’s Disappearing Act
A manuscript by H.P. Lovecraft has recently been re-discovered among a collection of magic memorabilia. The book was “an investigation of superstition through the ages” commissioned by Harry Houdini. (Maybe all of this magic had something to do with its disappearing act?)
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