Forget Fiction And Non-Fiction, Bud: Is The Book Liberal Or Conservative? The
National Review's bestseller list (
scroll down and click) is starkly divided into "Conservative Bestsellers" and "Liberal Bestsellers". Is this a quirky innovation and deliberate provocation or just plain stupid and sad? Does such a dichotomy in fact exist? How would the literature of the world fit into such a classification? (
This isn't the end of the world as we know it, is it?)
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Apr 14, 2004 -
50 comments
Punk-Tuation: Is It The New Anarchy Or Boring Old Fascism All Over Again? How
anal serious about apostrophes are you? Just how far would you go for a perfect semi-colon? Do you regularly reach for heart pills before you read MetaFilter? Take comfort in this:
Lynne Trusse's wildly popular
Eats Shoots And Leaves is
this year's surprise
bestseller in Britain. And I've limited myself to the MeFi-adored
Guardian, just to make my (as it were) point. So... how important is punctuation to you? My own suspicion is that punctuation is the new spelling. It
is important. (
And, lest this seem carefree and frivolous, let me confess right away that MetaFilter may well be the worst offender, in this regard, ever to have blessedly existed.)
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Dec 19, 2003 -
36 comments
Why Books Will Always Be With Us... along with almost everything else.
Umberto Eco goes all encyclopedic on us (but in a nice way!) summing up (and reopening) the themes of a lifetime of reading, writing and watching. Though I'm sure what he says about the Web and electronic media will be picked to bits here, I'd say that would be a perfect vindication of this extraordinary exercise in common sense. [
Via Arts & Letters Daily.]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Nov 26, 2003 -
14 comments
Whatever Next? Amazon Makes A Profit! Having lost $3 billion so far, Amazon Books has just posted its first-ever profit of $5 million. Perhaps it was thanks to the new
machines they bought to replace more workers.(
this last link req. NYT reg.) How would
you spend it if you were Jeff Bezos? And what does it mean: has the tide turned or not?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jan 22, 2002 -
27 comments
Finally the Nobel Prize For Literature Gets It Right Jorge Luis Borges didn't get it. Neither did Marcel Proust. But today V.S.Naipaul, arguably the best writer in the English language since Samuel Beckett died, was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Doesn't this just show it helps not to be English(e.g. Irish, American, Indian or Trinidadian)to be able to write dry and timeless prose such as Sir Vidia's?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Oct 11, 2001 -
29 comments
