“Adam Levin’s The Instructions and the Cult of the Child” at The Millions. “I flipped back to page one, eager to fall back into this magnificent array of narratives. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.” – Pank on Emma Straub’s Other People We Married. Nabokov’s butterflies. Taking a look at the “godfather of neoconservatism,” Irving Kristol. Jeff Mangum announces he is going to dust off all those old Neutral Milk Hotel songs, and the entire world gets […]
Favorite Books of 2010
Posted by Jason Diamond Note: This list doesn’t reflect the view of anybody else involved with Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and yes, I do realize it’s a mix of fiction and non. Sorry. 1. The Possessed by Elif Batuman I don’t believe that anybody on this planet is either the smartest or funniest person alive. But if I am in fact wrong, I believe Ms. Batuman could easily hold down both titles. In the least cheesiest way I can possibly say […]
Weekend Bites: Mailer/Frey, “real-sad writing,” Adam Levin, The Awl wants to merge, and more
At Impose: The Norman Mailer/James Frey connection. At Vice: New York Tyrant says that Brandon Hobson writes “real-sad writing.” Find out for yourself. At Beatrice: Discussing The Instructions by Adam Levin. At NPR: Nora Ephron getting older is funnier than you at pretty much any point in your life. The Awl were inspired by Tina Brown, and will now merge with any magazine that will have them At The Guardian: French Maoists, The Rolling Stones, and Sartre all make appearances […]
Weekend Bites: Joshua Cohen On Adam Levin, NY Art Book Fest, Greenman & Strauss, Maddow On Olbermann And More
“Who better to review a 1,000-page Jewish book that comes out in the fall than the author of an 800-page Jewish book that came out in the spring?” – Joshua Cohen reviews Adam Levin’s The Instructions. At Brooklyn Vegan: The NY Art Book Fair is this weekend. At The Atlantic: Classical music is still not dying. The Speakeasy: A night of fast memoirs with Ben Greenman and Neil Strauss. Edward Champion reviews 127 Hours. At Jewcy: A rambling review of […]
Vol. 1 Brooklyn Events Civic Pride and Greatest 3-Minute Top 10 Lists Are This Week
This week we have two big events, and we think we can pull them both off without losing our minds. Wednesday we have the third installment of our “Greatest 3-Minute Series Ever” with the Greatest 3-Minute Top Ten Lists. We think it’s going to be pretty insane with people like Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav, Dave Hill, Julia Wertz (Writer/artist, “Fart Party“) and Brandon Stosuy of Stereogum reading off top ten lists of whatever the c they’d like. If […]
Vol. 1 Presents: Civic Pride “Best of Chicago” with Adam Levin, Jami Attenberg and Free Beer
On November 5th, we will be hosting the first of our newest series called Civic Pride, and the idea is to have a few readers who are from, or have stories from a particular city, state or country, and couple their stories with free beer and/or food from the particular place we’re highlighting. For the first installment, Chicago is the city we will focus on, and we have 2 readers who have put out books this year that will surely […]
Book Trailer for The Instructions by Adam Levin
Post-Modern Twee Literature, The “Josh Cohen of the McSweeney’s set,” and Big Being Beautiful
Posted by Jason Diamond I’m nearly 600 pages into the book that Marc Tracy at Tablet called “the Josh Cohen of the McSweeney’s set,” Adam Levin’s The Instructions. At the same time, I’m peeling open Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (which I think the NY Times likes. Not totally sure.) I’m not quite sure if it’s good for my mental state to read two large books at the same time, but I’m willing to find out. I decided to undertake […]