In case you weren't invited to any Super Bowl parties...
In today’s news, learn how literary magazines are fighting to survive, which sci-fi books are keeping NPR journalists up at night, and how you can entertain yourself with ice picks and indoor boomerangs. Have a good weekend!
- While much of the literary world is discussing how Amazon, the iPad, and Google will affect paper-and-ink books, Jacket Copy stops to wonder about literary journals. Will literary journals (not exactly the cash cows of publications) survive the era of digital media? Jacket Copy talks to Brigid Hughes, a former editor at The Paris Review and now editor of the literary magazine A Public Space. Hughes admits that “literary magazines need to figure out a way to be better advocates for the work that they’re publishing,” and the blog goes on to discuss how various literary magazines are finding a solution.
- Having trouble sleeping? How about reading Sleepless? On “All Things Considered,” Alan Cheuse talks about his late night sci-fi cravings, and Sleepless by Charlie Huston is the first of this week’s recommendation. In Sleepless, LA is struck by a mysterious disease that keeps people awake until they eventually die–as you can imagine, the extreme crankiness preceding death causes some societal problems. Cheuse also discusses Impact by Douglas Preston, whom he calls “the possible successor to the recently deceased Michael Crichton.” If you’re not sleepless now, you might be after getting started on one of these.
- And if your weekend plans leave something to be desired, check out How to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone by Yourself by Robert Paul Smith. This 1958, anti-boredom book for kids was recently reissued by Tin House books, and PaperCuts blogger Gregory Cowles gives us the inside scoop. Cowles calls it a precursor to The Dangerous Book for Boys, “complete with knife games [...] and a bow and arrow made from broken umbrella parts.” So when you’re not watching the Super Bowl or doing other manly things this weekend, just grab a copy of Smith’s book, some knives, and a broken umbrella, and you’ll be good to go.
*************
Want to know more about us? Check out “What is Books & Authors and Why Should You Care?
