Category: words

“‘Every increase of one letter in the average length of words describing a dish is associated with an increase of 69 cents in the price of that dish.’ Compared with inexpensive restaurants, the expensive ones are ‘three times less likely to talk about the diner’s choice’ (your way, etc.) and ‘seven times more likely to talk about the chef’s choice’.”

“Surging interest in foreign literature in recent years has been sparked partly by the success of Scandinavian fiction – notably Stieg Larsson, whose Millennium books have sold more than 75 million copies in 50 countries, and popular television dramas such as The Killing.”

“To take anybody in, they must be well written and compelling to read. In every case I came across, the text was interesting in itself, even more so when it was known to be fake.”

“Of all things, the least of which we have is time, and short novels tip their hats courteously to that fact.”

“It was a purely American phenomenon. … It was invented in Brooklyn, it swept across this country like crazy and became really popular for 50 or 60 years.”

“It could almost be a writing workshop prompt: tell a story, do it in six words, go for the wow effect – and that’s exactly what the Ritz-Carlton wants. Recently, the hotel company launched a campaign inviting social media friends and followers to provide six-word stories about their Ritz-Carlton experiences with the hashtag #RCMemories.”

“The golden age of illicit crime fiction translation – from the 1890s through the 1960s – corresponds to the construction of the Egyptian nation, from colonial rule and monarchy to President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization project. … And now, as authorities attempt to restore law and order, the crime genre is making a comeback.”

In India – specifically in Mumbai and Bangalore, where the e-retailer has large warehouses. Service could start as early as this autumn.

“Lately Amazon has become the Goofus of publishing news, the surly, inconsiderate and gauche kid who never seems to get anything right. … Its pronouncements come in Amazonspeak, a language bred in a corporate echo chamber and the cheerleading threads of its self-publisher forums.”

“In their letters, Ginsberg answers [the translator’s] questions about ‘Kaddish’ and other poems, describing his mother’s ‘paranoiac complaints … used as surreal fragments’; defining cultural references (‘Woody Woodpecker is an allied cartoon character, hero of a series of cartoon disasters in technicolor’); explaining how ‘the LSD poem’ was ‘written at Stanford’s Mental Health Experimental Lab’.”