Dalkey Archive Press director John O’Brien caused controversy this week with a difficult job posting, setting an impossible set of demands for his future employee.

In an interview with Irish Times, O’Brien explained: “The advertisement was a modest proposal. Serious and not-serious at one and the same time.” What do you think? You can compare the ad with Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” one of the most famous pieces of satire ever written.

The job posting included this challenging set of requirements: ”Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above.”

Does the universe have a purpose? Physicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson responded to that cosmic question in the video embedded above–do you agree with his answer?

Last year, Tyson answered another question that matters to all Galleycat readers: “Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?” The famous physicist and author responded with a concise list of classic books. Follow the links below to download free ePub, Kindle or text versions of the books.

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What’s your favorite kind of book? We’ve created a giant flowchart to help you browse the top 50 free eBooks at Project Gutenberg.

Click the image above to see a larger version of the book map. Your choices range from Charles Dickens to Jane Austen, from Sherlock Holmes to needlework. Below, we’ve linked to all 50 free eBooks so you can start downloading right now. The books are available in all major eBook formats.

Follow this link to see an online version of the flowchart, complete with links to the the individual books.

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Penguin Group (USA) and Egyptian publisher Dar El Shorouk have partnered to bring Penguin Classics to the Arabic world.

Some of the planned titles include Robert Louis Stevenson‘s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Miguel de Cervantes‘ Don Quixote, and Jonathan Swift‘s Gulliver’s Travels.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed Dar El Shorouk chairman Ibrahim El Moallem. Here’s an excerpt about censorship in the Arab world: “Mr. El Moallem said that presenting the Penguin library as a series of the world’s greatest books may help trump the censorship issue. In addition, while the books will be launched as printed physical copies, planned digital editions will prove difficult to repress.”

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Thanksgiving isn’t the only thing to look forward to this fall–Hollywood has lots of new literary movies scheduled. Here is a round-up of five upcoming literary movies.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will show chapters 1-24 of the original J.K. Rowling book on November 19th.

2. Tangled is based on the Grimm Brothers‘ fairy tale, Rapunzel. It arrives in theaters on November 24th. The trailer is embedded above.

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In addition to his work as a film critic, Roger Ebert is also the author of a number of books, including Awake in the Dark.

Inspired by Esquire and Deadspin‘s moving tributes to Ebert, GalleyCat Reviews collected some bookish material from the great critic. Do you have a favorite literary essay from Ebert? Add your links in the comments section…

Here, the great critic remembers reading Jonathan Swift‘s famous essay, “A Modest Proposal,” for the first time: “I remember Miss Seward at Urbana High School, telling us to read it in class and note the exact word at which Swift’s actual purpose became clear. None of us had ever heard of it, and she didn’t use a giveaway word like “satire.” Yet not a single person in the class concluded that Swift was seriously proposing that the starving Irish eat their babies. We all got it.”

In a touching essay about his messy, well-loved library, Ebert celebrated the critically rejected novel, By Love Possessed by James Could Cozzens: “It and the other books on the list have been rendered obsolete, so that his essay is cruelly dated. But I remember reading the novel late into the night when I was 14, stirring restlessly with the desire to be possessed by love. I cannot throw out these books. Some are protected because I have personally turned all their pages and read every word; they’re like little shrines to my past hours.” More examples after the jump…

Want more reviews? Follow this link to download the February 2010 print edition of GalleyCat Reviews–one month worth of criticism and literary links.

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