Nathan Englander
The latest Single Sentence Animation from Electric Literature features a line from Nathan Englander's "The Reader" and animation by Drew Christie.
A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The forthcoming film adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel, which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2005, stars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, James Gandolfini, and 2010 Jeopardy! Kids Week champ Thomas Horn.
Luminous Airplanes
Hal Hartley, the filmmaker who brought us such indie classics as Trust (1990), Amateur (1994), and Henry Fool (1997), directed this short video featuring Amanda Stern in conversation with Paul LaFarge, author of Luminous Airplanes, which is both a novel (forthcoming from FSG in October) and a large online fiction, or immersive text.
God Bless America
Steve Almond has a little fun with Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and others at Fox News in this trailer for his story collection God Bless America, forthcoming from Lookout Books in October.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
"This Dust Road: Self Portrait" is an excerpt from the final poem in Mule & Pear, the third poetry collection by Rachel Eliza Griffiths, published this month by New Issues Poetry & Prose.
In the Penal Colony
Director Simon Ennis's film Up in Cottage Country, an official selection of this year's Toronto International Film Festival, tells the tale of a man who finds himself in an alternate universe that turns out to be the basis of the story his wife is reading: Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony."
David Sedaris
Last week Hachette Digital released David’s Diary, a new smartphone app that features six animated short films inspired by David Sedaris’s diary. The app costs $1.99, but here's one of the videos for free. Enjoy. Virgin Sour Toe Cocktail anyone?
Cameron's Books
"I think the funnest part of running a bookstore is treasure hunting...going through those boxes and coming up with hidden treasures," says Jeffrey Frase, owner of Cameron's Books, the second-oldest used-book store in Portland, Oregon. "It's just like being a kid again." Directors Jin Ryu and Yi-Fan Lu spent two months getting to know Frase before asking if they could film this five-minute documentary.
What's Your Type?
Editors, designers, and other members of the Penguin team talk about their favorite fonts in this promotional video for Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield, published this month by Penguin imprint Gotham Books. Times New Roman, Comic Sans, Helvetica, Garamond? What does your favorite font say about you?
Rin Tin Tin
Next week Simon & Schuster will publish Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean, the long-time staff writer at the New Yorker and author of seven books, including Saturday Night and The Orchid Thief. In her new book Orlean chronicles the life of the dog that was born on a battlefield in France in 1918 and became a movie star and international icon.