“In a concession to our unsubtle political age, the cliff is doing a good impression of Abraham Lincoln in profile with a vicious orange fulmination exploding from his head.” Looks like Wells Tower had an interesting time in Hawaii.
The Magnificent
2012 Costa Award Finalists Announced
The 2012 finalists for the Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Awards have been anounced. In the “Novel” category, they are Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May, The Heart Broke In by James Meek, and Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart. The Costa site has lists of the nominees in all categories.
Debatable, To Say the Least
Researchers at Google have analyzed “audiovisual patterns,” “title, description and tags,” “words associated with amusement” in user comments, “emoticons,” and even the number of o’s in the average “LOL” in various YouTube videos in order to identify the funniest content on the web. Then they set up an algorithm to rank their findings, and subjected those findings to an audience vote (which you can join over here). Based on their calculations so far, this was the funniest video of all time. What do you think?
Yang Named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
On Monday, Gene Luen Yang became the first graphic novelist to be named a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. We have interviewed Yang and reviewed The Shadow Hero.
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Borges, Writing and God
“When I have an idea that will later, sadly, become a story or a poem, I have a sensation of receiving something. But I do not know if that “something” is given to me by something or someone or if it bursts out on its own.” An excerpt from Borges‘s conversations with the Argentinian poet and essayist Osvaldo Ferrari on writing, memory, and God is now available on The New York Review of Books blog.
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New Coen Brothers Trailer
Recommended Viewing: The trailer for Joel and Ethan Coen’s forthcoming film, Inside Llewyn Davis.
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“I’m going out on this adventure”
“The idea was that whatever I felt or did resonated in life, caused people pain or happiness. This gave me a feeling of huge responsibility even as a child – to the extent that sometimes I had to block my own feelings or wishes. When I started writing fiction, suddenly I was allowed to do what I wanted.” Talking with Etgar Keret.