“[I]f your kid isn’t reading yet, he won’t know you’re gender-swapping Elliot the elephant.” Lifehacker considers how to get boys to read so-called “girls’ books,” i.e., enjoy books with both male and female protagonists. Pair with T.K. Dalton‘s consideration of gender, childrearing, and reading.
Leading Ladies
Quick links
I’ve gotten a little behind in my reviews of books I’ve read recently. Maybe I’ll get to it this weekend or early next week. In the meantime here are three literary links that caught my eye today:The many challenges of turning books with non-textual elements into audiobooks. Also discussed: how to verbally render David Foster Wallace’s copious footnotes. (New York Times).Daedalus, the big remainder house, is opening a standalone bookstore in Baltimore (Baltimore Sun). Previously: I discuss remaindered books – and buy some, too!A mysterious person – or possibly persons – has been placing roses and a bottle of cognac on Edgar Allen Poe’s grave each year for 57 years on the anniversary of the writer’s birthday. This year some nosy people got in the way, but the meaning behind the ritual and the identity of the visitor remains hidden. (Guardian)
Baumbach to Direct Emperor’s Children
Whoever decided to sign Noah Baumbach to adapt Claire Messud‘s The Emperor’s Children for the screen has a good feel for the material (Keira Knightley and Eric Bana are also attached). One kind of has to wonder about Richard Gere, though…the Murray Thwaite role is clearly destined for Brian Cox, or vice versa.
Da Firenze
At Ploughshares, take a journey through Florence with Emily Smith (and Dante).
Lessons for the Publishing Industry?
Eric Harvey presents The Social History of the MP3 at Pitchfork: “So omnipresent have these discussions become, in fact, that it’s possible the past 10 years could become the first decade of pop music to be remembered by history for its musical technology rather than the actual music itself.”
The Gallery of Lost Art
The Gallery of Lost Art is “an online exhibition that tells the stories of artworks that have disappeared,” and my-oh-my is it a doozy of an internet diversion.
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On the Rise and Fall of John Horne Burns
How do you describe the life and times of John Horne Burns? He was in turn a military intelligence officer, a schoolteacher, a critical darling after he published The Gallery, a pariah after he published anything else, and a gay man in post-WWII America. In characteristic concision, Ernest Hemingway summed the whole thing up thusly: “There was a fellow who wrote a fine book and then a stinking book about a prep school, and then he just blew himself up.”
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Must’ve Been a “Ruff” Proofread
Aspiring authors, take note. If you want to sell your latest book, grow another set of legs, some fur, and bark adorably. That’s what earned Uggie, the dog from The Artist, his forthcoming memoir, Uggie: My Story. Suddenly, our dog-book pun-a-thon from a while back seems prescient.
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