Wednesday Linkstorm
Hey dudes, sorry Linkstorm's so late in the day today. I had to go to class for one million hours and then I had to go buy yogurt cause I was running out and then I had to register to vote in New Hampshire. Awesome story. By the way it's the last week to register to vote. Have you registered to vote? "Vote or die." --Paris Hilton's t-shirt circa 2004Happy birthday two days ago to R.L. Stine. I know those Goosebumps jobbers were super formative to a lot of boys or whatever, but one time I tried to read one in elementary school and it was about, I think, an evil kitchen sponge taking revenge on a family and even at the time I was like okaaaaaay.Here's a roundup of scathing reviews about classic books. They're all pretty good, but the winner is a 1951 review of Catcher in the Rye from the NYT written in the voice of Holden Caulfield: “This Salinger, he's a short story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book though, it's too long. Gets kind of monotonous. And he should've cut out a lot about these jerks and all that crumby school. They depress me.”Here's a list of writers' lists of rules for writing. (All the best lists are lists of lists.) Lots of good advice here like Richard Ford's #10: Don't take any shit if you can possibly help it. Or Jonathan Franzen's #1: When in doubt, just shoehorn a bunch of bird stuff in there.The National Book Award finalists are out. Fiction finalists include Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Ben Fountain, Kevin Powers, and Junot Diaz, still riding the high of his Genie Grant (confidential to Junot Diaz: don't try to wish for more wishes, it won't work). Nonfiction finalists include Robert Caro for his Johnson bio so everyone else can go home.Hey ladies! Some private donors saved the Orange Prize and it's been renamed the Women's Prize for Fiction. Meet me in our club house with the "Boys Drool" sign on the door and we'll celebrate.R. Crumb illustrates Charles Bukowski. It's a perfect storm of everything you love: R. Crumb, Bukowski, and perfect storms.How is it possible that major news outlets are still reviewing that D.T. Max bio of David Foster Wallace? The mind boggles.Lena Dunham, creator of HBO series "Gals" might get paid a small sum for her book.Mercutio, aka Jeffrey Eugenides, is this week's By the Book. He's currently alternating between The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq and the Patrick Melrose novels which is interesting because I read those two things at the same time too! This can't be a coincidence. I suspect the involvement of the Illuminati. Let's get Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (pictured above) on the case.