The Glossary has created a short film incorporating an abridged version of David Foster Wallace‘s “This is Water” commencement speech.

We’ve embedded the project above–what do you think? Follow this link to listen to the address in its entirety.

Wallace originally delivered this speech in 2005 during Kenyon College’s graduation ceremony. Little, Brown and Company reprinted it in a 2009 book entitled This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.

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Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar. To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

The Monogamy Memoirists Meet Their Match event will feature a book slam, signing, and rooftop cocktails. Check it out on Monday, May 20th at the Roger Smith Hotel starting 6:30 p.m. (New York, NY)

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Here are some handpicked titles from our Coming Attractions page. Want to include your book? Just read our Share Your New Book with GalleyCat Readers post for all the details.

Buyer, Beware by Diane Vallere: “Out-of-work fashion expert Samantha Kidd is strapped. But when the buyer of handbags for a hot new retailer turns up dead and Samantha is recruited for the job, the opportunity comes with a caveat: she’s expected to find some answers.” (March 2013)

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Jenny Han has inked a deal for her “semi-autobiographical” young adult novel. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers will publish To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in April 2014.

Publisher Justin Chanda negotiated the deal with Folio Literary Management senior vice president Emily Van Beek. Executive editor Zareen Jaffery will edit the manuscript. Here’s more from the release:

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters…

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Cary Goldstein has been named the executive director of publicity and senior editor at the Simon & Schuster imprint.

Previously, Goldstein had served as publisher of Grand Central Publishing’s Twelve imprint. In his new post, he will manage the operations of the publicity department and oversee the acquisitions of fiction and nonfiction projects.

A number of other publishing houses also announced new hires and promotions this week…

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The Fault in Our Stars author John Green delivered the commencement speech at the graduation ceremony for Butler University’s class of 2013. To read the entire speech, head to Green’s Tumblr page.

Watch the entire speech in the video embedded above (his talk begins at the 1:01:08 mark). Here’s an excerpt:

I would just note that the default assumption is that the point of human life is to be as successful as possible, to acquire lots of fame or glory or money as defined by quantifiable metrics: number of twitter followers, or facebook friends, or dollars in one’s 401k.

This is the hero’s journey, right? The hero starts out with no money and ends up with a lot of it, or starts out an ugly duckling and becomes a beautiful swan, or starts out an awkward girl and becomes a vampire mother, or grows up an orphan living under the staircase and then becomes the wizard who saves the world. We are taught that the hero’s journey is the journey from weakness to strength. But I am here today to tell you that those stories are wrong. The real hero’s journey is the journey from strength to weakness.

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The New York Public Library is hosting a special exhibition honoring Federico García Lorca at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. “Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York” opened on April 5th and will run until July 20th.

This free program features the manuscript for Lorca’s Poet in New York, drawings, photographs, letters, and mementos. Fans of the Spanish poet can also attend various “Lorca in NY” lectures, workshops, and events. Here’s more about the exhibit:

In 1936, the poet left the manuscript of Poet in New York on the desk of his Madrid publisher with a note saying he would be ‘back tomorrow,’ probably to discuss final details. He never returned…The book was published posthumously in 1940, but the manuscript mysteriously disappeared, lost to scholars for decades. The Fundación Federico García Lorca in Madrid and The New York Public Library exhibit it now for the first time…

Ambulant has created an ergonomic eReader case called the Wingo. They hope to raise $55,000 on Kickstarter to cover the costs of manufacturing the product.

We’ve embedded a video about the project above–what do you think? Here’s more about the project from Dr. Anthony D. Andre:

The Wingo is a simple but elegant solution to the growing dilemma of how to hold tablet devices without undue effort, strain or fatigue, especially when using only one hand. Its “wings” virtually hold onto the user’s hand, negating the need for the user to pinch the device and carry the burden of the weight with the finger tips. I think that it represents a valuable ergonomic option for frequent users of such devices.

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Marvel has a new television show for fans of The Avengers film. The trailer for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series has been released, bringing back actor Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson.

In the past 24 hours, the #CoulsonLives hashtag has appeared in thousands of tweets. The trailer is embedded above–what do you think?

ABC plans to air the show on Tuesday nights starting in fall 2013. The Avengers director Joss Whedon helmed the first episode. Whedon wrote the script with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.

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BookLikes, a new book sharing site for readers, has officially gone live.

The company founders spent the past eight months beta-testing it and were able to gather 8,000 users.

Here’s more from the release:

BookLikes is a blog platform designed particularly for people interested in books, with functions dedicated to readers which makes it a better choice for book bloggers than other platforms, e.g. Blogspot, Tumblr or WordPress. The service makes it possible to easily share book reviews using specially designed templates. Users can look for books from the largest bookstores from all over the world, connect books with their writing and shelve them on a personal virtual bookshelf.

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