George Whitman, founder of the Parisian landmark bookstore Shakespeare And Company, has died at the age of 98
posted by The Whelk on Dec 14, 2011 - 49 comments

Slaughterhouse 90210, where erudite literary quotes meet TV screencaps. [more inside]
posted by aerotive on Feb 2, 2010 - 33 comments

We've seen tattooed librarians, but so-called literary tattoos are a growing trend. See the lively LiveJournal group, or the folks over at Contrariwise. Recently, "A couple of independent editors have decided to take the trend and invert it -- to put the literary tattoos back in a book." It appears the call for submissions is still on-going.
posted by litterateur on Aug 6, 2009 - 26 comments

Shmoop is study guides and teacher resources that help us understand how literature and history and poetry are relevant today. Take for example Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. Get a technical analysis of it's literary devices, explanations of the themes, and audio/video readings of the sonnet.
posted by netbros on May 24, 2009 - 10 comments

Coming February 3, 2009.... It's time for the next big wintertime memoir scandal.... ...and Oprah is not going to be amused. [more inside]
posted by availablelight on Dec 24, 2008 - 52 comments

Martha Nussbaum reviews three recent books on Shakespeare and philosophy. The essay offers an excellent analysis of love in Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, and an excellent discussion of the interaction between philosophy and literature. [more inside]
posted by painquale on May 5, 2008 - 17 comments

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.
posted by stbalbach on May 29, 2007 - 66 comments

Graphs, Maps, Trees. The Valve is hosting a literary event for professor Franco Moretti's new book, Graphs, Maps, Trees. Moretti aims to reinvigorate literary studies by constructing abstract models based upon quantitative history, geography, and evolutionary theory. PDFs of the original articles: Graphs, Maps, Trees. A review at n+1 is here.
posted by painquale on Jan 13, 2006 - 10 comments

A Good Online Literary Journal That Needs - And Pays For! - Unsolicited Material? No!... Yes! Pif magazine, edited by Camille Renshaw, not only welcomes unsolicited texts but actually pays for the stuff it accepts. It's strictly electronic - no snail mail accepted - and has plenty of ads from other zines soliciting submissions. It also gives writers a chance to offer their services. Although the subscription to the full contents is $25 a year, there's a lot of interesting free material on its website, e.g. an interview with Rick Moody. They've raised $10000 so far and there's a pleasing, against-the-grain spirit to the whole thing! Can things perhaps not be as bad as we think? (From browsing Metafilter, thanks to a very helpful comment by Muckster in this thread.)
posted by MiguelCardoso on Dec 17, 2001 - 4 comments