Quick Hits
December 31, 2008
Amazon Launches Author Stores 0
by C. Max Magee
In its never-ending roll-out of new features and incremental redesigns, Amazon has introduced “Author Stores,” which Amazon calls “new corners of our bookstore dedicated to offering customers a new way to browse and shop favorite authors, discover new books, and more.” Basically, Amazon has created dedicated pages for several hundred authors. It’s a nice little [...]
December 29, 2008
The Front Table, Online 5
by C. Max Magee
I have written in the past about the importance of a bookstore’s “front table.” The idea is that one should be able to walk into the bookstore and be able to grasp, based upon which books are on display and based upon conversations with staff and fellow customers, what matters at that moment both in [...]
December 28, 2008
New Yorker Wraps Up 2008 with Austere Fiction Issue 5
by C. Max Magee
As has been the tradition for the last several years, The New Yorker closed out 2008 with a fiction double issue. But astute readers may have noticed that this year’s installment was markedly slimmer than that of years’ past. Perhaps it is common knowledge, but I was surprised to discover a few years back that [...]
November 30, 2008
Bolaño Not a Heroin Addict, Sources Say 1
by Garth Risk Hallberg
The American press’ characterization of the late Roberto Bolaño as a one-time heroin addict is “stupid,” according to people close the the celebrated Chilean writer. The novelist Enrique Vila-Matas, in a recent El País column, joined European bloggers in suggesting that The New York Times Book Review’s allusion – “Bolaño was a heroin addict in [...]
November 30, 2008
Appearing Elsewhere 0
by C. Max Magee
Millions contributor Kevin has an incisive review of Jon Meacham’s popular new biography American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House in the New York Observer: It’s during the White House years that Mr. Meacham’s story takes hold. We see Andrew Jackson making the hard trip east from Tennessee to Washington where the political permanent [...]
November 20, 2008
Turnips, Quarterbacks, and Strawberry Pickers: Credit Default Swaps Made Simple 0
by Garth Risk Hallberg
Last week, Max directed our attention to a major new piece of reporting on the financial crisis: a Portfolio article by Millions favorite Michael Lewis. The author of Liar’s Poker, among other books, Lewis is a gifted explainer of an industry badly in need of explanations. In the Portfolio piece, for example, he immerses us [...]
