If brevity is truly the soul of wit, then your Twitter feed is the Algonquin round table of today's digital Dorothy Parkers and Ogden Nashes. Here's a selection of our favorite tweets from the week; nominate yours by submitting to @blackballoonpub with #twitwit.

Molly Ringwald wrote a novel. Andrew McCarthy has just published a travel memoir. It seems inevitable to me that Duckie (or, as he probably prefers, Jon Cryer) will shortly follow suit with his own literary achievement. And I have an almost frighteningly clear premonition of how he will join the highbrow ranks of his Pretty in Pink co-stars.

It is my long-held belief that the "actors" in John Hughes' films always played themselves. How is Molly Ringwald any different from Andie — or, for that matter, Samantha  (Sixteen Candles) or Claire (The Breakfast Club)? How is Andrew McCarthy, in the core of his being, distinguishable from Blane? And what has Jon Cryer been for the past however many years onTwo and a Half Men anything other than Charlie Sheen’s underappreciated, sensitive sidekick? I’ve never even seen that show, but I know Jon Cryer, essentially, is yearning and gets dumped on and continues to yearn and show up and be loyal and get dumped on. Pure Duckie.

And if the smart, pretty, kinda weird girl grows up to write sensitive family shit about flaws making us human, and the kinda dark misunderstood loner with abundant privilege anxious to truly connect with someone writes a memoir about travelling alone to reconnect with his fiancée, then Duckie gets to have his say, too.  

So what better medium for an unloved, unwanted but loyal sidekick than science fiction? What better medium is there for Duckie to demonstrate the extent of his yearning than the imagining of impossible worlds? The effort alone will be pathetic: he’ll seem as though he’s trying to latch on to the sci-fi craze, and he’ll likely compare himself to Colson Whitehead. It will be so embarrassing for him and he will be so very earnest. And we will be touched, but more than that we will be embarrassed and quietly judgmental and feel so deeply relieved that we have not yet embarrassed ourselves so devastatingly as Duckie.

I dare Jon Cryer to prove me wrong on this one. Tell me honestly he hasn't seriously considered writing sci-fi. I think the publication of such a book is almost impossible to resist. It's a force of nature, an inevitability of the future John Hughes so painstakingly laid the foundation for. It would also be such an embarrassing catastrophe. I long for it to exist in the world.

image: heavemedia.com

“There are twenty-seven different definitions of the self,” I heard Siri Hustvedt say at the Brooklyn Book Festival yesterday. “So you had better decide which one you want to use before going any further.”

It reminded me of that morning, when Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard faced a throng of literati at a discussion called "Ice or Salt: The Personal in Fiction." James Wood had acknowledged the former’s “surfeit of empathy”in How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life and the “ceaselessly compelling” quality of the latter’s My Struggle: Volume One. And both writers spoke out in contrast to the versions of the selves they’d presented on the page: Karl Ove read from one of the more meditative, “authorial” sections of My Struggle, while Sheila focused on a letter between herself and the sado-masochistic Israel.

Hustvedt, who was also on the panel with Knausgaard and Heti, noted how their books, despite hewing closely to real life, used novelistic conventions. The very act of forming art necessarily deformed the life from which it was drawn. The other two novelists nodded, throwing their hands up in mock-resignation. (Laurent Binet should have been on the panel solely on basis of HHhH.)

One of the most common (and certainly the most frustrating) questions authors must answer is whether their fiction is autobiographical — and then they have to explain how, and where exactly, and of course why. But why are we so fascinated by this divide, or lack thereof, between an artist’s life and an artist’s work? Why did the line for this event teem with so many people that it filled the second floor and most of the first floor of the Brooklyn Borough Hall Courtroom?

Because we are confused about our many definitions of selfhood, perhaps?

In my college creative-writing courses, I read thinly veiled autobiographies of near-suicides or first heartbreaks. It was a way to talk about the event without judging the person who had lived it. But I preferred the direction Sheila and Karl Ove took. To paraphrase Yeats, they resisted the impulse topack the personal in ice or salt; they actually used their own names.

A great deal of what makes us human is our evident self-consciousness. Because of this, we can think about ourselves as seen by others, as doing things not yet done, as different from our present and living selves in age or body or action. We can think about ourselves as others.

We want to know whether our books' authors are writing about themselves, because we want to know if it's possible to live two lives, to escape the one in the world by setting another one down on the page. We want to imagine that these different definitions of the self actually mean different selves.

It's clear that Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard have grappled mightily with this question, and maybe even made some peace with it. They see their literary personae as separate selves, old and no-longer-personal selves that do not need to be packed in ice or salt. What we read is, to them, just another version to add to the hundreds of selves already in their heads.

image credit: elbauldeguardian.com

If brevity is truly the soul of wit, then your Twitter feed is the Algonquin round table of today's digital Dorothy Parkers and Ogden Nashes. Here's our favorite tweets from the week; nominate yours by submitting to @blackballoonpub with #twitwit.

After an incredible meeting with Tumblr literary high priestess, Rachel Fershleiser, we are ready to unveil the shiny new Black Balloon Tumblr! On it, you'll find exclusive odds and ends from our books, outtakes from our blog, photos from events and parties, and anything worth reblogging from our literary friends and allies. To commemorate such an occasion, we've compiled a list of some of our favorite literary Tumblrs. Do yourself a favor and follow all these blogs immediately. Your cat-filled, Ryan Gosling-studded dashboard will thank you.

Title 2 Come: Gif blogs may be played out, but this literary-minded one is extremely relevant to our interests. Besides, any excuse to use this Ron Swanson gif is an Internet victory in our books.

Book Storey: For the extremely detail-oriented design bibliophiles, this collection of rare books will make you swoon. Recommended for people who spend way too much time in the Strand's Rare Book Room.

Fishing Boat Proceeds: YA author, John Green, is a Tumbly messiah, herding masses of “nerdfighters” to do outrageous things like register to vote and donate to Kiva. If you want to know that the kids are up to these days, jump on his bandwagon.

Underground NYPL: Forget the Sartorialist. This is the street style blog you want to be caught on. Subway riders reading, with the occasional e-reader thrown in for good measure.

Rachel Fershleiser: Obviously.

On the Strand: UK Penguin's Tumblr ain't the standard huge publishing blog. They post never-before-seen bits and pieces from their books, and if you're lucky you can catch an early glimpse of soon-to-be bestsellers, like they did with Zadie Smith's NW a couple of months ago.

The Collected Blurbs of Gary Shteyngart: Yes, he really did blurb this blurb blog. But this is handy to follow, should you ever need a crash course in book blurbing.

The Composites: “Images created using a commercially available law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters.” Either extremely beautiful or extremely upsetting, depending how you imagined Katniss Everdeen to look like.

Book Stalker: Again, obviously.

Bookshelf Porn: A visual case against e-readers.

Better Book Titles: One of the many Tumblrs that has went on to a (well deserved!) book deal but continues to post funny content.

Slaughterhouse 90210: Imperative for anyone who's ever wondered what would happen to the time-space continuum if Edith Wharton and Blair Waldorf ever crossed paths.

WORD and Housing Works: Two best bookstores on Tumblr. Extremely entertaining Twitter feeds as well.

Do you love reading but sometimes wish it were a little more social and a little less taxing on the wrists? Don't fret; just do a Big Read. There was Infinite Summer, when thousands of people read Infinite Jest, and Conversational Reading did a Big Read of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai in 2010. And the latest, best Big Read is happening right now: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is starting a new life as a podcast. That means the dulcet voices of Stephen Fry, David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, and Simon Callow are all mainlining Melville’s words straight to your ears.

Feel like rising to Ahab's challenge? Here’s how you do it, in seven easy steps!

1. Accept & forgive your decades of Moby-Dick avoidance
“I’ve got too many other books.” “I wasn't that into Bartleby the Scrivener.” “I still hate my high-school American Lit teacher.” Or maybe you took that one English class pass/fail and realized that maybe you could pass without cracking that spine. One way or another, Moby-Dick got beached on your bookshelf. Perfect.

2. See a friend reading it and think seriously about picking it up
Maybe you just came off the heels of a terrible airplane novel and suddenly Melville doesn’t seem so terrible. Maybe you just want to sleep with that boy/girl with the oversized glasses and you need a reason to strike up a conversation. But don’t start the book yet. Baby steps.

3. Learn that Moby-Dick podcasts are happening and that David Attenborough and Benedict Cumberbatch are reading chapters
Read that again: David Attenborough. The dude narrated Planet Earth. Hell, he could read the chapters classifying different whales and have us riveted. Begin seriously considering reading the damn book.

4. Download the first podcast. Then the second. Then the third...
Okay, you’re committing to this. Just listen to Tilda Swinton intoning “Call me Ishmael.” Start out amused, quickly become addicted.

5. Get to Chapter 32 and briefly consider cancelling your internet service
Do whales actually have to be classified by size? Why are you listening to these overly detailed descriptions? Is this book even worth listening to? Ah, but herein lies the beauty of the Big Read: get on Twitter and ask everybody if you really need to keep going. Hear from various sources that yes, really, you should stick with it (and even finish the cetology chapter). Regain your belief that there's method to Melville’s mammalian madness.

6. Kill the White Whale
Four months and one hundred and thirty-five podcasts later, realize that you somehow did it. You read Moby-Dick. Wasn't it better than that terrible airplane novel? Did you hook up with the glasses-wearing friend? Who cares — this is one serious book crossed off your Lifetime Reading list. If you still have an apartment, pop a bottle of Champagne and toast your tenacity.

7. Go hunt another Big Read
Well? Did you think you were done? Look at your bookshelves. (You may take the bottle with you.) The Iliad is actually pretty awesome. And War and Peace’s two epilogues aren’t going to read themselves. Take a deep breath and pick one.

Go on, get cracking.

image credit: ocburbs.blogspot.com

Slate just did a great overview of the history of the jingle, to the tune that every generation wants new cool things, and to be told about them in a different way. Which is way true. At a glance, the Fifties were for International Style (although I have no idea how Eames chairs were supposed to be comfortable); Eighties fashions, unfortunately, are making a comeback (but everybody knows those neon colors are retro, notcool, right?); and the Noughties were all about shiny glass and brushed steel, courtesy of Macintosh.

But that’s the past. Let’s talk about the future according to the ones making it all up. Here’s a doubleplusfast overview of big brands and products soon to come!

Soma (Brave New World)

I can rattle off seven brand-name drugs (Prozac, Klonopin, Valium, Vicodin, Advil, Excedrin, Prilosec) faster than I can name the Seven Dwarfs (Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Doc, Grumpy, Happy ... Bashful?), so it’s no surprise that one of the greatest dystopian novels of all time, Brave New World, revolves around the pleasure drug Soma. The stuff sounds pretty strong, and lasts a dangerously long time: “half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon.” And when characters realize they haven’t got the magic drug, they whine in catchphrases: “A gramme is better than a damn.” Above and beyond all the other possibilities in this list, I'd say Big Pharma is the real future.

Depend Adult Undergarment (the year, not the undergarment; Infinite Jest)

David Foster Wallace had a few hilarious ideas about the near future. In particular, calendar years were to be sponsored by corporations (Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, Year of the Whopper), and Ian Crouch has considered the real-life twists on this joke. But really, it’s not so strange to imagine that kind of sponsorship becoming normal. People joked about the iPad and female sanitary products, but those quick-witted tweeters were no match for the almighty Apple.

Diet GingerCoke (In Persuasion Nation)

I have a soft spot for George Saunders, in large part because his characters really believe in their brands. In one story, the titular Jon is part of a collective compound that mainlines advertisements from Prudential Life to Honey Grahams (especially LI 34321) and does Assessments for products like Diet GingerCoke. If you’ve got companies raising their own focus groups, you know you’re going to get the best advertisements ever.

ColgatePalmoliveYum!BrandsViacomCredit (Super Sad True Love Story)

Welcome to the not-too-distant future: a world run by conglomerations like GlaxoSmithKline, only with a little bit more “global” and a little less “local.” Our hapless narrator, Lenny Abramov, flies on a UnitedContinentalDeltamerican plane, and ColgatePalmoliveYum!BrandsViacomCredit (don’t forget the exclamation mark) doesn’t even have a focused purpose anymore, except to wield more power than the government. But hey, in Gary Shteyngart's vision future, everybody can rate each other and talk in Netspeak!

Mattel Hoverboards (Back to the Future Part II)

Fine, I know we're talking about books, but I grew up watching Marty McFly hitting 88 miles per hour on that DeLorean, and Back to the Future II was easily my favorite film in the trilogy. When I first saw it — around the time jingles were reduced to the "cannibalization of the pop charts and an endless parade of kitsch," according to Slate — I thought it was super futuristic: 3D ads for Jaws? Gigantic televisions that show multiple channels? And I am definitely psyched to see that the film’s predictions for 2015 are closer to fact than fiction. Still waiting on the Hoverboards, though.

image credit: jeanpaulreparon.blogspot.com

style="margin: 1em 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: AvenirNextLTW01-Regular; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; ">First, some cold, hard facts.

FACT: A signed first edition of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch will set you back $2,000 at Powell’s City of Books.
FACT: You can get it in digital format for $10.91, or free if you’re willing to click on some sketchy-looking pdfs.
FACT: I sometimes miss holding things in my hands.
FACT: It’s not an either/or proposition.

Last week I visited Portland, Oregon; naturally, my first stop was Powell’s and its 68,000 square feet of books. While it does have thriving e-book and print-on-demand departments, Powell’s is primarily a living monument to the printed word, a magical place where throngs of readers crowd the aisles in the middle of a weekday.

I had been thinking a lot about the alleged death of print, so I climbed the stairs to the Pearl Room, which houses the rare books. The rare books are kept in a climate-controlled glass enclosure and monitored by a friendly and vigilant employee; the room has more in common with a museum than with the ramshackle chaos of the fiction aisles downstairs.

The attendant and I get to talking, and soon enough I've arrived at several theories about the future of the printed word.

1. A book’s value is not necessarily linked to content, but a book’s value is totally linked to content. Popularity can decrease value because when a book is popular, more copies are printed, and editions become ordinary. The most exciting collectibles work both angles: they surpass popularity and vault into that unique realm we call a “classic” or (machismo intended here) “seminal.” East of Eden versus Eat Pray Love is no contest. However,East of Eden versus the first Harry Potter might get tricky, due to the ever-present wrench of fan obsession. And cover art matters.

2. E-books and e/print hybrids push readers away from collecting because the content is not encased in a physical object; it is always available, always floating in the ether and ready for consumption.

3. At the same time, e-books push us in a more accelerated fashion toward collecting books, because we fetishize the physical object more. When technologies go obsolete, their artifacts become more collectible. The boards and pulp become special. Rare.

4. As publishers get more creative with electronic and hybrid print/electronic packages, what constitutes a “collectible” edition of a given title is unclear.

5. As books change, bookstores will change. Powell’s may become more of a museum and less of a store — an archive, a physical representation of literature. It’s already halfway there: most of the customers I see crowding the entryway are there to buy souvenir tote bags and t-shirts, not books.

6. I don’t think printed books will ever disappear entirely, but they are certainly in the process of losing their popular monopoly. As e-books grow in prominence, used bookstores grow more specialized; independent stores will carry a smaller spectrum of titles geared toward small, dedicated audiences. Like vinyl record stores, bookstores are on their way to becoming boutique retailers, with a customer base made up of aesthetes and collectors. Print freaks.

7. Powell’s has a 1924 edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables hand bound by Virginia Woolf. It’s $9,500. When I hold it, even through plastic, I pause. I think about Woolf’s hands holding it. She madethis book. Does that make me want to read it? Not particularly. But it kind of makes me want to take it home and pet it whenever I want.

Images courtesy the author

If brevity is truly the soul of wit, then your Twitter feed is the Algonquin round table of today's digital Dorothy Parkers and Ogden Nashes. Here's our favorite tweets from the week; nominate yours by submitting to @blackballoonpub with #twitwit.