Archive for June, 2008

An early 3-minute preview of Mary Gaitskill’s next book

June 11, 2008

Front Porch Journal posts a video clip of Mary Gaitskill reading from work-in-progress at the Katherine Anne Porter House. A fitting locale, I think; the foxy, mercurial, ever-prevaricating Texan author would make an interesting subject for Gaitskill should she turn her hand to biography. Previously the Texas State literary magazine has featured readings from Charles Baxter, Dennis Johnson, Percival Everett, . . .

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Pissing in Hemingway’s loo, and browsing his library

June 11, 2008

If offered any book in Hemingway’s Havana library for $200, would you, like the noble Adrian McKinty, turn it down?

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“In a nation terrorized by its own government, one newspaper dared to fart in its face”

June 10, 2008

Mark Ames, founder of satirical — and besieged — Moscow biweekly The eXile, examines the state of the Russian press.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s rock?

June 10, 2008

Lore has it that Poe used to seek inspiration by sitting on a boulder in Riverside Park at 83rd St., when he lived on 84th.

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Once a reference book, now a “welcoming community”

June 10, 2008

Encyclopaedia Brittanica surrenders to the collaborative Wikipedia model. (Via.)

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