The Millions » Curiosities

Sorkin Takes on the News

C. Max Magee — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:18:58 +0000

Fans of West Wing, will no doubt be excited to hear that a new Aaron Sorkin series is on its way. The Newsroom will follow the action at a cable news network and is set to air on HBO this summer.

Hatchet Job Prize

Bill Morris — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:30:07 +0000

Turns out Americans aren’t the only ones who adore snark. The novelist and critic Adam Mars-Jones has won the first Hatchet Job prize from the British website Omnivore for his blistering takedown of Michael Cunningham’s latest novel, By Nightfall. Mars-Jones beat out Geoff Dyer’s slam of Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. “It isn’t terrible,” Dyer wrote, “it’s just so…average.”

How Do You Illustrate Footnotes?

Nick Moran — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:00:57 +0000

Seven Stories Press is publishing three volumes of a Graphic Canon, which will illustrate and panel everything from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Infinite Jest. Their first volume, Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons will be released on May 22nd.

The Why and How of Colophons

Nick Moran — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:37 +0000

Ever wondered why Knopf’s colophon is a borzoi, or why Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s colophon appears to be a musician riding a flying dolphin? Well, now you can find out. Also, a while back, HTMLGIANT‘s Jimmy Chen ranked some colophons by their ability to fly.

There’s Franco in My McCarthy

Nick Moran — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:30:22 +0000

Sometime Ph.D candidate, sometime actor, and ubiquitous lit blog all-star James Franco (henceforth known as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”) has begun filming an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God in West Virginia, and I’m reminded of that line from W. B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming” — “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

LARB talks TNI

Nick Moran — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:00:05 +0000

Rachel Rosenfelt, Editor in Chief of The New Inquiry, gets interviewed by Evan Kindley, Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. In their conversation, Rosenfelt reveals that TNI‘s prevailing editorial principle is: “Is this boring? Is this safe? If the answer is yes, then it’s not for us.”

J Dickens

Nick Moran — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:15:59 +0000

Yea, yea, it’s Charles Dickens’ birthday. I’m sure you’ve heard, or at least been told by Google. But he’s only one artist born on this day. In addition, there’s James Yancey aka J Dilla, one of the most influential hip hop artists and producers of all time.

David Foster Wallace in Coversation

C. Max Magee — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:00:44 +0000

In April, the University Press of Mississippi will add a volume on David Foster Wallace to its Literary Conversations Series. A taste of the interviews contained within can be found at Dalkey.

The End of Wall Street

C. Max Magee — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:00:08 +0000

In New York, Gabriel Sherman checks in on Wall Street and finds that the big money culture may be gone for good. “There has been a growing recognition on Wall Street that the system that had provided those million-dollar bonuses was built on a highly unstable foundation.”

Tuesday New Release Day: Englander, Chaon, Boo, Ausubel, Gaddis, Burroughs

C. Max Magee — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:30 +0000

Two hotly anticipated collections of stories are out this week: Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and Dan Chaon’s Stay Awake. Also new this week are Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Ramona Ausubel’s No One is Here Except All of Us, which she wrote about here recently, Dalkey’s new edition of The Recognitions by William Gaddis, and a new volume of William S. Burroughs’ letters. Bonus Links: You can now subscribe to listings of literary new releases in your feed reader with this RSS feed. Plus, check out more new release RSS feeds here.