Category: literature

Bryant & May: Peculiar London

A most peculiar book about a most peculiar town

Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the New Millennium

An old book review, recently unearthed.

Extraordinary finds

I maintain my own daybook, where I have recorded events by date that are significant to me (there is a link near the top of the left sidebar)….

Topicality in literary writing, and its implications for web search optimization

Many years ago, as a graduate student in comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a focus in part on the linguistic model in literary criticism, I…

100 best novels quiz

How many of Modern Library’s hundred best novels of the 20th century can you name if you’re given the names of the authors? Fine out here. I was…

Copper Canyon to publish Chinese anthology

Copper Canyon has been selected by the NEA be the U.S. publisher for its International Literary Exchange with China. According to Publishers Weekly, “Copper Canyon will receive $117,000…

Cronopios and Famas

The post title is a Cortazar allusion (hard to explain, you just have to read Julio). It seems President-elect Obama phoned President Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, and in…

The books we need

“The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves,…

Corpse reborn

The following is a message sent by Exquisite Corpse to its subscribers. Dear readers: Did you miss us? We missed you. It’s only been a brief eon but…

86 recommended travel books

Conde Nast commissioned a distinguished group of writers to nominate their favorite travel books. Participating authors included André Aciman, Monica Ali, Julia Alvarez, Tom Bissell, Geraldine Brooks, Vikram…

Portuguese libraries, photographed by Candida Höfer

Candida Höfer‘s photographs of Portuguese libraries, now on display at the Sonnabend Gallery, 536 West 22nd Street in NYC, presents libraries as places of opulence. In these settings…

Fernando del Paso to receive FIL Literature Prize

Fernando del Paso will receive the $100,000 FIL Literature Prize for lifetime literary achievement iat the 2007 Guadalajara International Book Fair on November 24. An excerpt from del…

50 neglected classics

The Guardian asked 50 writers to nominate neglected books that deserve a second chance with the public. “The majority of books fall stillborn from the press, never living…

Archer Returns

The entire series of Ross Macdonald Lew Archer novels is returning to print from Vintage Books. The early Archer novels are derivative of Chandler — some would say…

Come in

A story often repeated is that Joyce’s sometime amanuensis, Samuel Beckett, inserted the words “come in” into Finnegans Wake, unaware that Joyce was answering a knock at the…

Daily Lit

If you like your literature bite-sized, Daily Lit could be the answer. It will send you a five-minute passage of a selection of public domain books by e-mail…

I’ll take that score

I was lucky to get it, I think. Plus, I am awesome. How about you? You know the Bible 85%! Wow! You are awesome! You are a true…

Boz’s London

Here‘s a cool web feature for lit types. Clicking the map (the image above is a detail) takes you to a section of an 1859 map of London….

BibliOdyssey

Another entry for “blogs we love.” I just discovered BlbliOdyssey (“Books, Illustrations, Science, History, Visual Materia Obscura, and Eclectic Bookart”) recently, but it only takes a few minutes…

Note to Self

Will Self’s writing room. A 360 degree view in 71 photos by Phil Grey