Note: Cate started the draft, but it’s actually Jason commentating. Can’t figure out how to change the “posted by” thing.
I have long been skeptical of claims that books were some how different from ereaders in that we somehow better comprehended the text of a book. That seemed silly and made-up to me. Guess what? It is.
Speaking of things I was right about – stereotypical chick lit might actually be kind of bad for you. I actually think this study is a little suspect, but it does speak to the already documented tendency of fiction to make you empathize with the characters.
I think this article about how much writers managed to write in a day is really interesting. Left to my own devices, I find that I can get somewhere between 1000 and 1500 on a normal day.
McSweeney’s is great for internet humor. Here is a list of Dickensian-sounding NFL player names and what roles they would have in his books. And speaking of Dickens, here’s a letter of advice to his son.
This lucky person once sold books to Johnn Cash. Neat. I wish I could have sold books to Johnny Cash.
How literate is your city? (ours isn’t very)
And we’ll close it out with a few nice lists. Here’s one about characters inspired by real people and here’s one about hotels based on books.
Our city’s #10 on the list–and actually I’m surprised we did rate higher than that.