Friday Miscellany

Some friends that know well my love for Chabon’s Kavalier and Clay sent me this sweet post card of the Golem of Prague.

I may have officially become a cynic. An AP story was all over the lit blogosphere this week. The gist: “OMG yall! Boys don’t read. Like, EVER. The only way to arrest their retardation is to buy them books with fart jokes. Do it now, yall! For the kids.” (I’m paraphrasing. ) The article quotes the author of the book Sweet Farts. Good thing that there just happens to be a brand new sequel coming out next week: Sweet Farts: Rippin’ it Old School. Someone’s publicity flack needs a raise.

Amazon ups the ante with an $139 Kindle. Jeff Bezos says, “At $139, we expect many people will buy multiple Kindles for the home and family.” Really? I guess you could just fan them out on the coffee table or something. Give ‘em out as party favors. That sort of thing.

Be friends with all of your favorite publishers: The Best Publisher Pages on Facebook

Paste’s Charles McNair on Bret Easton Ellis’s Imperial Bedrooms: “I submit that any reader who finishes this novel and is able to use that word for it—“entertaining”—might honestly want to take a hard look in the mirror and question the condition of his soul.” Ouch.

Famous “Man Rooms”, including Hemingway’s study, Thoreau’s cabin, and Twain’s writing hut. Got to get e one of those.

An interesting comparison between Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984 – in comics form

And this is hilarious if you haven’t seen it yet:

Books | Tim | July 30, 2010 8:40 am

2 Comments

By Anne, July 30, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

Love the video. And here’s proof that you’ll never know what you’ll find when you click on one of your links…I have a table exactly like the one in John Muir’s ‘man room’ – my great grandma bought this one second hand in 1922. Well, I think it’s cool.