Today, in Book Review, Christopher Lura reviews Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything, David Bellos’s new treatise on the pleasure of translation. Read the review.

Some friends of Housing Works Bookstore are hosting a marathon reading of Herman Melville’s novella Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. It’s only 45 pages, but it’s an exciting 45 pages. The reading will be this Thursday, Nov. 10, at 3 PM in the public atrium at 60 Wall Street.

Filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Les Blank explore the shifting definition of the phrase “women’s work” through the lens of the Oakland Museum Women’s Board (and the board’s renowned White Elephant Sale) in their new short documentary, White Gloves.

The Oakland Museum will screen the movie, which you can learn more about here, this Friday evening at 7pm. You can view the trailer here.

Today Aimee DeLong reviewed Chuck Klosterman’s new novel, The Visible Man, here at The Rumpus.

Tonight Klosterman is reading at the Booksmith at 7:30pm in San Francisco. See you there?

Last March, when the New York Times announced they would be erecting a pay wall, I knew I would pay it. …more

Today, in Book Review, John Reed reviews Who is Ana Mendieta? a new graphic novel about the life and tragic death of the feminist artist. Read the review.

Award-winning author E. L. Doctorow will be reading down in San Jose tonight. Then tomorrow afternoon he will be in conversation with our very own Andrew Altschul.

Here are all of the exciting details at the San Jose State Center for the Literary Arts website.

It’s a Chris Adrian double feature! Today, in Book Review, Christopher Feliciano Arnold reviews Adrian’s latest novel, The Great Night. Then tonight at 7:30 Adrian will be reading at Booksmith in the Haight.

Emily Gould (who we interviewed in a Conversation with Writers Braver Than Me) has a new episode of her series Cooking the Books, in which she cooks with writers as they discuss their latest books.

In the latest installment, she juices vegetables with Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch, authors of Ten Walks/Two Talks.

Deb Olin Unferth was recently interviewed on the Bat Segundo Show, a podcast of long-form interviews with writers.

In her interview Unferth tells us, “in many ways we’re all sort of a bundle of urgencies, right? We’re all trying to do all sorts of things to stay calm. To try and stay calm. And some of those things are satisfied very easily. Just by eating something if I’m hungry. And others feel deep and existential and possibly without solution.”

We think that makes sense.

Last week, the Newspaper Guild, a 26,000-member-strong national union of media workers, called on all unpaid Huffington Post bloggers “to withhold their work.”

The strike asks specifically for an immediate pay schedule for all contributors. Read their official press release. As you may have noticed, we have discussed the recent purchase of HuffPo by AOL and the ethical implications of working for a corporation for free. (Some historical insight: last April, the New York Times weighed in on the legal ramifications of unpaid labor.)

Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) has a new film, Miral, about a young girl in Jerusalem. That’s exciting, right?

When the United Nations decided to screen the film, the American Jewish Committee condemned the screening and said the fim was unfairly biased against Israel. Harvey Weinstein, who is distributing the film through his company, offered to the , “As a Jewish American, I can categorically state that I would not be releasing a film that was flagrantly biased towards Israel or Judaism. Miral tells a story about a young Palestinian woman, but that does not make it a polemic. By stifling discussion or pre-judging a work of art, we only perpetuate the prejudice that does so much harm.”

The producers of the film extended an invitation to the American Jewish Council to attend the screening. Read the Los Angeles Times‘ coverage here.

Our friends over at Electric Literature have an awesome new app called Broadcastr that plays certain audio stories based on your GPS location, bringing place-specific tales into your everyday travels!

We recommend Jennifer Egan reading from A Visit From the Goon Squad.

Over at The Awl, Eileen Myles shares her thoughts on seeing the VIDA pie graphs. She tells us that writing by women is inherently more interesting: “Why? Because the female reality is still largely unknown. And language is the thrill that holds the unknown in its vague and shifting ways. That’s writing.”

On Tuesday morning the University of San Francisco closed their radio station, KUSF. More precisely, they sold the bandwidth. We don’t really understand what it means to sell an FCC license, but the station is off the air, to be replaced by a non-commercial classical station. The community of djs and listeners are very upset. The “Save KUSF” Facebook page already has 4,000 fans.

Here’s the Bay Guardian and the Chronicle on the station’s closure.

As I concluded in Modern Reader #2, I really enjoyed Ten Walks/Two Talks, the recent volume from Ugly Duckling Presse of the meandering conversations between Andy Fitch and Jon Cotner. The duo are in LA this week, reading four times(!) with the likes of Grace Krilanovich, Anna Joy Springer, Tom Lutz, and Maggie Nelson. Go in my stead! More information.

Today in Book Review, Shawna Lang Ryan reviews two new novels by Asian American writers, Quiet As They Come by Angie Chau and Take Me Home by Brian Leung. Read the review.

Andrew Winer will be one of tonight’s readers at The Monthly Rumpus, along with M.G. Martin, Pam Houston, Chris Colin, and Kristen Tracy! With Comedy by Emily Heller and music by Boy in the Bubble and Chris Von Sneidern!

Read the Rumpus Review of his excellent new novel here.

Today in Book Review, Regina Marler reviews Anthony De Sa’s new collection of stories, Barnacle Love. Read the review.

Today, in Book Review, Evan J. Peterson reviews Jon Macy’s latest graphic novel, Teleny and Camille, a new take on the Oscar Wilde story. Read the review.

Today, in Book Review, John Wilwol reviews Damon Galgut’s latest novel, In a Strange Room.

I spent $90, and now I have 39 books stacked on my table. That’s $2.31 each! …more

Opening Lines discusses the origins and first trys of now-famous writers and other figures. Their tag line reads: “How the famous and infamous got their start.” Some of my favorite’s include that Flannery O’Connor couldn’t spell, Steve Jobs started out making illegal phones long before the iPhone, and Jennifer Egan thinks she got famous too fast – to her detriment.

The Center for Literary Arts and Litquake present an all-star reading this Sunday night at 6:30. Hosted by Rumpus Books Editor Andrew Altschul, the event features past and future CLA authors Andrew Sean Greer, Maxine Hong Kingston, Mary Roach, Kim Addonizio, and Daniel Alarcón. Venue and ticket info at the official Litquake website.

Today, in Book Review, John Wilwol reviews Tom McCarthy’s latest novel, C, recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Today, in Book Review, Matt McGregor reviews George Orfalea’s debut collection, The Man Who Guarded the Bomb.

Is it possible to pinpoint when a trend begins? When a seminal book, or movie, or article, penetrates the mainstream? Really it never is a single specimen, but rather a choir erupts, as if the movie producers and publishers had schemed years before to create this unavoidable fad. …more

D. C. Pierson’s adolescent heroes hope for a future in which “‘existence engineer’ and ‘clone wrangler’ will be viable career paths.” …more

I read Robert Walser’s The Tanners by accident—or, to be more precise, I bought it by accident. I’d recently run across an interview with Susan Bernofsky, the translator, and when the bright yellow cover gleamed at me from the table, I had to have it. …more

Over at HTMLGIANT Adam Robinson interviewed Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch about their genre-defying book, Ten Walks/Two Talks:  “It manages to combine a generalized, dog-like happiness with an adult awareness of death.” There is even a chance to win a copy of the book thanks to a walk-off contest! Click here to learn more, and here to read a discussion of the book from awhile back.