Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s remains have been returned to Cartagena, Colombia. This city is not just the author’s birthplace, but also the setting of Love in a Time of Cholera. His remains will be a part of an exhibit (alongside a bronze bust of the author) and then will be returned to his family, who still live there.
Jarek Steele, co-owner of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, received an anonymous note from someone who was upset by a recent window display. This display honored the anniversary of Michael Brown’s shooting. Steele explains in a sensitive open letter why the display is important to him, to the bookstore, and to the community.
The President’s summer reading list was published in the Washington Post. And in case you have reason to chat with him about Between the World and Me, the correct pronunciation of Ta-Nehisi is Tah-Nuh-Hah-See. Roxane Gay conducted a conversation with Coates about the way the public has responded to the book, how his son felt when he read it, and how to talk about race.
“Isn’t it true that promotion is expensive? I will be the least expensive author of the publishing house. I’ll spare you even my presence.” Elena Ferrante’s letter to her publishers, sent in 1991, explains why she decided to step aside from all interviews and public appearances.
People holding sleeping babies, riding public transit, or stuck in movies they don’t want to see are reading more books on their phones. According to an article by Jennifer Maloney in the Wall Street Journal, phone reading has increased from 9% in 2012 to 14% in the first quarter of 2015.
Here’s a new animated poem in honor of the great Jake Adam York. Stacey Lynn Brown wrote the words, and Matt Smithson did the artwork; it’s created by MotionPoems in partnership with VIDA.
A new short story prize is coming this weekend from Galley Beggar in the UK. Both published and unpublished writers are eligible. The winner can pick either £500 in cash or a year of editorial support from the indie press’s directors, Eloise Millar and Sam Jordison.
David Foster Wallace once dismissed book blurbs as “disgusting tripe.” But Lucas Thompson argues in the Los Angeles Review of Books that the blurbs Wallace himself gave can serve as “an oblique record of Wallace’s evolving views on what literature is really for… reveal[ing] intriguing overlaps with these broader agendas, as well as gesturing to the particular qualities he valued in fiction.” Related: has reading DFW become “lit-bro shorthand“?
“After his long-time girlfriend Rhonda breaks up with him, Ira becomes infatuated by Parsley, the blonde with a tattoo of a Mary Shelley’s signature on her wrist.” You can finally write the John Green book of your dreams with this John Green book generator.