Blog

Do-it-yourself cover art

A writer who wrangled with his publisher over cover art, and lost, enlisted an artist to “produce a sticker that can be placed over the original paperback cover.” (Also via.)

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Book-banning bollocks

Some school librarians want to ban The Higher Power of Lucky, this year’s Newbery Award winner, because it contains the word “scrotum.” Justine Larbalestier responds.

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Where they write

Hilary Mantel, A.S. Byatt, Sarah Waters, and other writers take you into their workspaces. (Via.)

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On Presidents Day: neglecting translators & other allies

Tales of Iraqi translators being denied U.S. visas after endangering their lives to aid the American military remind me of a scene — and harrowing moment in history — from Tom Bissell’s The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam. South Vietnam has fallen. North Vietnamese soldiers are marching into Saigon. Yet the Soviets . . .

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