Together at last

I have hemmed and hawed for quite awhile about this new wave of e-books sent to conquer the futile paperbound stories of our day. I have also heard every Tom, Dick, and Fyodor talk about how Anna Karenina is the greatest book ever even though I myself haven’t read it. So, I’ve decided to combine the two, and read the entire Tolstoyian masterpiece on my new Iphone 3G. It took me about four seconds to download an application that gave me the entire novel in an easily navigable format with simple size choices and the option to listen to music while I read it. I can also download about two billion other books, but let’s see if this experiment works. Will I get through it? Will Anna Karenina be a lesser book because I read it on something that also tells me how much to tip a waiter? Will my entire outlook be changed? I would personally love to see a modest betting pool come out of this, so let me know.

When Return of the Reluctant reluctantly stopped returning, a large, Ed-shaped hole was left in the literary community. It wasn’t completely curtains as not only was there a metamorphosis, but at least we still had Bat Segundo… until now. It seems that even though Ed is one of the most no-nonsense and insightful blogospheroidalites, he can’t make the ends meet at the moment and needs to find a job. Like a jobby job. Will the Bat come back? Maybe, maybe not, but there are almost a dozen episodes left and I suggest you go and pay your respects. He greatly deserves it.

Scott talks about randomness in B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates and ties it to a Zadie Smith article about Max Brod’s ordering of Kafka’s The Trial. Then an in-depth argument (ok, disagreement) happens in the comments and to absorb everything that comes from this particular post will take you at least 45 minutes. You up for it? If not, here’s a monkey babysitter.

Leonard Cohen is a poet and I bet you didn’t even know it. Actually, I’m sure you did so watch this.

Is Mark Sarvas getting divorced?

Is The Great Gatsby a perfect novel? I think the beginning is too slow and it’s a dumb question.

And finally, The Millions talks a little bit about censorship in Iran, but the Realplayer audio report they link to is no worky for me. Still, they mention that even in death some authors are being censored and that the common reader in Iran has lost faith in what books are being published, why, and if the worthy parts have been kept in tact. So in conclusion, we shouldn’t bomb them but boy does Iran suck.

Posted Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:24:12 and filed under Shane, Awards, Authors. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.