Book designer Chip Kidd explains why designing books is no laughing matter (or maybe it is) and illustrated why literary TED talks are the best TED talks.
Spoiling myself is both liberating and frustrating. There’s no plot question I hate more than “Will they or won’t they?” I think love triangles are boring, so any time I can hop online and and find out that yep, Peeta and Katinss end up together, it makes me feel calm and, I think, helps me pay attention to the book more carefully because I’m not rushing to have a single question answered.
But spoiling myself also keeps me from being surprised. Spoiling myself is a direct result of being an impatient reader, a reader more interested in the destination than the journey. And while sometimes that’s ok — especially if the book is one where I don’t really care about either (coughTwilightcough) — there are other books that earn the destination because of the journey.
But spoiling myself also keeps me from being surprised. Spoiling myself is a direct result of being an impatient reader, a reader more interested in the destination than the journey. And while sometimes that’s ok — especially if the book is one where I don’t really care about either (coughTwilightcough) — there are other books that earn the destination because of the journey.
This sculpture at Harvard’s Houghton Library is made from more than 4,000 books and has caused something of a scandal. More on scandalous works of library art here.
Critical Linking: May 9, 2013
Our daily round-up of bookish links. Tastes great with coffee.
As Mr. Salerno delivers his final cut, the marketers face particularly tough decisions about how much to show in a trailer. They must also figure out whether a screening at a late summer film festival, where prize contenders often start their march toward the Oscars, can work for a picture that has to protect its secrets while selling them.
Seems to me you are either interested in a JD Salinger documentary or you aren’t.
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Over 26% of respondents are parents of school-age children, 61% are white, and 62% have degrees or some college. This is not a national data sample, and we need to be cautious in using these statistics and question the source.
Hmmm. Looks like that survey about how much Americans love libraries might really been a survey of how much white, college-educated parents love libraries.
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Google and the Authors Guild are wrangling in court again, with the latter asking for $3 billion in damages related to Google’s digital books project.
$3 billion dollars. Good luck with that.
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I have been reading books with a grandnephew over the last several months. We call it the Family Almost Book Club. He is in 9th grade and a voracious reader. Most of the titles we have read are YA, a genre that was almost unknown to me.
A book club just for family members. I kinda love this.
tetw:
As chosen by the staff of Bookriot.com
We asked the people behind the excellent Bookriot.com to pick their favourite articles and essays for us. This is what they chose:
Roger Ebert: The Essential Man by Chris Jones — Jones is one of my favorite contemporary journalists. He writes spot-on profiles, and this generous, funny, and sad piece about Roger Ebert from 2010 never fails to make me cry. (Kim Ukura)
What Broke My Father’s Heart by Katy Butler — The decision about how to live the last part of our lives is a difficult one, made even more complicated by the advances in medical science and the monetary incentives in place in our medical system. In this piece Katy Butler looks at the different ways her parents died and how her father became a victim of a system that was supposed to help him. (Kim Ukura)
The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything by Linda Holmes — There is a lot of intellectual, artistic stuff produced every day. Sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking about how much of it I am going to miss. When that happens, I revisit this essay and it usually makes me feel better. (Kim Ukura)
SpongeBob’s Golden Dream by James Parker — Almost four years after I first read it, this essay remains my touchstone for the best kind of topical-yet-oracular cultural criticism. Taking “SpongeBob SquarePants” seriously, James Parker reads SpongeBob himself as a moral beacon of postmodern capitalism. It stings, and I smile. (Derek Attig)
Watch This Man by Pankaj Mishra — My favorite book review. The pleasure of “Watch This Man” is the pleasure of seeing a sharp mind dispassionately and patiently dismantling a popular thinker’s popular thoughts. Essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra takes on Niall Ferguson’s oeuvre, and his neomperialism, with wry aplomb. An extra delight is that, in this online version, you can also read a back-and-forth between Mishra and Ferguson that followed the original publication. (Derek Attig)
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu by John Updike — In his final game with the Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams - the greatest hitter who ever lived, aged 41 - lived up to the mythical image he had earned after more than twenty seasons in the Majors. John Updike was there and wrote this ode to Teddy Ballgame, the best piece of sports writing and one of the best essays I’ve ever encountered.
Mother Earth, Mother Board by Neal Stephenson — in 1993, cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson went world-traveling as a “hacker tourist,” to look at the massive cables laid across continents, forming the very physical and very literal backbone of the digital world. The article is fascinating not only for his exploration of different continents, but because it’s a look at the physical aspect of the internet, which we often forget about. And as an added feature, the article is now twenty years old, which makes it nearly an artifact all by itself. (Peter Damien)
Politics and The English Language by George Orwell — A classic screed against bad writing. As relevant today as it was in 1946, the essay combines Orwell’s unparalleled bullshit detector with his desire to write as forthrightly as he can. (Jeff O’Neal)
Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell — Agree or not, there’s no denying that this 1927 lecture is a masterful piece of writing. Logical and passionate, this is Bertrand Russell at his finest: “We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world — its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it.” (Derek Attig)
Cookbooks by Anthony Lane — No matter the mental weather, this essay on cookbooks — their frights and foibles — can reduce you to a giggling, quivering jelly. Jelly tied securely with a single chive. (Jennifer Paull)
Unflowered Aloes by Tom Bissell — We like to think that the books that are published get published because they are the very best books publishers had to choose from, and that the books that become renowned and widely sold are renowned and widely sold because they have the most literary value. But that’s not always the case. There’s a lot of luck and a lot of randomness involved, and Tom Bissell explores those elements in this piece, subtitled “Why literary success is a product of chance, not destiny.” (Rebecca Joines Schinsky)
For some of the internet’s best writing about books and reading, great literary links, and stunning reading lists go to Bookriot.com. And if you want to read something amazing but don’t know where to start, why not read your way into 25 amazing authors with their latest kickstarter project, Start Here.
I was in my third summer of misery, and in the bookstore again, and this time I picked up a used copy of John Irving’s The World According to Garp. As soon as I began to read, I felt a tonal shift, a different sensibility. No one was sobbing so much anymore–including me–and though terrible, outrageously tragic things were going on–the characters in Garp were pushing recklessly forward, almost as if they were daring the universe to stop them. I carried that book with me everywhere and when I finished reading it, I read it again, and when I was done, I realized Irving had knocked me off course. I was finally looking at my life differently, as if I were seeing it from a rear view window, watching it grow smaller and smaller until it vanished, a place I need never revisit. Two months later, I moved to Manhattan. I didn’t have a job. I no longer had a husband. But John Irving gave me a sense that no matter what happened–I would be all right.
