Lit. The Morgan Library and Museum is showcasing the watercolors, prints, and illuminations of William Blake for the first time in two decades. The show, entitled “William Blake’s World: A New Heaven Has Begun” is on display through January 3rd. The entire Philadelphia Free Library System is scheduled to close on October 2. The Brooklyn Book Festival is today. If you’re willing to confront the brewing cloudiness outside, PEN’s event looks good, and so does Housing Works’. Hooves on The […]
Bites: Bookslut on Tao Lin, Tao Lin on Bookslut review, J.R.R. Tolkien’s family are gonna get paid, more Proust, Generation X playlists, more
Bookslut reviews Shoplifting From American Apparel. Tao Lin calls this review ‘damning’ via his Twitter. Everything is totally cool between the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien and HarperCollins. (Thanks Vulture) New Yorker weighs in on Times Square vs. The High Line Sarkozy had more in common with Napoleon than you thought. (Thanks The Awl) Chicago Subtext asks: “What book would Oprah never, ever pick as a book club selection? Why?” I sat long and hard on this one, and came […]
Bites: Rainbow bookshelves, killed book covers, readers of print bring it in, mock executions, finding Jesus’ head, Atwood’s green tour
By Willa A. Cmiel Book Bench explains it correctly when they call organizing your books by color “an exercise that feels dorky and juvenile.” But look, not (really) so! I guess the exposed wooden beams and built-in wall shelves help romanticize the whole nerdy practice. Killed book jackets from Print. Readers of the printed word are worth wayyy more than you are. The Chasm Between the Value of Print and Web Readers: $709 versus $46. (via The Millions) Upon my […]
Bites: The end of indie, the guy who isn’t Tao Lin, Bob Dylan and the Christmas spirit, and more
Richard Nash on the end of indie. When literatis were celebs: “What Edmund Wilson won’t do.“ According to the Guardian, “a Little Red Book-esque collection of Fidel Castro‘s thoughts has been published in Cuba.” Oh hey, a picture of Tao Lin on the front page of Iamcarles.com – the site created by the mastermind of Hipster Runoff who we all know isn’t Tao Lin. Bob Dylan is putting out a Christmas album. Seriously Bob, where is the record of Yiddish […]
Tao Lin’s Muumuu House: Romantic Realism in Two Books of Poetry
Literary realism, like most literary classifications, is vague and ambiguous and difficult to define. In some capacity, it can be characterized as a reaction against, or an answer to, literary romanticism. The current state of affairs is such that panic ensues with every newspaper that closes its doors and Armageddon is exclaimed when new ideas like Twitter proliferate. Killings are over- or under-aggrandized, depending. Wars are either heroic or dastardly; even having no stance is a taking a stance. The […]
Bites: Nabokov with naked women, Tao Lin selling bumper stickers, Sufjan Stevens, and the zombie train adds an extra passenger
Well, some of us are actually gonna have to buy Playboy for the writing it seems, because they are giving us a 5,000 word glimpse at Vladimir Nabokov’s final, unfinished novella, The Original of Laura in their December issue (which comes out Nov. 10th) a week before it ships for sale. An all string reworking of Sufjan Stevens 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit will be out in November. I’m happy about this. The title of the album is Run Rabbit […]
Bites: Dave Eggers preorder, Tao Lin tackles Herzog, New England lit. Bowerbirds, reading rappers, James Franco, classic albums
That ol’ rascal Dave Eggers has got (as broken down by a user comment on this site) a book coming out that’s a novelization of a movie that is based off a book. Or something along those lines. Either way, you can preorder the book starting now. On his blog, Tao Lin reviews Werner Herzog’s Land of Silence and Darkness. Moby-Dick is #1, The Bell Jar #4, Walden #12 (me: “wtf, #12? That’s it?”), and The Crucible is #43 in […]
Vol. 1 Brooklyn Story Series, April, 2009
For some, Thursday is a night to prepare for the weekend that everybody is apparently working for, while for others it’s 30 Rock night. But for the most part, Friday-Saturday nights are for the amateurs, and you can simply check out the continuing adventures of Liz Lemon, Jack Donaghy, and Tracy Jordan on NBC’s website over the weekend. Thursday night is the real night to shine. More specifically, the one on April 9th will be pretty momentous as we present […]