Bestsellers are different from fast sellers, cult favourites or the brand known as “instant classics”. They bear no relation to those books we call “the canon”, such as Pride and Prejudice – which became a “bestseller” relatively recently, when it was remodelled as chick lit. The term has become a slippery one and is often used to describe the thing it’s not. Most of the books promoted by Waterstones as bestsellers are nothing of the sort. They don’t come close to the sales figures required (4,000 to 25,000 copies a week in hardback). Bestsellers are not simply the summer’s top beach reads; they are cultural phenomena, and we like to think that they come, like J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone or E L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, out of left field.
Tag: 12.14.16
What’s Up With This Othello In A Plywood Box?
They did what? “The two have turned the space into a plywood box, modeled in part on the kind of temporary military installations that U.S. troops have mounted in deserts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last dozen years or so, and put the audience on three sides of the action.”
Elites? What Elites? Defending Against Vague Scapegoating
“If pundits can agree on anything about 2016, it is surely that it has been bad for elites. Populist wave after populist wave has broken over Western politics, with a vote for Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and Italy’s loss of a popular young prime minister over a constitutional referendum that he called—and lost. The masses are out for blood, and the elites are quaking.”
Now Hundreds Of Academics All Over America Want To Be On The Professor Watchlist
Last month, a conservative college group launched the Professor Watchlist, which purports to name and shame academics who “advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Last week, 200-odd professors at Notre Dame demanded to be included on the list alongside two of their colleagues who had already been singled out. (“This is the sort of company we wish to keep,” they said.) Now there’s a website called Free Academics where professors can join the petition to be added to the Watchlist, and more than 1,500 have signed on so far.
What Does It Take To Look Beyond The Moral Failings Of An Artist To Celebrate His Work?
“Many educated people want to boycott Woody Allen because of an accusation of rape, and I couldn’t get my sensitive friends to go see a Roman Polanski film with me if I paid them, but a clever Ezra Pound quote doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Indeed, it makes one seem more sensitive to know Ezra Pound. The fashions are complicated. It is by no means clear how stringent a good moralist must be when it comes to refusing the art of flawed people.”
The Grammar Police And Do They Matter?
The last time I Googled “grammar Nazi,” I got 1,660,000 hits, including many images of a “G” that looks like a swastika. “Grammarian” drew only 1,230,000, even though grammarians were performing their evils long before Hitler. The Urban Dictionary’s top definition of “grammar Nazi” was “someone who believes it’s their duty to attempt to correct any grammar or spelling mistakes they observe.” Not a very appealing someone. The next definition was “a person who uses proper grammar at all times, esp. online . . . ; a proponent of grammatical correctness. Often one who spells correctly as well.” “Grammar Nazi” seems harsh for this correct speller. Does the punishment fit the crime?
Screenwriter Versus Writer – The Contest Is Rigged
The fact is, in the war between author and screenwriter, the screenwriter virtually always wins. “Living authors are a problem. It’s much better to have an author safely departed because they do cause trouble. What you have to remember is that you owe everything to the movie, and nothing to the original.”
Hollywood Is Getting Even More Crowded. Facebook To Begin Producing Video
Facebook’s aim is to seed content for the new video tab in its mobile app, to make it more of a destination for users to spend time watching video content. The effort is similar to its program under which it has paid celebrities and media companies, including BuzzFeed, CNN and the New York Times, to produce video for Facebook Live.
Teachout: The Best American Theatre Not On Broadway
Few theatre critics have the opportunity to cover theatre the way The Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout does. He’s on the road much of the year seeing theatre across the country. This year, he says, the best theatre was off Broadway and out of New York City.
NYT Book Critics Pick Their Favorite Books Of 2016
“The New York Times has three daily book critics: Michiko Kakutani, Dwight Garner and Jennifer Senior. Because they review different titles, it is impossible for them to compile a single unanimous Top 10 list. They have favorites, however, and are happy to have a chance to list them here.”