Could the “Deep Throat” of the Watergate era remain unnamed today? Probably not. According to the New York Times, the Obama administration “has brought more prosecutions against current or former government officials for providing classified information to the media than every previous administration combined.” Adam Liptak reports on reporters’ ability to protect their sources in the midst of a “high-tech war on leaks.” A Justice Department spokesperson offered this All The President’s Men-era advice: “Don’t be stupid and use e-mail . . . You have to meet a reporter face to face, hand him an envelope and walk away quickly.”
The trailer for Adam Wilson’s angst-ridden comic novel, Flatscreen, features actor Paul Dano (L.I.E.), HarperPerennial editor Michael Signorelli (on the sofa, with the chardonnay), and adult-film star Stoya, who literally gnaws on her copy of the book.
At the LARB, Audrey Bilger writes that the Proposition 8 saga, an attempt to ban gay marriage in California, is “one of the greatest stories of our time,” and details how she “read the regular installments of transcribed statements as an evolving serialized drama, awaiting them as a Victorian reader would a new chapter of Dickens or Thackeray.”
Asked how it feels to receive a “scathing review,” Geoff Dyer responds: “It's a horrible feeling, but I've been fortunate that all the bad reviews I've had have been written by idiots.”
At the Art of Google Books, Krissy Wilson captures the human stain within Google’s vast digital library: hands caught turning pages, marginalia and annotations, rubber-covered fingers, accidental arty glitches, and, in a meta-twist, end-paper addresses mapped on Google Maps.
Tonight at Greenlight bookstore in Brooklyn, a serene evening with Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, and George Prochnik, author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in A World Full of Noise. And please (it goes without saying), turn off your cell phones.
