Features & Reviews
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Akashic Press Has A New Blog
“Living in Brooklyn (as 3/4 of the Akashic Staff does), discussions about Irony usually in end hipster-bashing sessions. Williamsburg is rendered as a mecca of self-posturing, detachment and apathy. It’s easy to be negative! Enter Trinie Dalton, who does the…
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Science Fiction Predicts The Present
“Science fiction writers don’t predict the future (except accidentally), but if they’re very good, they may manage to predict the present. Mary Shelley wasn’t worried about reanimated corpses stalking Europe, but by casting a technological innovation in the starring role of Frankenstein,…
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No Ordinary Pile of Index Cards
The novel Nabokov was working on when he died, The Original of Laura, is set to be released in the US on November 17th.
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ABA Challenges Big-Box “Predatory Pricing”
Two weeks ago, the American Booksellers Association, an organization of independent booksellers, asked the Justice Department to investigate what it describes as “illegal predatory pricing” by big-box retailers Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, and Target. The price war began on October 15 when…
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Drying Out
“‘Listen, Truman,’ [John Cheever] told Truman Capote. ‘It’s the most terrible, glum place you can conceivably imagine. It’s really really, really grim. But I did come out of there sober.” Tom Shone’s “When Novelists Sober Up.” (via @Weegee)
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“Story of a Book Cover”
“[…] but I was worried that there was something else out there that we hadn’t thought of.” Ethan Watters, author of Urban Tribes, discusses his experiences choosing a cover for his new book, Crazy Like Us. The post includes images…
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Sam J. Miller’s 25-Word Reviews #2
Paranormal Activity (movie, dir. Oren Peli, 2009) Above-average scary. Neat pacing. Best with a full house in big cities. Overheard: “This is dumb good,” “We’re gonna have to get the bootleg.” The September Issue (movie, dir. R.J. Cutler, 2009)
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“C-A-P-P-U-C-C-I-N-O”
Rumpus New York Bureau Chief Rozalia Jovanovic has published a subjective account of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses‘ spelling bee: “James Frey, Ben Greenman and Maira Kalman Spell Some Words.” Also, if you haven’t done so already, you…
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So I’m Guessing There’s No Second Edition
A charming find on eBay: a 1927 guide on How to Play the Cinema Organ published at the exact moment that talkies were about to rub out the profession. The Jazz Singer came out in October of that very year.
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The Rumpus Interview with Molly Crabapple
Molly Crabapple is an artist, model, entrepreneur, and one-woman pen-and-ink revolution. She’s probably best known as the founder of the worldwide burlesque life drawing phenomenon, Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, which has opened branches in 80 cities since it launched in…
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Bolaño, Inc.: Moya Contrasts the Myth with the Man
Horacio Castellanos Moya, author of Senselessness and eight other books, has written a piece about the “construction of the ‘Bolaño myth’ in the United States” that contrasts this myth with the man he knew. Moya claims that Bolaño would probably be amused by…
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Internal
The LA Times has posted a profile about Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott. Of course, as this is the Internet, the story doesn’t end there. Scott Timberg, the author of the profile, has posted an addendum to his piece.