On the Road was not Jack Kerouac's first novel, but you'd be forgiven for thinking as much. Though 1957's On the Road is widely considered to be Kerouac's "debut," the author's first novel, The Town and the City, was in fact published in 1950. By all measures, it flopped. Between that book and the launch of On the Road, Kerouac started working with the literary agent Sterling Lord, who believed he could be the voice of his generation and laid the groundwork for his public reception as such. What, exactly, did Sterling Lord do to prime Kerouac's audience? From 1953 to 1957, he leveraged his own professional connections to place excerpts of On the Road in magazines like The Paris Review and New World Writing, building hype for the young novelist's next book. In 2004, there were at least 648 million books sold in the United States, and in 2013, 620 million; last year, there were at least 767,360,000 books sold—a significant increase. If that's the case, then why does it seem like it's harder now for a debut writer to "break out"? |
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Unwinding after a tough campaign requires certain expenditures, sure, but no politician wants to be connected to the phrase "unexplained wire transfers." |
| A good night's sleep doesn't have to cost you a fortune. |
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More bars these days seem to be a complete package, like a nightlife one-stop shop. They can be a club if you want—you know, the kind you dance in. They can be the place where you order a bottle of Champagne and endless oysters. They can be a jazz lounge. They can be the place where you think you've stumbled on a garage party attended by the city's coolest people (in a city you didn't know had cool people). They can be that dimly lit vault where you and everyone else become someone else. From glamorous hotel bars in New York to cocktail dens in San Francisco, here are the very best new spots to grab a seat and start a tab. |
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It's time to cut down on post-shave irritation. |
| It's time to let your toes breathe. |
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In August, Skarsgård will lead a second—bigger, bloodier, sexier—adaptation of The Crow, among the most hotly anticipated reimaginings in recent memory. And come Christmas, he'll sink his fangs into audiences with his interpretation of a notorious cinematic monster, Count Orlok, in Nosferatu. Born and raised in Stockholm, Skarsgård has spent time in Manhattan over the years, but this is his first visit to New York in half a decade. After breaking big in his home country in high school and then heading for Hollywood, he bounced from movie set to movie set and TV show to TV show before eventually settling down again in Stockholm. Along the way, he's built one of the most curious and compelling catalogs of any actor his age. |
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