Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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The Self-Fulfilling Death of Humanities
Fearing the depreciating value of the humanities fields drives away talent and financial resources, concludes Benjamin Winterhalter, writing for the Atlantic. Humanities subjects include research areas often difficult to assess through quantitative methods, but, despite policymakers’ interest in statistical data,…
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Oscar Wilde, Journalist
The famous playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde also spent a number of years in journalism. Scholars John Stokes and Mark W. Turner are finally collecting Wilde’s journalism from the 1880s. Little is known of Wilde’s life at this time, but…
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Escaping Global Slavery, Almost
Njong Emmanuel Tohnain, imprisoned in a Chinese factory that produced shopping bags for Saks Fifth Avenue, wrote notes (some in English and others in French) inside five bags pleading for help from the wealthy consumers on the other side of…
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YA Shaming
Young adult fiction has never been more popular among grownup-adults—more than half of YA books are sold to people over the age of 18. There isn’t anything wrong with the occasional guilty pleasure, or even in indulging in topics that…
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Notable NYC: 6/7–6/13
Saturday 6/7: Michael Flatt, Rachael Katz, and Morgan Parker read poetry. Mellow Pages, 8 p.m., free. Sunday 6/8: Miranda Mellis, Jaime Clarke, and Andrea Lawlor join the Sunday Night Fiction series. Clarke’s Vernon Downs (April 2014) is the story of…
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The Amazon War: A Rumpus Roundup
Amazon and Hachette Book Group have been locked in an epic battle over e-book pricing since early May. Amazon began by delaying shipments of Hachette books and then escalated to removing Hachette titles from the site entirely. The leader of this rebellion…
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Writing in Prison
Drugs and petty crime landed Daniel Genis in prison for ten years. He spent his term reading and working on his three-hundred page novel—but only after dropping $375 on a clear plastic typewriter, the only model he was allowed. Genis…
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Soho Press, a History
Founded in 1986, independent publisher Soho Press has built its reputation on engaging literary novels, a catalog of international authors, and a crime fiction imprint. The press has thrived even through an era of upheaval in the publishing and book…
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Building a Better Bookstore
The 21st century bookstore needs to adapt to new ways of doing business to stave off competition from the Internet. And simply getting customers into stores isn’t enough—keeping up requires adding new attractions like literary sommeliers and better in-store event…
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The Cost of Writing A Novel
Selling a book is no way to make a living. Writing a book will probably cost more than it ever earns, between lost potential wages and the emotional toll of the publishing process. Novelist Kim Triedman explains at Beyond the…
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The Reading Rainbow Industrial Complex
By now just about everyone has probably heard of the Kickstarter to bring back iconic children’s television show Reading Rainbow. News reports on the millions raised by the campaign are often outdated before they’re even published ($3.2m as of Sunday…
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Notable NYC: 5/31–6/6
Saturday 5/31: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Ethan Hauser, and Paul Rome have a conversation with publishing insiders Katie Raissian, Erin Harris, and Brittney Inman Canty. Bittersweet (May 2014), Beverly-Whittmore’s new novel, is about a girl and her roommate at a prestigious East…