Nowadays, you aren’t likely to find a famous novelist shilling for their favorite brand, Emily Temple writes for Flavorwire. For one thing, most writers just aren’t as recognizable as your average actor, and for another, well, they’re artists.
But it wasn’t always that way: quite a few writers have appeared in advertisements over the years, even lending their own words to support a product.
Mark Twain for Paul E. Wirt fountain pens
Yep, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck: both sellouts. We kid, we kid. After the jump, check out a few famous writers selling everything from alcohol to… well, it’s mostly alcohol.
Authors in ads
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What else do readers of Alma Alexander read?
It seems that I am in some very good company. But there are some surprises – I am further away from SOME I would have thought to be a good match and closer to others I wouldn’t immediately have picked…
The company I keep
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Their first book
Writing a book is a daunting task, Sandra Allen writes for Buzzfeed, writing a first book seems especially so.
And yet despite so many obstacles, books do get published, lots of books — over 2,000,000 worldwide in 2011 alone, by one estimate. Here, 21 successful writers share the stories of their first published books, complete with many false starts, debacles with agents and publishers, and advice they’d travel through time to give their younger selves.
First book
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Clever Signs That Will Make You Want To Buy A Book
Kaleido Books in Perth, Australia really makes an art out of shop signage, Aaron Calvin of Buzzfeed informs us.
a-geek-without-braces.tumblr.com /
scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net / Via Facebook: KaleidoBooks
Book signs
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50 Books to Read Before You Die
A selection of books from List Challenges that can be found on a stainless steel bookmark available in most book stores.
I’ve read 39 of the 50, including all of the classics on the list. The ones I failed on were the more Americentric ones.
But there are many books that *I* would have included, sometimes instead of the ones selected, for a list like this… things like “Dune” and “Left hand of Darkness” and quite possibly “A Wrinkle in Time” instead of something like “His Dark Materials”, if you want to pick genre.
But also Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales, possibly instead of the iconic Dorian Gray, and things like “Black Lamb Gray Falcon” by Rebecca West and books by Nobel Literature prizewinners, books like “Kristin Lavransdatter”and “Bridge on the Drina”. Does a book have to be familiar enough to induce a yawn when you see the title for it to qualify as being a book that you have to read before you die…?
50 books to read
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In the digital age the period has become aggressive
The period was always the humblest of punctuation marks, but recently, it’s started getting angry, Ben Crairsays says in the New Republic.
You text your girlfriend: “I know we made a reservation for your bday tonight but wouldn’t it be more romantic if we ate in instead?” If she replies,
we could do that
Then you can ring up Papa John’s and order something special. But if she replies,
we could do that.
Then you should probably drink a cup of coffee: You’re either going out or you’re eating Papa John’s alone.
On text and instant message, it seems, punctuation marks have largely been replaced by the line break.
No period
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Alma Alexander
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