http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ en-us jessa@bookslut.com 2012-02-16T14:27:51-06:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Marina Warner (Stranger Magic) is talking about the history of monsters, over at the TLS. And Marina Warner knows from monsters. As Ronsard invokes the monsters raised by the wars of religion in France the better to manage them, in... 18670@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-16T14:27:51-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Please take note, this is the only time anyone will suggest that Newsweek is edgy. Newsweek has developed a bit of a potty mouth, and people are kind of freaking out about that.... 18668@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-16T09:49:09-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php "Individualism? Narcissism? Of course. It is my strongest tendency, the only intentional constancy I am capable of. Besides, I am lying; I scatter myself too much for that." The Guardian has a short appreciation of artist/writer Claude Cahun and her... 18667@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-16T09:45:25-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Some books are tough sells. I was trying to get the people around me to read Little Boy Lost, because I think it's exquisite, but the conversation about it usually turned to the part where I had to reread the... 18666@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-16T07:06:11-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php “It is black-letter law in the United States that … publishers are protected from liability for non-defamatory false statements in books that they publish … by the First Amendment,” Penguin’s latest brief states. “A publisher owes no duty to verify... 18665@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-15T15:37:21-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php In case you needed to induce vomiting, there is this: "Whitney Houston: 15 ebooks on singer published since her death" For an antidote: Diamanda Galas's eulogy for Whitney Houston is smart and fierce. (via)... 18664@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-15T15:30:04-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php If parents stop reading fairy tales to their children because they are too violent or disturbing, or promote stealing (what the fuck), how are the kids supposed to know what to do when their parents turn on them? Isn't that... 18663@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-15T14:37:40-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Jacob Silverman has a smart piece on writers and money, focusing on Michael Chabon's decline on the literary side of things and increasing attention to the more lucrative HBO/children's books/Disney movie side of things. And not at all predictable is... 18662@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-15T14:18:59-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php It's kind of amazing, the number of people I talk to in the United States who have no idea that Hungary has gone wacko. Rewriting the constitution, the rise (again) of anti-Semitism, apparently there have been some book burning demonstrations,... 18661@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-15T14:07:53-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php For those of you rolling out of bed, hoping you can get through today without throwing a bowling ball at a chocolate heart display, I have a small suggestion. Over at the Kind Reader, someone wrote in expressing dread for... 18660@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-14T05:50:35-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php And after much anticipation, we can finally say that The Chicagoan is here. J. C. Gabel, the man behind Stop Smiling magazine and a colleague from my Chicago days, is heading up a new, massive periodical that covers arts, culture,... 18659@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-13T18:06:00-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Susan Matt, she of the pretty great Homesickness: An American History, recommends five books about nostalgia and homesickness for the Wall Street Journal.... 18658@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-13T17:14:01-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Susie Linfield reviews Susan Hertog's biography of Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson , and finds one aspect particularly unconvincing. Granting themselves a level of social and sexual freedom available to very few women of their time, Thompson and West led... 18657@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-13T16:35:26-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php SB 1467, newly introduced in the Arizona State Senate, would force schools and universities to suspend, fine, and ultimately fire any teacher or professor who “engage[d] in speech or conduct that would violate the standards adopted by the federal communications... 18656@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-13T09:27:32-06:00 http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_02.php Okay, so don't get too excited about the previously unpublished James Joyce children's story being released quite yet. We were all just waiting for the news that heir Stephen Joyce would block the publication somehow, and it turns out that... 18655@http://www.bookslut.com/blog/ 2012-02-13T09:01:12-06:00