I’m just going to copy and paste the first few paragraphs of this awesome press release. Los Angeles, CA – Some people call him the Space Cowboy. Some call him the Gangster of Love. But when Steve Miller, one of rock music’s all-time greats, joins the University of Southern California faculty this fall, he will have to get used another moniker: professor. During the 2010-2011 school year, Miller will teach at the USC Thornton School of Music, named by Rolling […]
Bites: Best Book Covers, “Bush-League Method acting,” Social Thuggery, and More
Enough with the literary-merit top 10 lists. Here are the best book covers of 2009. I personally love the look of Ruben Toledo’s designs, but not at all for the books they represent. An awkward confluence of visionary tones. Who imagines their literary heroines with such artistic flair? It’s unsettling. Lit. & Academia City University of New York dean Ann Kirschner recently read Little Dorrit four different ways (paperback, Kindle, iPhone, audiobook). This week, she talks about it on NPR. […]
Bites: Media Battles (Ever-Present), Franco’s Face, Humility as ‘Sin,’ Tony Judt, and the Bad News For Big Business
New Media, Old Media, and E-readers Barnes and Noble’s e-reader, the Nook, looks promising as Kindle competitor (and book sharing device!). The Rumpus’ account of last week’s New Yorker Festival is titled “James Franco’s Face.” Jacket Copy suggests that because their paper gave Le Clézio’s Désert a bad review, that the Nobel Prize in Literature is becoming “esoteric” and “wrong-headed.” Ugh, close-minded print newspaper. And now to take back the above statement about print media back with Harper’s lovely “Blake–To […]
The Millennials Will Usher in a New Age of Literacy
Over and over again are there complaints about our Twitter-obsessed minds, our over-texting tendencies, and the fact that no one actually reads books anymore. On the path to illiteracy, are we? Developing a generation of Adderall-induced, emoticon-using, pathetically apathetic individuals? Think again, please.