“A representative at [Amazon] has confirmed that the company will be splitting its Kindle bestseller list, creating one list for paid books and another for free titles. … Currently the top ten bestselling titles on Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list are free downloads, a fact that speaks to how publishers are testing the free model to get attention for certain authors.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Works From Larcenist Salander’s Gallery To Be Auctioned
“The 130 lots, including works attributed to the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens and ‘the studio of El Greco,’ is expected to raise more than $2.5 million, Christie’s said. Proceeds will benefit people and businesses that filed claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, after the gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2007.”
At 40, The Place Remains Crucial To UK Dance
“The rollcall of dancers, choreographers and performers who have trained, rehearsed, performed or simply fallen in love with dance at the Place is as eclectic as it is long: there’s [Matthew] Bourne, Richard Alston and Siobhan Davies, not to mention Madonna, Kate Bush and Helena Bonham Carter.”
Being Burgled, Ayckbourn Mistook Thief For Houseguest
“The scene belonged in one of his plays. Famous dramatist encounters burglar in his home, assumes the intruder is a house guest, smiles benignly and wanders past. Bemused criminal says quiet prayer of thanks before stealing jewellery worth thousands of pounds.”
John Patrick Shanley On Watching Others Direct His Plays
“I’ve had the humiliating experience over and over again that whenever I do a show and years go by and I see somebody else’s production – it can be kids just out of college – I always see something in it that’s better than what I did.”
Lecturing On Free Speech, Muhammad Cartoonist Attacked
“Witnesses said the violence broke out a few minutes into [Lars] Vilks’ lecture about the limits of artistic freedom, when he showed a film by an Iranian artist about Islam and homosexuality. A young man leaped from his front-row seat and tried to attack Vilks, police and the artist said.”
Morgan Library Prepares For ‘A Noninvasive Restoration’
The Morgan Library & Museum, which recently underwent a $106 million renovation and expansion by Renzo Piano, “is embarking on a $4.5 million project that will gently restore one portion of the old Morgan that was not touched by Mr. Piano: the building designed by Charles McKim in 1906 to house J. P. Morgan’s personal office and library.”
On View: WWII Art Made By Interned Japanese Americans
“In Washington, D.C, the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery is exhibiting art and other objects created in [internment] camps — a grim yet handsome reminder of a dark chapter of American history.”
Adrift In A Sea Of Dreadful Writing
“[A]wful books have always been with us, but nowadays a specimen of unkempt, puffed-up prose or stumbling, lugubrious verse doesn’t even need to make it past an editor or publisher to glide slimily into the awareness of the unsuspecting public. … Bad writing can serve as a lesson of one kind or another, but can it ever be recycled into something approximating art?”
Why Pretty Much Everything Ought To Be 40% Cheaper
“Six-dollar movie nights have completely changed the way I interact with the world. I used to give the saxophonist in Central Park a buck when he rasped his way through ‘The Girl From Ipanema.’ Now I’ve cut back to 62 cents.”