Monday, January 11, 2010

January 8

The science fiction website io9 offers an amazing slideshow on "The Grandiose Decay of Abandoned Detroit":

http://io9.com/5435724/the-grandiose-decay-of-abandoned-detroit/gallery/

Deena Drewis at The Millions gives interesting consideration to the relations between writers and editors, focusing particularly on the fraught case of Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish:

http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/in-defense-of-editors.html

Chad Post at Three Percent writes about the French Voices program to promote new French fiction:

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=2439

I like this list of books on Victorian crime from novelist James McCreet. I heartily second his recommendation of Kate Summerscale's non-fiction account of a celebrated Victorian murder, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, which I just finished reading a few days ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/06/james-mccreet-top-10-victorian-detective-stories

Here is a sharp comment by James Kwak at the economics blog The Baseline Scenario about "a problem that goes far beyond Wall Street, and something I always found particularly distasteful about Corporate America: CEOs, and business people in general, saying things they want to be true, without bothering to find out if it actually is true."

http://baselinescenario.com/2010/01/07/the-problem-wit-positive-thinking/

Among notables born on this date are scientists Alfred Russel Wallace and Stephen Hawking, psychologist Carl Rogers, composers Giacinto Scelsi and Benjamin Lees, novelists Wilkie Collins and Storm Jameson, painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, actor Jose Ferrer, poets Charles Tomlinson and Ko Un (of Korea), film director Jean-Marie Straub, and singers Elvis Presley and David Bowie. Somehow or other, despite being a Victorian novel enthusiast, I had managed to go all these years without reading a Wilkie Collins novel, but I just remedied that by finishing The Woman in White. He is an extravagantly gifted and gripping writer; it's easy to see the reasons for his popularity. Besides, any buddy of Dickens is a buddy of mine.