Creative people are interesting.

..Are they interesting because they are Creative? 

..Or, are they creative because they have had interesting lives?

Seen on Incidental Comics.

Looking forward to reading this. 

Alison Bechdel may well be the most important cartoonist working today.

With the publication of Are You My Mother?, her amazing new memoir, Bechdel exceeds the considerable achievement of her 2006 masterpiece Fun Home, bringing psychic life to the page like no one else and finding innovative pictorial ways of mixing narrative accessibility with theoretical sophistication.

..a literary take on paint by numbers. 

The Literary Man Cave

In theory, we love the idea of the newly debuted Man Cave. Hosted by Adams Media, it’s  an online bookstore targeted directly at male readers and those who buy gifts for them, according to Publishers Weekly. How perfect!

“Men tend to be the most challenging people to shop for,” says an Adams Media marketer. And the Man Cave site boasts of having the solution: “Yes, guys do read—they like it, in fact. It’s here that you’ll find the perfect gift for the man in your life.” But check out the selection of titles: How Do You Light a Fart?, 100 Sexiest Women in Comics, and Sweet ’Stache: 50 Badass Mustaches and the Faces Who Sport Them, to name just a few.

Ahh … so they didn’t mean literary novels and memoirs that might appeal to not-big-reader guys. They meant gifty books that nobody really wants but that are stamped “For Guys.” Books about farts and mustaches. You know, the book equivalent of a tie printed with golf tees.

What would you suggest for a real literary man cave?

( Via UtneReader )

In the not so distant future.

Rushdie’s Reading List for The Standard Hotel 

On The Road - The Film

First Look of the Day: Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, Kristen Stewart as Mary Lou, and Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty in Motorcycle Diaries-director Walter Salles’s Francis Ford Coppola-produced big-screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

A couple more photos here. Release date TBD.

[comingsoon.]

Bob Dylan is reported to have signed a six-book deal that includes two follow-ups to his 2004 best-selling memoir “Chronicles: Volume One”.

Publishing industry website Crain’s New York Business.com cited several industry insiders as saying the deal with Simon & Schuster would also include a book based on the 69-year-old singer-songwriter’s satellite radio show on Sirius XM.

Simon & Schuster on Wednesday declined to comment on the report.

“Chronicles: Volume One”, the first of a planned three-volume memoir, earned much acclaim and spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 2004.

Dylan then hosted a weekly show on Sirius XM from 2006 to 2009, in which he played a diverse array of music from his vast personal collection, told jokes and recited poetry.

It was not clear what topics the other three books in the reported deal would cover.

- Reuters

Dear Apsiring Writers:

Take note. While toiling away, trying to write a meaningful story that justly captures some aspect of the human experience, remember that publishing, like any creative pursuit, is first and foremost a business. You could write the greatest tale that has ever been told, but if no one believes that’s it’s marketable, no one will publish it. Meanwhile, someone who is famous for tanning, teasing her hair and getting excessively drunk in public will get a book published almost instantly because the publisher knows it will make them a lot of money.

Some depressing statistics about books:

• 33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book after college.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.
• 70% of books published do not earn back their advance.
• 70% of books published do not make a profit.

Knowing all of this, publishers pander to the lowest common denominator. They are far more likely to publish a terrible book that will sell a million copies than a brilliant book that will sell five hundred copies. Taking a gamble on a book they know almost no one will read is simply not worth their money.

However, you can at least try to take solace in the fact that in twenty years, people will still be reading, analysing and loving Poe’s work, yet no one will remember or care who Snooki is.