What Makes the Pages Turn?
“The Most Popular Books of All Time”
This week in book-related infographics: Electric Literature breaks down “The Most Popular Books of All Time.”
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Not Quite Everyone
It’s not every day that you come across a defense of literary elitism, but The Guardian’s Nicholas Lezard is tired of explaining that not everyone is a critic. “What I want when I read a book review is to find out what someone cleverer than me and better read than me thinks about whatever’s being reviewed,” he writes.
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Girl Prodigies
Millions contributor Michelle Dean wrote for The New Yorker‘s Page Turner about Opal Whiteley, whose childhood diary–written when she was six on scraps of paper–was published over 100 years ago to meet with acclaim, then controversy, and then obscurity. If girl prodigies interest you as much as they do me, you’ll also love this 2010 piece from Lapham’s Quarterly, on Barbara Newhall Follett.
“The Sam Weller Bump”
“Bigger than the Zuckerberg Bump, bigger even than the Colbert Bump or the Oprah Bump—arguably the most historic bump in English publishing is the Sam Weller Bump.” A look at the surprising and overwhelming success of Dicken‘s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, from The Paris Review.
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Meet the Lancasters
Hazel Grace has a family now. True Blood’s Sam Trammell will play Hazel’s dad in the film adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Last month, our own Nick Moran reported that Laura Dern joined the cast as Hazel’s mom. With the Lancaster family complete, filming will start in Pittsburgh at the end of this month. If you still haven’t read the book yet, let our own Janet Potter convince you.
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Guernica’s South
Guernica’s latest issue is devoted to the American South. As the issue’s introduction states, “The American South is at once a geographical distinction and a bright spot in the imagination, where burden vies with birthright, and where ignorance and renaissance exist side by side.” The issue features a Kiese Laymon essay on inequality and language, Ed Winstead on the Southern accent in writing, an interview with Jesmyn Ward, fiction, and more.
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The Singer’s Gun on the Indie Next Highlights List
Congratulations to our very own Emily St. John Mandel, whose second novel, The Singer’s Gun, is included, along with 19 other books, in the 2010 Indie Next List Highlights. Jason Hafer of Wolfgang Books says: “The Singer’s Gun is a taut, restrained book with a quick hook and a long pull. It is a moving and mysterious work, wholly authentic.”
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