Weekly Reader

  1. According to her monthly Web Site column, Jeanette Winterson is creating a children’s show for the BBC.

  2. Veronica Esposito on the role of research in Infinite Jest. Also see the comment section for some discussion from myself and others on the difference between the sort of notes Wallace and Borges created for their imaginary works.

  3. Jacket Copy on John Barth’s The Floating Opera

  4. Henry Jenkins on the role of fan fiction as critical commentary on texts.

  5. The new issue of Open Letters is, as always, worth your time.

Weekly Reader

  • The Guardian on interactive fiction, partnerships between authors and game developers, and a little bit of Douglas Adams.
  • Laurie Halse Anderson is interviewed for her new novel Wintergirls.
  • Open Letters reviews a recently Broadway performance of Waiting For Godot.
  • Kathleen Fitzpatrick on the recent collaboration between HASTAG and MLA on new tenure guidelines.

    • Weekly Reader

    Meanwhile…

    • The New Yorker piece on Obama’s early years in Chicago politics is another indicator he is just as scummy and slimy as the next politician.  Making the right friends, the right votes, the right influences; you might counter by saying “that’s politics” but I say that if you take part in that crap, I blame you.  I’d rather have no government than one filled with slimeballs.  None of the above…yet again…in 2008.

    • Alexander Solzhenitsyn recently passed away.  When we moved to Manahawkin, I remember the first friend I made was reading The Gulag Archipelago at the time.  We started to bond while discussing that and other books.

    • Io9 offers a guide for fans of the modern Doctor Who series who wish to get into the classic series.

    • Veronica Esposito comments on the amazing ending of The Mill On The Floss and links to a review of the novel from a 1860 issue of The Atlantic.

    • PETA still sucks as much as I remember.