Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
-
Judges Release Sherlock
Sherlock Holmes has been freed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle claimed copyright over the character who first appeared in 1887 and has appeared in more than fifty-six stories and four novels. The…
-
Paying for a Book Tour
Katey Schultz published her debut collection of stories, Flashes of War, through a university press. Lacking the support of a major publishing house meant Schultz ended up self-financing her book tour. To get started, she spent $12,000 on a publicist, tour…
-
Famed Ulysses Pharmacy Faces Taxman
Sweny’s, the pharmacy made famous in Joyce’s Ulysses (when Leopold Bloom visits the Dublin shop to purchase lotion and soap for his wife Molly), opened more than 167 years ago and has remained more or less unchanged for most of that…
-
Literature as Ideal Propaganda
During the Cold War, the CIA viewed literature as a potent tool to undermine the Soviet Union. Novels by George Orwell, Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Joyce were smuggled across borders. And, as Nick Romeo explains in the Atlantic,…
-
ISIS: A Rumpus Roundup
The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria, known better as ISIS, has operated in Syria and Iraq since 2003 as an offshoot of al-Qaeda—at least until al-Qaeda disavowed any connection. The military organization is neither a political party nor religious…
-
Critics vs. Readers
Critics don’t seem to like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, but that hasn’t stopped readers from buying more than a million copies of the novel. Vanity Fair poses the question: but is it art? The New Republic suggests this kind of criticism…
-
Occasional Writing
The pomp and ceremony of events like weddings and anniversaries often require writers to write, whether it’s a gifted poem or the script of a wedding ceremony. Novelist and ordained Universal Life Church minister Kim Triedman explores the difficulties of…
-
Struggling with Titles
Karl Ove Knausgaard has been making waves with his six-part book My Struggle. The popular series shares a title with another famous book, Mein Kampf, Hitler’s treatise written from his prison cell. The New Yorker explores the reasoning behind Knausgaard’s choice…
-
Notable NYC: 6/14–6/20
Saturday 6/14: Alex Wright reads from Cataloging the World (March 2014), an examination of the information age. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Sunday 6/15: Maureen Miller reads poetry that challenges the patient-doctor relationship. Bowery Poetry Club, 3:30 p.m., $10. David Zweig reads…
-
Digital Age Fuels Sci-Fi Short Stories
The digital era has brought on a new golden age of science fiction. Electronic books, self-driving cars, and video phones may not seem too fictional these days, but technology like the Internet has empowered all sorts of new distribution methods…
-
Will Buzz for Books
Crown Publishing Group has been rolling out a marketing program hoping to leverage the power of social media. The program, Blogging for Books, offers free books to bloggers in exchange for book reviews. Ideal participants generate buzz by posting comments…
-
Phillip P. Puckett: A Rumpus Roundup
Virginia State Senator Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat, resigned on Monday. His resignation gives Republicans control of the state legislature. Puckett had planned on taking a new job as deputy of the state tobacco commission, an appointed position controlled by…