Elias Canetti: When Memoirs Mattered

Thanks to books like Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, these have been dark days for the memoir.  But seriously,they aren’t these totally evil wastes of pages just because Trig’s mommy wanted to show off the pictures of the wolves she shot out of a helicopter. Elias Canetti wrote four volumes of his memoirs, and New Directions releases the final one today, Party in the Blitz. In it, the Bulgarian-born, Nobel Prize winner writes about his time spent living in exile in […]

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Bites: Fancy Cocktails, Dick is Good for Divorce, German Publishers, Cheshire Cat as Math, Stephen Elliott at WORD, The Replacements, and More

Our favorite Bay Area bookstore takes a look at old cocktail books. Lit. Want a smooth divorce?  Read Moby-Dick. At The Millions, Emily St. John Mandel talks about writing on trains. Designworklife takes a look at German book publisher, Zeixs. If Sarah Palin is coming to your local supermarket to sign books, please get rid of the tomatoes. N+1 discussion between conservative writers Ross Douthat and Reihan Salaam. Shakespeare characters write letters to Santa. Q: Why did Lewis Carroll add […]

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Bites: Obsessed Over a Chelsea Martin Drawing, Big Winners, UK Atheists, Nick Cave’s Bad Sex Writing, and More

The Rumpus has a chat with writer/artist, Chelsea Martin.  Everything Was Fine Until Whatever is her book on Future Tense Publishing, and thanks to the interview, I’ve become obsessed with the above drawing. “Frankly we would have been offended if he wasn’t shortlisted.” Nick Cave’s publisher on his nomination for the best of bad sex writing. Colum McCann is the National Book Award winner. Yippie! Gore Vidal and Dave Eggers also won. Greil Marcus as editor of the The Paris […]

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Bites: Beast Books, Nick Hornby, Zeitoun haikus, Palin’s ghostwriter, and more

Daily Beast innovator Tina Brown is, in a joint venture with Perseus Books Group, starting a new imprint called Beast Books. The imprint will forgo the typical publishing schedule, which is, as Brown sees it, an untimely process that misses important opportunities to attract readers. At Book Beast, the entire process of writing and publishing (beginning with an e-book) will take a mere two to four months. Lit Nick Hornby interviewed at Flavorwire Write a haiku and you could get […]

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Bites: “Essential” postmodernism, Bruni was bulimic, Daniel Radcliffe’s heartbeat, and more

The LA Times’ book blog Jacket Copy has brazenly compiled the dorkiest list ever of “essential postmodern reading.” Levi Asher received three copies of the New York Times Magazine this weekend. I, sadly, received none. It’s all well and good though, because I have very little interest in Frank Bruni’s binge-eating, possibly bulimic early years. Shudder. On the same topic, here’s what Gawker had to say about the famed food writer’s “romanticized glorification of a disturbed kiddie psychosis.” EmDashes links […]

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Bites: The real “deal” about Palin, can we get a book deal?, Simpsonsize Me

I guess you can thank HarperCollins for getting Sarah Palin to quit her job as governor of Alaska Brooklyn Rail wrote about bloggers getting book deals, and The Rumpus continues the conversation. I think the title “James Wolcott on Cultural Snobbery” say it all. The guy who did Super Size Me is directing an episode examining The Simpsons cultural impact on the world called (according to Comedy Central) The Simpson’s 20th Anniversary Special In 3-D on Ice. Brilliant. As if […]

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