from The Globe and Mail

MY BOOKS, MY PLACE

Daniel MacIvor, the distracted reader

DANIEL MACIVOR

From Saturday’s Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Sep. 30, 2011 4:30PM EDT

I’ve never been a curl-up-in-a-quiet-place-with-a-good-book kind of person. Mostly, I like to read in places where I have to fight distractions; in airports, in restaurants, in noisy parks. The distraction helps me create a greater focus. I do read in bed as well, because I’m constantly fighting the distraction of sleep.

The book I’m reading now is The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, by James Frey. It’s the story of the return of the Christ in the guise of a contemporary bisexual, recovering alcoholic who moves into an inner-city housing project.

It’s classic Frey, provocative yet heartbreaking. I’ve been a fan of Frey’s since A Million Little Pieces. When that book first came out, I read the review in The Globe and Mail and bought the book that day – well before Oprah blessed and then later damned it.

It remains one of the truest feeling books I’ve ever read on addiction, and his Bright Shiny Morning is probably the best book written on modern life in Los Angeles. I love his work because it feels authentic to the brutality of modern life without dismissing the light in all of us that fights to shine.

Daniel MacIvor is a Canadian actor, playwright, theatre director and film director. His play His Greatness is currently onstage at Factory Theatre in Toronto.

[ click to read at The Globe and Mail ]

from LISTVERSE

10

Refute

“Refute” means to “disprove with evidence” and yet it’s commonly used, even by professional writers, to mean “rebut” which carries a similar meaning but isn’t quite so strong, as it can also mean “argue against.” The example here (“Simon Cowell refutes ‘scandalous’ claims he helped billionaire hide assets from wife he was divorcing”) is from a recent Daily Mail article. For those outside the UK, the Daily Mail is a newspaper which regularly rages against falling educational standards. A special mention to Sarah Palin who invented a new word “refudiate”; the usage suggests she meant repudiate.

[ click to continue reading about the literally chronic enormity of these bastardizations of the language ]

from BOOKTRYST

The $175,000 Dust Jacket Comes to Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

Sotheby’s Oct. 10, 2011. Est. $150,000-$180,000.

The incredibly rare and desirable dust jacket to the first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is coming to auction via Sotheby’s-New York Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II on October 20, 2011. It is estimated to sell for $150,000-$180,000. An excellent copy of the first edition, first printing of The Great Gatsby, a book that in near-fine/fine condition sells for $7,000-$10,000, is included with the dust jacket.

The dust jacket is in the corrected first state, i.e. the “j” in Jay Gatsby on the rear panel was printed in lower case and carefully hand-corrected in ink to upper-case by the publisher. No uncorrected copies of the first state dust jacket are known to exist. In the second state of the dust jacket the “J” was corrected by  the printer.

[ click to continue reading at BOOKTRYST.com ]

from 720 ABC Perth [ click to listen at 720 ABC Perth ]

from The New York Times

[ click to read at NYTimes.com ]

from MediaBistro’s GalleyCat

Heartbreaking Borders Photograph

By Jason Boog on September 14, 2011 2:23 PM

Reddit user Jessers25 took the photo embedded above at a Borders going out of business sale. In the photo, a Thomas Jefferson quote sat on a bare wall with a pile of dismantled bookshelves: “I cannot live without books.”

The photo has spawned hundreds of comments and a raging debate about the future of bookstores.

No matter what you think about mega-bookstores or Borders management, this is a sad year for everyone who loves books.

[ click to continue reading at MediaBistro ]

from Shelf Awareness

La Casa Azul Goes for the Green

Aurora Anaya-Cerda, who founded La Casa Azul Bookstore online in 2008, has launched a campaign to raise $40,000 in 40 days to open a bricks-and-mortar store in East Harlem in New York City. A donor will match the money raised.

The 40K in 40 Days campaign is intended to finance inventory, fixtures and café equipment and, most important, provide the deposit for the retail space, all of which would allow La Casa Azul Bookstore to open its doors next year. Incentives for the campaign, which is being conducted on indiegogo.com, include gifts such as autographed books, T-shirts and naming a bookshelf. All donors will automatically become Founders’ Circle members and their names will be added to the store’s donor wall.

For 10 years, Anaya-Cerda has worked and volunteered in six bookstores, taken many business classes, attended two booksellers schools and traveled around the country studying bookstores and meeting with authors and publishers. The bricks-and-mortar store, she said, will offer author signings, book clubs, story times for children and a community meeting space. The store will sell new and used books, coffee, pastries, art, clothing and locally made cards and gifts.

Since the online store was established, La Casa Azul Bookstores has hosted more than 60 events in local cultural institutions, schools and cafes. The bookstore also established the annual East Harlem Children’s Book Festival and works with schools and non-profit organizations to promote literacy.

On her website, Anaya-Cerda wrote, “I need your help to get this project off the ground. Help me establish La Casa Azul Bookstore in East Harlem to continue connecting people, books, and the ideas they bring together. I can’t do this work without you.”

[ click to read at Shelf-Awareness.com ]

from NPR

Things We Say Today And Owe To Shakespeare

by EYDER PERALTA

A 20-year-old girl named Becky from London posted a picture of one of the pages of her Moleskine notebook on Tumblr. It has, as they say, gone viral and less than a week later is making waves across the Internet.

It’s a simple thing: Becky wrote down, the “things we say today which we owe to Shakespeare.” It’s phrases like “send him packing,” “makes your hair stand on end,” and “lie low.”

[ click to read full post at NPR.org ]

from Abe’s Books

Rapper 50 Cent loses to author Chinua Achebe

I love this story. Super tough rapper 50 Cent has just had his candy ass handed to him by 80-year-old Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. It appears 50 Cent had not read Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s ground-breaking novel from 1958, or even knew of its existence, and he spent much of 2010 making a movie with the same title.

Achebe had a word in his shell-like (that means ear) and now the movie, about a football player diagnosed with cancer, has been renamed. This Guardian story says 50 Cent offered the author $1 million in order to use the title, Things Fall Apart, but Achebe said no.

Chinua Achebe is my hero for today. Imagine turning down $1 million?

I’d love to see more rapper versus author fights. Next up…Eminem versus Jonathan Franzen with an undercard of Ol’ Dirty Bastard from the Wu-Tang Clan versus Margaret Atwood. I’d pay to see James Frey against Snoop Dog because Snoop would blow him up although Frey would do a lot of trash talking.

[ click to read at Abe’s Books ]

from The New York Times

[ click to read at NYTimes.com ]

from Shelf Awareness

Obituary Note: Michael Stern Hart

Michael Stern Hart, founder and head of Project Gutenberg and considered by many to have invented the e-book, died on Tuesday. He was 64.

According to Dr. Gregory B. Newby, Hart told this story of how he had the idea for e-books. “He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4, 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network.” E voila!

Newby added: “Hart was an ardent technologist and futurist. A lifetime tinkerer, he acquired hands-on expertise with the technologies of the day: radio, hi-fi stereo, video equipment, and of course computers. He constantly looked into the future, to anticipate technological advances. One of his favorite speculations was that someday, everyone would be able to have their own copy of the Project Gutenberg collection or whatever subset desired. This vision came true, thanks to the advent of large inexpensive computer disk drives, and to the ubiquity of portable mobile devices, such as cell phones.”

[ click to read at Shelf Awareness ]

from The New York Times

[ click to read at NYTimes.com ]

from BuzzFeed

Roald Dahl’s Weird And Hilarious Letter To A Class Of Children

CULTURE BUZZ: When a group of students sent a letter to Roald Dahl asking him questions about his short story collection “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More,” this was the author’s response. What a weird, hysterically funny man.

[ click to read at buzzfeed.com ]

from PaperSpecs

Going Forward with the Flipbacks

August 30, 2011

Hodder & Stoughton, a UK publisher, recently introduced a paperback book format that’s the size of an iPhone. Called Flipbacks, the books are one-third the size of traditional books.

They’re lightweight, feel nice in the palm of your hand and fit conveniently in a back pocket or purse. Some booksellers are already thinking of them as a great alternative to the e-reader … Flipbacks are always fully charged.

Only a few titles have been published in the format so far: The Other Hand by Chris Cleave; The Adventures of English by Melvyn Bragg; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré; Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde; A Million Little Pieces by James Frey; Misery by Stephen King; Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis; Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell; One Day by David Nicholls; My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult; Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

Flipbacks have been launched in Spain, France and Australia to date with deals pending in Germany and Scandinavia.

[ click to read at paperspecs.com ]

from Idolator

Madonna’s ‘Sex’ Book Still The Most Sought-After Out-Of-Print Title

Long before Lady Gaga crafted her book of 350 black-and-white photos with Terry Richardson, Madonna unleashed her scandalous watercooler tome Sex. And even though it was released nearly 19 years ago (and coincided with Madge’s aptly-titled 1992 albumErotica), it turns out the Material Girl’s naughty coffee table offering has toppedBookfinder.com’s annual fall list of the 100 most sought-after out-of-print titles in the United States.

“The list differs from year to year as trends change and books get republished,” Bookfinder.com notes in the ninth annual installment of its Fall Report. The site also refers toSex as “Madonna’s nearly perennial number one” on the list.

[ click to continue reading at Idolator.com ]

from Rolling Stone

Petra Nemcova, James Frey Remake Iconic Maxell’s Commercial

Cassette culture is revived and well: all it needed was a supermodel, controversial author and ironically, an iPhone app to breathe new life into it. A new ad from Booktrack features Petra Nemcova and James Frey in an uncomfortably provocative master and servant scenario while paying sly homage to Maxell’s classic “Higher Fidelity” commercial, which blew people away in 1983. British fans may recall the U.K.-only version that featured Bauhaus’s Peter Murphy; younger fans may be more familiar with the late Ryan Dunn’s parody of the clip. In any case, Maxell’s ad is a nugget of Eighties ephemera that manages to keeps on giving.

Booktrack’s take on the iconic ad skips the analog nostalgia, but amps up the style and sound quotients to make its selling point – enhancing your e-book experience with synchronized soundtracks – a little sexier. Nemcova poses as Frey’s coquettish (Marchesa-clad) maid, donning erotic accessories from Kiki de Montparnasse and Christian Louboutin…

[ click to continue reading at RollingStone.com ]

from SELF Magazine

Summer Beach Read: The Power of Six

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 1:12 PM  |  posted by Laura Brounstein

The Power of Six, “by” Pittacus Lore, is the latest book from James Frey’s Full Fathom Five and, like its predecessor, I Am Number Four, it is a furiously fun foray into the fight facing the teenage survivors of the planet Lorien.

 

Not only do these teens have to struggle against alien predators, the Mogadorians, but they also need to learn how to handle their adolescent inclinations — both earthly (I like two girls!) and not (can I harness my powers, my Legacies, effectively enough to save the planet?).

While John Smith, the hero of I Am Number Four is a central character of this book as well, he is now joined by two other Loriens, Numbers Six and Seven. They are two very different girls, Six is a hardened battle veteran and Seven is just coming into her Legacies, but their characters develop richly as the book progresses, giving what could otherwise be just another YA genre romp some heart and heft.

[ click to continue reading at SELF.com ]

from The Wall Street Journal

‘I’m Done Writing Books,’ Says Frey

By MIKE VILENSKY

Booktrack, a new start-up that adds soundtracks to e-books, launched in style Wednesday night at Yotel in Midtown. The company, backed by Facebook co-founder Peter Thiel, matches “synchronized music, sound effects, and ambient sound” to text, according to its press release. The project has author James Frey, an early Booktrack supporter, so excited that he’s retiring from writing books altogether.

“I’m done writing books,” he told a reporter at the reception. “The only books I’ve written are the ones with my names on them, and I’m never writing another book. I have other things to do in life. I’m not bored with it—I’m still going to do television shows and movies and videogames. I just like having other people write books for me, you know?”

Presumably, those “other people” are employees at Full Fathom Five, Mr. Frey’s book company, which has recently been characterized by New York magazine, Gawker, and other media outlets as “a factory” and a “sweatshop.”

“I don’t care what people say,” he said. “I don’t think it’s factory-like. I think we just systematized the production of books, and it’s going well. I don’t think that characterization is accurate at all, but it makes me laugh.”

[ click to continue reading at WSJ.com ]

from MTV’s Hollywood Crush

‘The Power Of Six’ Debuts Today: Author, Lorien Elder Pittacus Lore Speaks

Posted 8/23/11 4:39 pm ET by Amy Wilkinson in Page Turners

“They tried to catch Number Four in Ohio…and failed. I am Number Seven. And I’m ready to fight.”

Thus concludes the synopsis for Pittacus Lore’s second “Lorien Legacies” novel, “The Power of Six,” which hits bookstore shelves today. The novel picks up where the preceding “I Am Number Four” left off, with the titular Number Four (John), Number Six and Sam on the run after a deadly confrontation with the enemy Mogadorians.

John is once again a central focus in this second effort from co-authors James Frey and Jobie Hughes (who use the pen name Pittacus Lore), but the novel also introduces us to Number Seven, a young woman named Marina living in Spain, whose protectors may not have her best interests at heart.

In anticipation of the novel’s release, we were granted an audience (via email, that is) with author/Lorien elder Pittacus Lore himself, who (very succinctly) answered a few of our burning questions. Read our entire interview after the jump!

Hollywood Crush: Your latest is titled “The Power of Six” but revolves quite a bit around Number Seven. How did you decide on the title, and were you worried there would be any confusion that the book was about Six?

Pittacus Lore: The title “The Power of Six” refers to the remaining six Lorien who are on Earth, and their collective power, but also Number Six whose power is on full display near the end of the book.

Will Number Four continue to be a narrator in each of the series’ books?

For as long as Number Four is alive, he will be a major part of the books.

Number Five is glaringly absent. Can you tell us anything about what he/she is up to?

I write about the events as they happen. It is not important to find the other Loriens in the order of their numbers, just to find them at all. We know now where Number Five is.

Your name appears in this second novel.

I am Pittacus Lore, the ruling Lorien elder, the planet’s leader and military ruler. It’s natural that at some point I would appear in the books being written about our war with the Mogadorians.

Can you give us any update on plans for the film adaptation of “The Power of Six”?

Mr. Michael Bay would be the best person to speak to about it. I am sworn to a vow of silence.

Okay then…

[ click to continue reading at Hollywood Crush ]

from McGill-Queen’s University Press

John Glassco on Social Media and James Frey

Canadian Bookshelf recently sat down with Brian Busby, author of A Gentlemen of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Memoirist, Translator, and Pornographer. John Glassco (1909-1981) is best known for his Memoirs of Montparnasse, the controversial chronicle of his youthful adventures and encounters with celebrities in the Paris of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway. Less known are his poetry, his instrumental role in the foundation of modern translation, and his numerous - and widely popular - works of pornography.

JW: What do you think Glassco would make of the James Frey controversy and the rise in popularity of creative non-fiction? Did Glassco consider himself a made-up self? I’m also trying to imagine what Glassco would do with social media, if he would subvert or embrace it.

BB: It’s interesting to consider what relationship, if any, Glassco might have had with social media. He was, at heart, very much an Edwardian—though he was just four months old when that era ended. His own tastes were to a large extent rooted in the years enjoyed by Edward VII. We see this in his final fantasy, Guilt and Mourning, an unpublished novel set in a Montreal that has somehow avoided the technological advances of the 20th century. Had Glassco lived to be a centenarian—or even a mere nonagenarian—I very much doubt that he would have taken to social media except in one key area: his sex life. Here, the world would have become a less lonely place. I dare say it would be much easier to meet people who shared his interests over the Web than through personal ads.

As to Frey, I wonder how much attention Glassco would have paid the controversy; he had so very little interest in the prose of his own time. That said, he did enjoy a good hoax—and perpetrated some of the very best. We might get a sense of his reaction to the Frey controversy through his own memoirs. In a letter to Kay Boyle, he writes, “I look on the real value of ‘memoirs’ as being not so much a record of ‘what happened’ as a re-creation of the spirit of a period in time.” So he telescopes and rearranges time, invents dialogue and encounters, dresses “naked facts” and in the end produces a work that Malcolm Cowley considered “the most accurate picture of Montparnasse”.

[ click to continue reading at McGill-Queen’s University Press ]

from The New York Observer

The Origin of the (Book as a) Work of Art

by Emily Witt

Midway through a party for Thornwillow Press at the St. Regis Hotel last night, a book publicist brought up Heidegger. “It’s all about the thinginess of the thing,” he said gloomily, sipping champagne, after a discussion about why Montblanc pens was sponsoring a book party. His point was that nice pens, small letterpress books, the St. Regis, fine stationary – these are all formerly rather ordinary objects that have now become rarified.

The book in question was It Happened Here, a history of the St. Regis Hotel by Lesley M.M. Blume, the first in a series of “libretti” by Thornwillow Press that intends to transform books, as Van Gogh once did with a peasant’s shoes, into art (by emphasizing the books’ beauty, their status as “limited edition,” and by charging $40 to $400 dollars for them.) As the press release for Ms. Blume’s book put it, “the Libretto Library is dedicated to the belief that physical books – tangible, aesthetically pleasing, letterpress printed and beautifully bound – have a new and even more important place in our lives: as repositories of permanence in an increasingly ephemeral world of letters.”

Thornwillow is not the first publisher to treat the book as a thing divorced from its more equipmental characteristics. The most recent example would be James Frey, who avoided a traditional publisher in the United States and printed only a limited run of the physical edition of his book, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, through Gagosian Gallery (along with a $6.99 e-book). And the representatives of New York publishing who are involved in the Thornwillow series – Andrew Wylie, the literary agent; Jonathan Galassi, the publisher of FSG and Lorin Stein, the editor of The Paris Review are themselves men who have distinguished themselves by maintaining a certain decorous ideal of literature, life in New York, and dapper dress. (They are joined by Henry Finder, editorial director of The New Yorker, Michael Shnayerson, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and Ms. Blume.)

[ click to continue reading at The Observer ]

from The Sag Harbor Express

Calendar 07/14 to 07/24/11

Andrea Kowch’s “Pheasant Keeper” is on view in a new show opening at Richard J. Demato Fine Arts in Sag Harbor on July 16.

 SAT JUL 16

Cut Flowers, a lecture presented by the Marder’s Garden Lecture Series. 10 a.m. 20 Snake Hollow Road, Bridgehampton. Free. 537-3700.

Entomologist Talk with Rebeckah Schultz of Ray Smith & Associates at Bridge Gardens. 10 a.m. to noon. 36 Mitchell Lane, Bridgehampton. Free/$10/$20. Reservations required, 283-3195.

Andrew Gross reads from his novel “Eyes Wide Open.” 5 p.m. BookHampton, 41 Main Street, East Hampton. Free. 324-4939.

Poet Carol Muske Dukes reads from the collection “Twin Cities.” 6 p.m. Canio’s Books, 290 Main Street, Sag Harbor. Free. 725-4926.

David Patton, ophthalmologist discusses his autobiography “Second Sight: View from an Eye Doctor’s Odyssey” 1 to 2:30 p.m. East Hampton Library, 159 Main Street, East Hampton. Free. 324-0222.

James Frey discusses his book “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” 6 p.m. Amagansett Public Library, 215 Main Street, Amagansett. Free. 267-3810.

SUN JUL 17

Author Dava Sobel will speak and sign her book “Longitude.” 4 p.m. Shelter Island Historical Society, 16 South Ferry Road, Shelter Island. Free. 749-0025.

[ click to read full calendar at The Sag Harbor Express ]

Warmed & Bound is an anthology of short stories stitched together by the people at The Velvet and edited by the beautiful and talented Pela Via. The anthology began as a giveaway for a fundraiser to redesign The Velvet, and quickly became an entirely different animal altogether. The book will be released later this summer, and will be available at most, if not all, major online retailers, and also in e-formats for your e-Reading pleasure. Check back often as updates and announcements become available.

DeLeon DeMicoli lives in San Francisco, CA. When he’s not writing, he trains in Mixed Martial Arts

[ click to visit the WARMED AND BOUND website ]

from The Huffington Post

My New York: 20 Questions For ‘Shoplifting From American Apparel’, ‘RICHARD YATES’ Author Tao Lin

The Huffington Post  Christopher Mathias

Age: 27

Current Gig: I honestly don’t know, maybe “author.” [Follow Tao on twitter here, and buy his latest book RICHARD YATES here].

Neighborhood: Off the Graham L train stop, I think it’s technically Williamsburg.

Years In New York: 10, I think.

Who is your favorite New Yorker, living or dead? I like Woody Allen. I’m not thinking of anyone else when I think “New Yorker.” I think I view almost everyone as “from the internet” now.

Your perfect New York date? Eating dinner at Sel De Mer after ingesting Xanax then walking a little before going to my apartment to do things on the internet, shower, drink green juice, have sex, sleep.

What’s your drink? I like unpasteurized coconut water.

Favorite bookstore? St. Mark’s Bookshop maybe.

The best reading or lecture you’ve attended in New York? The most memorable was maybe Matthew Rohrer, James Frey, and [someone else] in something like 2006 at an NYU reading. I first learned of Matthew Rohrer then. I liked James Frey’s reading. He left right after reading to, I think, go home to his baby or small child.

[ click to read the Full 20 at HuffPo ]

from The New York Times

Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds

By A. E. HOTCHNER

EARLY one morning, 50 years ago today, while his wife, Mary, slept upstairs, Ernest Hemingway went into the vestibule of his Ketchum, Idaho, house, selected his favorite shotgun from the rack, inserted shells into its chambers and ended his life.

There were many differing explanations at the time: that he had terminal cancer or money problems, that it was an accident, that he’d quarreled with Mary. None were true. As his friends knew, he’d been suffering from depression and paranoia for the last year of his life.

Ernest and I were friends for 14 years. I dramatized many of his stories and novels for television specials and film, and we shared adventures in France, Italy, Cuba and Spain, where, as a pretend matador with Ernest as my manager, I participated in a Ciudad Real bullfight. Ernest’s zest for life was infectious.

In 1959 Ernest had a contract with Life magazine to write about Spain’s reigning matadors, the brothers-in-law Antonio Ordóñez and Luis Miguel Dominguín. He cabled me, urging me to join him for the tour. It was a glorious summer, and we celebrated Ernest’s 60th birthday with a party that lasted two days.

But I remember it now as the last of the good times.

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com ]

from PR Newswire

Gagosian Gallery’s iPad App, Designed by Award-Winning Firm @radical.media, Launches Today Taking Users on an In-Depth Journey With Gagosian’s Artists and Exhibitions

NEW YORK, June 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Gagosian Gallery announces the launch of an application for the iPad, available as a free download from the iTunes store, beginning today. The app will be updated four times per year, providing content that features recent, current, and future Gagosian artists, exhibitions, and projects. The artists presented in edition #1 include Richard Avedon, Cecily Brown, John Currin, Vera Lutter, Kazimir Malevich, Elizabeth Peyton, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Prince, and Rudolf Stingel.

Admirers of John Currin’s opulent portraiture will revel in the app’s gigapixel digital expose of a recent painting, as well as a 2010 lecture by the artist. Other projects include an interview with writer James Frey about his 2011 novel, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, published by Gagosian Gallery.  The app also offers excerpts from scholar Aleksandra Shatskikh’s catalogue essay for the historic exhibition “Malevich and the American Legacy” (March 3–April 30, 2011, New York).

Viewers can relive a key moment in art history by watching archival footage of Rauschenberg’s

1966 performance, Open Score; or follow a tour by curator Francesco Bonami of “Rudolf Stingel” (March 4 – April 16, 2011, New York).

[ click to read full release at PR Newswire ]

from Shelf Awareness

Quotation of the Day

Forty-Year-Old Wisdom About Libraries

“[A library] isn’t just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you–and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.”

–Isaac Asimov in a March 16, 1971, letter to children at the newly opened Troy, Mich., public library, as posted on lettersofnote.com.

[ click to read at Shelf-Awareness.com ]

from The Guardian UK

Dogs in fiction - quiz

Can you sniff out the right answers in our jaw-gnashingly difficult canine quiz? Test your knowledge of tails in tales and find out if you’re top dog in the pack

[ click to take the full quiz at The Guardian ]

from Exhibition A

GLENN O’BRIEN

Glenn O’Brien playing blackjack with fellow author James Frey

Glenn O’Brien is the author of “How to Be A Man” and for years wrote a great column at ArtForum called “Like Art.” He was previously the editorial director at Interview magazine and once hosted a cult classic tv show, “TV Party.”

First piece of art you ever bought or were gifted?

When I was in college I bought a set of Les Levine’s “disposable” sculptures from Max Protech at his gallery in Washington.

Artist quote to live by?

“I don’t mess around with my subconscious.” -Robert Rauschenberg

[ click to continue interview at ExhibitionA.com ]

from NPR

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts To Gods To Politics And Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs And Reinforce Them As Truths

By Michael Shermer, hardcover, 400 pages, Times Books, list price: $28

“Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow.” That’s the argument professional skeptic Michael Shermer makes in The Believing Brain, a book that fuses neuroscience, sociology and the author’s own biographical stories into a compelling and sometimes deeply personal read — even if you don’t agree with him on everything. And you won’t.

Shermer, a former evangelical Christian who became an agnostic in college, now dedicates his sprawling career to debunking what he sees as superstitions and failures of logic, from religion to alien abduction to Sept. 11 conspiracy theories.

[ click to continue reading at NPR.org ]

from The American Magazine

The End of the Book?

By John Steele Gordon
Saturday, May 21, 2011

The book business will go through a transformation in the next decade or so more profound than any it has seen since Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the 1450s. Amazon, by far the largest bookseller in the country, reported on May 19 that it is now selling more books in its electronic Kindle format than in the old paper-and-ink format. That is remarkable, considering that the Kindle has only been around for four years. E-books now account for 14 percent of all book sales in this country and are increasing far faster than overall book sales. E-book sales are up 146 percent over last year, while hardback sales increased 6 percent and paperbacks decreased 8 percent. Does this spell the doom of the physical book? Certainly not immediately, and perhaps not at all. What it does mean is that the book business will go through a transformation in the next decade or so more profound than any it has seen since Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the 1450s. [ click to continue reading at The American Magazine ]