December 17, 2010

In the margins with Sam Anderson + Melville House book giveaway contest

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What does a fine literary critic scribble in the margins of the books he’s reading? Well, “OMG” and “LOL” and “Motherfuck” all make appearances… alongside, of course, deeper sentiments. Over at The Millions Sam Anderson (who, review by review, inches towards becoming my favorite contemporary critic) provides an intimate look at some of his in-book thoughts and scrawls from 2010.

Reality Hunger by David Shields:

The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis:


Madame Bovary by Flaubert:

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker:

We love this stuff. We love it so much that I’d like to announce the Melville House Marginalia Contest. Here’s how it works. You submit an image of amazing marginalia you’ve found, seen, and/or written over the years to [email protected] with “MARGINALIA” in the subject line, and we’ll post them on MobyLives in  2011. And, in keeping with the holiday spirit, if you send us an image of literary marginalia that we end up posting, you will receive a free copy of one of our great gift books: Vivian Cook‘s All In A Word, Mahendra Singh‘s illustrated version of Lewis Carroll‘s The Hunting of the Snark, Trevor Paglen‘s I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me, or a novella of your chosing from our “Art of the Novella” series.

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