Doubleday pulled a Beyonce and published Colson Whitehead’s latest book, The Underground Railroad, a month early. Oprah chose Whitehead’s book for her book club, and Doubleday “secretly started shipping out 200,000 copies in anticipation of the announcement.” You can also read a review from Michiko Kakutani at the New York Times.
Book Drop
Will the Real Philip Roth Please Stand Up?
Breaking news: turns out Philip Roth doesn’t actually have a Twitter account.
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Finding “the fountainhead of the humanities”
Tracing the biological origins of aesthetics, Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson argues for a tighter bond between the humanities and the sciences and identifies the metaphor as the wedge that will keep them forever divided.
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The Marriage Plot, The Movie?
Superbad and Adventureland director Greg Mottola is reportedly eying Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Marriage Plot for a possible big screen adaptation.
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Recommended Reading: Americca
Recommended Reading: Aimee Bender’s short story “Americca” from her newest collection, The Color Master.
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Vanity Fair’s Beautiful Game
Vanity Fair’s latest cover is proof that we live in an era in which men have the privilege of being just as objectified as women. Nominally a celebration of the 2010 World Cup that kicks off in South Africa in June, the magazine’s gay porn-ish cover features soccer superstars Didier Drogba of the Ivory Coast and Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo in nothing but their flags, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Within (oh, my stars & stripes!) you can behold the U.S.’s Landon Donovan, as well as Brazil’s Kaká, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, England’s Carlton Cole, Germany’s Michael Ballack–all in their undies. Cheers to you, Vanity Fair: Your enterprising shamelessness truly knows no bounds.
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