Ron Hogan is guest hosting Galleycat this week (Sarah Weinman did the job last week) and, in addition to returning the site to our list of regular haunts, reminds us of a word we haven’t encountered in a while: fnord. It’s also nice that someone else out there copped to the fact that Dan Brown merely updated the works of Robert Anton Wilson. . . Pining for the Fnords Robert Anton Wilson
While we wait in vain for a decent production of Northanger Abbey, we like to contemplate Jane Austen’s reactions to her increasing popularity. One would have thought her star would fall (or shoot or whatever it is that stars on the wane do) about the time Hugh Grant donned a cravat. Instead, Pride and Prejudice is being made into a motion picture event for like the thousandth time. Not that we’re complaining, but it does feel a bit strange. Shouldn’t we do a bit of Edith Wharton worshipping as well? C’mon, it’s time to spread the love. After all, shouldn’t
Our special thanks to Jill, who once again anticipated our inability to get with the program this morning (her sacrifice of personal time will be noted on her permanent record). She noticed that we were mentioned in a very nice Christian Science Monitor story about litblogs. . .and she noticed that we fit the profile a little too well. Again, we note that’s there’s no shame in snobbery. Book blogs’ buzz grows louder
We’ve been jumping from place to place, trying to track down all the various Katrina relief efforts started by the literary community. Suffice to say many have stepped up and we expect even more. Below are a few links to resources. Also, we know we’ve mentioned this before, but give blood. Thank you. Close To Home Romance Designs Literary Relief: Helping those in need (Note: registration required)
We’ve never pretended to understand the dark underbelly of literary criticism, so maybe the notion of releasing embarrassing rap records as retaliation for withholding review copies is a normal thing. We try to run with a less vicious crowd. When the celebrated French author Michel Houellebecq launched his latest novel in circumstances of extraordinary secrecy last week, he enraged some of France’s most eminent literary critics by witholding copies from them to stave off bad reviews. Now they appear to have struck back by circulating an embarrassing rap album featuring the tuneless voice of the controversial author in an apparent
You find some amazing things when you go troll through the Internet (okay, I was googling). I found a nice mention of Booksquare in The Christian Science Monitor. …the fact is that book blogs can be vibrant and sharply opinionated, full of odes to favorite authors and jibes at everything from “cheesy” bestsellers to the shrinking book review sections of major newspapers. Hey, that’s Booksquare! Book blogs aren’t without their quirks, however. Like readers and reviewers, they can be snobbish or parochial. And they’re hardly egalitarian: Most are run by one person with dictatorial powers over what gets reviewed and
We often find our curiosity piqued by clever names. We gaze upon them in wonder, trying to understand deeper meanings and whatnot. Some are obvious, some require the use of the dictionary. Such was the case of young adult publisher (or rather sub-division of Penguin, etc) Razorbill. Surely it had some catchy, oblique connection to the target market. So, according to Dictionary.com: razorbill, n : black-and-white northern Atlantic auk having a compressed sharp-edged bill Okay, the above definition is not helpful. Surely there is more to the young adult experience than obscure birds. Let us turn to Kristen Pettit, of
We know, give or take, two people who have obsessively (and we use the word with all due fondness) saved each and every email they have sent and received over the past dozen or so years. This leads to some embarrassment if others take a position contradictory to statements they made under who-knows-what-influence in 1996. One should not be held responsible for email statements more than a year after the fact. Of course, our lack of consistency is neither here nor there at the moment. What is at stake is nothing less than the history of letters. Many thought the
Before we begin, may we suggest that schools need to spend more time teaching today’s youth “attribution”? It is clearly no longer the province of journalists and scholars. While there are many forms of attribution, at the the very least, the original source of material should be noted when material is quoted. We understand that this requires a bit of work and some understanding of technology (for example, here, when we quote from other sources, we set off the quoted material and provide a link back to the original piece). A recent article of ours (on another site) was slashdotted
Always trust your iPod. Ours has been heavy on the Big Star all weekend (“Radio City” if you must know). As we live life in random, we figured it was a sign. Alex Chilton is alive and well, though no longer in Memphis: Chilton, who hadn’t been heard from since shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck, told Easley he stayed in his home the entire time and water had gotten up to his porch. Chilton said he had food and water but was most concerned during the week about roving gangs. (via the very helpful Tod Goldberg; and, yeah, we stole
