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Publishers’ Craziest Schemes to Avoid Book Spoilers

By Tom Hawking on

The news that the translators of Dan Brown’s new book Inferno were basically isolated from the world for two months to avoid any chance of them leaking its plot was enough to elicit a collective bewildered shaking of the head at Flavorwire central. Still, it’s not even the batshit craziest thing that publishers have done over the years to avoid details of their precious books leaking before publication — as an industry, publishing has embraced the embargo-based insistence on secrecy so beloved of Hollywood, especially when it comes to books likely to sell in the bazillions (i.e., anything by JK Rowling). Here are some of the craziest schemes concocted to avoid leaks. … Read More

Books

10 of the Greatest Underdogs in Literature

By Emily Temple on

This weekend, we were saddened to hear of the death of Jean Merrill, one of our all-time favorite children’s book authors, whose 1964 novel The Pushcart War still informs our thinking today. The literary queen of the underdogs, Merrill’s books nearly all concern the disadvantaged, the weak, the outcasts rising up against their oppressors (be it Corporate Toothpaste or trucking companies) and, of course, winning the day. To celebrate her life and her body of work, we’ve put together a list of our all-time favorite underdogs in literature. Read through our selections below, and let us know which characters you’d add in the comments. … Read More

Books

11 Thrilling Books For People Who Don’t Read Thrillers

By Russ Marshalek on

Though as readers we try our best to keep an open mind, we have a confession. We admit it, it’s a dirty word to us: genre fiction. That said, when we were breathlessly devouring Tana French’s newly-released Broken Harbor, we were struck by something: the power of a well-written, perfectly plotted, tightly-wound literary thriller. While the “t” word might throw off some high-minded snobs (admittedly, us), there’s absolutely nothing wrong in delighting in a great book that is, well, thrilling. As an entry point, we’ve gathered some of our favorite recent literary thrillers here, for your perusal. Note that we set the guideline of “recent” (so, please, no “where’s Agatha Christie?”), we chose not to focus on true crime (though we did have to make one exception), and that we highly recommend all of these. Also note that we don’t recommend starting any of them before bedtime. … Read More

Books

The ‘Millennium Trilogy’ Will Be a Graphic Novel Series

By Caroline Stanley on

Some possibly exciting news for Stieg Larsson fans: Nerve reports that Vertigo, an imprint of DC Entertainment, plans to publish the Millennium Trilogy as a graphic novel. Each book from the popular series will be broken down into two volumes which will be available in both print and digital formats; and while it’s… Read More

Books

Read Stieg Larsson’s Rejection Letter from Journalism School

By Tom Hawking on

Well, if you read Swedish, anyway. Larsson applied to the Joint Colleges of Journalism in Stockholm in 1972, at the age of 18, and after being rejected, went on to work as a photographer, eventually ending up as the editor of Trotskyist paper Fjärde Internationalen. His subsequent journalistic career — and, of course, his wildly successful posthumous novels — make the people who rejected him look rather silly, and Larsson apparently kept the letter as a sort of motivation over the years. His brother Joakim told the Guardian in England that although Larsson wasn’t bitter about the rejection, “of course he was not happy.” The letter’s being sold at Sotheby’s in London as part of a fund-raiser for Expo, the magazine that Larsson founded (and which bears a striking resemblance to Millenium, the fictional magazine in his novels.) You can see it after the jump — does anyone want to translate it for us? … Read More

Books

Literary Characters Who Would Be Best Friends in Real Life

By Kathleen Massara on

Last month, we ran a post on TV characters who would likely befriend each other in real life. Today we thought we’d try out the literary version of this game with characters that span cities, and even eras. Who do you think, dear readers, would take the next step and form an alliance if time and place were not an issue? Take a look at our humble list of literary unions, and please suggest your own pairings in the comments section below. … Read More

Books

Literary Advice: Ask Lisbeth Salander

By Kathleen Massara on

In our next installment of dispensing literary advice we’ve decided to consult Lisbeth Salander, the tough as nails protagonist of Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. As a ward of the state, she just can’t seem to get a break in this life, and is constantly picked on by men in power. When she’s not escaping from murderous, wealthy tyrants, she’s busy hacking into their computers and reading their personal files and off-shore bank statements. Depending on their actions, she might even break into their apartments and make them repent for their misdeeds, frontier justice style. She is a loner, a casual reader of the Apocrypha, and the owner of a lot of black clothing and prickly chokers. What’s not to love? She’s graciously agreed to answer some questions from curious readers today, so without further ado, we’ll leave it to Lisbeth. … Read More

Books

Like Pandora? Try A Literary Offshoot, Booklamp

By Kathleen Massara on

BookLamp.org is a new website that is similar to Pandora — it creates algorithms and breaks down your book preferences by main themes. For instance, if you liked White Teeth, then Booklamp discerns that you’re into: Culture, Life/Death/Spirituality, Extended Families, Explicit Language, and “Elements of Time.” This results in some odd recommendations, such as The Cestus Deception (Star Wars: Clone Wars) by Steven Barnes. (Really? Because we are just never going to be in to that.) However, another suggestion was The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis, which makes some sense. So click through and see what hilarious, interesting, and arguably accurate choices we found on our trip through the site. … Read More

Books

A Brief History of Writers Who Died Untimely Deaths

By Kathleen Massara on

We recently read Rachel Maddux’s essay “Here with the Windies” about the sudden, shocking death of Margaret Mitchell back in 1949 (she was hit by a cab on the way to see a movie), and we were inspired to come up with a group of writers who died before their time. To narrow things down a bit, we elected to leave aside the suicides (DFW, Sylvia Plath, Iris Chang… the list goes on), as well as the poets who succumbed to disease (see: Shelley, Keats). That said, if we’ve left off your favorite writer who died too young, be sure to let us know in the comments. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Caroline Stanley on

Today at Flavorpill, we were happy to hear that the Bronx Zoo’s missing cobra had been found, but the fact that it inside the zoo’s Reptile House this whole time leaves us wondering if this was all just a brilliant publicity stunt. We read some spoilers for the unpublished fourth book of the… Read More