Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Week in Tweets

It’s not actually meant to replicate all of January Magazine’s activity on Twitter over the last week. Rather, since we manage to cover so much over there that we just don’t have time to get to properly here, it makes sense to hit some of the highlights. After all, a lot of what Twitter is about are the links. Here are a few of the ones we’ve recently thought were noteworthy.

Hard to believe it when you see her on the road promoting her latest book -- or books-signing device -- but Margaret Atwood turns 70 today. Of course, the book she’s been promoting most recently is The Year of the Flood. It’s fantastic. January Magazine’s 2000 interview with Atwood is here.

Like a lot of outfits, massive Harlequin Books is scooting towards their idea of publishing’s brave new world. Their answer, a romance self-publishing imprint called Harlequin Horizon, has been raising some eyebrows.

When he died in 1977, Vladimir Nabokov’s heirs found instructions that his work in progress, The Original of Laura, was to be burned. That book was published yesterday. Not everyone thinks it was a swell idea.

“The parsley explodes muscle.” Here’s a bit of silly fun: the 10 worst translations. Ever.

A statue and a check? It’s awards season. Most recently, the 2009 Governor General’s Awards and the 2009 National Outdoor Book Awards. (Though they aren’t the same thing. At all.)

Seriously, Seth Godin? The Los Angeles Times’ Carolyn Kellogg seems almost weirdly annoyed with something Godin posted to his blog.

The New Oxford American Dictionary
has chosen their 2009 Word of the Year. Seriously: “unfriend”? What an odd choice. After all, 2009 has been all about Twitter. Facebook is just so 2007.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood revisited, half a century on.

The coming e-book revolution will revitalize the industry, opines leading tech analyst, Tim Bajarin: “Conventional wisdom has it that the publishing industry will benefit the most from this re-invention of the book, but while this may be true, the advent of such technologies may also lead to the emergence of a new creative class.” Bajarin says other interesting stuff, too. Bottom line? The sky is changing but probably will not fall.

The worst books of the decade? Judging by this list, The Times Online’s reading list is not as deep as ours. If we were to make such a list -- which we won’t be doing -- ours would have way more stinky books than does this one. Way.

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