Mario - secret bookworm?
In today’s news, see who made the cut for the PEN/Faulkner short list, find out how to incorporate the classics into your Nintendo gaming schedule, and see why “tattoo” and “Bridget Jones” are in the same sentence.
- After considering 350 novels and short story collections, the PEN/Faulkner judges have announced five finalists “that freshly express the complex ways Americans believe and behave,” according to judge Al Brown. Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs made the list, as did Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna and Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor. Rounding out the list are two cheery-sounding short story collections, Sherman Alexie’s War Dances and Lorraine M. Lopez’s Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories. Check out the Guardian for more details about the finalists and judging criteria.
- For those of you that get the urge to read Shakespeare in between games of Super Mario, Nintendo has answered your prayers with its new Classics Books pack. This single game cartridge contains 100 titles from classic authors, including Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Nintendo also has an e-reader in the works set to release March 28th (it doubles as a game console, of course). Jacket Copy has more information, including a video of the e-reader in action.
- “Tatted up” isn’t generally an expression you’d associate with J.M. Coetzee and Helen Fielding, but Penguin is giving classics some street cred with its new “Penguin Inks” series. The series commissioned tattoo artists and illustrators to create new covers for six modern classics, which you can see at ShelfLife. Maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you have to admit–these covers are pretty cool.
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