January 2011
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As for the alligators — I swear to God, if an alligator walked into this...
– Author Karen Russell in an interview with Jill at Powells.com about her new novel, Swamplandia!. We don’t think that alligator would stand a chance.
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But mistakes are OK. They’re not something I really set out to make —...
– Paper cut artist & author Nikki McClure, on mistakes in her intricate work. Read the rest of our interview with her.
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Why secondhand bookstores smell good
Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of...
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That moment when you're reading a book and you...
snapesgrudge:
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You should really read this book. →
We can’t stop recommending The Fates Will Find Their Way, the debut novel from Hannah Pittard coming Jan. 25th from Ecco. We got a chance to talk with Pittard about the book’s first-person-plural point of view, how writers channel adolescence, and whale sharks.
Keep an eye on this one.
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Michiko Kakutani on the “revised” Huck Finn.
“Haven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context — of helping students understand that “Huckleberry Finn” actually stands as a powerful indictment of...
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I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I...
– Steve Martin, in an interview with Powells.com’s Jill Owens about his latest novel: An Object of Beauty.
We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books....
– Cory Doctorow (via shereadeverything)
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But my favorite of this genre [memoir] is Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer....
– More Claire Dederer. We have a serious crush on this woman.
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Good morning, Portland! Up here in Seattle, we… well, we hate you. We...
– Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses. She’s guest-blogging over at Powells.com this week.