Yesterday, we pored over Slate staffers’ wonderful, diverse, and irreverent list of books they recommend students read before starting college in the fall. Their picks ranged from Saul Bellow to Joseph Mitchell to Zadie Smith… and an essential tome on how to brew your own beer. After adding some of their suggestions to our own to-read list, we got to thinking about the authors that you really need to read before you set off for college, that halfway house to adulthood — the writers whose work is too wide-eyed, precocious, idealistic, dramatic, drug-fueled, or otherwise youthful to fully appreciate once you’re holding down a 9-to-5 and paying rent. They aren’t necessarily “childish” writers but simply legends you might hate if you’ve never looked at them with a teenager’s eyes. We suggest that those of you with only a month left until you move into the dorms get started now. … Read More
Bret Easton Ellis
An Exploration of Literary Tattoos [NSFW]
The world of literary tattoos is surprisingly large, yet it remains relatively niche. Sure, there was Shelly Jackson’s SKIN project about five years back, but otherwise it’s fairly infrequent that we hear about the two worlds intersecting. That’s why when Penguin announced Penguin Ink, their re-covering of several classic (or modern classic) novels with cover art from leading tattoo artists (including the now epically badass-looking Bridget Jones’ Diary,) it whet our appetite for more book/tatt intersection. Thanks to online communities like Bookworms With Ink and Contrariwise (as well as good old Flickr), we were able to not just satiate but gorge on skin ink of the bookish variety both good… and bad. We had a few caveats: no Harry Potter, no Twilight, and no Alice In Wonderland. Every single one of those has been done to death. Some of our favorites both highbrow and lowbrow (as well as a few very NSFW) after the cut. … Read More
10 Beach Books For Smarty Pants Readers
During the summertime most people opt for mindless, easy-to-read books to page through while sunning themselves on the sand. Not exactly the John Grisham or Sophie Kinsella type? Uphold your brainy reputation and choose from the mix of newish releases we’ve pulled together for the benefit of beach blanket bookworms everywhere! … Read More
A List of Summer Reading Lists
With summer comes sunshine, idle afternoons, and book lists meant to fill up sunny, idle afternoons with reading. We decided to make a one-stop location — a list of lists, if you will— to help navigate your page-turning adventures this season. Expect a radiant dose of business, politics, education, and pure pleasure to accompany your beach blanket and sunscreen. Leave a comment with a link — or just a few suggestions — if you’ve a summer reading list you’d like to share. … Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. What Steve Jobs had to say at yesterday’s D8 conference, including an update on Apple’s ongoing legal feud with Gizmodo over that “stolen” iPhone. [via Fast Company]
2. Lily Allen is rumored to be writing songs for a forthcoming stage adaptation of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, which will open in London’s… Read More
The 10 Links That Made Our Day
1. Some random guy doing Ian McKellen doing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song [via HuffPo]
2. The author of Let The Right One In has written a zombie book that we hope becomes a zombie film. [via GeekTyrant]
3. Download Spin’s free Bonnaroo 2010 mixtape, featuring tracks from Phoenix,… Read More
What If: Celebrities Tweet Salinger’s Death
When J.D. Salinger died last week at the age of 91, the Twitter- and the literatti aligned to mourn the reclusive writer. Charles McGrath wrote a touching obit in the New York Times; Lillian Ross waxed poetic in The New Yorker and Bret Easton Ellis, tweeted, “Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-fucking-ever. Party tonight!!!” Ah, the Twitterverse, where Chilon of Sparta’s maxim “Don’t speak ill of the dead” doesn’t apply, as long as you can do it in under 140 characters. We turned to the Twitterverse to see how other luminaries, literary and decidedly unliterary, marked Salinger’s passing*. … Read More
Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis Partner on The Golden Suicides
Do you remember Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake? Duncan was a writer, filmmaker, and computer-game creator; Blake, an artists known for mixing abstract painting and digital film. In 2007, the couple committed back-to-back suicides, sending the New York art scene — and the press — into a… Read More
Hardcover 451: Thought Police-ing Literary Loose Cannons
Please excuse our mixed dystopic metaphors, but Edward Champion reports that bookish types are debating whether or not bookstores should be able to request that visiting authors keep their curse words and dirty talk to a minimum. It all started when a Massachusetts store asked Jennifer Weiner, who is currently touring to promote her new novel, Best Friends Forever, to kindly avoid the word “cock” at a signing. Weiner complied, so score one for puritanical New… Read More
The Juiciest Literary Tell-All You Haven’t Read Yet
We here at Flavorwire are thankful that Gawker is still picking up the Rielle Hunter beat. Apparently the ex-lover of the ex-dignified John Edwards is back in the New York metropolitan area; they say Hunter’s endless supply of cash dried up when Fred Baron died earlier this year and she was forced to forgo her cushy residence in the Santa Barbara hills. Now she’s crashing with a friend in Northern New Jersey. … Read More
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