Category: words

The author is on her 111th novel – she long ago stopped buying her signature chunky silver rings for each book – and this one might be her most personal. “Wilson is the fairy goth-mother of children’s fiction credited with daring to introduce such non-cheery subjects as depression and divorce into her children’s bedrooms.” – The Guardian (UK)

Sure, Shakespeare and the Bible outsell Agatha Christie, but otherwise, she’s the tops. “Agatha Christie’s novels have sold more than one billion copies in the English language and another billion internationally.” Thirty percent of USians who like to read started their mystery reading with an Agatha Christie book. And then there’s Mousetrap. – Literary Hub

Alvarez, the author of In the Time of the Butterflies and the new Afterlife, isn’t trying to be facetious or to downplay the importance of health care workers or grocery clerks. But, quoting Robert Frost, she adds, “I use [literature] in the broad sense. I don’t mean just written stories. I mean oral stories. I mean music. I mean dance. All these things people are seeking solace in. Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.” – NPR

Here’s what’s going on with some bookstores in Los Angeles. The Ripped Bodice in Culver City, which has a big Twitter following, offered a “care package” deal. Co-owner Leah Koch: “‘Those have been so popular. We put them up before we closed to foot traffic. Within 48 hours, we had 230 orders,’ Koch says, adding that the store now has a waitlist for the care package service and, as of this writing, there were 700 people on the waitlist.” Other bookstores? It’s not great news. – The Hollywood Reporter

I spoke to several industry professionals; almost all were reluctant to play Monday morning quarterback without the promise of anonymity—if you’re making a book deal in secret, perhaps it’s worth interrogating why. – The New Republic

Comics are largely sold through the direct market, moving from publisher to distributor to specialty comics retailers, as opposed to digital distribution or the newstands of yesteryear. But last month, Diamond Comics Distributors—the monopoly that supplies monthly comics to retailers in the United States and Britain—announced that it was refusing to accept new product from comics’ largest publishers, including Marvel, DC, Image, and Boom Studios. – The Daily Beast

An April Fool’s story that’s actually true: back during the 1978 newspaper strike in New York City, a group of writers and editors that included some now-illustrious names — George Plimpton, Nora Ephron, Carl Bernstein, Terry Southern, Frances FitzGerald — put together a parody newspaper and got it onto newsstands. Here’s the first-ever oral history of this proto-Onion from some of the folks involved. – The New York Times

Here’s a brief history, going from a five-by-five palindrome from ancient Rome to Victorian double acrostics to four different kinds of riddle (including the anti-riddle). – The Paris Review

It’s certainly true that people have been reading Shakespeare’s plays for almost as long as they have been watching them. Within two or three years of his first, collaborative efforts on the London stage, Shakespeare’s first play in print was the gory tragedy Titus Andronicus (1594). Only one copy of this edition exists, now in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. That scarcity itself tells us something about reading: playbooks were small, consumable pamphlets often read into oblivion, not literary trophies to be venerated. – The Guardian

In a 2016 study, the median small business had enough cash to last just 27 days, while a 2018 survey found that 21 percent would fail after a month without cash flow. Bookstores run on even slimmer margins than the typical mom-and-pop shop—but the ones that have survived in the Amazon era have made it for a reason. – Slate