Oh yes, yes, yes y’all. This book celebrates the criminalization of literature! Plus, don’t you want to meet Humbert Humbert’s chilling gaze? Of course you do.

thecomposites:

The Composites book is now available!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE

“Incredible…IQ84 meets CSI.” The Atlantic

“Brilliant, and refreshingly unsentimental.” The Guardian

The Composites includes 66 pages of character images from throughout literary history, full-color design, as well as excerpts from authors Herman Melville, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Victor Hugo, Bram Stoker, Gustave Flaubert, Mikhail Bulgakov, J.-K Huysmans, and Thomas Mann.

All royalties from this book will be donated to Joyland Magazine. Since 2008 Joyland—funded only by donations and grants—has had a mandate to support and publish emerging authors from across North America and around the world.

This entire project has been a collaboration with Tumblr users and that collaboration has changed everything about myself as a writer and as a reader. For that, and making this project work, thank you. (And please keep sending the suggestions. The Composites will return next week after a brief vacation.)

I don’t think the argument in favor of libraries is especially ideological or ethical. I would even agree with those who say it’s not especially logical. I think for most people it’s emotional. Not logos or ethos but pathos. This is not a denigration: emotion also has a place in public policy. We’re humans, not robots. The people protesting the closing of Kensal Rise Library love that library. They were open to any solution on the left or on the right if it meant keeping their library open. They were ready to Big Society the hell out of that place. A library is one of those social goods that matter to people of many different political attitudes. All that the friends of Kensal Rise and Willesden Library and similar services throughout the country are saying is: these places are important to us.
Zadie Smith, The North West London Blues (via nybooks)

(via nybooks)

rachelfershleiser: In early June, the publishing industry takes Manhattan for Book Expo America. We’re taking the opportunity to celebrate the millions of amazing readers and writers who call the Tumblr community home. Join us at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe for free drinks, fun swag, mixing, mingling, and readings by Edan Lepucki, Alexander Chee, and Baratunde Thurston. Now doesn’t this just look like a party and a half. Go and say hi to our own Edan Lepucki!
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rachelfershleiser:

In early June, the publishing industry takes Manhattan for Book Expo America. We’re taking the opportunity to celebrate the millions of amazing readers and writers who call the Tumblr community home.

Join us at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe for free drinks, fun swag, mixing, mingling, and readings by Edan Lepucki, Alexander Chee, and Baratunde Thurston.

Now doesn’t this just look like a party and a half. Go and say hi to our own Edan Lepucki!

thepenguinpress: Every year or so the internet debates whether it’s better to write standing up. Hemingway’s a big booster of the practice, as Kottke notes, and this week The Wirecutter collects the latest health benefits of the practice: The standing desk fad that you keep hearing about is based on a pretty substantial amount of research. Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic has a scary statistic to share: here in the US, we spend more than half of our waking hour sitting down, split between watching TV, driving a car, and working at a desk. This is not good. The problem with sitting is essentially two-fold. AJ Jacobs, editor-at-large at Esquire, and author of the book Drop Dead Healthy breaks it down this way in his newest book: “The first part is obvious: We burn fewer calories when we’re sitting. The second part is more subtle but perhaps more profound: marathon sitting sessions change our body’s metabolism.” Bill Phillips at Men’s Health writes about a study in the research journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that found, in a large research pool of 17,000 men and women, that people who “sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks.” Sure, correlation is not necessarily cause for alarm, but get this piece from a Men’s Health feature on sitting: “We see it in people who smoke and people who don’t,” Katzmarzyk told Masters. “We see it in people who are regular exercisers and those who aren’t. Sitting is an independent risk factor.”” Professor Marc Hamilton, Ph.D from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, says to Maria Masters in the same Men’s Health feature, Is Your Office Chair Killing You?, ”The cure for too much sitting isn’t more exercise. Exercise is good, of course, but the average person could never do enough to counteract the effect of hours and hours of chair time.” What do you think? Well, I should probably sit this one out. On my couch.
Pop-upView Separately

thepenguinpress:

Every year or so the internet debates whether it’s better to write standing up. Hemingway’s a big booster of the practice, as Kottke notes, and this week The Wirecutter collects the latest health benefits of the practice:

The standing desk fad that you keep hearing about is based on a pretty substantial amount of research. Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic has a scary statistic to share: here in the US, we spend more than half of our waking hour sitting down, split between watching TV, driving a car, and working at a desk. This is not good.

The problem with sitting is essentially two-fold. AJ Jacobs, editor-at-large at Esquire, and author of the book Drop Dead Healthy breaks it down this way in his newest book: “The first part is obvious: We burn fewer calories when we’re sitting. The second part is more subtle but perhaps more profound: marathon sitting sessions change our body’s metabolism.”

Bill Phillips at Men’s Health writes about a study in the research journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that found, in a large research pool of 17,000 men and women, that people who “sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks.” Sure, correlation is not necessarily cause for alarm, but get this piece from a Men’s Health feature on sitting: “We see it in people who smoke and people who don’t,” Katzmarzyk told Masters. “We see it in people who are regular exercisers and those who aren’t. Sitting is an independent risk factor.”” Professor Marc Hamilton, Ph.D from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, says to Maria Masters in the same Men’s Health feature, Is Your Office Chair Killing You?, ”The cure for too much sitting isn’t more exercise. Exercise is good, of course, but the average person could never do enough to counteract the effect of hours and hours of chair time.”

What do you think?

Well, I should probably sit this one out. On my couch.