MetaFilter posts tagged with book and literature

Forgotten Bookmarks

milquetoast — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:33:46 -0800

Forgotten Bookmarks. "I work at a used and rare bookstore, and I buy books from people every day. These are the personal, funny, heartbreaking and weird things I find in those books. "

Infinite Summer

mattbucher — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:46:49 -0800

Infinite Summer - "The Challenge: Read Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009" "You've been meaning to do it for over a decade. Now join endurance bibliophiles from around the web as we tackle and comment upon David Foster Wallace's masterwork, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages1 ÷ 93 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat." There is also a Twitter account, hashtag (#infsum), and a Facebook group.

What are you reading, charming writer?

mattbucher — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:13:48 -0800

What are writers reading? An eclectic mix of authors answer the perennial question. A sampling of responses: George Packer Anne Fadiman Cass Sunstein Jane Smiley Lydia Millet Steven Zipperstein Abraham Verghese John Dunning Stephen Burt Tim Harford

A Temple of Texts

mattbucher — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:27:54 -0800

William Gass's personal library. The photos accompany this article by Gass about his love of books -- specifically about collecting them over his life and "living in a library." Now in my own home I am surrounded by nearly 20,000 books, few of them rare, many unread, none of them neglected. They are there, as libraries always are, to help when needed, and who knows what writer I shall have to write on next, what subject will become suddenly essential, or what request will arrive that requires the immediate assistance of books on—well—libraries, or the language of animals or the pronunciation of Melanesian pidgin, since my essays tend to be assigned, not simply solicited, and because I am easily seduced by new themes. I can actually say a few things in Melanesian pidgin, none of them polite.

It's that time again.

availablelight — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:41:45 -0800

Coming February 3, 2009.... It's time for the next big wintertime memoir scandal.... ...and Oprah is not going to be amused. The New Republic--with the help of some prominent Holocaust historians--is raising serious questions about the veracity of (two-time Oprah's guest) Herman Rosenblat's forthcoming memoir, Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived. Rosenblat has been telling his story for ten years now, and it was published as a children's book earlier in 2008. A $25 million dollar movie adaptation is already on the table, and the producer is already threatening legal action...against The New Republic. Snopes gave the story an "undetermined" rating as of this October.

The Agrippa Files

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 01:32:36 -0800

The Agrippa Files presents a fairly expansive overview of the original and very rare 1992 art book Agrippa (a book of the dead), a collaboration between artist Dennis Ashbaugh, author William Gibson, and award-winning journalist Kevin Begos, Jr. that presciently explored the ephemeral nature of and decay of memories and information. The comprehensive site includes selected pages from handmade and other editions of the book, along with a simulation of disappearing ink-printed pages, as well as the source code, bit-level copy and emulation of William Gibson's self-destructing work of poetry, which can be read once before it irreversibly encrypts itself. The Agrippa Files also collects scholarly essays on the artworks, exploring meaning and impact.

And as she was a little girl, of course she was... pink

dersins — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:58:33 -0800

The Story of Blossom the Brave Balloon.

There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There is just stuff people do.

miss lynnster — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:08:19 -0800

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath on May 6, 1940. The "Wrath" link is the Henry Fonda film in its entirety.

They send you a book, you review it.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:58:13 -0800

Blog a Penguin Classic.

Bookstore burns books

stbalbach — Tue, 29 May 2007 05:45:34 -0800

It's a sad old story but the reading of literature continues to decline. Prospero's Books - a Kansas-city used bookstore - is so desperate to thin out its collection it has started to burn books. Co-owner Tom Wayne says he is unable to sell many of his thousands of books, or even to give them away to libraries and thrift stores, so he started a pyre in protest.

They read books so you don't have to

KirkJobSluder — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 15:56:45 -0800

The Digested Read at The Guardian reduces popular books to 400 words and a conclusion. Recent notables include Belle du Jour ("Sometimes I lie about my age to clients. Sometimes I even lie to my friends. I guess you must be wondering whether I'm lying now.") Crichton's State of Fear ("Author's note: I'm very, very clever and have read a lot and you're all stupid wishy-washy liberals.") and Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons ("At least it covered her breasts, whatever they were. Charlotte knew men might want to touch them, but she didn't know why as she had never read Cosmopolitan.") Possibly NSFW if you have an employer with no sense of humor. On preview: Individual Digested Reads have been linked in previous discussions on Henry James and Camille Paglia.

The DNA of Literature

rushmc — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 14:37:41 -0800

The DNA of Literature. The Paris Review, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, makes available free .pdfs of fifty years of interviews with leading writers.

A film for those who read

rushmc — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 21:56:42 -0800

"Stone Reader makes you want to pick up a great novel and consume it in one long gulp. It’s a love letter to literature and literacy, a bibliophile’s dream film, dedicated to the joys of fiction and the passions of those who need books like they need food, water and air." (The Dallas Morning News)

I am so not over Ted Con-over!

adrober — Sat, 25 Oct 2003 23:56:12 -0800

Ted Conover is a fantastic, prize-winning author. His book Newjack is, to quote Jon Krakauer, "a compelling, compassionate look at a terribly important, poorly understood aspect of American society." In it, he works undercover as a guard at Sing Sing. You can read the truncated New Yorker version on the site. Additionally, there are many other articles, reviews and interviews, and a pretty interesting group of e-mails from "officers, their families, and others affected by prison." And, just to name-drop once more, Sebastian Junger says: "Ted Conover is a first-rate reporter and more daring and imaginative than the rest of us combined." Check him out!

Little Stalker Boy

dg — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 17:19:59 -0800

Little Stalker Boy is tired, but mostly he's just restless. Little Stalker Boy is outside her house again tonight - hanging in a tree and taking photos as she passes the front window.

Violet Books

hama7 — Sat, 22 Mar 2003 20:29:04 -0800

Violet Books: Antiquarian Supernatural, Fantasy & Mysterious Literatures, including the Gallery of Rare Dustwrappers, the Golden Age of Illustration Index, or the Westerns Dustwrapper Galleries, and more.

arco — Fri, 05 Oct 2001 07:18:15 -0800

So this year's Best American Poetry book is out, which means it's time once again for me to feel (English-major) guilt about not enjoying, or even "getting," more contemporary poetry. It looks like I'm not the only one, though, who wonders, "Does anybody like these poems?" Poet Joan Houlihan likens this collection to a "suburban poetry mall." (via Arts & Letters Daily)

hanseugene — Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:05:23 -0800

I'm something of a bibliophile; at age 17 I have a personal library of over 600 books and I read about 120 books every year. One of the cool things I discovered on the 'net last year was the growing number of personal book review sites. A couple of my favorites are John Regehr's Book Pages and Danny Yee's Book Reviews. Both sites provide literate, enjoyable commentary on a wide-range of books. Assignment: Anybody else out there found any good book review sites? If so, please share and explain. :)