Crazy English

News-round up for the literary nerds among the tens of Cellar Door readers.

• How is China preparing for the Olympics? Well among other things, they are getting pumped up about English. That’s Englisshhhhh!! At China’s first official English-language intensive training camp, we have the “Elvis of English”…
  

  The classes were part of a campaign that is more ambitious than anything previous Olympic host cities have attempted. China intends to teach itself as much English as possible by the time the guests arrive, and Li has been brought in by the Beijing Organizing Committee to make that happen. He is China’s Elvis of English, perhaps the world’s only language teacher known to bring students to tears of excitement…. (more)

• Nabokov will be publishing from the grave. I loved this detail…. In a Swiss Bank vault, there lies some 50 index cards that make up a novel, The Original of Laura that Nabokov ordered his son to burn. Well, he’s not gonna. To hell with moral ambiguities, I loved Lolita and I can’t wait to get my hands on this unexpected novel. (Link) (Via Maud Newton)

• Check out this new bookshelf. (Via Bookshelf). Cool.

• And lastly, but not leastly… in a spectacular example of douche-baggery, a contributor gets into a tissy fit with the editor of Fence. Go read. It’s fun. (Via Maud Newton)

~ by Sonia on April 23, 2008.