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Mahfouz’s posthumous bestseller

“The novel that almost cost Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz his life” has become a bestseller upon publication in Egypt, four months after his death. (Via.)

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Used to read books

Gawker’s new Kreepie Kats feature (above) can only be the work of the man whose Stone Cold Poetry Bitches attended last year’s AWP.

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Repurposing New Yorker fiction

A reader who calls himself Angry Young Man has figured out a way to automate New Yorker cartoon captions — using New Yorker short stories. He writes: I recently discovered the AutoSummarize feature in MS Word, which pulls key sentences from a text and creates an executive summary. I wondered, What if you AutoSummarize an AutoSummary, and so on and . . .

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Beloved another year

Author Tayari Jones was all for Toni Morrison’s induction into the NJ Hall of Fame — until she realized Morrison is up against Harriet Tubman.

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