Bites: Get Crazy About Nabokov, Zadie Smith, Tao Lin’s Stuff, John Irving is Worried, New Magnetic Fields, The Beets at a Museum, and More.
Let’s go crazy about Nabokov! On the Media talks to Ron Rosenbaum of Slate about his conflicted feelings over the publication of The Original of Laura. Aleksandar Hemon is sorta against Laura seeing the light of day. Nabokov specimen covers. Lit. Village Voice on Zadie Smith’s collection of essays, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays. Tao Lin will sell you a bunch of his stuff for a really good price. John Irving is worried about me? I was worried about John […]
Bites: Gladwell is Analyzed, Zizek on Post-Communism, the “Weirdness” of Health Insurance, and more
Malcolm Gladwell The internet is a-twitter with three things this morning: the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the health care bill, and Maureen Tkacik’s Nation piece, “Malcolm Gladwell for Dummies.” HTMLGIANT’s Justin Taylor sees the essay as more than just a piece on Gladwell, but also “worth looking at…in light of [the] ongoing discussion of what good criticism can or should look like.” The Millions wonders if this is “a tipping point for Gladwell haters.” Berlin Wall […]
Tao Lin and Kendra Malone Write E-fiction, Music is Made
A new ebook, Conor Oberst Sex, a story by Tao Lin and Kendra Grant Malone, was published yesterday from Happy Cobra Books. Additionally, there’s an EP by Michael Sanchez (or, The Way It Is) that was inspired by the fiction. It’s called “Music Is My Boyfriend.”
Bites: L Mag Dislikes Tao Lin, Depressing Books, Rewrite of The Prince, the Polanski Problem, Chicago, Ahmadinejad, Conde Nast, and more
L Magazine wouldn’t like Tao Lin. Apparently only two people came to one of Lin’s readings at a bookstore in California, and the tiny magazine rejoiced. To contrast, here is what Vol. 1 has said about Lin’s latest novel and publishing imprint. Lit. The Top 10 Most Depressing Books. Another list, The National Book Foundation’s “Top 5 Under 35.” The Millions has a charming essay about one writer’s experience at an artist’s retreat in Wyoming. The Millions, also, interviewed Tao […]
Reviewed: Shoplifting From American Apparel by Tao Lin
Melville House (2009), 103 p. Reviewed by Tobias Carroll Let’s talk deadpan. If you’ve seen Tao Lin read, it’s likely you have a sense of where I’m going with this: there’s an affectless quality to his delivery in the live setting that’s disarming, declaiming surreal scenarios and bizarre occurrences with virtually no outward signs of emotion. Early 2007 saw the release of Lin’s first novel Eeeee Eee Eeee, along with a collection of short stories titled Bed. What was most […]
Bites: Dickens as the modern dad, Ivy Pochoda to make publishing history, Tao Lin saves, and more
Lit. Could Dickens be a role model for the parents of today, or was it that he just had O.C.D.? Ivy Pochoda is the featured reader at our upcoming Vol. 1 Brooklyn Storytelling series. With her new book The Art of Disappearing (St. Martins Press) out tomorrow, which coincidentally is the same day that Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol hits stands, Ivy says that together, the two of them combined will make publishing history. This points to a good sign […]
Gigantic gets a pretty new website
They hipped us on Gary Shteyngart’s love of smoked meats, featured an in-depth conversation between Tao Lin and Malcolm Gladwell, and pretty much just blew our minds with their first issue. Now, the folks at Gigantic are staking their claim on the interweb with a pretty new website that has art from New York Times Magazine featured artist Thomas Doyle, Shya Scanlon’s latest installment of his internet-serialized novel Forecast and new fiction from J.A. Tyler. Go check it out here.