**Interesting Articles -- January/February**

Here comes 2013!

And here’s a thread for posting links to interesting articles, announcements, controversies, images … whatever strikes you to share with fellow Club Read-ers.

I recently came across this website with interesting articles, interviews, group discussion (on and off-line), and unpublished translated fragments of Chinese literature. Many participants on the fora are translators.

The site might be of interest to group members of Club Read 2012 as well as Reading Globally and all readers with interest in contemporary Chinese literature and authors.

Paper Republic: Chinese Literature in Translation

I saw this Slate article last night and thought of this thread. Personally, I'd be wary that reading would turn into (yet another) a chore. Still, he's right. Turn off the TV, avoid time-sucks on the Internet, etc. etc., and it is probably much more achievable.

366 Days, 366 Books

Last year I set myself the goal of "more than 200 books", which at some point became "250 or 300 books". The total became 231, but I did read a LOT of nonfiction and thick books. The number turned out not to be the most important thing, but getting my TBR pile finished (so I'm not even going to set myself the number of 366 books). I do think I can finish all unread books this year :)

>3 ljbwell: - Interesting - I have more than 366 books on the pile and I know several people have 2x that, but that wouldn't leave any time for poking around on LT and expanding the wishlist.

This looked interesting - an interview with a guy who released various weird out of print books via Lulu and Amazon, including "an 1850 book-length Monty Python-style doggerel poem about a socially aspirant sea serpent". He also published something by Stefan Zweig, prompting the interviewer to comment, "I envision a future where we will all have competing Stefan Zweig lines."

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/publishing-without-perishing/?hp

>3 ljbwell: I enjoyed the Slate article. I mentioned it to my husband, and as we're both a bit obsessive, he said don't worry about that...I liked the min-max rule though.

Even so, I'm not up for it this year! I did notice it affected his choices, no War and Peace for example.

2> thanks for the Chinese lit website, Edwin -- very interesting.

Oh, how I love The Onion. Thank you for that. The last line of the article brings this Vampire Weekend video to mind.

It also brings to mind this Harper's article by David Foster Wallace in 2001. If you prefer an html link in lieu of .pdf, see here.

Too funny, and too true, speaking as an editor and former copy editor!

>3 ljbwell:

What worries me (a bit) in that article is that he obviously thinks that some types of books are worse than others... and still reads them to make the numbers.

I just read an interesting and short article interviewing Gabriel about his role and process of translating 1Q84. Many of us in this group read this book last year.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/10/how-haruki-murakamis-1q...

Here's something I posted yesterday on my own thread, but it's probably better posted here....

Fascinating article... The allure of the first novel in The Guardian. Not only is it good reading, but it makes mention of one of my all-time favorite novels, Wake in Fright.

I found this article, and many more besides, via Flipboard on my iPad. This is a brilliant customizable app that, in effect, creates the perfect real-time magazine - bringing together online articles under specific categories, such as 'books,' so conveniently and well set out that it has very quickly become my number one app.

...I hasten to add these are just my thoughts as a user. I have no ulterior motives nor connections with the Flipbook creators/providers/etc....

8> loved this sendup.

Who knew -- reading poetry will make you smarter:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9797617/Shakespeare-and-Wordswor...

There Are Whales Alive Today Who Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written

Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/01/there-are-whales-alive-today-w...
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

>15 avidmom: Wow! Thanks for sharing that article, avidmom.

> 15 Amazing!

"Stolen Books, Stolen Identity: What Did Israel Do with Palestinians’ Literary Heritage?"

http://arablit.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/stolen-books-stolen-identity-what-did-is...

A nice article about a long-time employee of the Strand from today's New York Times.

Short and interesting piece by Margaret Atwood on George Orwell--two of my favourite authors. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/18/my-hero-george-orwell-atwood

Very short and not an article really, but an interesting piece for those of us who are interested in book covers: http://jezebel.com/5978457

I've seen the Virginia Woolf cover they show and I just can't get my head around what the publisher was thinking. And the Anne of Green Gables one is unspeakably wrong.

Anne is the worst one (a plaid shirt?) but not by much!

Here's a link to a fund raiser for an author -- various science fiction writers have come up with fun and inventive prizes as the amount collected increases.

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/Sequence-a-Science-Fiction-Writer/38...

21> To whom ARE they marketing? Have the cover designers even READ the books???????

Are these real books? Or a cheaply done cover for an ebook? If a real book, then there is just no possible justification for any of these!

This might be too silly to link to in such an august group, but I just read this article about a twitter bot which makes a sort of found poetry - it scans for tweets which are in iambic pentameter then puts them into rhyming couplets. The twitter feed is here: https://twitter.com/pentametron - and while not all of them work, some of the couplets are bizarrely brilliant. My favourite in the current feed is

> 21: best line re: Anne of Green Gables? - "She had red f*%!ng hair!" (which just edges the opening line to the article - I was mentally forming a similarly snarky response as soon as I saw that Bell Jar cover).

> 25: Never shy away from silliness! Light and fun has its place. Plus, it's definitely more intelligent than 'damn you autocorrect'. :-)

An article mostly about Goodreads, but with a brief mention of LT, from today's New York Times.

I'm a member of all 3 sites - LT, GR, Shelfari. I like both LT and GR; they're both good in terms of shelving and the discussions.

Slightly tangential to reading -- here's a font quiz. I thought I was pretty savvy on the font front, but managed to score only 5 out of 12.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/how-well-do-you-know-your-fonts

#29 - that was fun. I only got 6/12, but then again I've never made a point of differentiating between Helvetica and Ariel (Arial?).

I only got 6 out of 12 too -- I mostly got the ones I "knew" and didn't get the ones I guessed on!

An issue often debated on Club Read is the question why publishers shun faces of women on covers:

for today's publishers seem terrified of placing a woman on a 20th-century book's front, even when that book is a woman's story.

Read more about it in this article from The Guardian.

#32 - Thanks!

Apparently Random House and Penguin are about to merge: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/business/global/us-regulators-approve-random-h...;

The way things are going, the major publishing houses will end up being one publishing house only... Still not final but...

I heard that about Penguin before -- very worrying with their wonderful classics backlist.

>32 edwinbcn: Love the old Pelican covers in the link. The books were great too, no current big publisher seems to take on their kind of catalogue. Thanks

Here's an interesting article on why paper books are better than ereaders.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-smell-of-a-book

>37 RidgewayGirl: Clever article. I love the feel of a paper book, but I love my Kindle too. There is nothing like getting on a plane with 100+ books in my carry-on bag.

>37 RidgewayGirl:

I really do not understand why people try to make it an either/or question. An e-reader is a complementary device to normal books, not a replace one :)

That's where I stand, Annie. I mostly read paper books, but the ereader is ideal for enormous books (I wouldn't be able to carry Infinite Jest around with me in paper form) and for reading late at night, when a lamp would disturb my SO.

Course syllabi from famous authors who were also professors. The one by David Foster Wallace is a bit tricky to see, but is worth squinting through.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/i-urge-you-to-drop-e67-...

>41 Nickelini: Good collection from The Atlantic. Makes me want to read something by Lynda Barry.

Here's one reason a publisher intentionally designed unappealing covers.

⇒ March/April thread is up here.

#42 - how fascinating!

Lynda Barry is the awesomest. I highly recommend her.