Bibliophobic Mayors, Hatchet Jobs, and More We-Hate-Amazon Fun
Posted by David Duhr in 
Short and sweet this week, gang. Not much going on out there.
Good old Mayor Bloomberg is gearing up to take a steaming shit on the NYC library system. Hmm, I seem to recall another recent incident where he wasn’t very kind to a library. (Or to the people who loved it.)
Adam Mars-Jones wins the Hatchet Job of the Year, a new award given for the harshest book review. Mars-Jones won for this writeup in the Observer (UK) of Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall, which ends “that’s not an epiphany, that’s a postcard.” My new goal in life is to be nominated for that award. Certainly won’t happen for my review of Alan Lightman’s Mr g, which appeared in last Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. (You like how I slipped that in there?)
This excerpt from a new book titled The Lifespan of a Fact was my most fascinating read this week. Trust me, check it out.
Dennis Johnson at MobyLives continues to thunder away at Amazon. His is rapidly becoming my favorite blog. And if this rumor is accurate and Amazon intends to open retail stores, I’ll have to collect some friends and go all Whirl-Mart on their asses.
What do you guys think of this ad for the Kindle thingie? Gizmodo writes that Amazon is “basically making fun of a Lexus for not being a Kia.”
The 10 Most Iconic Accessories of Famous Authors.
Are We Too Stupid to Read Dickens?
9 Books That Cause Irrational Phobias.
Here are the stories behind some publishers’ animal colophons (logos).
The Book Bench gives some love to my man Edward Abbey.
“Post-MFA, There is Another Way,” the new series on the WBN blog about what to do with life after obtaining that MFA in writing.
I guess that’s it for this week. Like I said, not a whole lotta shakin’ going on in the literary world. I’ll close this one with a video of Amanda Palmer performing an excellent Arthur Lee song (we hear the Lee and see the Palmer) at Harvard Square, which always makes me nostalgic for my old Cambridge stomping grounds.
WriteByNight co-founder David Duhr is Fiction Editor for the Texas Observer and Managing Editor at Fringe Magazine. He contributes regularly to the Dallas Morning News, Publishing Perspectives, the Observer, and others.