paper trail

Dec 30, 2010 @ 9:00:00 am

Deborah Baker

It seems like only yesterday that we were breathlessly speculating about the first iPad, but apparently it is already time for rumors about the iPad 2, which may be released as early as February 2011. Meanwhile, iPad magazine sales have dropped.

Blogger and Brooklyn bookseller Adam Wilson has landed a book deal with Harper Perennial for his debut novel, Flatscreen, which will be published in 2012. Acquiring editor Michael Signorelli explained the deal: “We became aware of Adam through his blogging and his stellar bookselling at BookCourt. Acquiring Adam’s novel is like a last-minute present to myself. This and last week have been so quiet, hardly anyone’s around to tell me ‘no.’”

The Rumpus has announced its latest book-club selections: You Think That’s Bad by Jim Shepard (February), The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch (March) and The Convert: A Fable of Islam and America by Deborah Baker (April).

The Met’s Department of Asian Art Chairman, J.C.Y. Watt, takes exception to Eliot Weinberger’s review of a recent exhibition, writing that the piece “brings to mind an Englishman a long time ago who, when taken to a fine Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong, could not wait to show off his sophisticated knowledge of Chinese cuisine and ordered egg Fuyung and sweet-and-sour pork.”