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Infinite Summer: A Communal Reading of 'Infinite Jest'

Infinite Jest

What are you reading this summer? Join thousands of readers tackling David Foster Wallace's magnum opus, Infinite Jest.

More about David Foster Wallace

Contemporary Literature Spotlight10

Mark's Contemporary Literature Blog

Blogging 60 Years of The National Book Award

Thursday July 9, 2009

The National Book Foundation is celebrating the 60th year of the National Book Awards by blogging one National Book Award winning Fiction winner each day at www.nbafictionblog.org

The blog began on July 7 with 1950 NBA winner, Nelson Algren's The Man With the Golden Arm and will finish on September 21 with Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country, winner of the 2008 Award.

The blog will last 77 days, honoring each of the 77 winners of the fiction award until September 21, when members of the public will have the opportunity to help select The Best of the National Book Awards Fiction and win two tickets to the 2009 National Book Awards. Read more.

Free for FREE on Scribd

Tuesday July 7, 2009

Free by Chris AndersonToday, Wired editor Chris Anderson put his money where his mouth is by sharing his new book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price, in which he posits the value of free content in the 21st Century business model, on the document sharing website Scribd.com.

This from the Scribd.com blog: Scribd Lanches “Liberate the Written Word” Month — Chris Anderson’s new book “FREE” available (for free and in full) exclusively on Scribd!

Red and Me by Bill Russell, Alan Steinberg

Monday July 6, 2009

Red and MeRed and Me is the story of Celtic's all-star Bill Russell and his close relationship with the Celtic's legendary coach Red Auerbach. Could there have been two more unlikely friends, a short, abrasive Jew from Brooklyn and a tall, gangly black man from the South? These were two different "tribes," to use Russell's term, which would seem to be on a collision course. Read more.

Photo credit: HarperCollins

Oprah's 25 Books of Summer

Friday July 3, 2009

Farm City by Novella CarpenterUnsurprisingly, Oprah has a few book picks for Summer - 25 to be exact and a nice assortment. Here are three I will likely pick up:

A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis
A reissue of L.J. Davis's 1971 comic novel in which a plumbing magazine editor and frustrated novelist takes on the renovation of a run-down mansion in a Brooklyn slum.

Plan Bee by Susan Brackney
There is some cause for alarm at the rate at which bees are disappearing around the world. Brackney, a beekeeper, illuminates the nature of this hero of the food chain.

Farm City by Novella Carpenter
A food writer's memoir of her squatter's garden in an Oakland, California ghetto is an inspiration to anyone who wishes to pursue the agricultural dream while remaining in the city limits.

Oprah's 25 Summer Book Picks

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