If you (for some reason) want to know more about Vladimir Putin, you could do worse than reading Masha Gessen’s biography. At The Rumpus, Kevin Thomas reviews the book in a novel medium: a cartoon. (You could also read our interview with Gessen.)
Face/Off
Broadcasting the Atocha Station
An A+ radio interview with Leaving the Atocha Station author Ben Lerner, you say? Why, yes, I think that’s right up my alley.
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(Female) Writers No One Reads
Brittany Oliver listed the “6 Most Influential Women Writers You’ve Never Heard Of” for PolicyMic, and she’s right. I’ve only heard of two of them.
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Today’s Culture of Reading
In 2007, Buzz Poole wrote an article for us about Bob Stein‘s Institute for the Future of the Book, and now he’s catching up with Stein about “his take on today’s culture of reading.”
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A Rear Window Darkly
It’s been a good year for Alfred Hitchcock, what with Vertigo beating out Citizen Kane in the once-a-decade Greatest Movie of All Time poll conducted by Sight and Sound. At Full-Stop, Rachel Baron Singer takes a look at Hitchcock and The Girl, both of which examine “the dark side” of Hitchcock’s genius.
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Books, Charity, and Africa
The Hipster Book Club is doing a literary-themed charity drive for the famine in the Horn of Africa.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Ferris; Khakpour; Fierro; Hemmings; Mosley; Boyden; Melnik; Ma; Johnston
Year in Reading alum Joshua Ferris has a new book on shelves this week, as does Millions contributor Porochista Khakpour. Also out: Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro; The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings; Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore by Walter Mosley; The Orenda by Joseph Boyden; Snow in May by Kseniya Melnik; The Year She Left Us by Kathryn Ma; and Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2014 Book Preview.
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Linkage
The CS Monitor has a little piece about the travails of teenage novelists: “A youthful sensation doesn’t always translate into a distinguished literary career. For many teen authors, that first book proves a hard act to follow. Some never again meet with the kind of praise critics heaped upon their first offerings.”Speaking of (once) young phenoms, Bret Easton Ellis has a flashy new Web site that promotes his upcoming novel, Lunar Park. I’ve never read Ellis, but the Web site seems to indicate that this upcoming novel is about a character named Bret Easton Ellis, and it may or may not be autobiographical. Very meta. There’s an excerpt in there too.I’ve been enjoying EarthGoat lately. It’s a group blog out of Iowa City.
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‘A Letter in Living Color’
Says the New York Times: “We recently received, in a tube sent by postal mail, something new in our experience: a 15-foot-long scroll to the editor.” (via @LettersOfNote)
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