An engraved invitation to go piss up a hill
Right after Portnoy, Philip Roth described his many contributions to the flourishing literary subgenre of angry ripostes to reviewers. It’s hard to imagine quite how plentiful that genre must be… Read more »
Country doctors and an amazing Kafka animation
Hey you! Got twenty minutes? You probably won’t find a better way to spend them than watching this amazing Japanese animation of Kafka’s A Country Doctor: On the subject of… Read more »
The mystery of the White Glove: British agency partners with Amazon
White Glove (I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up)… Read more »
Fiction being scrapped from schools?
The Washington Post reports that fiction teaching is being cut drastically in many schools, thanks to instructions — or rather, lack of clear instruction — from the Common Core State Standards board. The… Read more »
Ebooks: Now you see them, now you don’t
Another mindbendingly weird reason has emerged for people being denied access to ebooks they have rightfully bought. Take it away, Nook-user Synimatik: Yesterday, I tried to download an ebook I… Read more »
Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day
This Saturday, December 1st, is the third annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day. If you don’t have your own child you could try borrowing one, though I hear… Read more »
The seamy underbelly of British lexicography
One harmless drudge at the Oxford English Dictionary turns out not to have been so harmless. Robert Burchfield, editor of the OED between 1972 and 1986, has always been seen as a… Read more »
Requiem for Norma
There’s been no shortage of publishing news sensations in the past year. While the anglophones among us reel from the news of the Penguin/Random merger, book types in Latin America… Read more »
Newspapers turn on Amazon
“You depend on the services that come out of the tax you pay, the ability to get your goods around on the roads . . . and you’re not putting… Read more »
Terry Pratchett’s daughter will continue Discworld series
In an interview with Laurie Penny for the New Statesman, Terry Pratchett has announced that his daughter Rhianna will take over the Discworld series when he’s no longer able to… Read more »