In our morning reading: interviews with Tommy Orange and Leslie Jamison, revisiting “Nebraska,” and much more.
Weekend Bites: A “Punk Is Dead” Excerpt, Kara Walker, Feminist Horror, Bruce Springsteen, and More
In our weekend reading: talking punk rock, thoughts on the Southern Festival of Books, and much more.
Permutations, Mutations, and New Ballads: Thoughts on Three Literary Remixes
Ubiquity is a hell of a thing. No two people will have the same narratives, pop culture references, or cultural mythologies dwelling in the back of their heads–but there are certain stories that are familiar enough to enough people that they’re ripe for retelling. Or, in some cases, they’re ripe for modification, for translation into another narrative, playing with readers’ expectations and knowledge of the source material. To cite a few examples, John Darnielle’s short novel Master of Reality used […]
Afternoon Bites: Rion Amilcar Scott, Claudia Rankine Interviewed, Bruce Springsteen’s Memoir, Rios de la Luz, and More
In our afternoon reading: new writing from Rion Amilcar Scott, interviews with Claudia Rankine and Rios de la Luz, and more.
Morning Bites: Shawn Vestal’s Playlist, Joe Hill Interviewed, “Watership Down” Adapted, and More
In our morning reading: a playlist from Shawn Vestal, nonfiction from Juliet Escoria, musicians who could be great novelists, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Mairead Case on Simon Joyner’s Lyrics, Tony Tulathimutte’s Playlist, Brian Evenson, A “So Sad Today” Excerpt, and More
In our afternoon reading: Mairead Case on the lyrics of Simon Joyner, Adrian Van Young on the fiction of Brian Evenson, Melissa Broder reads an excerpt from her memoir, and more.
Morning Bites: Rum Diary preview, The Recipe Project, John Minichillo, Springsteen Suicide, and more
We’re pretty excited to see Johnny Depp (who never seems to age) in another Hunter S. Thompson role. So the preview for the The Rum Diary obviously makes us very happy. The Recipe Project, the cookbook put together by One Ring Zero, which features uber-chefs like Mario Batali, David Chang, and Isa Chandra Moskowitz, gets a writeup at Huff. Po. About five seconds after reading it, we got really hungry. Too bad we’re probably only going to be eating beans […]
Bites: Is New York Bad for Writers?, Should Bookstores Rethink Shelving?, East of Eden as Performance, the Death of the Man of Letters, How to Get Rid of Hipsters, and more
HTMLGiant asks if New York for writers is The Place to Be, or whether it’s just too damn expensive. Lit. Should bookstores shelve by publisher rather than author? (Thanks, The Rumpus) How East of Eden became a performance piece. A surprisingly interesting picture essay of the last 10 years of Nobel Prize winners in literature. The “slow death of the man of letters”? Hm. Shakespeare’s endless Answers: Why it’s smart to be a Shakespearean fool. Books as art. Very cool. […]