Placing the Displaced

With the facility of micro-blogging service Twitter at their fingertips, musicians are increasingly able to keep their fans updated on their every move. Some artists, however, seem to tweet with equal significance the news of a successful recording session and the tastiness of that Philly cheesesteak they ate when stopping through the City of Brotherly Love. If you're feeling unsatisfied by a bevy of mundane and grammatically unorthodox posts, perhaps this new Twit-lit project will better serve you: Chris Eaton, novelist and frontman of Canadian band Rock Plaza Central, will post Twitter-length stories on the band's account on each day of the group's upcoming tour. 

We've all had a moment (or few) so embarrassing that we wish we could hop in the DeLorean, gun it to 88 and try again. In his new book, Do-Over!, Robin Hemley did his own version of time travel, revisiting past embarrassments in his life for a second chance to rectify past flubs.

The mere mention of James Joyce's pivotal work, Ulysses, can send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting graduate who barely managed to scrape through the Cliff Notes of one of modern literature's crown jewels. At 265,000 words, the tome tends to leave many slack-jawed in its intimidating wake. But the sequential artists at Throwaway Horse, LLC are seeking to change all that.

Since the suicide of author David Foster Wallace last September left the literary community reeling, two writers have tried to grapple with his oft-emotionally turbulent life and celebrated career in the form of biographies: D.T. Max, who penned a lengthy New Yorker article on the author after his death, and David Lipsky, who wrote one for Rolling Stone. As of last week, though, only Max's proposal earned a publishing deal, while Lipsky's remains unsold.

One of the very first things high school students learn nowadays is that Wikipedia should never, ever be considered a legitimate source for research. Maybe Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson was in high school before Wikipedia was a big thing, but at some point down the line, he should have gotten the speech about how plagiarism is wrong. If he did, according to some recent reports, it seems like it maybe didn't stick. Or, maybe he just got really caught up in the topic he was writing on. In his forthcoming book, Free: The Future of Radical Price, about the business benefits of free things, Anderson allegedly lifted several passages from Wikipedia and two other published sources.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s son, Dexter King, has authorized the republishing of his late father's books, which have not been available for nearly 20 years. Publishing company Beacon Press will re-release these books on Jan. 18, 2010, three days before what would have been the civil rights leader's 80th birthday.

When we heard Emile Hirsch would play Hamlet in a modern-times Shakespeare remake directed by Twilight's Catherine Hardwicke, flashbacks of teen flicks (most of which involved Julia Stiles) adapting 16th-and-17th-century masterpieces flooded our collective memory. It's always been interesting to watch what develops in these modernizations, as directors and writers throw purist interpretation to the wind with the belief that Shakespeare's storylines transcend all time periods. Heartthrobby leads try to give Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Olivier a run for their money, jeans-and-tees replace frilly frocks, and major turns of plot transpire in gas stations, high-school stadiums and Blockbuster video stores. Although some past adaptations have recontexualized their precursors gracefully, others have struggled to masterfully take the Bard out of Avon. Trying to make the works relatable has frequently led to their oversimplification.

Over the years, Merge Records has brought us Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Spoon, She & Him, and many other excellent bands that hold a permanent places on our playlists. What enabled this humble North Carolina indie imprint to become one of the best of the best? A forthcoming biography might just have the answers.

By now you might have heard about the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are; these two under-the-radar guys named Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers did the directing and screenplaying respectively, and some little-known band called Arcade Fire will even have their music featured in the movie. You might also know that Eggers is planning a 300-page novelization of the movie, due in October and called The Wild Things. Now here's something that maybe you didn't know: Eggers' novelization is getting a special-edition treatment that will simultaneously frighten you and tug at your heartstrings.