Glenn Greenwald, the Brazil-based Guardian journalist who has been working with Edward Snowden and report on the NSA security leaks, just signed a deal with Metropolitan to write a book about about NSA surveillance. The book, which is slated to come out in March 2014, will “contain new revelations exposing the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad.”
Researchers in Belgium have discovered that infusing bookstores with a subtle smell of chocolate encourages shoppers to stick around longer. Specifically, “customers were 2.22 times more likely to closely examine multiple books when the chocolate scent was present in the store, compared with the control condition.” The findings were published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology.
Joan Didion’s childhood home in the bizarrely named neighborhood of Poverty Ridge, Sacramento, is on sale for $1.65 million.
The Argentine artist Xul Solar was known for his wide-ranging projects that involved language, math, religion, art, and the occult. He redesigned chessboards, created new lexicons based on Tarot cards, and invented his own universal languages. A new exhibit at the Americas Society highlight’s Solar’s oeuvre, and in particular his friendship and correspondence with another Argentine luminary: Jorge Luis Borges.
The results of Book Riot’s survey of books people pretend to read are in, and Ulysses, Moby-Dick and War and Peace are at the top, but it’s Pride and Prejudice that comes in first.
Reese Witherspoon will play Cheryl Strayed in the adaptation of Strayed’s memoir, Wild. The book is about the author’s 1,000-mile hike along the Pacific Crest trail after the death of her mother, and it made such an impression on Oprah that it inspired her to revive her book club. Though Witherspoon will be starring in the film, she’s also one of its producers, and was the one who enlisted Nick Hornby to write the screenplay.
