Afternoon Bites: Bookstore Napping, Mike Watt and Rick Moody Chat, Reading “James and the Giant Peach,” and More

“For years after reading Dahl, I would invent my own words, unconcerned that the gibberish I was scribbling might not exist in a dictionary.” Janelle Brown on James and the Giant Peach. Rick Moody interviewing Mike Watt? Yes, we’ll read that one. Rosemary DeWitt once napped in bookstores. Francisco Goldman on his view of Mexico City. The upcoming Books Beneath The Bridge Festival sounds excellent. Titus Welliver, interviewed at the AV Club. Follow Vol. 1 Brooklyn on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and our Tumblr.

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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. […]

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Bites: A Woman’s Wit, James Franco is on Daytime TV, So What?, Aerosmith Understands the Internet, and more

The New York Times reviews “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen in Life and Legacy” on exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum. Lit. Even though there are approximately one billion newly published food memoirs per American second, everyone’s still obsessing over Jonathan Safran Foer and his book about that ultra-modern idea of vegetarianism. Wells Tower is also still writing for Outside Mag. According to the Rumpus, this is one example of why fiction writers make good journalists. The Guardian reviews […]

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Bites: Chabon Interviewed, Granta Changes, Literary Doppelgangers, Grand Theft Auto & Inherent Similarities, Anderson to adapt Dahl, Real Chocolate, and more

Michael Chabon is interviewed at Jacket Copy on fatherhood and the writing process: “I think in a way, that’s sort of what you’re engaged in doing as a writer, too. You come into this inheritance of things that have been done and the ways in which they have been done, and people who influence you sort of pass along what they think is important, and what they think you need to know how to do. But over time you begin […]

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