“Low or not, romance is by far the most popular and lucrative genre in American publishing, with over $1.35 billion in revenues estimated in 2010. That is a little less than twice the size of the mystery genre, almost exactly twice that of science fiction/fantasy, and nearly three times the size of the market for classic/literary fiction.”
Tag: 02.14.12
Viola Davis On A Well-Meaning Mindset That Cripples Black Actors
Responding to discomfort that her widely-praised portrayal in The Help is of a maid: “That very mind-set that you have and that a lot of African-Americans have is absolutely destroying the black artist. The black artist cannot live in a revisionist place. The black artist can only tell the truth about humanity, and humanity is messy. People are messy. Caucasian actors know that.”
Love Letters Of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning Now Online
“Wellesley College and Baylor University collaborated on the project, which [launched on Feb. 14] with more than 1,400 letters by the poets available online. Of those, 573 represent the complete set of love letters, and at least 1,500 additional pieces of correspondence to other people the couple knew are to be up by summer.”
The Very First Recordings Of The Human Voice Revealed
“It must have been excruciating for the National Museum of American History’s archivists to have the earliest known recordings of the human voice but not to be able to listen to them. The records, made in the Volta Lab of Alexander Graham Bell in the early 1880s, were too fragile to play. But the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figured out how to scan them optically and retrieve the sound.”
Remembering Lucian Freud In His Studio
David Dawson, for 20 years Freud’s assistant, friend and occasional model: “He was sort of nimble and jumping around at the entrance to his flat. Very, very piercing blue eyes and wonderful manners that immediately sort of put you at ease, or put me at ease, anyway, and [he] was very intimate and caring about how I felt.”
Great Dachshunds In Art
“Nabokov admired one. Chekhov cuddled with one. E.B. White wrote poetry to them. Gary Shteyngart tweets about one. (Also: Warhol had two. Picasso drew one.)” (And your humble correspondent was raised by dachshunds.)
15 Ebooks On Whitney Houston Published Since Her Death
“Several of the 15 new ebooks released after the singer’s death are free, while the others range in price from 99 cents to $9.99. They include unauthorized biographies, a collection of Wikipedia pages about Houston, poems dedicated to the pop diva and a 10-page report analyzing her signature and handwriting.”
The Neuroscience Of Love
“It turns out — based on the levels of activity in the dopamine, serotonin and ocytocin/vasopressin pathways — it is possible for one person to exhibit that they can love someone more deeply than another person can.”
Brand Companies Are Becoming Significant Publishers
“Major brands are rapidly becoming publishers themselves. Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Sears, Target, Best Buy, and AT&T have all moved into the top 50 U.S. online publishers. Of those seven, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Sears are already running ads on their websites.”
Can Technology Enhance Our Brains?
“Advocates argue that data-management technologies, from low-tech pads to high-tech computers, don’t always function as mere memory-prompting tools. Sometimes, they deserve to be understood as parts of our mind.”