In an interview with himself — which you can read more about past the jump — The Doors frontman Jim Morrison noted that the self-interview is the “essence of creativity.” After compiling a series of fascinating conversations that some of the world’s biggest cultural icons had with themselves, we wholeheartedly agree. Does the idea of a self-interview seem too self-absorbed or controlling? Possibly — but we found that the format allowed for a lot of self-deprecating humor, artistic expression, and compelling self-reflection. In each case there seems to be a clear method to the madness. Past the break, watch and read as artists, writers, and musicians share their most personal thoughts on their career, search for answers to difficult questions, and charm us with their eccentricities. Did we miss your favorite self-interview? Feel free to leave your picks in the comments below.

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The decades-old controversy over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses has been in the news again recently following the author’s cancelled appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival in the wake of reported death threats. This intended violence is not the first that Rushdie’s novel has inspired, and his is definitely not the first real-life danger to come from literature. In fact, several books are reputed to have inspired or informed violence over the years, to varying degrees. The debate over whether the impulse to violence can originate from media — whether film, video games, or books — is a complex one, and we’re not seeking to answer it here, though we tend to think that no piece of media can incite a healthy mind to violent deeds (and the violence in Rushdie’s case is definitely directly caused by dissent over the book). However, several real-life crimes have been linked to works of literature, and therefore we must consider them at least a little more dangerous than say, Pride and Prejudice. Nota bene: this is a list of dangerous novels, so any potentially harmful propaganda, religious texts and nonfiction are all ineligible. Click through to check out our list, and get ready to scan your friends’ bookshelves for signs of insanity.

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Vampires have been having a pop-culture moment for the past half-decade, so of course there’s a new award honoring them. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s death, the Horror Writers Association is planning to hand out a Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award. Any vampire novel published after Dracula (which came out in 1897) is fair game, and the list of nominees has already been whittled from 35 to six. But while there are a few famous finalists — Stephen King, Anne Rice — there are also some eyebrow-raising omissions: Stephenie Meyer’s ridiculously popular Twilight series is nowhere to be found, and Charlaine Harris, whose Southern Vampire series is the basis for True Blood, is also conspicuously absent. See the full list of nominees after the jump, and tell us if you agree with the award’s jury.

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Today marks the release of Ben Marcus’s long-awaited fourth novel, The Flame Alphabet, in which language becomes lethal, estranging families, turning children (who are solely immune) into something resembling packs of wild dogs, and requiring everyone’s complicity in a sort of social apocalypse brought on by an inability to communicate. Needless to say, the concept that language may turn toxic and slowly kill off its users is relatively terrifying for us, so we’ve put together a short guide on the most frightening fictional afflictions in literature — and more importantly, how to avoid them. Click through for a quick survival lesson, and let us know if you have any more safety tips in the comments.

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Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Peirce will be filming an updated version of mind power maven Carrie — and this remake promises to be closer to Stephen King’s 1974 novel. Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa — who was recently hired to help out the jinxed (and extremely dangerous!) production will pen the script. Apart from being a faithful retelling of King’s tale about a mousy high schooler who eventually uses her telekinetic powers to lash out at everyone around her, Slash Film reports that the project will be “more grounded than the Brian De Palma-directed film.”

Sissy Spacek is synonymous with the role of Carrie, which is a part that hasn’t fared well for other actresses stepping into her blood-soaked prom dress. Angela Bettis’ take on the teen in the TV remake of the movie was met with negative reviews, and the same goes for awful The Rage: Carrie 2. Broadway’s biggest flop (losing a whopping $8 million bucks) was a huge embarrassment in 1988, but Carrie will apparently be returning to the stage again later this month. Is there room for more of the wronged prom princess? More importantly, why won’t anyone listen to King, who recently said he wanted to see David Cronenberg or David Lynch at the helm? Huge missed opportunity.

NaNoWriMo may be over and our schedules may be filling up with holiday parties and family visits, but despite all that, December is one of our favorite months to curl up and read. If you need a little extra inspiration in this most hectic of months, however, never fear. To spur you on, we’ve collected a few inspiring quotes about reading by some people who read quite a lot — the authors themselves. Click through to read forty of our favorite quotes from writers about books and reading, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your own favorite inspirational declarations in the comments! Read More »

1. Old Ideas, the lovely Leonard Cohen’s first studio album in seven years, isn’t due out until January, but you can already stream one of the tracks called “Show Me The Place” here.

2. Julie Delpy has signed on to direct The Right Profile, a biopic about Clash frontman Joe Strummer that will focus on his later years, which were spent largely outside of the spotlight. [via CinemaBlend]

3. Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, James Frey, and Chris Adrian are among the authors on the shortlist for the 19th annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which is organized by the Literary Review. The lucky winner will be announced at a ceremony on December 6. [via Telegraph]

4. According to a new study in the UK, more successful male artists have more sexual partners than less successful artists. Oddly, the researchers’ findings did not hold true for female artists. [via Guardian]

5. While discussing last weekend’s pepper spray incident at UC Davis with Bill O’Reilly, Fox News host Megyn Kelly felt the need to point out that it is “a food product, essentially.” Meanwhile O’Reilly says, “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police, particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” [via Gawker]

Bonus Buzz: Zoidberg Reimagined

Yesterday, Stephen King’s newest work, 11/22/63, a novel about a man who travels back in time via a storeroom to stop the JFK assassination, hit shelves. Inspired by this newest addition to the time travel literature genre, we got to thinking about a few of our favorite time travel stories, and particularly about all of the different ways those fictional mortals manage to thrust themselves back and forth in space-time. From our vantage, there are a few types of time travel that we see used over and over again: mechanical (time machines and the like), portal-based (stepping through some sort of floating hole in the space-time continuum), fantastical (ghosts or other unbelievable phenomena), magical/item-based (some sort of artifact that holds the power of time travel), and the simply unexplained (because why does it matter? Get to the cool future stuff already). There are hundreds of novels and short stories about or involving time travel, so these are a few of our favorites, plucked both from the beginnings of the genre and from contemporary literature. Click through to read our list, and let us know your own favorite time travel novels — or time travel methods — in the comments. Read More »

Yesterday marked the kickoff of National Novel-Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo), the online project that challenges participants to write a 50,000-word book in the 30 days of November. To those scribbling hurriedly to meet its deadline, we wish you a book deal by December. And to cheer you on, we’ve rounded up a treasure trove of advice and encouragement from the great writers who best embody, in their own work, NaNoWriMo’s goals of writing much and writing fast. Below the jump, read through our favorite words from the wise, speedy, and prolific.

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It’s the first of the month, and you know what that means: a brand new spate of new literary releases to delve into. Not that we mind — the weather’s getting brisker (not to mention those snowstorms, NYC), and we really can’t think of anything better to do than to curl up with a cup of hot cider and a great novel (or memoir, or book of essays, or short story collection). Don’t be put off by the number of big names on our list this month — we like a struggling first novel as much as the next blog, but November is the month for publishers to pull out their big guns, and boy have they ever. Click through to see our list of ten must-reads coming out this month, and let us know which books you’re most psyched to dig into in the comments.

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