“A few weeks ago, I texted my writing group, ‘All I really want is to be just famous enough to have my own celebrity book club.’ I was kind of kidding. But I kind of wasn’t. Because, like portion-packaged organic snacks delivered to your door, isn’t book club ownership one step closer to having it all?” Laura Briskman on the faux intimacy of celebrity book clubs, as more and more celebrities start their own post Oprah.
Some Thoughts on Celebrity Book Clubs
Poet Rocker
Paul Muldoon’s band, The Wayside Shrines, is the latest project for Paul Kolderie, the Brooklyn-based producer for Radiohead and Pixies. (via)
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Amazon’s Top 100
Amazon has finished unveiling its top-100 books for 2010. At the top of the big list: Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
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A Few Last Words
It’s been a year since Nobel laureate and Irish poet Seamus Heaney passed away. His publishers are releasing a final collection of his poetry in November. In The Irish Independent, a brief retrospective on Heaney’s legacy, which includes his wife’s unique way of expressing her gratitude to his friends. You could also read Trent Morris’s tribute to Heaney for The Millions.
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Money Problems
Recommended Reading: Does commercial literature hurt literary fiction?
An unscratchable itch
After reviewing a selection of new books on Godlessness, self-described disappointed disbeliever Christopher Beha wonders if literature can fill the spiritual voids of atheism. Our own Garth Risk Hallberg also investigated a slew of New Atheist books just last year.
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