Some great advice from Margaux Williamson on how to impress a man with your book collection.

Today I learned that James Joyce was pretty much blind by the time he was in his thirties. This and other cool things about the literary legend from this post over at The Paris Review Blog.

This article from The Paris Review blog is an interesting look at the cachet that books carry and whether the trend of using them as a design piece of sorts in high end stores is good for books or good for retail. Best response: the guy who shops in stores decorated with books because “They make me think the store is smart.” Urban Outfitters anyone? 

The Paris Review blog recently posted this really funny piece written by author Shalom Auslander about how he chose the name for his new book, Hope: A Tragedy. Some of the titles considered: The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, Nowhere Ho, and The Sea. More hilarious is Shalom’s recounting of why they were picked, and eventually rejected. Also, very funny if you know any editors. *Wink Wink*

Also, Foreskin’s Lament is an amazing book title. 

The Paris Review has a pretty sweet blog, and the other day they posted something that should make every literary geek’s heat palpitate with joy. The set-up:

In 1963, a sixteen-year-old San Diego high school student named Bruce McAllister sent a four-question mimeographed survey to 150 well-known authors of literary, commercial, and science fiction. Did they consciously plant symbols in their work? he asked. Who noticed symbols appearing from their subconscious, and who saw them arrive in their text, unbidden, created in the minds of their readers? When this happened, did the authors mind?

The awesome thing that happened? A bunch of the authors actually responded. And this kid was not screwing around; he contacted some of the biggest names in literature: Kerouac, Bradbury, Rand, Mailer, and Updike, to name a few. The responses of the authors and some context from Bruce make this a most charming read.