The rise of the paperback

Interesting post in The Atlantic about the history of the paperback book - albeit, according to a book written in 1984 - and about how the rise in popularity and numbers of published paperbacks "...made an enormous contribution to our social, cultural, educational, and literary life."

Also, according to this piece (and the book, really), there were only 500 legitimate bookstores in the US in 1931. And while I've been bemoaning the dearth of bookstores in Indianapolis, my complaints seem so fickle with that figure in mind.

Check it out: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/a-golden-age-of-books-there-were-only-500-real-bookstores-in-1931/258309/

Barthelme's Syllabus

I've been scouring around for most of these, considering I've only read a small portion of them. Pretty awesome stuff on here.

Any of you out there read any of these books?

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200310/?read=barthelme_syllabus

Anthony Burgess comments on Being an Novelist

I am by trade a novelist. It is, I think, a harmless trade, though it is not everywhere considered a respectable one. Novelists put dirty language into the mouths of their characters, and they show these characters fornicating or going to the toilet. Moreover, it is not a useful trade, as is that of the carpenter or the pastry cook. The novelist passes the time for you between one useful action and another, he helps fill the gaps that appear in the serious fabric of living. He is a mere entertainer, a sort of clown. He mimes, he makes grotesque gestures, he is pathetic or comic and sometimes both, he sends words spinning through the air like colored balls.

- Anthony Burgess, The Clockwork Condition, The New Yorker, June 4, 2012

1Q84 Design Video

Interesting stuff.

Last one about Bolano. I swear....

We all know, or we all should know, that Roberto Bolano was one of the original founders of the Infrarealists Poetry movement. Here is the group's manifesto, translated in to English for the first time. It reads like a beautiful, long prose-poem and was penned by R.B. himself.

http://altarpiece.blogspot.com/2009/06/first-infrarealist-manifesto-english.html

Also, check out this old picture:

Reading Challenge

It's a little late now, but I just found out about this reading challenge. I would suggest Bifurcaria bifurcata (the original poster of this challenge) extend this opportunity to next year, thereby attracting more new readers of Bolano. Just click on the picture below to check out the challenge.

More Bolano to be published

It seems there's always more being dug up every year - six new works by Bolano will be published in 2012.

Third Reich was just released the 22nd of November and a little before that, Tres was released. It's exciting and almost overwhelming for those of us who came to Bolano after reading the all-encompassing 2666 or The Savage Detectives. It would be surprising if anything slated to be released was at the level those two novels were, but Bolano is one of those unique poets-cum-novelists who can say in one word what it would take for most others to say in a paragraph.

• The Secret of Evil - a posthumous prose collection.
  
• Advice from a Morrison Follower to a Joyce Fanatic - an early novel written with Bolaño's friend A. G. Porta. You can't judge a book by its cool title. But it could earn some points.
• Diorama - one of 3 books discovered among Bolaño's papers. Still unpublished in Spanish.
• A Lumpen Novella - El futuro, the film adaptation of this book, is already being shot on location in Rome. It will be perfect if the short novel will come out as a movie tie-in. It had a rather interesting premise. 

• The Troubles of the Real Police Officer - another discovered manuscript. It came out in Spanish early this year. It's very likely it will be released in English in mid- to late 2012. And the wonderful Natasha Wimmer will probably translate again for FSG. 
• The Unknown University - the last of Bolaño's 3 major collections of poetry translated by Laura Healy. New Directions will most likely publish this in 2012.