Bites: A Woman’s Wit, James Franco is on Daytime TV, So What?, Aerosmith Understands the Internet, and more

The New York Times reviews “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen in Life and Legacy” on exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum. Lit. Even though there are approximately one billion newly published food memoirs per American second, everyone’s still obsessing over Jonathan Safran Foer and his book about that ultra-modern idea of vegetarianism. Wells Tower is also still writing for Outside Mag. According to the Rumpus, this is one example of why fiction writers make good journalists. The Guardian reviews […]

Continue Reading

Bites: Media Battles (Ever-Present), Franco’s Face, Humility as ‘Sin,’ Tony Judt, and the Bad News For Big Business

New Media, Old Media, and E-readers Barnes and Noble’s e-reader, the Nook, looks promising as  Kindle competitor (and book sharing device!). The Rumpus’ account of last week’s New Yorker Festival is titled “James Franco’s Face.” Jacket Copy suggests that because their paper gave Le Clézio’s Désert a bad review, that the Nobel Prize in Literature is becoming “esoteric” and “wrong-headed.” Ugh, close-minded print newspaper. And now to take back the above statement about print media back with Harper’s lovely “Blake–To […]

Continue Reading

Bites: Edward Lear poetry, rare Obama interview, Tim Burton cares not, San Fran’s strategic real estate changes, fighting for the “link economy”

By Willa A. Cmiel The Book Bench on Edward Lear: “This week the British Library is publishing two beautiful facsimiles (which will be distributed by the University of Chicago Press), of the 1888 and 1889 editions of books by the multi-talented Edward Lear, an English artist and writer best known for the children’s classic ‘The Owl and the Pussycat.‘” More personally he reminds me of family car trips reciting limericks. My personal favorite: There once was a Young Person of […]

Continue Reading